We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC244: Bitcoin Mastermind Discussion Q2 2025 w/ Joe Carlasare, HODL, and Jeff Ross (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. So on today's show, we got the Bitcoin Mastermind for the third quarter of 2025. And in this episode, we dive into the current state of the Bitcoin market, unpacking the key macro forces, driving price from global liquidity to the evolving role of stable coins and treasury strategies. Jeff introduces this idea of three burners and understanding market cycles. and we dig into the growing divergence between spot price and the ETF-driven flows. We also explore the rise of Bitcoin Treasury companies, the shifting capital structures they're

Starting point is 00:00:38 using from convertibles to perpetual preferreds, and how these firms may be outperforming miners over the long run. On the regulatory front, the team breaks down the Genius Act and the potential to reshape stablecoin issuance in the U.S., especially for non-bank players. There's a friendly back and forth on the future of the U.S. dollar. AI's impact moving forward, tokenized gold and J.P. Morgan's stable coin mean for Bitcoin adoption. And of course, we wrap it all up with bold predictions from Bitcoin's price targets to whether Powell survives another term at the Fed. So let's dive into this. This was a really fun conversation. I'm sure you guys are going to love it. Celebrating 10 years. You are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:01:26 Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I'm here with the mastermind discussion. Everybody is smiling and laughing because they were all here waiting. And I thought this show was happening in an hour from now. So we are literally on the fly making this up as we go. Just a very candid conversation. This is how this is usually done anyway.

Starting point is 00:01:55 I come up with questions and we don't even go to them. We just talk. So where do you guys want to start off? I think I know where you want to start off. But where do you guys want to start off? New all time high. All time high day. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:05 You guys told me that. when we first met and I didn't even realize. Any thoughts on that? Any thoughts on the all-time high? You know what's great about an all-time high day? It's just this special moment in time where nobody has ever been wrong about Bitcoin. Nobody ever, and the history of Bitcoin has ever been wrong about Bitcoin. Now, that's going to change.

Starting point is 00:02:25 We know that. But like, for right now, we can savor the moment. Yeah. I mean, the thing that's exciting about it for me is that Bitcoin, since really launched the ETFs, it makes new to all-time high, it goes on a run. It goes to a new level. and then it's consolidated for several months before breaking to a new level. And for as long as I've been in Bitcoin, I think it's trading very differently.

Starting point is 00:02:42 I think it's trading in this massive range where there just aren't a lot of sellers. There are people steadily and in a very persistent way accumulating Bitcoin and then we'll launch higher. And then we'll probably consolidate there for three, four months and then launch higher. We talked about one of the prior podcasts, like whether the cycle theory will die at some extent, the halving cycle. Obviously, we can have drawdowns that can happen. But that's really interesting.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Getting to that point here, we're in Q3 now of 2025. So it's interesting. It looks kind of dead, doesn't it? The cycle theory. We're trading like Nvidia or something. Yeah. We can pull back, of course, anytime, right? All markets pull back over time.

Starting point is 00:03:19 Just the question of like this predictable four year cycle. I've got a theory on why I think that's why we're seeing these ranges kind of take place. But before we go there, Jeff, any thoughts on the all time high? Let's go. All time high. More to come. Oh, yeah, I don't know how much we want to get in here. but, you know, I want to hear your theory first, Preston, but I'm very bullish. So I'll tell you why, but let's hear your theory.

Starting point is 00:03:40 I just think the trading ranges that we're seeing, like it just hung around this 110 to call it 90K range for what feels like, what, six months or so if we've been here. I think it's the ETFs causing this. I think you got a lot of options that get constructed over, you know, you get a big ramp. And then all the ETF owners that are here that are much more tourist-like than like long-term holders. or whatever, and then you have all the options on top of it that are just kind of building these resistance levels or bands kind of around where it just moved to. So like, let's say this thing would run, and I'm just going to throw out numbers here. Let's just say it would run to like 140 pretty aggressively. You might have some bands that kind of get set up, maybe around 150, 160, and then maybe down at 130 or whatever, and it just kind of goes sideways in that range for a few

Starting point is 00:04:29 months before it kind of pops through maybe another level. I don't know if this is the new norm or not. I just I suspect it has something to do with the ETFs, though, because they're so big. I mean, these things are growing like crazy, way beyond what I think anybody anticipated when they launched, what, a year and a half ago now. Yeah. Well, the other thing, too, here is just to piggyback your point, Preston, is I think that Wall Street traders, institutional money has a totally different view of the RSI than people who are crypto traders or Bitcoin traders.

Starting point is 00:05:00 And in Bitcoin, we're used to the RSI running really hot during bull markets. And I think that the Wall Street guys see that getting up into the 70 range and they start getting pretty squeamish and they want to take off trim their position, right? And so I think that's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because those guys are the big money sitting at the table right now. And so it's trading a little differently than it used to. Just for people, the RSI is your relative strength index. This is a technical, you know, astrology for men. This is a technical metric that is really popular, especially for fast money on Wall Street. And they're just looking at it and saying, hey, this thing's getting overheated.

Starting point is 00:05:36 So let's go ahead and start lighten up on the position. And that's to Haudel's point there. Anything else that you guys want to? It's basically, like Preston said, it's a measure of how overheated the market is. And they believe that a market is overheated much sooner than the typical Bitcoiner believes. The typical Bitcoin is like, what do you mean? It can't be overheated.

Starting point is 00:05:52 We haven't even seen a bajillion percent this year. There's still many multiples to go. So you guys clearly haven't heard my three burner theory about how the Bitcoin price works in a bull market. So I'll just lay it out here. I talked to Danny knows about this a little bit. So, but here it is. So imagine, if you will, the price of Bitcoin is a pot of soup on the stove.

Starting point is 00:06:13 And underneath that pot, you have three burners, okay? Burner number one is global liquidity. Everybody knows about this. Now everybody literally and their grandma is talking about global liquidity. You know, like nobody knew about a year ago. Now everybody talks about it. Burner number two that affects the price is the economy. You got to have economy that's revving up.

Starting point is 00:06:32 And when that starts to heat up, that's a second burner to get the pot boiling. Burner number three, which comes towards the end of a bull market is leverage. So when everybody is just filling wild and animal spirits are going, everybody starts applying leverage. So so far, all we've had is burner number one going at a pretty good rate. The economy, as you guys probably know, has been stuck in kind of muddling since 2022. We haven't really recovered. Manufacturing has basically been below 50 at or below 50 since 2022. You services have held us higher and we're a services economy.

Starting point is 00:07:04 So that's been sitting kind of in the 50 to 55 range for a couple of years and that's been propping it up. But it's still weak and this is still a very unusual economy, which I still think goes all the way back to COVID and the response to COVID. What happened there and all these kind of things that these interplays with the central intervention. So anyways, what I think is going to happen. Okay. And Joe, I see your smiles. I want to get your response to this. Liquidity is rising.

Starting point is 00:07:30 I think that in the second half of this year, so basically starting July through December, we are finally going to see the American economy take off and it's going to start ripping. And I think the global economy will follow, actually, and it will be a strong second half. And when the economy is booming, that means businesses are booming and are flush with cash. It means people are employed in making decent money and have money to save and invest and speculate with. That gets burner number two going. And then the animal spirit start to pick up. And I still think there is a chance that we have this rip higher where we have that exponential hockey stick higher now. And then one interesting thing that I'm still waiting for, there's a chance that can still happen like it has in the past where we have these traditional kind of four year economic cycles. And we get this by the fourth quarter of this year and it kind of melts everybody's face off. That's possible. But what it's looking to me more like is the economy is actually going to stretch into the first half of 2026 and we're actually going to have an extended cycle. So that's based on the four. metrics I look at, I think that's what's going to happen.

Starting point is 00:08:31 And so we're probably going to be talking about all time highs somewhere in Q2 of 2026 now, which is a surprise to me. Yeah, that sounds about right. Joe? I couldn't agree more of the latter part. I think there are signs here of green shoots all over the place with the real economy. And I think that the yield curve is telling you that in particular, particularly the 30 year, like we're rising, I think we're varying down 1, 5% now with 30 years.

Starting point is 00:08:52 Yields are rising across the board. And to me, I think what you're seeing is you're seeing structurally higher nominal GDP and consistent inflation risks across services. I think the inflation swaps are starting to rise. I think you see crude and copper starting to rise. And recession fear is completely still, I was looking at the Goldman's Index that has 35% probability of recession. That's way overblown. There's just no evidence of that. It's nowhere in sight. And for whatever reason, we've had this risk off atmosphere. And I think the rise structurally in yields, personally, right here, I think is a reaction function to the big beautiful bill, to the stimulus that's coming into the system, to the fact that the recession

Starting point is 00:09:30 risk were overblown. You got to remember, if you flashback six months ago, people were talking about Doge somehow magically cutting $2 trillion, I know where that was coming from, but seemingly smart individuals on Fin Twitwit were talking about that actually being real. It's not. I think it was completely fabricated. I don't know why people got that in their mind. You were talking about there being a massive reduction in government spending overall outside of Doge. And what do we see? we saw the fact that that was largely abandoned at a failed effort on Doge, and we see now the big beautiful bill, which is going to continue to drive consumption and potentially cause this boon in the economy that we've been waiting for, some catalyst. Now, is this a problem that

Starting point is 00:10:08 it's being driven by the sugar eye of additional spending? Yes, but it's not a problem now, and it's not a problem in early 2026. And to me, to Jeff's point, right, if you're an investor, you're positioned, I fail to see the bear case here. Obviously, any black swan can arise. is there can be something totally off the radar that it's going to have to get priced into the market. But, you know, this idea that we were just going to collapse the economy and that it was all going to be take your medicine with tariffs and attack on the consumer and reduction spending. And none of that's really materialized. The tariff is largely a negotiation tactic.

