What Bitcoin Did - ORANGE PILLING WALL STREET W/ Jack Mallers

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Jack Mallers is the Founder and CEO of Strike, and the Co-Founder and CEO of 21. In this episode, we discuss the breakdown of the post-WWII monetary order, the consequences of the U.S. exporting dollars, and why the dollar’s global reserve status is becoming a liability rather than a strength. We also get into 21’s plan to take Bitcoin-native principles into the heart of Wall Street, how companies like MicroStrategy and Metaplanet are paving the way for sovereign-grade Bitcoin exposure, and why proof-of-reserves and Bitcoin per share may become the new standard for corporate treasuries. Follow: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles or https://primal.net/danny Jack Mallers: https://x.com/jackmallers or https://primal.net/jackmallers THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: IREN: https://www.iren.com/ RIVER: https://river.com/wbd ANCHORWATCH: https://www.anchorwatch.com/ LEDGER: https://www.ledger.com/ CASA: https://casa.io/

What was set up post the world wars to be candid, it's dying. It can't sustain itself. And there's no doubt that we are moving into a new monetary era. We've consistently bailed out, bailed out, bailed out. Now we're at the Holy Mother Mecca of the treasuries market. And now we're seeing a sovereign debt crisis. And that's what I think we're living through now. You're just taking naked debt that you're trapped with forever.

And people nowadays die with that debt. That's debt slavery. That's bad debt. you're stuck in a fiat virtuous loop. If you have a scarce desirable asset, don't get rid of it. Like, with Bitcoin, we finally have liquid land. And you can store on a hardware device

that no one else can print or make more of. Don't sell it. What Bitcoin did is brought to you by our lead sponsor and massive legend, Iron, the largest Nasdaq listed Bitcoin miner using 100% renewable energy. Iron are not just powering the Bitcoin network. They also provide cutting edge computing resources

for AI all lacked by renewable energy. So whether you're interested in mining Bitcoin or harnessing AI compute power, Iron is setting the standard. Visit iron.com to learn more, which is iri-e-en.com. Thanks for having me in the closet, man. Of course, man. I think thanks for coming. This is so cool. Everyone thinks it's a fake Zoom background. It's not. I actually, I think it's one of the strongest memes I've got, to be honest. What is the story behind the closet? Well, you're in my house. You know that. There's rooms that exceed just this closet. So you can see them. You can vouch for me. You actually have other clothes. I have other clothes. You've seen them. You know where I sleep now. So welcome. The story is when I got

this place, I had a media segment. I want to say it was pomp, maybe, whatever, something. And you've seen the house now. This is the best room for an office, in my opinion. A hundred percent. And so I set, that used to be, so where this camera is coming in behind you guys watching on YouTube. is my desk. And that used to be a makeup desk. And so I ran in, I put my laptop down, and I think I did CNBC or Pomp or something. And everyone was like, wait a second.

Is this kid at the time trying to change money out of an empty women's closet? And I was like, honestly, yeah, I am. And I thought it was just such a powerful meme because I know you want to talk about some of the macro stuff, because the United States has taken on the role the world reserve currency,

run these persistent deficits by just printing paper and exporting them everywhere, it's turned Americans into massive consumers. Like one of the biggest examples of over-financializing America and turning everyone into a consumer up to their chin of just stuff they don't need. Look at this room.

This is perfect. Someone, when I toured this place before I bought it, there was Gucci bags and, high heels in here. And I mean, it's a nice couple. So, you know, I'm not trying to make fun of them, but I was, Jesus Christ. So when the meme started to go around on Twitter, I was like, you know what? Yeah, damn right. This is exactly where I should work on Bitcoin, right in the middle of what's wrong with the world is that we're printing pieces of paper to overconsume a bunch of stuff we don't actually need. There's no proof of work. And that's the story.

If your girlfriend never moves in, she's going to have to fill this closet, though. She actually just moved in. Oh, did she? She moved in a few weeks ago. But that's how you know she's a keeper's because she never even asked. We share the other closet. This is too good of a meme. Maybe once we reach hyper-bitquinization, I'll put some stuff in here. But until then, I'm proving a point. I think the closet speaks more in visuals than I can never put into words. I love it. But you've been busy. You've launched lending on strike. You've changed the name of the podcast. You're crushing the podcast. And you've now the CEO of 21. I've known you for a time and you've always been busy. How on earth do you have the time for all of this?

You know what's funny is I don't think my life has actually changed that much. I've, I got into Bitcoin through my, my dad got me into Bitcoin when I was 18. And ever since then, I've spent my entire life working on Bitcoin. At one point, it was teaching myself to code. At one point, I was an open source contributor. And my life continues to just be, I wake up, I work on Bitcoin. Now there's two separate companies. that I do that through. But not much has changed for me in that respect. I remember when I started 21, I called Dorsey is one of the first phone calls I made. He's always been like an older brother, not even like an uncle, an elderly wise uncle to me. And I asked him, like, you've run two companies.

Like, am I just screwing myself? And he was like, no, dude, if anything, like, you got it figured out. My two companies had nothing to do with each other. I like was running a social network. and then I was like helping merchants, like, process credit cards. You're just working on Bitcoin, bro. And so for that reason, not much has changed. I think if anything, the people I'm surrounded by just keep getting better. Like, just blessed. The strike team is like unbelievable.

Like my team there is so good that they've supported me. We talk a lot about at strike allowing me to face externally. So not being internal at meetings, managing the engineers, going out and trying to change the world. And so I think it's anything credit to them. And I just keep working on it. I'm just trying to help do the same thing you are, man, like trying to make sure that the world has a chance to understand Bitcoin and Bitcoin has a chance to change the world. A hundred percent. And I think like, I listened to your show and you've been talking a lot of macro stuff recently. And I think there's probably never been a better time to have to understand Bitcoin.

Like one of the things, I had Lynn on the show recently, and we were talking about the trade deficit. And one of the kind of questions I had around that is, are we at the start of the beginning of the end of the US dollar as the global reserve currency? And I've seen you talking about this recently. Like, where do you think we're out on that? I think we are. Yeah. But, you know, defined beginning.

I think such big conversations, we don't use tight enough language. We're at the start, okay? The start of what? Of the end of the dollars or a world reserve currency. Okay, how long is that transition? a year, a decade, a century. Yeah. So I think these things will take time,

but I think there's no doubt that the current economic relationships, what was set up post the world wars, to be candid, it's dying. It can't sustain itself. And there's no doubt that we are moving into a new monetary era.

Yeah. What that looks like, you know, we all have biases. And then you can take a look at what China and Trump and everyone is doing and thinking about. You can make educated guesses, but I would make,

I'm very confident that the current monetary regime globally is turning. There's no doubt about that. The reason I say, I wonder if we're at the start of it, is because this has obviously been going really since, like you say, the World Wars and then post-71.

But it feels like with everything that Trump's doing in terms of tariffs and stuff, perhaps, it's hard to know what his incentives are exactly, but perhaps they're now accepting the fact that the U.S. being the World Reserve Currency issuer might not actually be good for America. Lay that bit out. What do you think is happening right now that leads us to think that the U.S. won't be the World Reserve Currency issuer? Yeah, well, I think we go back to 100 years ago. The reason to understand why we don't want to be, you have to understand why we took

the role in the first place, in my opinion. So after the World Wars, the U.S. was the strongest economy strongest manufacturer. Yep. But in my opinion, the most important, we had the most gold. We had taken gold deposits from Europe, like France. We had taken gold deposits from everybody. And we wanted to somehow export our strength.

So imagine Japan, Russia, China, Germany, everyone's in ruins, utter disaster. And they got to get back on their feet. A way to get back on your feet is, hey, let us produce stuff for people that have money to consume our shit. Right? So Germany's going to make really good cars. Russia became the best natural resource producer in the world for natural commodities. China's now the world's factory. And the relationship was, as the United States, we'll export our strength via the U.S. dollar. And in return, we'll import from you guys. So you guys can produce stuff. We'll buy it from you because we have people that are healthy and growing and that can consume it like Americans in this big closet with all these Gucci bags. And that way, we can get the world back on its feet post in utter design. There are no winners from a world war, right?