Starting point is 00:10:39 And it's been walked back. And even now the market like today, new tariff headlines, the boogeyment tariff. It's like just shrugging it off. It's not just Bitcoin guys. Like NASDAQ has made a new all-time high today. The S&P 500, all-time high today. Bitcoin breaking out. out. And the most interesting thing about it to me is that we know that when Bitcoin runs,

Starting point is 00:10:57 it runs hard. And you had this whole year, basically, we were just consolidating over the inauguration day high of what was it 110 somewhere there. We're going to break here and we're going to go higher. And I think this persistent services inflation, which there's signs of it picking up again, is going to keep us closer to 3% than 2. And what is the Fed going to do in that environment? Is the Fed really going to cut in the face of that? I know they're getting browbeat, but that in some makes the problem worse. So really fascinating here. I think the overall TLDR is that the recession risks are totally overblown based on the current data. The holy bull in the house. Yeah. I mean, listen, I think this is an absolutely exciting time to be long risk assets across the

Starting point is 00:11:37 board, but especially with Bitcoin because we've got every catalysts in the world. We've got massive Bitcoin treasury companies, which I'm sure we'll get into, sucking up Bitcoin, planning to buy Bitcoin, getting in the market place. We got a frenzy on that. We got Bitcoin, I think structurally undervalued here. We look at all time high and sometimes we get this natural PTSD like, oh, this seems a little weak. I think it's the opposite. I would be curious, Jeff, your thoughts or Preston and Hoddle?

Starting point is 00:12:00 Like, do you really feel like there's leverage in the Bitcoin space right now? I feel like there's a complete lack of leverage. Right. That's what I'm saying. It hasn't, that burner hasn't even turned on yet. Yeah. So yeah, we're not even close to the exciting part yet of a bull market. And I think to you guys point, just a few days ago, I don't post very much on social media,

Starting point is 00:12:16 but on Noster, I post a little thing of a reverse head and shoulders, pattern that I've been watching play out with Bitcoin. And we're pretty much there right now. So with the price at about 112 to 113, I think it taps on the door and then it shoots higher. And I think we'll be at 140 to 160 before people can blink. And so people who are sitting on the sideline waiting for it to pull back again, I think they're out of luck personally. So I want to talk about a point that Joe brought up about how there's been this massive policy shift. You started off the beginning of the year. Elon was supposed to go out and trim two, what was it, $2 trillion. He backed it down the 1.5. And Bessett was supposed to raise a bunch of revenue through

Starting point is 00:12:55 the tax adjustment to the tariffs and all this. That was the plan. And all along, we had a conversation early in the year. And we were like, there's no way they can do this without offsetting it and still printing the money and inserting it into the system. Like, if they pull out $2 trillion worth of liquidity in the system, they have to still print it somehow and get it in there, regardless of like how much they're saving the government and doing all these things. And sure enough, that's exactly where I think the Trump organization found themselves. And I had a conversation with Luke Groman. He was like, this is the biggest pivot I've ever seen in an administration where they're basically saying, look at this bill they passed. I heard rumors that Elon and Bessett came to blows in the hallway.

Starting point is 00:13:39 I'm sure that there's, I don't know if you guys heard any of that or what you've heard because that Elon was just, he was given a fool's errand. At the end of the day, he was given a fool's errand. And it's so ironic to me, this guy's the richest person on the planet. And yet, he doesn't realize that this entire game is rigged. It doesn't matter who's in office, which party's in office. They're going to juice the numbers because they have to to keep the economy flowing and that you don't get credit impairment. So, guys, what are your thoughts on the pivot? And I know you think it's going to just rip into the end of the year. And I agree. Any comments on that or the pivot and maybe the implications of it anymore?

Starting point is 00:14:17 Well, I'll just say, I don't think it was just rumors. It was like there were published articles about how Elon hurled his body into Besson's rib cage and body checked him like hockey style. So, but yeah, this is the, this is good intentioned people, well intentioned going into a situation, hoping they could fight the institutional inertia to spend more money and just running up against the wall. You're taking some of those successful, innovative people currently alive across many different domains and subject matters, and they're just running into realizing this how incredibly

Starting point is 00:14:48 difficult it is. And then the administration who desperately wants to make a deal and acknowledging, like, look, name a better deal that we can get through the Congress. This is how screwed up the system is. Congress is so broken. We have to make all these sacrifices when what we're doing it is effectively just agreeing to what we had before with slight incremental changes, the slightest change in the world, even with the best of intention. So to me, it's got to be frustrating for those guys, because I do think they went in there thinking they could cut out a lot of fat, but unfortunately, it's just, it's a tall order. But it seems like they're looking at, okay, we have to print.

Starting point is 00:15:21 We have to print in style. We got midterms coming up. And they're looking at Bitcoin. And I think they're all in, man. I think that they're looking at Bitcoin is the thing that, the only thing that actually solves all of this. And they're loading their personal bags is my impression. Do you guys disagree with this?

Starting point is 00:15:38 No, I think that's 100% accurate. It seems to me like everyone on Wall Street, everyone in a powerful position is like exactly like you said, just simply loading their bags. I had a friend call me. I had orange, this guy's a pretty wealthy guy. I used to work for him back in the day in my 20s. And he called me. I convinced him to buy five Bitcoin back in 2018. And he had gone from, he put in $20,000.

Starting point is 00:16:00 It's like a half million dollars, right? And he called me and he goes, hey, we were sitting around talking about Trump and everything that's going on. And we decided finally, after all these years, you're right. And we put 25% of our net worth into Bitcoin. And they're like, they're eight figure people. So that's a significant position, right? And I think that everybody has now, once Bitcoin crossed $100,000, the psychological phenomenon or effect that occurred was everyone now default believes the Bitcoin story.

Starting point is 00:16:25 Everybody believes that Bitcoin is going to millions of dollars a coin. That's a very recent and new phenomenon. I don't think everybody believes that. No, I think that I think they do. Many people, they just don't admit it. I think everyone believes it. Like deep in their heart, they know it's about to happen. Even the critics.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Even Peter Schiff knows it. He's on the board. Dude, it's an open secret. Peter Schiff has got positions on the board of the different crypto companies and like, come on. Like, everyone knows it. It's like the iron shake, right? Like, he's playing the heel.

Starting point is 00:16:56 Schiff is out there playing the heel. Like, America. You know, like that's what he's talking. To Hoddle's point, Joe, to Hoddle's point, I've heard a lot of like hardcore critics that will say something to the effect of, well, it might go to a million, but that doesn't mean that it's going to end up being successful or something. Like, they just acknowledge that it's possible that it's going to but that it's somehow going to fail at a million, which what is the, what are we at,

Starting point is 00:17:21 20 trillion at that point? Yeah. Yeah, but don't you think that's just like, you know, saving face because they've been wrong for freaking forever. They still want to, they don't want to try to call a top anymore. There's, yeah, I mean, I've heard Michael Green say something like this. Like, he's like, oh, it could go higher. I'm not going to bet against it. I'm not going short it, but it'll, you know, I think that's just saving face. I don't think they actually believe it because they would position for that. They actually thought it was going to a million dollars. They would put more money in. Take the most staunch critics in the world out, right? Because that's a very small portion of population, the intolerant minority, right? I think that the average

Starting point is 00:17:54 person believes that Bitcoin is going to millions of dollars of corn. And that is something that obviously, we were all laughed at and called insane for saying things like that. And now that is like a default assumption. So everybody believes that the Bitcoin story is going to happen. The only thing going on in the minds of retail participants is they don't believe that they are going to be a participant in that story for whatever reason. I miss that. I miss that. I missed that. I miss that. I missed that. It's too expensive. It's for other people that are more well off and they just write it off as I missed that boat. And then that brings us to the treasury companies. Yes. Because the treasury companies say to the person who has this psychological effect where they go,

Starting point is 00:18:33 I missed it. No, hey, here's another opportunity. This is a time machine to 2017. Step in, young man. Let's go get you your picture. That's crazy. The comments that I see online in reference to the Treasury companies is just assenine. Like, all of it.

Starting point is 00:18:51 All of it. This person is bad? People really don't understand security analysis. Now, are there, is everybody going to be like micro strategy? Absolutely not. But there's going to be some companies that exercise this strategy that are going to crush it. They're going to absolutely murder it. And two, something to Jeff's point that you made earlier in the show about these three burners,

Starting point is 00:19:12 I would maybe even make the argument that there's a fourth burner, which is just liquidity pipes into Bitcoin, right? The plumbing that is now being wired up into Bitcoin, and one in particular is just preferred stock. So this is a market that was just really small in the grand scheme of things relative to debt markets to credit markets. And I think that the plumbing on this is just getting opened up. And I think it's going to become a massive market in the coming 10 years, like massive. One of the reasons why is convertible debt creates this situation where it puts resistance levels into the common stock based on. Assuming this whole Treasury strategy thing kind of gets way bigger than it is right now. That's what I think is going to have.

Starting point is 00:20:03 I think it's going to get way bigger, like monumental in size in the coming 10 years. And when you're looking at how convertible debt sets up like this Delta Hedge situation on the common stock, you put these resistance bands in that make it hard for the MNAV on the company to run. But when you do it with preferred stock, perpetual preferred stock where there's no end date for the call on the principle of the initial. issuance. You don't get that. And I think micro strategy has figured this out. And I would be really surprised to see them do much more convertible debt issuance because of the issues that it kind of creates in the options and everything. Basically, it sucks all the volatility out of the common stock every time they issue this. And they don't want that. They don't want that at all.

Starting point is 00:20:51 So I see this market, this preferred market, getting so much bigger. And I don't think you're everyday. I think most people don't even understand preferred stock. If I have a conversation with 100 people off the street, I think there might be one or two that actually even understand what preferred stock is. And I think this market's about to get really big. Yeah. I think in fact, you can kind of look at what Saylor is doing as him building out his own yield curve and he can go up to, I believe this is speculation, but I think he can potentially go up to the kegger of Bitcoin, which means there's a lot of room there to build that out using those preferred structures. And then And you're right about the Treasury companies.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Like, not all of them are going to, like, here's the nuanced opinion because you're right. Like, people are out here. There's all this paper Bitcoin discourse on Twitter and everything, which is very fun and colorful. But I'll give you a bit of a nuanced opinion slash prediction, which is I think the treasury companies are a real thing. They're a real phenomenon.

Starting point is 00:21:42 And they're going to live large in the world over the next 10, 15, 20 years. I also think that we're in the infancy of a very large bubble, a bubble that could be like dot com in nature. In the short term. In the short term. Yeah. And that's over the course of like maybe three, four years. Totally.

Starting point is 00:21:58 Here's the distinction in my mind, Coddle. So largely, I would say the companies that have begun and grown had traction as Bitcoin Treasury Company, I would say they've done it in a responsible way with both their debt issuance, with their share issuance. I would say that what tends to happen in frenzies and in the short term, you know, things that attract a lot of attention, flavor the month type strategies. I'm not saying this is, but I think at the beginning that you could have entrance into the marketplace that move out on the risk curve. They start to do riskier things to acquire Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:22:28 and that's where it really gets introduced. I don't think we've even seen that yet, but somebody is going to come along and say, well, they're having such success. If we just tweak a little bit, if we just take out a little bit of debt that said a higher rate or, you know, play a mildly different strategy, that's where you introduce the real contagion risk. So that's, to me, what I'm on the lookout for. To this point, Joe, to this point, I think that a lot of the amateurs that come in and try to do this, they're going to think that they've got to provide better value in the issuance than micro strategy. But what I think is going to be discovered with enough time is that the smaller the company is that's implementing this without a whole bunch of operational risk behind

Starting point is 00:23:10 it, is actually more desirable to the market participants because as a percentage of how much more Bitcoin they can stack relative to the treasury that they have, it's going to yield way bigger and better results than the behemots. And what's fascinating about this is it's almost like the laws in nature where the animal can only, like an elephant can only get so big, right? And then it has a disadvantage because it's too big. You have the same dynamic, I think, that's going to play out for these treasury companies. And so I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to, I don't think that the people implementing this strategy really need to go out there and offer way better dividend yields on, let's say, they're doing a preferred issuance. I don't think it has to be all that much better than micro strategy for it to be desirable to the market, because especially if there's a callability piece to it, they're going to have a lot of buyers, I think, that are going to want the issuance because I think that the yields that the underlying will perform at is going to be pretty good.

Starting point is 00:24:17 it. And I see Jeff, you're nodding. You seem like you agree with me on it. Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. And I have like multiple points about this is I think that several of these newer ones, probably, I'm sure there's some we haven't even heard of yet that are coming to the market soon too. They, I think they have great potential to outperform micro strategy, who is the founding father of this strategy in the bull market. But I will be watching very closely as a fund manager for who is putting on the most leverage late in the cycle, who is hyping up on Twitter and all the social media accounts and talking about how awesome they are. I will be watching them closely because they will get absolutely wrecked in a bear market. If we get a bare market, if liquidity pulls away,

Starting point is 00:24:55 if the economy turns, I mean, these are like basically the same thing that happened to miners in 2020, 2021. We saw some of these miners that were the best performers during that cycle that they put leverage late, put leverage on late in the cycle and they paid and lots of them win bankrupt because of that. And I think that same thing is going to happen this cycle. So, well, it tells the bond issuance. It's not the equities. You're, You've got to look at the bonds. I mean, that's going to be the tell, I think. Those bonds will trade pretty ugly before equity collapses, I think.

Starting point is 00:25:23 Yeah. 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.

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Starting point is 00:29:40 Like eight times it's treasuring nuts, something like that. Yeah, I'm not sure. Let's just for simplicity, just say that it's like eight times. So if they go out there and they raise $100 million, they can basically go buy the Bitcoin as if it's on sale for, call it $30,000 right now, right? Instead of it being $110,000. It's real ballpark numbers, right? And if you're buying it for $30,000 and today in the market, it's worth $110,

Starting point is 00:30:07 And let's say we have an 80% drawdown. They basically bought the Bitcoin at the drawdown level. And so from a risk standpoint, these companies that have the really high MNAV that are exercising and buying all this spot, they seem like they're going to be able to weather the downturns more easy. I see Joe literally. It depends on what they have to pay, right? I mean, it depends on what obligations they're writing. Yeah. So you're saying how the debt is encumbered.

Starting point is 00:30:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Because they're all adopting trust in this strategy. They're like, well, we're never going to sell the Bitcoin. Well, we'll see about that. You know, once you have to meet your obligation, like micro strategy, I think one of the reasons why I think to Jeff point, right, trades where it trades is because he's put in place a system where it's very,

Starting point is 00:30:53 I think it would be very likely that he's a forced seller. It almost, to me, I can't even envision a circumstance. Even if Bitcoin were to fall 50%, he wouldn't be a forced seller. No. Just look at what they got out there. I don't know. Do you disagree, Jeff? No, I don't think they will ever have to sell.

Starting point is 00:31:06 Not during sailors tenure. I mean, if you add up his interest expense and all of the dividends, even the ones that he doesn't have to pay because they're non-accumulative, I think it's $200 million a year. Right. It's a pittance compared to like what even if you have an 80% drawdown. He can continue to do that. Not to mention he can just do more issuance and come up with more cash to make the payments.

Starting point is 00:31:28 Anybody in here in here? I think it's going to make the S&P 500 right now. Yeah, I take. Yeah, I think so. You think so. Yeah. I think so. I think the S&P is in a situation where if they don't include it,

Starting point is 00:31:41 they're at risk of being undesirable from just because you got such a fast rising star in the mix. If they don't include it, people are going to be like, well, I'm not owning that. I want to own whatever else that. Well, they shut out Tesla for far too long. Yeah. We know that. I don't know. Jeff, you didn't weigh in.

Starting point is 00:32:00 I'm 50-50. I don't have a strong opinion on it. I don't know anybody on the panel. So I can't. This is the point of indexation, right? Like the indexers in some sense win again, because eventually it will get into the S&P 500. Now, if it gets in this year or not, I don't know. But eventually we even you agree, right, Joe.

Starting point is 00:32:19 Oh, yeah. Eventually. It's just. Yeah. So the Bitcoin is going to come to where you are if you're an indexer and you're not going to get the same returns that the early guys like us got, but you're going to do okay. Like, you're going to be all right. And I think that's, I think that's very important.

Starting point is 00:32:33 for, you know, not just Bitcoin, but the markets broadly and MSTR stock. But, you know, the markets broadly are going to be buoyed by the amount of Bitcoin that Michael Saylor is holding. Good Lord. Do you guys think that some slight switch of subject, but because I brought it up, do you think Bitcoin miners are going to catch any sort of a bid this bull market? I'm still going to ball bag, but I'm not that hopeful. So I think, Joe, good Joe.

Starting point is 00:32:56 I think a lot of the miners are becoming treasury companies is really what's going on. Well, if you spend any amount of time on Twitter. spaces with Mike Alfred, he'll tell you they already have and he'll cite his favorite example of a stock, which I'm not going to name for various reasons. I mean, you know, there have been few of them who in recent weeks looking at one here, it has 300%. That's not a bad bid. I have a diversified portfolio of miners, which means that some of them are up 300 percent and others are down 99 percent, right? It's diversified. I don't like the miners. I don't own any miners. The main reason that I like when I'm looking at it. Can they implement the same, the ones that are public?

Starting point is 00:33:36 Can they implement the same thing that Michael's doing? They can. The issue is, is they have this operational business with extreme risk relative to the treasury. In addition to the other risks that we were talking about is just far as meeting interest rate or interest expense and dividend payments, if you're issuing them in a cumulative way. So why would I own that versus something that doesn't have all that operational execution risk and liability, especially when you look at how much of a cutthroat business, all of that is. Hugely capital intensive. By the way, I like Mike Alfred a lot.