Like, that's what an American would say. No one won, but if anyone won, we did. And we're going to take on the world reserve currency status. Now, naturally, there's the Triffin dilemma, right? There is, if you are the world reserve currency issuer, naturally, you have to operate in a deficit. It's the way it works, because what you're exporting, naturally, is the dollar itself.

So you are sending out these paper notes, and you are importing real stuff. stuff. Which sounds great. Like on the face of it, if you're like, we can print this thing out of thin air, send it to people, and we get real goods in return, that sounds great. Right. When does that become a problem? Well, I think it wasn't always printing it out of thin air is the interesting part. Initially, it was backed by gold. Yeah. And then eventually, at one point, when we started running these, like, massive deficits and we were really spending a lot at the government level and financing all these wars, people forget, a lot of European countries, like France in particular was like,

give me my fucking gold back. And Nixon was like, nope. Just kidding. The dollars that I gave you actually don't get gold. You can't redeem gold for these anymore. And everyone was like, what? And then we went from the dollar was back by gold to the petro dollar system,

Petro for Petroleum. It was the U.S. set up a relationship. It was a really like soft guarantee with Saudi Arabia, which was who's like the lowest cost marginal producer of petroleum, which runs the world, Saudi Arabia. And the relationship was, if you guys sell and price your oil in dollars, we will sell you weapons.

Okay, this is a really important part of the United States story is the power of the United States military. I'll get back to that in a second. And so now we're on this petro dollar system where if the lowest marginal producer of oil prices their oil in dollars, then everyone needs dollars. Because if you don't have oil and you don't have energy, you know, money is time and energy in an abstracted form. If you don't have oil and energy, you don't have cars, you don't have factories, you can't move, you can't turn the lights on, you can't do shit. And so now everyone needs dollars, not because it was backed by gold and we're on a gold standard, but because everyone needs oil. And what is Saudi Arabia get in return, they get weapons. And they get weapons because they wanted to hurt people at the time. And then there was this de facto backing by the U.S. military where anyone that thought they weren't going to play ball with buying oil and dollars, the U.S. military was going to be there to fuck you up. And that's just the threat of violence that Fiat has always had. 100%. And we did a show about that years and years ago now with Gladstein and Nick Carter

about like potentially the original war in Afghanistan was because Osama bin Laden started to try to price his oil in euros. Yeah, I mean, who knows? Yeah, who knows? But it's an interesting idea. Yes. As an American citing history, we went from gold to the petra dollar. And then I think what's important to understand is as these deficits,

compound. So again, you take on the World Reserve Currency status. You have to run a deficit. You have to run a deficit because you have to give the world. Think of like Bitcoin, for example, is distributed through mining. How are dollars distributed? Dollars are distributed by the United States. So in order for people to get the dollars, you need to give it to them. And so we would give them dollars because they need it for oil and to trade. And we would get stuff. That compounds over time. And those deficits grow and grow and grow. Now, obviously, in trade, where, there's a deficit, there's a surplus. So someone's taking the other side of our deficits. Our biggest counterpart is China. And so then to understand the global trade imbalances is China is now running today

a surplus of over a trillion dollars annually. So in business terms, they're making over a trillion dollars of cash flow a year trading with the world. And initially with the petro dollar, the relationship was pretty good for the U.S. because we'll give you guys a bunch of dollars. you can't hold those dollars. Only U.S. banks can hold those dollars. So we give you the dollars, but then you open a U.S. bank account. Those U.S. banks then buy our treasuries and lend it right back to us. And that was the deal. And so you've had the dollar back by gold, then back by oil slash U.S. Treasuries. But then that relationship severed. And it was just U.S. Treasuries for a little bit. And so someone like China who's making all this money, it's really important to know,

China can't make a trillion dollars and reinvest it in China because it'll strengthen their local currency. the export business that's making them the surplus in the first place. So you have to do something with the dollars that's external to your own nation. And so it was all right, we'll put it back in the treasuries market. Well, after 2008, the United States and politicians sided with Wall Street and lobbyists and to get reelected and not with trading partners and those that own all the debt and are the marginal lenders to the country. So starting in 2014, China stopped buying any U.S. debt. They've started to reduce their position. And so then the U.S. dollar was de facto backed by the U.S. stock market. China's like, okay, I have a trillion U.S. dollars a year. I can't turn

around and invest it locally. What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff? Initially, the dollars backed by gold, then oil, then treasuries. Now I guess Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and these are good companies. Now it's tech. Because China are just putting it into the Mike 7. Then they just started plowing money into U.S. assets. So real estate, farmland, tech stocks. And that's when you started to see that, like, I would make an argument that U.S. exceptionalism has been funded by foreign trading partners. Everyone was like, oh, U.S. tech stocks go up because it's U.S. and U.S. is better. And whenever you dig and ask, wait, I don't understand why. What do you mean just U.S.? like our specific latitude longitude is better than someone in Nigeria.

Like, ah, it's too hard to explain. Just trust me, it's the U.S. It's like, no, well, companies are trading 50 times earnings, which is irrational. Everyone's kind of sprighty senses are like, well, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would I pay 50 times earnings for a company? And then you realize, oh, it's because China has nowhere else to put their trade surplus. And then all of a sudden you get to today, which is if you've been running compounding deficits and you've exported your middle class

and your ability to manufacture stuff. Our ability to produce goods and services like this iPhone, this camera, that's in China. Our ability to produce natural resources, that's in Russia. The best cars, that's in Germany. The U.S., we struggle to produce stuff so much so that it became a national security threat.

Well over 50% of the materials we need to build weapons is now reliant on China. And so this idea that at one point, the U.S. was making deals with Saudi Arabia, and if you didn't like the deal, the U.S. military would make sure you liked the deal. That's no longer a guarantee. I think what happened in the Ukraine is interesting. Did the U.S. lose a proxy war with Russia? Now, I'm not political. I'm not taking sides. I'm speaking as someone interested in money and finance and in macroeconomics is what happened in the Ukraine very threatening because if the U.S. can't produce.

weapons at the velocity of a Russia or a China because we've to such a great deal outsourced our ability to make things because we've eroded the middle class because there are now two Americas. When you erode the middle class, you have you're either poor or you're rich. You're rich because you're living on the coasts of America. You're in California, you're in New York. It's because you own tech or you own stocks. And you're the benefit of China bidding up and creating asset inflation and the things you own. If you're in the middle of America, you're poor. Your manufacturing job is gone and your paychecks aren't keeping up with the asset inflation that all of this is causing. And so what we're living through is a policy design.

I mean, a lot of it is, you know, market dynamics, but most of it is because there are central planners that decided this is the world they wanted us all to live in. And so it's gotten to a point where it's unsustainable, where the U.S. can't arguably defend itself for much longer because it needs China to create weapons. It's that there's such civil unrest that the lower class is now the majority of this country. And the top 10% of America own over 90% of the assets, such asset inflation, such currency debasement, such inflation in real goods and dollar terms. And so that is where I think we are today and why it can't last much longer. And what we're seeing now is the disruption in the bond market. So you go from gold to Petro to Treasury.

And we've consistently bailed out, bailed out, bailed out. Now we're at the holy mother mecca of the treasuries market. And that is like there is no other step after that. That's it. And now we're seeing a sovereign debt crisis. And that's what I think we're living through now. This episode is brought to you by River, the best place for Bitcoiners and businesses to buy Bitcoin.

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Financial Freedom Report.org. So it's interesting you say the wealth divide in America, because I've traveled a lot. And in terms of Western developed nations, I think the wealth divide here is by far the worst that I've seen. Yeah. And like that's all the product of this system. But the thing that I don't fully understand when we get to like demand for U.S. Treasuries, we know like the Fed right now is not buying them.

Yep. We know demand from foreign countries is. dropping. Yep. And so like the US-based hedge funds have basically stepped in and plugged that gap. Yep. But Trump is now pushing drone power to try and lower rates, and it seems like he'll get his way at some point. We'll see when. If rates are lowered, will that not remove demand from US hedge funds buying treasuries? And then who steps in and fills the gap then? Is that basically when the Fed just prints a load of money? Yeah. And I actually don't think Fed interest rates matter anymore. Okay. At least right now. Is this like the

fiscal dominance argument. Yeah, I think it's, we're living in fiscal dominance. And I think at the end of the day, it's not politically palatable anymore to lower rates and say we're doing QE because everyone in the grocery store down the street here in Chicago knows QE is inflation. Inflation is bad. And thanks for trying Trump, but Democrats are going to try next time because I don't like inflation. And you can't get away with that anymore. So you have to go about it in a sneakier way. I was going to say, does that mean they won't print money or they'll just do it in a different way? It won't be called QE. It's a different way.

At the end of the day, at the end of the day, this is what's happening. I think what Trump, following Trump's journey and just since he's been in office has been fascinating because you mentioned his tariffs,

but he's already pivoted from tariffs. He went straight from tariffs to capital controls. Tariffs didn't work. Why didn't they work? They caused such disorderly activity in the Treasury's market. And the United States is structurally short volatility,

which is what you're talking about. Can we describe what, what happened in the treasury market because everyone won't know. But I assume what you're saying then is like when Trump implemented the tariffs, like stock markets crashed and the treasury market, yield still went up. Is that what you mean? Yeah. So when you see traditionally, treasury, like bonds are safe haven asset. You see stocks down. You see people flee into the tenure because it's safe. It's a risk-free return. So people, Wall Street, my new best friend at 21, they'll say, the stock market is for risk. Bonds are for safety.

Yeah. So if it's risk off and we're all fleeing stocks, we're going into where returns are risk-free. Yeah. And this is where people would have the classic like 60-40 portfolio that probably no longer exists. But what we saw on Liberation Day where all of us in America felt quite liberated, you saw dollar down, stocks down, bonds down. That the way bond math works is when the bond math works is when the bonds go down, the yields go up. Yeah. Because they're saying, this thing's not worth enough. I need to get paid more to own this piece of crap.

So dollar down, stocks down, bonds down, gold up. What does that mean, Danny? That means foreign capital is leaving America. That does not mean risk is moving from risk on to risk off. That means China got the message that Trump said, take your money and go home. And they're like, okay, then if I can't own, If I can't own Mag 7, I can't own farmland, I can't own real estate. You don't allow me to

own any of this stuff. Oh, and by the way, your treasuries are losing on real terms. Sure, I'm getting paid four and a half percent to own the 10 year, but the dollar's inflating more than four and a half percent. So I'm losing purchasing power. And I got no choice than to own something else. And what should I own? Well, the one thing Trump did not tariff was gold. And I think it's very interesting that during all of this re-orchestrating of capital flows, Trump made a very specific point to start a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. And now you've seen the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund come out with a Bitcoin position. I think, so if I'm trying to I'm saying, okay, well, sell stocks, sell bonds, I'll buy gold, I'll buy Bitcoin. And to me, the United States is saying that in more or less

words. Because Trump, the tariffs didn't work. And Trump pivoted to capital control. Now the Trump tax bill, all of a sudden is the main character. How is the Trump tax bill trying to compensate and achieve what tariffs were? Well, he's just being more aggressive and forward in what he wants. The tax bill is, I'm going to impose capital controls where there's a 30% withholding tax on foreign investors to own things like stocks, land, real estate. So basically, get your money out. If you want to own a penthouse in Manhattan, if you want to own 10% of Google, If you want to own like the dope stuff in America, because it's fun. Like here, China, we're going to print a bunch of money.

We're going to give it to you. You're going to have a surplus and you go shopping with the dollars. But it's not that funny when they own Google, Facebook, Apple, the best houses, all the farmland. Then it's not that funny, is it? They were supposed to buy our treasuries and lend us money at negative real rates. But when they realize that the joke's on them and they start buying all the stuff that we actually like, then it's not that funny. And so then Trump says, well, I'm going to put a tax on you guys. Get your money out.

Okay? Well, you are not allowed to be the world reserve currency. Give me a surplus in these little piece of paper that you print and not let me buy anything with it. What do you want me to buy? Okay, no stocks, no land, no real estate, no 10 year. Oh, you didn't tariff gold. Oh, you started a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.

Oh, are we moving towards a neutral reserve asset world? Where one day Trump's going to be like, oh, I'm repricing gold on America's balance sheet. And by the way, we're going to buy a million of them. And, you know, one day your dollar is going to be redeemable for Sats or something. I don't know, right? To me, that's what, and I think we should talk, too, about how the U.S. is structurally short volatility, because that, to me, to answer your question, too, is where the money printing is going to come from. It's this, it's how they're going to

build out the treasuries market. Let's talk about that, but just quickly first. Luke Groman always talks about freezing the Russian treasuries as like the shot heard around the world. Yeah. Do you think that is playing like a big role in the fact that these countries are now looking at neutral reserve assets, basically gold at the moment instead of U.S. Treasuries. That's definitely one of them. Yeah, I mean, that day, on that day, property rights in America became property if we feel like you have the right, which is not property rights. Yes. So the land of like the most sophisticated judicial system that like protects, you know, human freedoms went from property rights to like, if I decide you have property rights. And so,

yeah, no, I don't want to store my time, energy, effort, and labor with someone that might not like me in a few years. That doesn't sound like a good deal. I want to talk about property rights, but let's do that a bit later, because I want to talk to how it relates to Bitcoin and the idea of, like, capture by Wall Street. But we'll come back to that. So first, why don't we get into the why the U.S. can't handle volatility? Well, you had asked the point of, like, where's the money printing going to come from? Because at the end of the day, there's a hole, right? And, you know, someone has to lose, I think is the point. And recently, when the Treasury market got volatile, Scott Besson stepped in immediately. And he talked about what's called Treasury buybacks.

And Jamie Diamond and him talked about removing the supplemental leverage ratio. I think what's interesting and what people should understand is if someone like China with their trillion dollars of annual surplus is not lending to the United States and buying these crappy bonds, anymore. Who's replacing that? Because the U.S. is running on a deficit. The U.S. needs people to lend it money. If the U.S. is a business, it's unprofitable. It can't sustain itself. It needs a lender. Who's the marginal lender to the United States? Who's replaced it? You had references the U.S. banking system and these hedge funds. I thought it was hilarious when Pollo and Tether tweeted like, look, we're number six in the world at buying treasuries. And the Cayman Islands or something was

number one. And the Cayman Islands was number one. Cayman Islands population, 73,000. So it's not because the Cayman Islands is naturally wealthy or those are the 73,000 richest people in the world. It's because where all these Wall Street hedge funds are domiciled. And in order for U.S. banks and a hedge fund to replace China and India in all of these massive surplus countries in buying U.S. debt, they can't do it by themselves.

They need leverage. So this is where like the basis trade comes and right. And I roughly understand the basis trade, but not in detail. So tell me what's going on there. It's just an arbitrage. It's just, you know, buying a physical, selling a future, you're just making the difference. But the reason that that's important is arbitrage traders, you don't care about the price. Like, take these two, what camera am I looking at? This one. Take these two water bottles. If I can buy the one on my left for a dollar on the east side of town and sell the one I'm, sell it on the west side of town for $10. I don't actually care if it's $1 to $10 or $1,000 to $100,000.

I care that there's a difference. And I monetize the inefficiency of the difference. And that's a buyer that isn't price sensitive because they're not actually buying to hold it. They're buying to trade it. And so that's the perfect buyer for U.S. debt because these things are so awfully priced and they're negative real rates. But who cares? They're arbitraging. But these hedge funds aren't big enough in buying power to replace China and continue to allow the U.S. to operate at the size and scale. I mean, our deficits are compounding. We're spending more and more and more and more money. And Scott Besson has talked about the end state being to remove the deficit and equalize the budget.