Starting point is 00:34:13 So I'm not knocking him at all. But I just feel like miners were the flavor of the last cycle. And I just, it's hard for me to see how they catch a sustained bid this time around. It's going to be treasury companies this time around it. Like I actually personally believe the treasury company bubble can get like, I said, dot com level large, which was $11 trillion in that era. Because basically when you have this big type of bubble, it's like around an idea. The dot com bubble was around the internet.

Starting point is 00:34:40 And it was like the thing I said earlier. Everybody now believes in the Bitcoin story. Well, in 1996, everybody believed in the internet story. They just weren't really participating. And then the fever caught them at some point between 97 and 2000. Suddenly everybody and their mother was in on the thing, right? And like every idea that was possibly going to happen on the internet had a company that was associated with it doing a rudimentary or crappy or fake version of that idea in 1996,

Starting point is 00:35:06 right? Like broadcast.com. Yeah, it's a big deal that we all watch on the internet, right? But we don't watch any of Mark Cuban. But Mark Cuban got paid a lot of money for that idea. And I think same thing with the treasury companies now is that the big idea is Bitcoin. Everybody goes, Bitcoin's going to happen. I missed it, but it's going to happen. Right. And we're in the infancy of this bubble. And what's going to happen, I think, is that the treasury companies need to differentiate themselves. Because if you look at XYZ Treasury versus what's the difference between Nakamoto and CEP or sorry, Jack Muller's 21 or the meta planet or this or that or whatever, you need to have a credible story about how you're differentiated from your competitors. That credible story is going to

Starting point is 00:35:45 be something about Satsflow, Bitcoin specific businesses, how you generate Bitcoin Capital, you know, oh, we're doing it on the Lightning Network. Oh, we're doing it over here with insurance. Oh, we're doing it over here with this. We're doing it over here with that, right? And like Pets.com before it in the dot com bubble, a lot of these ideas are going to be real ideas that will happen in the future. Pets.com later became Chewy, which sold the Pets Mart for $3 billion.

Starting point is 00:36:08 But in the interim, we have no ability in 1997 to ship giant bags of dog food through the mail through the U.S. Post Service, right? So, like, there's missing infrastructure that's going to cause some of these ideas, to come to fruition, but people are going to want to bet on them now. And that's the thing that's going to cause the bubble, I think, because everyone's going to get really excited about the internet of money, Bitcoin, the future of where this is happening. And that's why I think, like, Jeff was saying we could expand into Q2 of 26. Dude, I think we could, I think this could be a three or four year run with like a slight lull in between. It takes us up to beyond a million dollars. Well, another, yeah,

Starting point is 00:36:45 because of the dynamic of if these shelves that we're talking about, like it gets a run up and And then it goes sideways for six months and it gets another runup. Maybe the derivatives market is preventing this euphoria from really kind of creating the 80% drawdown and the massive runup. I mean, when you look at just using power law, and I'm not saying I'm like a huge promoter of this power law stuff. But when you look at the price action, it is just going right down the center of that model. It's not going out to the extremes. Now, whether it stays there or not, I don't know. But it's, I find it interesting that it's just running like this really.

Starting point is 00:37:19 really clean path right down the middle of the model right now. Yeah. And for me, I think the deciding factor will be if the Trump administration is able to successfully rev up the economy and especially if they can overheat it, then I think we see it start to rise significantly above that line where it can go exponential at that point. That's my take. I also think there's a potential future where you could have a massive bubble in treasuries with a more stable, steady power law like climb in Bitcoin itself. And I'm not sure which of those futures plays out. A bubble in treasury? Yeah, in Bitcoin treasury companies.

Starting point is 00:37:51 I thought I meant treasuries. Sorry, sorry, no, sorry, Bitcoin treasury. I have a very Bitcoin-centric world. I have the same reaction. Regular treasuries don't mean anything to me. Like there's a bubble in treasuries right now. What are you talking about? The puddle's all in on treasuries.

Starting point is 00:38:06 I'm like, why would you guys invest in that? We're talking about boomer money. Like, what the hell? Love it. Joe, do you have any policy or like Washington, D.C. update with the Genius Act and all that kind of stuff? I promised Hoddle before we got on. that I would ask him about his thoughts on stable coins, which I was at the stable coin conference back in Vegas.

Starting point is 00:38:25 And I wanted to make sure that we had sufficient attention paid to the stable coin massive move. We also have to talk about our good friend, Tom Lee, and his new comment that Ethereum is the new Bitcoin pressed. And I really want to get your take on that. But we'll go to Honol first. I didn't even hear this from Tom. Oh, yeah. Did you, you didn't hear? He said on CNBC that Ethereum is the new Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:38:46 So your reaction? That don't make a lot of sense, Joe. Well, here's his thesis. Okay, don't yell at me in the comments, but I'm just going to give you his thesis. Okay. So his thesis is as follows. He has started a Ethereum treasury company. And his thought process is that Ethereum as the second largest adopted, quote unquote, blockchain is going to be ripe for massive transaction usage as all these companies and financial institutions.

Starting point is 00:39:17 implement stable coins. So for those that aren't familiar, we have a massive piece of legislation that looks like it's going to be signed by the president, the Genius Act for stable coins. It's going to make non-financial institutions have a clear regulatory path to issuing stable coins. So market participants are really excited about this. A lot of crypto companies are excited about this. And the bet that Tom Lee is making is that he thinks there's going to be this huge demand for Ethereum. And he thinks that if he launches this Ethereum treasury company, he's going to be able to adopt the sailor strategy, and then he's going to continue to increase his returns because not only is he going to get you to borrow and buy Ethereum, which will be

Starting point is 00:39:57 needed for transactions, but he can stake the Ethereum, Preston, and when he stakes the Ethereum, it will only in this perpetual money machine advance his returns. So any commentary on that, reaction to that? Does anything prove how dead Ethereum is more than the fact that they don't even have their own narrative this cycle? They had to steal our narrative? Like what how you know, you couldn't do NFTs again? Like what happened to monkey pictures, man, you know?

Starting point is 00:40:22 At least that was your narrative. Can you believe that the, I mean, they were literally making pictures of JPEGs of rocks in different shades and selling them for 100,000? Like, how did that even? And it may have, and here's the crazy part. It may have been a better investment than an Ethereum treasury company, you know. Here's the power law chart that I was saying that it seems like. It's just kind of like running up the middle. There's a lot more time that would have to play out with it continuing to do that for that to kind of.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Looks kind of good. Warrant the comment. But anyway, just throwing it out there. So do you guys think, is there any situation, Jeff, where stable coins have any impact in the Bitcoin market? You see any positive catalyst for Bitcoin and the stable coin? Is that just totally at the periphery, not even on our radar, not worthy of discussion? Well, I think, well, a couple of things. I think that it's expected from where we are right now in history.

Starting point is 00:41:16 I think we're at a transition point, right, where we're facing from analog to digital, we're facing from fiat to Bitcoin. And I think that stable coins are the perfect sort of segue to get into Bitcoin from the analog world. So it's getting everybody digital, right, get everybody on programmable money. And then you have the people like, you can't deny like, Tether, those dudes, like, first of all, that's the best business model that's ever existed. I think that's inarguable at this point, at least to date. And they're buying a ton of Bitcoin and they're putting on their balance sheet. So they're not stupid. They're sort of fundamentally Bitcoiners to some degree, at least, and they get Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:41:50 If I could create that business model, I would do that in a heartbeat, right? If I could give somebody a token for a dollar and then buy treasuries and then just collect the interest and not have to pay anybody and then buy Bitcoin with that, I would do that all day, every day. So it's a great business model. So I think it's a natural segue into where we're going. I don't think that they'll last. I think Bitcoin is built to last.

Starting point is 00:42:11 These will have a limited lifespan, probably of a few decades or so, that's my guess. 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 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.

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Starting point is 00:45:49 Well, mess up in the sense that they're going to be shut out of many markets abroad. Yes. Yes. I think that's true. So just for the benefit, and again, I'm sorry, this is not cool in the Bitcoin podcast, but I think it's fascinating because what it's showing is this, the massive lobbying power of banks. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:04 Because the banks fought very hard to prevent the yields being transferred in any way given to customers. Because keep in mind, the stable coin applies to non-financial, What does that mean? That means if you're not a bank and you're launching stable coin, you have to abide by the Genius Act. It does not apply to banks issuing stable coins. So you may have noticed in the news about JPM and so you have a question, but JPM, for example, could launch their stable coin and pay yield. No way. There's no provision on that. Yes. Right. That's crazy. That's why I'm here dropping the alpha. Wow. Now, what's going to be interesting is that's

Starting point is 00:46:39 going to be a bloodbath of competition for the incumbent banks. And if you're not a bank and you're being forced to sweep the yield, the coupons, and you sweep them in the Bitcoin, you're a way safer institution to use the coin. Like if you're not, and nobody's using these things for the yield right now. They're using them to get in and out of all their degenerate gambling in the crypto economy. So I don't think that the typical person that's using these coins are using it for the yield. Correct. And then you also will have a bifurcated market because under the Genius Act, it becomes law, entities outside the United States, so foreign issuers, for example, Heather, they basically have to subject themselves to a comparable U.S. regulator. They have to prove and get

Starting point is 00:47:27 a permission to do the issuance. They have to abide by most of the major banking regulations and laws, which I am skeptical they will ever do. And the big one, they have to subject their entire organization, your safety and soundness reviews from the Washington Stable Coin Review Board. So because of that, right, you're going to have these entities outside the United States that have to pick and choose. Do you want to access United States capital markets and play in the sandbox and know that your organization is now subject to U.S. jurisdiction? Or do you want to stay outside? So my prediction is you're going to have this bifurcated market where you have tether that largely stays outside of the United States, right? They're going to be continuing to be out there and trying to have penetration and both

Starting point is 00:48:06 the trading vehicles, the finances and these different trading desks, but also locally, right? And to me, if the goal is we want emerging markets to adopt stable coins, I think that this is just my view. I'd be curious, Jeff and Hottle and you, Preston, what you think about it, but I don't know why you would be more encouraged to adopt a stable coin that somehow has Washington regulation behind it. To me, if anything, if you're outside of the United States, you want something that isn't subject to Washington where they can't freeze the accounts very easily. They won't freeze the tether. You want to get far away from the reach of Washington outside the United States as possible.