But that's not his goal in this term. He just wants to reduce it. So we're still going to have deficits. So you have to find a marginal lender. And the only way for these hedge funds and banks like Jamie Diamond, to get away with replacing China is with leverage. If you take Jamie Diamond a bunch of hedge fund bros and you allow them to lever themselves up by a million, then they can replace China. But without the leverage, they can't. And so when you see Scott Besson say, let's get rid of the supplemental

leverage ratio, which is forcing banks to post collateral to take leverage. Ah, screw your collateral. Unlimited leverage to buy treasuries. Treasury buybacks for these hedge funds. Unlimited leverage. And have they done this? That's what they're doing now. So they keep, you know, these financial financial authorities don't ever want to surprise the market because they're structurally short volatility. So the point is when there's so much leverage in the financial system, leverage in volatility don't go hand in hand because when there's extreme volatility, you got to post more collateral to keep your leverage. These hedge funds and banks don't have the collateral positions closed. The whole system falls apart. So that's why any time the Treasury market has gotten

volatile, financial authorities will step in, remediate, say we will print the money, immediately as soon as the move index got, so this is like the VIX for the treasury market, got above 135, 145. You hear from the Fed, you hear from Scott Besant, you hear from Jamie Diamond. Same day. And so that's where the money is going to be printed in the form of credit is one of the ways, is just unlimited leverage to keep these markets stable. Eventually you might see, you know, the Fed with some form of yield curve control. But, Bitcoin, in my opinion, is reacting to these financial authorities providing credit and asserting that they will not, under any circumstances, allow the Treasury market to be volatile because America's structurally short volatility because they're supported only by leverage. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. And what can cause the basis trade to blow up? Because I could be wrong here, but like, I don't know when it was, maybe six, eight months ago. Didn't the basis trade in Japan blow up? What happened there? Well, basically, the whole world is running a basis trade pretty much, which is like, you know,

borrow dog shit currencies and buy shit in America. Yeah. And Trump's, like, the America first investment policy that Trump came out with in February was quite literally, like, hey, foreign investors, get your capital out of the country. Because, again, Trump won popular vote here in America. 65% of Americans don't have a college degree. The only people that can benefit from asset inflation, traditionally are those that are university educated

because those are the ones that get jobs on the coast and those are the ones that have a stock portfolio and those are the ones that have excess cash at the end of a paycheck that can actually invest in real things. And so Trump has been saying, Main Street, not Wall Street, Main Street, not Wall Street. I'm from middle of America. And so he's saying,

get your money out of the country because I need to make assets affordable again. I need to bring back manufacturing. And so the whole basis trade, that's true for these hedge fund guys. That's true for Japan. But that's true. The whole world is running a quote unquote basis trade, which is like, I'm going to borrow a depreciating currency that's worth nothing. And I'm going to buy all the nice, desirable, scarce assets in America that's been the true. trade and either you're really rich in America and you've benefited from that or you're never affording anything in America. You need debt to own your home. You need debt to own your car. You need debt to learn math at Harvard. Now you need debt. You need debt to go to the grocery

store. Credit card debt's as high as it's ever been. So you're in one of those camps and the whole world's unwinding from that. Do you think the Trump administration have like truly realized the problem here or do you think they're just like politicking? No, I think they're truly, I think this is a bipartisan effort. And like I've said this and the world should know this. I've never voted. Like I'm not, I don't have political sides. Yeah.

So I think this is a bipartisan effort to, this is unsustainable. I think at some point it's becoming a national security threat. Like I said, like you can debate on whether we should be manufacturing stuff and how much you value the wealth gap. You know, at this point I think it's ethical. Like, you know, the wealth gap is so severe.

it's like you said, you can visit and see it. But once it gets to the point where like we might not be able to produce weapons fast enough, then, you know, like the Department of Defense comes in and says, hey guys, like, I don't care about what's red versus blue and stuff. Like my job is to make sure that we can survive some threat, physical threat. I think that's, we're even getting to that point, probably. Yeah, I think so too. And like obviously gold has been just,

like immense over the last six months or so. In terms of like moving to a neutral reserve currency, do you think the likely scenario is gold first than Bitcoin? Yeah. Well, so, you know what's interesting is Bitcoin, I'm not sure, Bitcoin might not have the skeleton, the frame to support $200 trillion of wealth over the next like few years, whatever the number is, right? And so I would say, both, I think it's a tale as old as time. Both will go up. Bitcoin will go up a lot more. Bitcoin will severely outperform for the obvious reasons. It's harder. It's scarcer. It's better money with all monetary properties. But, you know, our central banks and China, is China going to take their trade surplus and plow it into Bitcoin? I mean, they're going to send the price. You know,

it's a much more difficult asset. I think people don't necessarily appreciate that, you know, think of Bitcoin like a skeletal muscular frame. Like how strong is it? How much weight can you put on its back right now? Can it take China's trade surplus? On an annual basis, China is a trillion. Bitcoin's market catch two trillion. And so I think what you'll see is Bitcoin will grind up and continue to outperform gold. And at some inevitable point, it'll be big enough. But I think for the time being, you'll probably see both do well. because the amount of capital and the size and demand of a new monetary transition, Bitcoin's just not big enough yet, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that does make sense. And it's interesting that this is where Saylor was genius with what he's done, is that I think he spotted this first. And on the corporate level, that change is happening. And now 21. Yeah. So tell us about that. What's going on?

21. I mean, our goal from the highest level is to bring what we think is a unique vehicle to the U.S. capital markets for the biggest, most mature public market to participate in Bitcoin's story. We think we're different than some of the other Bitcoin treasury companies in ways that we find important. And I can tell you all about the founding story and such. But yeah, our job is to deliver more Bitcoin per share and allow investors and fixed income investors and such participate in Bitcoin in the biggest market of the world. So I want to to get into like all the details but I want to know how it came about like how did the guy in the

hoodie end up on wall street yeah uh well I co-founded the business with tether yeah so now my official title founder CEO strike co-founder CEO 21 pretty fucking cool not bad um yeah uh long long long way from evinston a little little suburb outside Chicago um so co-founder with tether i think you know the tether guys personally and at this point my opinion on them is public. Like, I think they've been widely misunderstood, in my opinion. I agree. I don't know if, yeah, have you met Paulo? I've not actually met him. I was in D.C. when I saw you do the fireside with him, but I've never, I've never met him in person. Yeah. Okay, well, you should. I'll make that intro at some point. I'm sure he'd love to come on the show. Yeah, I've known

them for a long time. I think for newer bit-coiners, I've been in Bitcoin for almost 13 years. And the Tether guys, I think longer. I've known the Tether Group for since before Tether was founded. I've known them since Bipfinex. And there's been all sorts of overlap, like Biffinex was the first to integrate lightning, first big exchange, and I obviously was an early lightning engineer. El Salvador. I was a big part of the El Salvador story. Tether's now domiciled there, and they've kind of picked up the baton where I left it and am carrying El Salvador in all sorts of innovative ways. So I think I would say we've philosophically aligned on what Bitcoin means. I mean, both strike and tether uniquely serve Latin American and African

markets. A lot of the emerging markets is where our products are. So philosophical alignment, I think there's like the maybe there's like the coin-based circle side of the world. And then there's like the jack and tether side of the world where we think Bitcoin only and a stable coin is valuable where the dollar doesn't exist. And then there's kind of like the Western elitist version of there's abundance of crypto, Ethereum is cool. And stable coins are valuable because for some reason like someone in Silicon Valley would

rather have USDC instead of a Chase account. And those are kind of the opposing views. and I've been friends with those guys under that type of philosophical alignment for a really long time. Do you know the coolest thing that I think Bitfinex did was when they launched the futures

ahead of the, like during the block size wars in 2017. That was like to me because I was new to Bitcoin and I got in like 2016 and I remember watching that and being utterly confused by the argument because like I still didn't understand it properly.

Yeah. And that was when I got clarity when I could see like what the market said. Yeah. I think that's one of the coolest things they ever did. I think these guys have been Bitcoiners And it's hard to express this because now Bitcoin's so big. Like we're a week out of this Vegas conference and it's going to be like a carnival.

But back in the day, a meetup had 10 people. Like you would literally buy pizza and a keg. Like my parents started the first meetup in Chicago. You'd buy pizza and a keg just to see if anyone within 20 mile radius, like knew what Bitcoin was. Didn't you have Andreas at your house? Wasn't that one of the meals? Andreas Antonopoulos and first like Chicago meetup ever was in my living room when I got home from school.

And so the tether guys were around then. And to your point, like just good Bitcoiners and have been through a decent amount and fought what I've always considered, and it's my personal opinion, on the right side of Bitcoin. The whole story of like tether is also fascinating, but separate. I would say for 21, it was just friends talking about Bitcoin. So maybe four or five years ago, whenever Saylor started his micro strategy pivot, we were in all like everyone else. I think Bitcoin inspires the most creative thinking

because it's the freest market we've ever seen. So there's no one in the way of humans innovating and testing the free market to its most utter and complete capacity. And that's what I viewed as Sailor doing. And we were like, wow, this is cool. Then I would say maybe like one to two years ago, more recently, we had seen, you know, through Tether, through strike, through our own life experiences, so much institutional demand for Bitcoin, the capital markets'

appetite for Bitcoin had grown so much. And we had felt like there was an interesting opportunity for us where Saylor has his first mover advantage. He's got so much Bitcoin. He's done such a good job. But no one of his size or scale has built any technology with their Bitcoin treasury, has not used the capital markets to build tools for the market. And Paulo and I, we're technologists, before we were CEOs, we were both engineers. And we were like, okay, there's no Bitcoin treasury company of that size and scale and stature that is a Bitcoin business, that isn't pivoting, that it doesn't have like some legacy business. They're still running that is like founded by Bitcoins. It's going to build Bitcoin software and has a vision of, you know,

like how this technology can influence the world. And then conversely, maybe there are other Treasury companies that are interested in that aspect of being a Bitcoin Treasury business. But they were maybe a bit smaller. And they, you know, their market caps weren't big enough to take on institutional grade capital. And that's where we were waiting to be honest. We were kind of hypothetically speculating on, oh, surely someone's going to come in that's blue chip credible with startup upside.

That's the way I like to say it. Like credible enough for institutions, but have the upside of technology and tools and growing cash flows that have correlated to the space. or like big enough to win, small enough to grow. That's my other Bloomberg line, right? And we were waiting and waiting and waiting and realized like maybe the market's waiting for us. Like strike had gotten to a point where, you know, the business is super mature.

We publish some of our numbers. It's doing really well. Yeah, you question it. And Tether is well. And like I'll never forget when they called me and were like, let's just, like, would you do this? Like, should we just co-found this thing and be the change we wanted to see? And at first, like, dude, bro, my girlfriend's about to move in, like, strikes finally at a place where I'm, like, feeling myself a little. And, like, we're going to launch, like, one of the biggest Bitcoin treasuries in the world and, like, bring Bitcoin to Wall Street in, like, a pure Bitcoin way.

No pivots. None of that. Like, I'm showing up to the canter offices in a hoodie. Like, that's what we want to do. And then in a few days, you're like, yeah, fuck yeah, we do. And did you actually show up to the cancer offices in a hoodie? Yeah. So that's the story.

We decided, I think within like 24 hours, I came up with the name 21, you know, because again, we wanted, we're a Bitcoin business. And I was like, you know, Googling, I've never like a public company, man, like strikes my first business. Like, I have no idea. So I'm like, okay, how do tickers work? And the ticker XXI was available. And I wanted the name 21 spelled out, you know, in English. And it's just so a Bitcoiner knows what 21 is. But maybe the normies are like, what's this weird company?

I just thought it was awesome and sexy and cool. And so I called the tether guys. I said, you know what you guys got to do. Memes rule the world. We got to come to market with 21,000 coins. So like 21's the name, ticker XXI and 21,000 coins, boom. And that's what we did. SoftBank was actually our first outside investor.

People don't know that. There's a lot of misreporting about 21. So I'm glad you're in the closet. but softbank was not like a founding partner. We actually got a call from the soft bank team. They came to New York, hilarious orange-pilling session, whereas me on one side of this like canter boardroom and like 12 soft bank guys on the other.

None of them Bitcoin is. Four hours, orange-pilling. No, none of them. And so eventually they were like, okay, we get it. Like in theory, a dollar into 21 takes us the furthest than Bitcoin exposure because you're growing Bitcoin per share. You're an operating company that's out there like, doing work to acquire Sats. It's not an ETF. And they wanted a billion dollars worth of exposure.

And it was so validating for us. So we did it. This is blue chip credibility startup upside. And like we haven't even launched and like it's working. And we went back to softbank and we're like, yo, we don't take dollar denominated investments though. This is a Bitcoin company. And that's where their 10.5,000 comes from is at the time that was like a billion bucks. Now at all time that's way over a billion. So did they have to go out and buy the Bitcoin to invest? Yeah. Sick.

Did you strike? No. No, it's really important that I don't conflate strike in 21. They're separate businesses. And my job at 21 is to do what's best for our shareholders. And so there is no like implicit guarantee that, you know, I'm biasing any business or anything like that. So, no, we executed at the best price we possibly could for them.

But they had to go out in the market and acquire the coins, which was, awesome. And so I think it ended up being a little less than $1 billion because the market was chopping around. But whatever. They were $10,500,000. And then we went out and we raised money. And that worked immediately too. And so the story of getting to $42,000 and there's a chance we actually come to market upon approval of the transaction with over that was started with $21,000. Then SoftBank came. I hit Wall Street with a fundraise. That was fun in a hoodie. And that's kind of where we are right now, it's been fun. So what I'm interested in really is

this micro strategy play, which you're obviously going to kind of follow, there's only finite amount of demand for these, like convertible notes or however you end up raising equity. And you're now, however you end up raising money, sorry. And you're now in direct competition with strategy. Like there's no two ways about this. I don't think this is like a symbiotic relationship

in the same way that like two Bitcoin businesses might be. Like, this is competition. So how do you plan to beat strategy in that? I think, well, first of all, Michael's a friend. I've talked to him since. I think there was a slide in one investor deck or something that was filed publicly that was taken entirely out of context and, you know, bitcoiners.

How dare you talk about Michael that way? And Michael and I will text back and forth and be like, I can't believe these people are spending their time fighting about our relationship. Our relationship is fine. Grown men that run big businesses know that that's taken out of context and you've got these Twitter accounts and these communities on Twitter getting all wound up. So to be clear, Michael's been unbelievably positive for Bitcoin. A hundred percent. He's a good guy. Yeah. And I got so much respect for him and he's the innovator here. With that being said, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, an investor has to decide who they want to invest in.