Starting point is 00:48:39 That's just my read, but I'd be curious if you think that regulation Washington would cause emerging markets to adopt it. Well, what I find interesting is because I didn't understand that, Joe, what you just said. But I find it interesting that Tether made the decision to start tokenizing gold in the face of what you just said. Think about it. Instead of buying treasuries, they're saying, okay, well, gold's kind of better than the dollar anyway. So why don't we just tokenize that for people that want dollar-like stability and performance? Is that why they started tokenizing gold? I think it's definitely an effort to potentially still have access to U.S. markets.

Starting point is 00:49:18 Yeah. I mean, that's a key thing because it's not dollars. Deval Coins is applying to dollar-backed or purported peg tokens. Yeah. So it's fascinating. Wow. What a play. But I think they messed up by, well, maybe I don't know.

Starting point is 00:49:32 Well, it depends on who messed up, right? If you're the banks. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The banks, why would the banks want there to be stable coins that can pay yield? I mean, think about it. Think about the effect that would have on money markets. And money markets have systemic risk factors in our society, right? If money markets are just disrupted, that causes financial stability.

Starting point is 00:49:52 The Fed is going to be on that very closely watching if money markets get disrupted. And money markets have had issues before historically. So I think that there was an impetus to try to keep the yield part of it out. These can be rails and peg tokens and these types of things. But once you start playing with yield, that really threatens the model of the banking sector. So I got a question there are a couple for you, Joe. So to me, so based on this, it looks to me like tether is going to remain XUS. It's going to be the international option.

Starting point is 00:50:18 And I think they're going to pivot to gold. And I think that gold stable coin concept is actually going to rise and be very popular in the coming five to 10 years. In like relatively, it's going to rise in popularity. Dollar will still stay popular, but gold will quickly rise. Here in the U.S., it's basically Circle now, which is outside of the banks versus like the JPMD and the other bank stable coins. How do you see that playing out Circle versus the bank coins? Like, who wins that in the longer run? I think it's going to be fascinating.

Starting point is 00:50:48 I mean, to me, it's not just those two because I think we track at our firm. I think there's 100 stables that have plans to launch or already launching. I mean, most of the major exchanges have some version of a stable coin. Now Cracken has a stable. A hundred, Joe. Yeah. Yeah. But it's going to be like the ETFs, right?

Starting point is 00:51:04 You're going to have this massive flood of a bunch of vehicles and then it'll consolidate down to the few winners, right? It's like, think of it like a sport, right? You have to get market penetration. And to do that, you're going to have to figure out how do I get this into the hands of customers. And ideally what you'd want is you want merchants to somehow incentivize people to accept the stables, right? Because stables are great for peer-to-peer transactions. But we know that a lot of people, they're going to take that and they want to buy things at Amazon. or they want to buy things at other retailers.

Starting point is 00:51:33 So the key thing for me is how do you get this to get outside of the crypto trading apparatus and used as medium of exchange? Credit card companies would have a very easy path to doing that. I have not heard credit card companies doing that. I'd be curious, though, I don't really see an avenue. Like, I have a JPM account. I don't know why I would use the JPM stablecoin. See, what I think is going to happen is I think they're going to introduce them through,

Starting point is 00:51:55 they're going to talk about, they're finally going to take on Bitcoin custody. and they're going to be like, okay, you want us to custody your Bitcoin. First, you know, send your cash in here, convert it to the JPMD, and then convert some of that into Bitcoin. And then why not have a little bit of yield over here in the JPMD coin and hold Bitcoin and we'll custody all of it for you? I think that's how they're going to introduce it. Joe, are they doing this on Solana, Tron, like what are they using to do this?

Starting point is 00:52:22 Well, JPM, I think, I just want to confirm this. I think they selected base, this base network, which I am by no means an expert. and Toddle probably is all over that. He's probably got a ton of base token. He's based. Toddle's based. Totally. Bags of base.

Starting point is 00:52:36 Hold on. I got to figure this out. Go ahead. Tottle. What were you going to say? I'm going to do a little. No, you know what I was going to say is one thing I've heard about the tether guys is that they

Starting point is 00:52:43 sort of have this worldview that China is going to be this perfected version of communism that America is sliding into feudalism and that they're building. They are essentially going to be the iron bank for the new emerging network state, which respects sovereigns. And that's a very large worldview, and it's kind of crazy that they're actually in a position to do something of that nature. They could actually do that.

Starting point is 00:53:08 They could actually pull it off. Oh, another thing on the stable coin thing is the reason, one reason, Joe, you tell me what you think about this, but I've heard that there might be a proliferation of smaller stable coins under 10 billion because under 10 billion, they're state regulated and not federally. That's correct. There's a regit arbitrage there.

Starting point is 00:53:24 Absolutely. And that's where you get this massive number, right? you're going to have these effective regional banks. There will be big winners, but you'll have these small regional banks to have their own. You've got a great read on like the consumer. Like if a local bank is issuing and pumping up a stable coin, do you really think that as a product market fit? Do you think people are going to be like, you know,

Starting point is 00:53:42 I'll give you a consumer perspective I was thinking about a little bit in regards to this, which is an expansion of the gift card industry, essentially in a way that like, let's say I'm a, you know, normal family in the Midwest. I do a lot of my shopping at Walmart. And Walmart has a stable that they offer me, right? And so I park X portion of my check direct deposit with Walmart into the stable coin with the money I know I'm going to spend at Walmart and Walmart. And Walmart gives me huge discounts and incentives because they can't offer me yield,

Starting point is 00:54:10 but they can offer me crazy discounts and incentives. That makes a ton of sense, but don't you need the merchants. You need the merchant buying. And this is the problem. I don't, maybe they get that through. I don't know. That seems like it has to be merchant driven. It has to be, you know, Amazon, Walmart, major retailers,

Starting point is 00:54:26 saying you have to use this for some real. I think so, so, yeah. You need the, you need Amazon, you do Walmart, Starbucks, etc. You guys ready for this? Yeah. Okay. So base is an Ethereum layer two chain developed by Coinbase. I asked it, okay, so who runs the nodes of base?

Starting point is 00:54:44 And the answer came back. Coinbase is currently the sole sequencer node on base. Wow. There you go. You only need one. You only need one. This is nuts. This is so funny.

Starting point is 00:54:58 Coinbase is just taking over the world. I mean, the non-Bitcoin world. Yeah, Coinbase is like basically. They're like the Lex Luthor of the government exchange. Brian Armstrong has been respecting Bitcoin lately. He has. Here's the quote. The quote, Preston, we're thrilled to see one of the nation's most prominent banks come on chain, said Jesse Pollock, creator of base and VP engineering Coinbase.

Starting point is 00:55:20 Base offers sub-second, sub-cent, 24-7 settlement, which, makes fund transfers between JPM institutional clients instant. We're proud to partner with JPM and this pilot combines the credibility of JPM to help us bring institutional money into a global economy. I mean, one sequencer. Of course it's instant. Hey question. What's the point of ripple?

Starting point is 00:55:42 Isn't this ripple soul ever? Yeah, he's on the hill a bit, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. This is such a, but you know what? I'm just thinking about all this through the lens. If you're a typical person who doesn't care about finance at all, they see all of this, all this fancy language and terminology.

Starting point is 00:56:02 Oh, it's a sequencer on top of the layer two of Ethereum. And just like, what a, what a Rube Goldberg machine disaster of just, you know, terminology and nonsense. Total nonsense. Well, and the big problem is like, okay, you have one chain that this base chain that's got one coin running on it. There's no interoperability because it's not a problem. protocol. So you got like one higher ecosystem like well I've got stables on Solana and Ethereum yeah front and all these that's a mess that the consumer experience there is terrible. Yeah absolutely awful. Well it's going to be yeah it's

Starting point is 00:56:38 going to be such a walled garden that either you're a JPM client and they force feed you that you're now using their blockchain but nobody's taking that thing outside of their ecosystem there's no to your point there's no interoperability whatsoever and like where this is all going is the one that's the most interoperable Bitcoin wins, right? And is actually backed and has tens of thousands of people running nodes because they want to, not because they're being forced to. Like, I just don't know how people can't see this, man. It is crazy. Do you think we get stable coins on some sort of layer two or some sort of derivative of Bitcoin? I mean, is there, Tether's already said

Starting point is 00:57:16 they're doing it. Yeah. Tether's already made that announcement in January. That they're doing stables on Bitcoin. Is that going to be not in the United States, right? Because they're, well, I mean, they're doing it on layer two lightning. So and you don't need a token to run it on lightning. So yeah, I don't know. It's this is really interesting. And that was just J.P. Morgan.