And I think for us, you know, with the two metrics that we came up with, so we had a public filing to announce the transaction and propose it to the SEC. Part of that was our two KPIs, we have BPS and BRR. BPS is a play on EPS. So instead of earnings per share, it's Bitcoin per share. And that's just how fast can we grow, how much Bitcoin we have on our balance sheet per fully diluted share. And then BRR is how fast can we grow the BPS?

yes, you know, how fast are we growing in Bitcoin terms? And we think we're going to be really accretive in that sense. Because again, if we're starting with 42,000, we have soft bank, we have Tether, we have access to Wall Street, we have great banking partners like Cantor Fitzgerald. We're very confident in the amount of capital we already have access to and that we'll be able to raise. And a billion dollars, for example, in a hypothetical sense, going into what's already 42,000 Bitcoin, you're growing your BPS and BRR a lot. So if you want Bitcoin denominated exposure and growth, not dollar denominated, we don't think in Fiat. The point of these metrics is to tell the market, judge me in Sats, do not judge me in Fiat. It's manipulated. I don't care. I'm not here

to beat the old system. I'm here to build a new system. And if what you want is the fastest growing, most accretive exposure to Sats, I think we are big enough to win, small enough to, or, yeah, big enough to win, small enough to grow, right? I think we, with our starting base of $42,000, the amount of capital we're going to be able to raise, it's going to be hard to beat us in that sense. Does that make sense? That does make sense. And on the sort of terms of the debt, are you going to be able to get as favorable terms as someone who's already been doing this for a long time-like strategy? Well, we'll see. But like I said, we're very confident. You know, Tether Talk about like the dream co-founder for us. I mean, they're out-earning Black Rock. Yeah,

that's wild, isn't it? They're out-earning Black Rock. They're Bitcoiners. And this is their life purpose as it is mine. And it's been that way ever since I met them. Imagine like guys, you're going to Bitcoin meetups with a decade ago and entering Wall Street with now. So I think we've got the capital. We've got the relationships. And we've got the expertise too. Like I, you know, Paulo and I, I think not with arrogance, but with confidence, feel like who better to build technology on top of a massive treasury with access to capital markets than us. Look at what we've done at strike at Tether. I mean, when it comes to gross or net profit per employee, like, our companies are up there with the best of them. We know where the high growth, high margin

business opportunities are. We know how to scale these things. We think we can. bring that to the capital markets. So you have a Bitcoin native business, technologists that have been successful, and access to capital that we think is going to be really accretive in Bitcoin terms. So I do think that there's room for everybody. Like I think, you know, us buying a bunch of Bitcoin is really good for strategy. Strategy buying a bunch of Bitcoin is really good for us. I think we will all win. But I do think we're different. We wouldn't, we wouldn't create the business if we didn't think we were bringing something unique to the capital markets and we weren't solving a problem that we thought was valuable for the world. I wouldn't have done this, right? Like, I was busy enough.

And you say you're going to build Bitcoin products. This might be a stupid question, but like, why do you even need a business model for something like this? Because the business model is tapping the capital markets to buy more Bitcoin, right? Well, it's one of our business lines. I mean, you're correct in saying that one of our products is the public equity itself. So all Bitcoinsers should know, by the way. I'm glad. I love your interview style. I love your show. You know that. And like, you know, no one, I've seen a lot of comments like, it sounds like Jack is using a bunch of word salad. And it's because I am. And I am because I have. I get you can't talk about some of this stuff. Yeah, I am because I have to. And I'm glad that like in this conversation, I can kind of

allude to some of that. What Bitcoiners should know is what was announced was a proposal to combine with counter equity partners, that needs to be approved. We're in what's called the approval process. So I'm kind of bound to what we've publicly filed. Of course. And so I can only say as much. And so when Bitcoiners are like, he's being pretty soft with words, I am, guys. And I love the Bitcoin community. And as soon as I am allowed to speak more, I will. Trust me, I've never been shy about running my mouth. So I will. With all that being said, yes, the equity, we hope to list on a stock exchange. This is shout out my lawyers, shout out the SEC. We hope to list on the stock exchange under the ticker XXI upon approval. So that's our first product. And that product, we hope,

will give you accretive Bitcoin exposure. You'll buy one share of XXI as an investment in the business and it'll represent in a hypothetical sense, 0.05 BTC. And then we'll be able to grow it to 0.06 and 7 and 8. And you'll get richer in Bitcoin terms by investing in us. That's our goal. And you're right. We can tap capital markets. We can tap the fixed income market. There's different we can achieve that. We think also, though, cash flow is a valuable asset within itself. It will allow us to buy dips. If you look at a business like strategy, they've acquired like half their position in the bull run when their stock is trading at a multiple to the assets on balance sheet. In a bear market, they weren't buying nearly as much because it's harder than nav compresses and stuff.

And so we think that. And Salas said that. Like he said, I'm going to buy every top. Right. Because that's when the money's that. Right. It's not a dis. It's a reality of market dynamics. And so what would be a unique asset to a Bitcoin treasury company is if you had growing high margin cash flows that were within the industry itself, that we feel we are uniquely advantaged. Like, where am I better than Jamie Diamond? Bitcoin. He could have all, Trump could change every rule for that guy and all that. I'm going to be better at running a node, at building Bitcoin software, at knowing how to market and talk and price software for Bitcoiners. I'm going to be better than Jamie Diamond every day of the week, every day of the year,

no matter what. And that's where we think we're unique. And so we think there's a huge opportunity. I mean, a massive Bitcoin treasury is a unique asset on the balance sheet. It's really hard to replicate. Like, if you were to go out and try and buy the Bitcoin that we already have, you're going to be getting at a way more expensive price. It's just too scarce. So it's unique. And then access to capital markets is also unique as well. And we think we can, we put in our business plan publicly. We've talked about the lending market. We talked about the credit market. And I think from a high level, just, if Bitcoin's a $2 trillion asset going on 20, going on 200 trillion, and we're one of the top holders of Bitcoin in the

world, there's technology. Who are you going to call if you need settlement products, if you need credit products? Who are you going to call outside of 21? And we think we can do that at a serious scale. This episode is brought to you by CASA, the leading Bitcoin self-custody solution. I've been using CASA since 2019 and I can't recommend them enough. CASA have options for all Bitcoiners from a 2 of 3 multisig to a 3 of 5 and a private client option for absolute best in class security. CASA also do inheritance which I very recently set up and it really couldn't be easier. My inheritance plan has gone from a vague treasure map for my wife to a rock solid security

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managing your Bitcoin has never been more convenient. Whether you're a long-time holder or new to the world of Bitcoin, Ledger makes it simple to keep your assets protected. If you want to find out more, visit Ledger.com and secure your Bitcoin today. That's L-E-D-G-E-R.com One of the things that I've, I may have got wrong, I'd really like your perspective on this, is like when it comes to, like Bitcoin's basically all-time highs right now, I think. Like we're in the middle of this bull run.

Who knows how high it goes? One of the kind of indicators I had like in the back of my head of when this might be tapped out is when we see companies doing what you're doing or like current companies pivoting to have like a Bitcoin strategy and you don't see like a massive bump in the share price. that might be when that market's kind of diluted, and that could be sort of a top. I'm curious to know from your perspective how many companies you think can actually do this Bitcoin play. Is it going to be like a winner-takes-all thing where there's strategy and Metaplanet and you guys, or do you think there's enough demand to fill like tens or hundreds of companies?

You know, I don't know how the capital itself will be allocated within this like, you know, Bitcoin meets the capital markets. but I think Bitcoin within the capital markets, it's an endless amount of demand. What do I mean by that? I mean, you know, human beings own $900 trillion worth of stuff, maybe a little more. And that stuff is equities like stocks, it's government debt, it's currencies, it's gold, it's art, it's collectibles, like all the stuff we own. And about half of that we've monetized. So about, about, half of the stuff we own we're using as a savings account. So someone owns art not to consume it on their wall where their kid can throw spaghetti at it and ruin it. But it's somewhere in a storage unit because they're trying to persist and save the wealth or they own a house, not because they live in it because they're using it as a savings account, right? Just all symptoms of broken money. Yeah, exactly. And so you can estimate that Bitcoin's going after $400 to $500

$500 trillion worth of opportunity. How big is the equities market within this? So how big is the stocks that we all own? It's about $130 to $100,000. $150 trillion. How big is Apple? It's like $2 to $3 trillion. So like if the new monetary regime that we're going through is

the dollar's not de facto backed by stocks, actually take all of the foreign trade surplus and put it into gold and Bitcoin or into Bitcoin, get it out of equities. Why are you paying 50 times earnings

for these stupid companies that are hardly profitable. Stop valuing businesses on revenue. Revenue is meaningless profit. How much money are you making at the end of the day? Why do we care about revenue? Why do we care about growth? Why don't we care about profit? If the world's going back to that, then $130 and $150 trillion needs a home that is posting real value that has a real balance sheet. Oh, your balance sheet is constructed with treasuries and with revenue without profit. Okay. you should probably be worth zero. My balance sheet is constructed of sats and I'm positive in Bitcoin per share. How much am I worth? And so the size of opportunity, I don't know,

$100 trillion, $150 trillion. Who knows how that shakes out and how long that takes? But I think it's a far bigger opportunity than people think and the fixed income market. Like, I mean, you've got Scott Besson coming out and saying, you know, the 10 years negative in real terms. So in dollar terms, sure, I'm paying you. In real terms, you're losing. And so the 6440 portfolio is dead, Danny. It's over. And I've experienced this on Wall Street.

Like I'm talking to these guys. And it's like, well, hey, Jack, can you help me model out the 55540 portfolio? Where it's not 6040. It's 55, 5 in Bitcoin and then 40. Or what about the 60, 35, 5? Where's the alpha? Where are the real returns? What if the 5 is 10, right?

That's what we're living through. And so I come up with a convertible bond that's effectively backed by Bitcoin. I come up with an equity that's performant in Bitcoin terms. And like, what's the demand for that? I mean, think about it, guys. Like Apple's worth a couple trillion, three trillion, four trillion at all time high. I don't know. I'm making this up.

So we'll see. I think it's bigger than people think. It doesn't mean we can't go through, you know, bull and bear cycles and such. But, you know, and when, you know, Tether and I founded it, it really was with this ethos and attitude of like, we're bringing Bitcoin to Wall Street. Because we've heard endlessly, Wall Street's arrived at Bitcoin. Larry Fink is now our chief marketing officer. Like the suits are here to take care of what you cypherpunk started.

And like, I would say Tether and I, like, we kind of took some of that personally. It's like, don't talk about self-custody that way, like that it's like not necessary. Don't talk about open source developers like that, like as if they aren't critical. and provided us all the opportunity to own the sats that we have. And like making sure that Bitcoin has a represented voice on Wall Street as well. So that's kind of a lot of the culture is taking Bitcoin, bringing it to Wall Street, and doing it in what we think is a unique and interesting way and hopefully absorbing a lot of the value transfer that we're living through.

Yeah, I think one of the interesting things you said there is, like you said, we will go through bull and bear cycles. And if I was looking at 21, I think one of your unique strengths will be the ability to ride out a bare market. Because like you say, you're like Bitcoiners, you know this stuff comes. And when you compare that to like a similar, for example, who are like, it's not a Bitcoin business. It's a business that is moving to Bitcoin. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens next bear market, how many people really do have strong hands and if they can actually survive it. Yeah, we'll see. And like you said, I've lived through what, I barely missed the first

having. So I would say, if I'm being honest with myself, I got into Bitcoin where I actually started to understand it in early 2013. So I missed the 2012 having. Been here since. Been here since. So yeah, we feel good, confident. It doesn't mean that, you know, we don't have a tall task in front of us and we're not going to be working extremely hard. Hopefully Bitcoiners, you know, know my work ethic and tethers and what to expect from us. But, yeah, we feel good. And I do think that the, you know, the Bitcoin Treasury Company movement of sorts, it's awesome. And, you know, I haven't met Eric from Semler. I know Dylan though well. Not a planet. I know Michael. And I do consider us like all on the same team. So I just want to be clear about that. But yeah, I mean,

I think 21, I mean, we're excited about what we have in store. We're excited to unleash more to the world when regulators and lawyers allow us. And we think we're unique in some ways that we feel as Bitcoiners are important. Yeah, and one of the criticisms that sailors come under is the lack of kind of transparency over what they're doing and no proof of reserves. Are you guys going to do anything like that? Yes, I think this is coming out by the time

we will have published our proof of reserves. So yeah, I think that's a great example for us as just we're Bitcoiners. We've been holding large amounts of Bitcoin for a long time. And we believe in doing things the right way and showing that level of transparency. And I know Saylor does too. But yeah, at Bitcoin, Vegas, that will be an announcement we make, hopefully on behalf of 21 is showing the world our sats.

That's very cool. Because the coolest thing to come out of that is hopefully that then pressures all the other companies to do the same. Yeah, I would love to see that as more of a standard, especially for, you know, coins of that size and stature. Yeah. Yeah. I think the whole concept of proof reserves is interesting. We could table that. But yeah, I mean, that again, it's just very 21. Like, that's very who we are in our culture and why we're here is to do Bitcoin the right way in the biggest market at the largest scale and build products and services and push Bitcoin and the world and what we believe is the right direction. That's like, it's really what we want to bring to the capital markets. And the first order of business was like, okay, let's stand it up. Okay, let's file. our shit, okay, let's acquire the Bitcoin. Cool. We're going to tweet the address. Like that, that was, that was like number one. Like, you know, like, let's do it the right. Let's go.

You know, we're, we're here to represent Bitcoin to Wall Street, the Bitcoin way. Love it. Before you take your 21 hat off and put your strike hat on, is there anything we've not covered that you can talk about? I know you're a little bit strong with what you can actually say. I mean, no, I think just, um, just knowing how many Bitcoiners watch your show, I think the stories of Wall Street are fun. Like raising money on Wall Street was an awesome experience. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun bringing Bitcoin to these guys in orange pilling.

But no, I think you guys, you get it, right? You understand what we're trying to do and why it's exciting. And I think it's going to be a fun ride. And we can deliver some Bitcoin per share growth. Love it. You know when you were speaking to the soft bank people, how many, do you think you actually orange-pilled them? Or did they just see this as like a good investment for themselves? You know, probably both. Definitely orange-pilled though. There's no doubt about that. Yeah, they, I mean, they're some of the most storied tech investors ever are those guys, right?

And so they came into New York. We were in the Cantor offices. I'll never forget, one of the first times I went into the Cantor offices. I called Paulo. So for the those who don't know, Paulo, CEO of Tether. So, you know, technically co-founder with me on 21. And I called him and I was like, what do you think, man? Like, this is Wall Street and this is public markets and stuff. Like, all I packed are my Birkenstocks and my hoodies. Like, I totally, like, I've just been the CEO of Strike and a Bitcoin or forever. Like, should I go get a suit? Like, I wanted to run this by you. And he was like, fuck that. Like, we're showing. up, like how we always have been, don't you think? And I was like, yeah, fuck them. Like,

yeah, yeah, no, what am I thinking? And so I walked in there, Birkenstock's hoodie. You know, I think I cracked open like a Cope Zero or something. And I was like, so this is how Bitcoin works, boys. And this is why it's going to the moon. And it was like a four-hour meeting. And orange-pilled from there. I mean, SoftBank was really quick to move. I'm sure that it also is a investment to them and they're not like fully you know i'm sure they didn't go home and order a cold card yeah but no i would say uh they get it they get it you know really what resonated with wall street when pitching 21 is in soft bank obviously included is this concept that bitcoin equals fiat liquidity plus technology that's kind of like the mental model that resonates and what i mean by

that is Bitcoin equals technology in that if you're a believer, the technology is going to continue to provide efficiency, dematerialize things, push the world in the right direction, create opportunity, then like Bitcoin's a part of that trend. It's using the latest cryptographic tools, distributed network technology. It pioneered the innovation of the Byzantine General's problem, solving that, right? And so it is technology in that sense, plus Fiat liquidity, plus the concept that there's going to be more Fiat units sloshing around tomorrow than there is today. And if you want to monetize that trend, which is like tech plus currency debasement, then like Bitcoin is your thesis.

Like that's it. And someone like SoftBank is like, oh, that's like what our job is. Our job is like find the best cutting edge tech and like perform in real terms, which is like short the dollar basically. Like, oh. And so that I think like is what I would say from the highest level, what resonated the most is like, oh, it doesn't matter how much demand there is. You can't make anymore. So it's the best expression of currency debasement. It's the best way to monetize this regime

change monetarily. And it's a technology play. Like people are going to use the tech to build businesses, to build lending markets, to do real stuff and provide real value because technology like pushes our species forward. The story of humanity is engineering a better world. And Bitcoin's like the latest iteration of that. And so I think that was like this big like, oh, okay, it's not like, I don't have to take the two, carry it over here and reverse engineer and elliptic curve. It's like technology plus currency debasement equals the best performing thing because that's what we're living through right now. Yeah. It's funny when you, like, I love that you went in a hoodie. I've seen you in a suit once in D.C. And you were wearing tuxedo pants. I looked pretty dumb.