Starting point is 00:57:36 I can't imagine what the other, what you're seeing the others are using it for their quote unquote tech to run these things. Peter. Sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say some of you guys are too young probably, but like in the 90s, the internet phase took over for a very long time,

Starting point is 00:57:53 several years. And that's what I think is going to happen with these stable coins, right? They're going to spend tons and tons and tons of marketing dollars. And like what you're talking about, Honol with trying to get you to Walmart here, give you all these discounts. Here's a Disney stable coin. Park your money here. We'll give you a cheaper tickets. And I think they're going to really push hard for about three, four, five years. And then it's just going to fizzle because they're going to realize it's not worth the effort. And then, yeah, because all roads do eventually lead to Bitcoin for sure. This is just this transition period that we're in. Completely. I think the intranet is very analogous to private blockchains and it will likely meet the same fate.

Starting point is 00:58:29 And we've seen that with many different private blockchain projects over the 15 year history of Bitcoin. So yeah, all roads lead to Bitcoin, man. All roads lead to Bitcoin. Can I change the subject? Yeah. Of course. Preston, are you able to put to, I don't know if you have trade review or something? Yeah, I can get an XPX divided by gold. XPX divided by gold. Okay. Let me. And as long as like the longest, impossible 100 years hit the hole let's see here this is what I can't stop thinking about and I it's I've been going on this for a couple months now and my leading question to you guys

Starting point is 00:59:01 Xpx divided by gold is that what you said yeah okay and if you do it on trading me you can go back to like the 1920s really and my question I'd pose to you guys is do you think that the period of American exceptionalism as people talk about is it over for now are we and and yes or no and I'm and I'll take the other side of that Joe I think it is I think we're in a period and I think this chart is very helpful in showing this, that I think that we've reached the point where the dollar strength, it's strengthened enough that investment in U.S. assets, financial assets, has reached a peak and we're now rolling over. Similar to 1929 and then into the 30s, similar to the late 1960s and through the 70s and similar to basically the

Starting point is 00:59:47 dot-com bust through about 2011. And I think it's sort of showing. shocking to me at least how well you can see these huge secular trends when you have like the S&P 500 divided by gold. And it looks very clear to me at least that we're at the start of that. Now we may reverse that and go back again. And I wish I had the chart up to show you. I can show it. I have it right here if you want to see. Yeah. Go ahead and pull it up show. Okay. Sorry to put you guys. No, no, no, no. So no, it's no. This is a problem. This is the SBX over gold. This is a charge of the 18, 1884. Yeah. So, and so the bar. are monthly, all your yearly bars. Can you do monthly?

Starting point is 01:00:25 You don't like the yearly? That's too big. That's fine, but it shows the same thing, but I feel like you can see the waves a little better. Okay. Either way. But you guys can see it anyways. So where that first peak is. I'm going to go, I'm going to go to monthly. Here's monthly. Okay. There we go. Okay. So, and you can see. So that first peak, that's 1929. That hump number two, that's about 1968-ish. Peak number three, that's the, that's the dot com. Con bubble. Yep.

Starting point is 01:00:53 Okay. I think that we're at the almost the exact same period right now as we were kind of in the early 70s. And I will be very surprised if gold does not outperform U.S. stocks and if emerging markets and international stocks don't outperform most U.S. stocks for the next five to ten years. Okay. And I think global assets are the place to be. And I think U.S. assets in general are not the place to be, except with a few exceptions.

Starting point is 01:01:21 mainly AI, the tech stocks, I think, can still do well. AI, robotics, semiconductors, I think still can outperform. But I think in general, U.S. investors who are only in U.S. stocks and U.S. bonds are going to get decimated as an inflation-indjusted returns over the next five to 10 years or so. Tell me why I'm wrong. Well, my response is going to be look at VTI versus VXUS, which is what you're looking at, this is that actually, let's look at it the other way. The VXUS is the Vanguard, total international stock market, excluding U.S. stocks, and then there's a total U.S. stock market VTI. This is the chart, okay? And we're going to zoom out, as they say. This is the path, this thing. To me, this tells the whole story. Look, what you see repeatedly, you could have made the same argument going back, but this is 2011.

Starting point is 01:02:12 Here, here, here. It'd be awesome if you were able to see it back with the timelines that Jeff was. Yeah, I can't. But you can. So 2011, notice that's when this starts. That's when the last bubble started. So gold last peak in 2011 relative to stocks. And then it's been free falling since then. It's rolling over here yet again. I expect it to make a lower low. And the reason is very simple. And you're going into an age where the companies that are dominating the artificial intelligence space are based in the United States. They're part of the U.S. capital markets. I personally expect a massive productivity burst. I think nominal GDP is going to run a lot hotter than we expect. I think we can't even measure it correctly because of the technologies that are a little rodent brains can't wrap our heads around. And because those are largely domiciled and have access to U.S. Capital markets, you're going to have to own those things. Those things are going to print

Starting point is 01:03:06 cash over the next 20 years. And the majority of the world's companies, although meaningful in having competitive advantage on raw materials, they will need the AI. They will need features and the AI resources that will be based in the United States. So I find it very difficult that people, actually, I don't understand it at all, how people make the argument that we're going to have this massive boon, economic boon, where AI companies are going to drive productivity and just print cash effectively, and then they also think that we have the end of American exceptionalism. Those two things seem completely at ads with one another.

Starting point is 01:03:36 Either the AI narrative is total fluff, and that's not going to transform and cause of productivity burst, or alternatively, it is, and American equities and American investments, American stocks are going to do fantastic. So can I counter that? So I think that I totally agree, actually, with almost everything you said. But I think the difference is AI will become commoditized and will diffuse throughout all markets, global markets. And I think all companies around the world, because right, because you can be in Sri Lanka

Starting point is 01:04:04 and you can subscribe to Open AI if you want to or whatever. And I think we're going to see the benefits in operating margins of all companies are going to massively improve. And then we also have robotics, right? Robotics is going to replace lots of human workers. It's going to cause companies to be more efficient, improve margins even further. But I think because of where the U.S. valuations are currently,

Starting point is 01:04:26 that we're going to see more margin expansion and margin improvement across the globe and throughout value-based companies. And so it's not just the AI companies that are going to make money. It's the AI tech itself is going to diffuse throughout the world and actually cause all companies across the world to do well. Well, it'll diffuse, but the, I mean, the data centers, if we're going to spend trillions of dollars over the next 10 years with data centers in the United States, massive, massive CAPX, yep.

Starting point is 01:04:54 In the United States. Yeah. And yes. It's terrible for margins. Sure. It's terrible for margins, assuming there isn't huge amounts of stimulus coming from the U.S. government running structural deficits of 6 to 7% GDP and potentially getting bigger. So to me, that's going to be nonstop cash investments.

Starting point is 01:05:11 and you can do that, as long as nominal GDP is running hot. They're telling you the strategy. Besson came out and he told you, we're going to run this economy hot. How do you run an economy hot? You're running hot by effectively borrowing a lot of money and pumping out a huge fiscal impulse. That is the nothing stops this train. That is the massive, go ahead. Totally agree.

Starting point is 01:05:30 But so is the rest of the world doing that. They're everyone. They're not going to be able to compete. It compete in what? Just AI tech, you mean? Because we're behind? On the data center front. I'm saying they're going to compete by they're going to be doing even more relative stimulus.

Starting point is 01:05:45 They're going to be pumping more currency into their markets. Which will get converted to dollars. That's the dollar milkshake theory. So, yeah, so I disagree with that. I think we already are, have reached the period where we're going to have basically 10 years-ish of declining dollar value. I think the dollar is going to get weaker over the next 10 years, not stronger. So this remains to be seen. Just to be clear, when we're talking about the dollar for the audience, we're not talking about the

Starting point is 01:06:10 consumer prices that are people paying, the cost of goods and services. What we're talking about is the relative foreign exchange value, as measured, I think most people use the DXY as a proxy for currencies. And the problem I have with the argument is that most of the major lending still to this day, even after the Russian sanctions where people say, oh, everybody's going to flee the dollar, we have more transactions going through dollars, we have more credit creation that's denominated in dollars, regardless of the settlement mechanism. And I failed to see how that structural dynamic is going to change. Unless you're going to get the entire Eurodollar system to start issuing more denominations of credit in other currencies, which I can't really find one other than maybe Bitcoin,

Starting point is 01:06:49 which maybe that comes, maybe that transforms things and disrupts it. But are they going to do it in the Rubel? Are they going to do it in the yuan? Gold. I think gold and then Bitcoin are coming. And I think gold is already rising quickly as a reserve asset. It's the second largest. For credit creation? Not for credit creation, but that I think that's also coming. I think that the, I think the world is shifting from U.S. dominance to global hard asset dominance and we're just at the early days of that. And that's going to continue for the next 10 years or so. Yeah. My view is, this is very esoteric. Sorry, guys. No, no. My view is it's a weakening of U.S. hegemony. You have more regionalization. I totally buy that argument. But you framed it as the end of American exceptionalism.

Starting point is 01:07:30 And I failed to see a country out there that can truly rival the United States in terms of it's relative power. I can see regional blocks, of course, but that's, but they're not one country. Jeff, to your to the two charts that you threw up there as far as gold outperforming, call it the S&P, I would agree with that. I don't know how long it runs though before kind of this whole AI. I think everything's getting rewired for levels of efficiency that we can't even comprehend. So I don't understand how long that would run, but I think in the coming five years, I think you're going to be right about that. On the second one, the chart that Joe threw up there was amazing.

Starting point is 01:08:11 And it was showing that there has been no trend line that has broken with respect to the U.S. economy getting weaker versus relatively everybody else. So you might be right. But that was since 2011. That only went back to three. Yeah, no, I know that. But I'm saying like right now as we're looking at it, I'm looking at that trend. I'm saying that has definitely not been broken in any type of average true range or any type of like momentum.

Starting point is 01:08:35 metric that you want to use. So I think it's yet to be seen whether your thesis, the second thesis there is demonstrating any type of performance or validity. Yeah, so a couple points I'll just throw out there and then I'll stop. I think that the amount of debasement that's going to happen in the U.S. as we de-globalize and ramp up manufacturing here is going to be like it's the nothing stops us train. It's legit and we are going to debase the crap out of our currency. And that's going to cause the globe to lose confidence in U.S. dollars relatively, not completely. I'm not saying hyperinflation. I'm not one of those people. I'm saying, relatively speaking, we're going to increase the pace of people losing confidence in the dollar. The dollar is going to weaken.

Starting point is 01:09:18 Treasuries on an inflation-adjusted term are going to get absolutely decimated. The amount of money we have to spend to do the things that we're going to do are just going to cause a huge amount of debasement. And to your point, Preston, I think, yes, it hasn't, we haven't seen a definitive change yet. But if you look back just year to date, emerging markets, European stocks, Asian stocks have all significantly outperformed U.S. stocks to date, as has gold. And I think I'm, what I'm saying is this is the beginning. So six months, a trend does not make, but I think we're going to be talking about this five years from now and even 10 years from now. And we're going to look back at this as this was the pivot period right around this.

Starting point is 01:09:58 time. The only thing I'll say is that the debasement of the dollar letting the economy run hot is a direct, it's a coordinated strategy to manage U.S. debt. Yes. And to me, long run, if you use that strategy, you're going to hurt your people, you're going to make the cost of living increase. It's going to have very pernicious effects for society, potentially societal instability. But it makes your debt situation for more manageable. Yeah. Which means that the plates can keep spinning in the air. And so I'm agreeing with you. And I'm saying that's what what we're going to do. And that's why that's going, this is why this is going to, because smart people and nations are realizing this and they're going to pull their capital out and let us do,

Starting point is 01:10:37 we're going to inflate our debt away and get our debt to GDP under control. Yeah. But nobody's going to want to own our assets because of that is my kind of my point. So Americans were like the 70s, they're going to think they're doing okay, but they're actually going to get decimated in risk adjusted returns, excuse me, real returns, inflation adjusted returns. I threw up this chart real fast to to talk because we've been mentioning gold quite a bit during the conversation. And I think this chart is totally not amazing chart. This is not. I think about this chart all the time.

Starting point is 01:11:06 Like based on the trend line like as you lie awake at night, you think of the I do. I literally do because it looks like the Weimar chart. It's crazy. For people that are just listening, we're showing all of the gold, ETP, the ETFs and all that stuff that's holding gold, the performance and mostly just the total value.

Starting point is 01:11:27 value if you add it all up relative to the Bitcoin vehicles that the ETFs and the high bits and all that kind of stuff. And what you see is this chart where Bitcoin is just like a rocket chip quickly approaching the levels that the gold value is at. So whether the trend continues, who knows? We obviously were hardcore Bitcoiners. We think it is. But if you interpolate some of these lines out, it's getting really interesting here in the coming five years. Like really interesting. Yeah. So I don't know.

Starting point is 01:11:58 I find the whole pivot with Tether doing tokenizing gold really interesting. I think it's going to catch on. Why would anyone want to own gold, though? Why would you want to own gold? I think because you're too stupid to understand Bitcoin or? Well, I think most people that are older, they just, they understand gold. They understand the dollar. And they, that's the end of their level of thinking and caring about any of this stuff.

Starting point is 01:12:23 Yeah. It's for the boomers and some gen Xers. But yeah. Most people just want to just join a political party and then just blame the other side for all the woes in their life. And that's the end of the analysis. Like that's where 90% of the population is. A friend told me this thing today that I've been chewing on ever since where he said when you grow up and you become incurious, all kids are curious. Then you become incurious.

Starting point is 01:12:45 You stop having a true false framework run in your head and you start having an us them framework run in your head. I think that's what it is. is like, you know, Bitcoin people are people who are searching for truth and everybody else is us versus them. Yeah, I'd agree with that. All right. Any other topics? You guys are satisfied. It's all that preparation.

Starting point is 01:13:05 No, we have, we have to give the red meat to the audience. So we have to talk about price, right? Going forward here. Jeff is very bullish. I think everybody's bullish on this podcast. Where do we see this going? Do we think it's going to stare, step up, crawl higher through the end of the year? Do we expect any pullbacks during the fall?

Starting point is 01:13:23 I know we've kind of alluded to it going higher next year. I think that's generally the consensus for you with the panel here. Let's see if we're right about that. Where are we at at Christmas time? Where are we? Once our next? This is our Q2 or Q3? I forgot.

Starting point is 01:13:37 This is Q2? I think I'm staring at this chart. I think I'm a power law believer. Look at it. It looks real. I'm in. Power law, babe. No, I think that the most likely,

Starting point is 01:13:51 the most likely thing is that we get this. 2226 expansion. I agree with Jeff. I think that's sort of like a consensus view at the moment amongst Bitcoiners who've been here for a while. But again, we could easily go into, I don't know, man, it's so hard to pick because it's like that we could get the diminished returns narrative where we go to like 180 and then we have a 50% correction or something.

Starting point is 01:14:14 Or we could just keep going. So here's my prediction. My prediction is going to be, I think that the bull run is going to go on for four years. I'm just going to go out there. I haven't heard other people saying. Wow. I think we're going from here to 2028. I think it takes us beyond a million dollars.

Starting point is 01:14:32 I think it's on the back of this dot com style treasury, Bitcoin treasury company bubble. And I think that there will be probably a lull period in there or one or two low periods where, you know, it climbs up. It grabs onto an all-time high. And then 30, 40, 50% correction. There's a lull. But in the meantime, the treasury companies keep going,

Starting point is 01:14:52 you know, hockey sticking up and to the right, because if you look, if you check Bitcoin treasuries.com NVK's site, every week, there are more and more and more treasury companies, and they are not going to stop being added. And every single person I was talking to in Las Vegas was telling me that they were gearing up to start a treasury company. And again, a lot of these people are rank amateur who have no clue what they're doing. And there are podcasters on the board? By the way, are you guys on any boards? You're not telling me about, but like, you know, you can't, the excesses is a going to be there, the leverage is going to be there, the amateurs are going to do all the wrong things, and we're going to get this collapse. Yes, but this idea is so big, this narrative is so big,

Starting point is 01:15:31 it can carry us through. And I think there's, you know, an inherent reflexivity here to this big idea that now everybody has figured out, which is like, yes, Bitcoin is going to millions of dollars. I mean, just think about it. Just take a step back here. Just pause for a second and think to yourself, the president of the United States believes that Bitcoin is going to millions of dollars. The Treasury Secretary believes that. Okay. Elon must the richest man in the world believes that and thinks fiat money is hopeless. We all believe that, right? Your friend who you met at the bar for drinks, when Bitcoin crossed $100,000, he now believes that. Everyone believes, Wall Street believes, everyone believes, China believes it. Everyone believes it.

Starting point is 01:16:07 Okay. And the only logical thing to do when everybody believes in a big new idea, whether it's AI or the internet or Bitcoin, is to have a supermassive.com style bubble about the whole thing. So I think that's what's going to happen. And I think it's going to take us to the million dollar range over the course of three, four years. I appreciate that narrative response. But we're looking for a number for the price prediction by the end of the year. For the end of the year. It's like when I'm picking in that position, nobody answers the question.

Starting point is 01:16:34 What is the price at the end of the year? At the end of this year? Yes, 2025. Like 160. Pretty low. Wow. Yeah. Jeff.

Starting point is 01:16:42 I will be watching closely what the economy is doing and what leverage is doing. And if they're both. Rippin, I think Bitcoin could go very high by the end of the year. I thought we were going to 400. Isn't that still how? 475K has been my call based on past cycles, but the economy is so weird right now. Like we talked about, it's been muddling along since 2022. So I'm still waiting for the economy to pick up.

Starting point is 01:17:06 So I use that as my excuse. First of all, I'm planning on being wrong with that call, but so many people have used it as clickbait on their YouTube thing. So I feel like I'm like, it's like tattooed on my forehead. I think that we're going to extend. I don't know if we go three or four years like Hottle says, but I think we at least extend into the second quarter of 2026 now. That just kind of changes everything.

Starting point is 01:17:28 So if maybe we hockey stick in the second quarter of 2026, then I would actually have a higher price target. So here's what I'll say. If we hockey stick, if the economy is booming in the second quarter of 2026, then I'll raise my price target to 525,000. He wants an option on his prediction. target. I'm kind of with Hoddle. I bought some options today. Oh, man. And I priced when I was looking at what I think, you know, the conservative estimate of where it's going to be by the end of the year. Because normally when I buy an option, I always do two years. I always get myself enough runway. But these ones I bought are due in January. And I don't want to say too much because I don't want people. You know, to all follow you into the trade. I don't want people. Get a right. Yeah. I'm kidding. But I bought these. They're out of the money.

Starting point is 01:18:16 a decent amount. Like, they're pretty levered. But I got the timeline, so they come due in January of 2026. And I was using a base Bitcoin price of about 160, 170 for like a planning factor of like where I thought the underlying was going to go when I priced them. So do I think it can go more than that? I do think I can go more than that. But I guess I felt pretty confident that we could get to those price levels by call it Christmas of this year. So we'll see if I'm right. If not, it's going to be a painful situation.

Starting point is 01:18:51 But I obviously didn't do it with a whole lot of capital. I mean, this is not a very high conviction position. This is more like ashtray money. I'm going to have a little fun money. I'd take that bet though, Prest. I think that's a good one.

Starting point is 01:19:03 We'll see. What about you, Joe? And by the way, hold on, Joe, this is important. I bought it.

Starting point is 01:19:07 I bought it this morning and it closed the day up 20%. See? you? I doge. Bailed it. So we'll see tomorrow. It'll be down 30%. Go ahead, Joe. I've had the same target all year. I think we end the year between 1.30, 140.

Starting point is 01:19:22 But I also think we go a lot higher next year. Because to your point, I think the economy is going to heat up. Before we go, real quick, can we do like a lightning round? I want like three things. Three answers very quickly. It can be yes, no. Number one, huddle and everybody. Does Powell finish his term?

Starting point is 01:19:36 Number two, answer about, do we get any rate cuts this year? And number three, no. Sorry. What was that? No and no. I'm no and no. No rate cuts the entire year. Okay. And then the third one, which is just kind of for fun. Do we get any other major piece of legislation out of the administration this year? Also no. I'm going no across the board. No, no. What do you mean by a major? Well, I mean, I wouldn't consider like the Bitcoin Act or something. Like a yeah, Strategic Reserve Act, something Cynthia Lummis, anything, you know, we were talking about these things

Starting point is 01:20:04 getting passed and anything major on a Bitcoin front other than the stable coin, which is not really Bitcoin, but you know my point. So those three. go ahead. I'll take the exact opposite of Hoddle. Yes, yes, and yes. And number four, I think the four of us should start a mastermind treasury company. Jump on board with everybody. Let's go.

Starting point is 01:20:21 You think Powell's done? Hang on to say, I got to, you think Paul gets out this year? You think he's out. No, Hoddle said that. Yeah, there's a lot of talk about him. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. You think he's gone.

Starting point is 01:20:31 I think he stays. Powell's pretty stubborn, but there's a lot of pressure politically. So I think he stays and I think we get rate cuts. And I think we pass major legislation. What piece of legislation you think? I don't know. Something major. Okay.

Starting point is 01:20:44 So I don't think. Okay, Preston. I don't think Powell's going anywhere. And if true, then I don't think we're going to get any rate cuts. And I think they are going to pass the Bitcoin Act. Oh, wow. That's huge. That's crazy.

Starting point is 01:20:59 I guess that's more of me just being optimistic because I really, I honestly don't have a beat or have even heard a rumor as to what the probability on that is. I'm actually really curious what you think on that one, Joe. Yeah. Again, that's one of those things where I really. wish we would get it through. It's just going to be challenging. I think that they used up a lot of political capital on this big, beautiful bill. And I just think it's going to be hard to get anything through the Congress. And you got to remember with the window, basically, once you get into the fall, there's the holidays, there's not a whole lot of work going. And then, boom, we're into midterm elections.

Starting point is 01:21:29 And there's going to be, I think, I expect a very heated midterm election. And not to get into some of the recent headlines last 48 hours here, but even it seems like conservatives and people in the mega world are upset and frustrated. So we'll see how that. I put pants off. Do you think Elon's new party is going to actually be a thing, or is this just all talk? It's all talk. And the simple reason is this, there aren't national elections. There are 435 congressional districts, right, that have local elections. And you got to get on the ballots in those specific areas. And to get on as a third party, the system is rigged to prevent that. It's so difficult. Some congressional districts, you have to get like between 5 to 10 percent of registered voters in the actual district to get on the ballot. They make it prohibitive so that third parties can't. This is the big secret, right? Like the two-party monopoly is built at the state and local level so people can't get on the ballot.

Starting point is 01:22:20 In some ways, the easiest office to run for as a third party is the president. Aside from that, it's very challenging. And then to coordinate candidates across the whole country in individual congressional districts, it's going to be very difficult. Now, can he recruit a handful of people to go after some of his enemies on the hill? Absolutely. He can do that. And I expect him to do that, right?

Starting point is 01:22:41 but the notion that's going to be in, you know, the majority of the congressional districts, I just don't see it. Interesting. Well, what's your response? Joe, what's your response? So I think that Paul's not going anywhere. I completely agree with that. I do think we get a rate cut for two simple reasons.

Starting point is 01:22:55 Number one, the reason we thought that he is ostensibly was not going to do rate cuts was because he wanted to wait and see in his own words about the tariffs. So that's a huge reason, right? We waited and see. We haven't seen inflation manifests itself yet to a degree that would cause him to hold back in the rate cuts. But the bigger reason is he's an institutionalist and I think he's being attacked and the only way to ease off that pressure is to do the cut. So I don't think a 25-bip cut, the face-saving cut is going to amount to a hill of anything.

Starting point is 01:23:21 I don't think he changes really anything in the real economy, but it's very easy for him to take the heat off him politically because if he doesn't, he's going to face this shadow fed chair that they're dangling over him, like this chair waiting. I think all of this is again posturing to try to get him to do some modest face-saving cut. And then they're hoping the entire yield curve reacts to it. That's a hope and a prayer. I don't know. I don't think it will given the state of the economy. But is what it is. My one thought, Joe, to your midterm election being contentious is I would say a booming economy

Starting point is 01:23:52 covers a multitude of sins. And so if they can truly get it up and running by then, which I actually think there's a good chance that they do finally, that could sway the elections pretty significantly. I completely agree. And that's what the strategy is. Yep. So we'll see. That's why they're pounding the table on cuts.

Starting point is 01:24:07 They're pounding the table on all this stuff. Yep, I agree. All right, gentlemen. What a pleasure. I look forward to the next one. Thank you for always making time. Let's go around the horn starting off with Jeff. Give people a handoff where they can learn more about you.

Starting point is 01:24:19 First of all, Preston, I want to thank you for preparing this so hard and being ready for it. Disaster. It was awesome. Ad lib. I run a little friends and family hedge fund, and that's about it. Go touch grass. You should follow hot old Joe and Preston. Don't follow me.

Starting point is 01:24:35 We'll have a link in the show notes to Jeff's. Oh, I'm sorry. Can I say one more thing? Yeah. Public service announcement. I am not on any other social media. I know you guys probably have this problem too. If you see anybody that looks like me on anywhere on social media other than Noster, it is not me. So do not click any links. Don't send anybody any money. Please don't do that. It's an imposter. Thank you. Joe. Joe Carlosari. I'm at Joe Carlos Sari on Twitter where I'm quite active talking about financial things. I do have a day job that I work as litigator. So if you have a litigated dispute, please contact me. If I can't help you, someone else will. We handle a representation. for a variety of Bitcoin miners, complex commercial disputes, fraud claims, some securities work, and really anything in the courtroom litigation. So we do have a regulatory practice for crypto businesses, Bitcoin businesses as well. So I look forward to trying to help you if you do. If you're an innovator in the space, definitely reach out because I'd like to help.

Starting point is 01:25:25 Best lawyer in America right there. Hottle, go ahead. I don't have anything to shill. I don't care if you follow me. But these homies of mine on Noster, they make this ghee called Great Gee. Check it out. It says, highest quality animal fat for the hardest money on earth. Nice. And it's made from raw jersey cow milk. It's really delicious. It's really good.

Starting point is 01:25:47 So you can only buy it on Noster. It's a Noster only business. Check them out. Great key. Great key. Everybody. Available on Nostler. All right.

Starting point is 01:25:55 Gentlemen, really appreciate your time. This is always such a pleasure. And I really do look forward to the next one. So thank you guys. Thanks, present. Thanks for listening to TIP. Make sure to listen. Follow Bitcoin Fundamentals on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes.

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We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC244: Bitcoin Mastermind Discussion Q2 2025 w/ Joe Carlasare, HODL, and Jeff Ross (Bitcoin Podcast)

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