But I think, but I think tuxedo pants is the most subtle fuck you to the suits I've ever seen. I didn't mean to do that. So for those of Danny's referencing we were in DC, I thought I packed a suit. I didn't know there was a such thing as tuxedo pants versus suit pants. I don't have suit pants. So I looked like an idiot. We literally, we went to like a private roundtable with Senator Lomas. And I'm like, the vague Ramoswami got up and was like, you know, I really like this Jack guy.

And everyone's like pointing at me. And I was asked to give a speech to like Senator Bill Haggerty. and I'm wearing fucking tux pants. And I was looking like an idiot. And I had no idea. Afterward, someone pulled me aside and was like, man, you know, you got some balls. I'm like, oh, dude, I didn't do that on purpose. I've only gone to my buddy's weddings.

I don't own a suit. So I just looked dumb. So that wasn't on purpose. Well, I liked it. I own one suit as well, but mine is the suit I wore at my wedding. So it's the same one I wear everywhere. Yeah. So you were talking about lending then in terms of like financial services.

you want to see built on Bitcoin and you've gone and you've done it with Strike. Yeah. So tell everyone what's happening there. So strike has collateralized Bitcoin loans now, meaning you can deposit Bitcoin onto our platform and you can take out a loan in cash against that Bitcoin. The current product structure is 50% LTV and by the time this comes out. So meaning, by the way, you have $200,000 with the Bitcoin, you can take $100,000 loan, you get to cash instantly and we're a financial service.

You can withdraw it immediately to your bank. You can pay your bills. You can buy more Bitcoin with it, whatever. you want to do, it's your money. No re-hypothecation. By the time this comes out, we probably won't have launched the proof of reserves iteration of this product, but no re-hypothication. It sits in segregated wallets, doesn't ever move. It's your collateral for the duration of your loan. It's your property. And we're excited about a proof of reserves version of the product where we can prove the liabilities, the loans that we've issued and show the Bitcoin's just

sitting right here. And like, you know, I'm a customer of the product. I see my collateral. I can point to it on the blockchain. And so doing it the right way for Bitcoiners. And then I think the most exciting part are the terms because Bitcoin is no more risky than like your average stock at this point. And the average stock is like Sofer plus 100. So like 6%, 7%. And Bitcoin loans have always been 15%.

14% plus a 2% admin fee or whatever. Yeah. And through my, the relationships I've been building over the course of the last year or so, Orange Pilled a one or two or three people. And we've unlocked a lot of capital at strike for Bitcoiners and where we're able to offer single digit APR. That's amazing. No rehypothecation, extremely or no minimums on loan size and no maximums.

So I can actually, I can probably fill a billion dollar loan. That's insane. If you want. And so we think it's the dream product for the hoddler. And we should talk about who should use this and there's absolutely risk. But, you know, I think one of the ironic realities that we as Bitcoiners don't talk about enough is, you know, the point of saving money isn't to die with it. you know, the other finite scarce resource that we have outside of Bitcoin is our time. And, you know, the point of life is to enjoy the ride. And Bitcoin is supposed to make that ride better.

Yeah. And so it's, how do you realize the wealth that you're building in Bitcoin without selling and parting with the asset itself? And so that to me, it's like a hoddler's dream is can we get single-digit rates, no re-hypothecation, transparency, and an ability for you to use your Bitcoin wealth for those magical moments in your life, like a house, like, you know, education, a wedding, whatever that is for you to enjoy the ride that is life without parting with the Bitcoin. And this is things that rich people have been doing forever. So it's amazing to have these products in a more sophisticated way come to Bitcoin.

First, I want to talk about, like, I think lending is probably one of the most misunderstood parts of Bitcoin. And I get it. Like when we had Celsius and Blockfire and all this stuff, like, I understand why people are skeptical of it. But maybe you should explain why no rehypothecation is so important and just explain the dynamics of what you do with the Bitcoin when you take it as collateral. Yeah. Well, so first, I think, like, even debt is a misunderstood topic. So, like, there's a huge difference between uncollateralized debt. and collateralized debt. Uncollateralized debt is like credit card debt, student loan debt,

payday loan debt. That to me is debt slavery, bad debt. Explain that. Why is that? Because you're trapped. You're in the vicious fiat cycle of like you get paid in dollars. They print more of those dollars. So they debase those dollars. So everything you want in your life becomes more unattainable. It gets further and further away from you because your dollars are getting you less. And so in order to live the life, that you think is reasonable and worth living, you can't afford it anymore in real terms. So you take on debt.

And so you take on debt in the form of a credit card to get your groceries and to like live your life. You take on debt to get an education in the form of a student debt. You take on debt to get a house in the form of a mortgage. You take on debt to get a car. You're in debt constantly just to live

what you thought was life, which is like, I'm going to grow up, work hard, have a car to move me around, have a house to make sure I'm not homeless, have an education to make sure I can contribute to society. Nope, you actually can't afford. that, not because you're not working hard, but because they're printing money. And so guess what?

You get stuck in just debt that isn't collateralized by anything. It's just like there's no asset backing the debt that's performing for you in the face of currency debasement. So you're not borrowing against Premier Manhattan real estate. You're not borrowing against Bitcoin that's performing on the back half of your debt. You're just taking naked debt that you're trapped with forever. And people nowadays die with that debt. That's debt slavery. that's bad debt. You're stuck in a fiat virtuous loop. Bitcoin's the exit of the matrix that we talk about as Bitcoiners, right? It's, I can own a thing that's compound annual growth rate is 60%. So I'm outperforming the money printer. I'm storing my time and energy in a place where no one can touch it. And collateralized debt is different. Like you said, like New York was built on collateralized debt, which is I'm going to buy New York land. I'm going to borrow against that land to build a building on that land. I'm going to borrow against the building to build a restaurant in that building. And then all of a sudden, I've built Manhattan and I'm Rockefeller or I'm Donald Trump or whatever.

And the point is, if you have a scarce desirable asset, don't get rid of it. Like with Bitcoin, we finally have liquid land. Like you finally have land. You can put in your pocket and you can store on a hardware device that no one else can print or make more of. And so if you can afford to, and it's the right time and place, don't sell it. It's the hoddler's dream is realize your Bitcoin wealth without parting with the sats. And so it's not like credit card debt or whatever. And so the point is, if I'm going to offer this product to Bitcoiners, it's going to be over collateralized, right? Because Bitcoin's

volatile. Yeah. So you put up $200,000 with the Bitcoin for now. And, you know, these terms may change. But for now, I'll let you take half of it in cash, take out, do what you want with it. And because it's over collateralized, there's no risk. to me or you. So I'm not running like a really risky fractional business. I have the money sitting right here. My balance sheet is perfectly fine. Bitcoin's the most pristine collateral in that sense. It's 24-7. I can't sell the fourth bedroom of this house if I needed to meet a margin call of a customer. That's not how real estate works. But I can sell a fourth of someone's Bitcoin if I had to. So it's, I've been able to talk to banks in the United States, massive pools of

capital because giving a loan against Bitcoin, it's a dream. No credit checks instant. Danny, you know, strikes in over 100 countries. I'm going to be able to give a loan to like a billion people theoretically. How else would I give a loan to someone in Ghana on a phone? They take a picture of like their Ghanaian house and I'm supposed to assess like the credit worthy. of this Ghanaian property and underwrite. Like, no, download the app, deposit Bitcoin, no credit check. You don't need to talk to. We've had customers that are like, hey, I'd like a loan, what strike teller do I talk to? It's like, no, no, you don't get it. Just deposit Bitcoin, take the cash and live your life. And so that's how it works for us. And the reason we don't move

it is because we don't, we're not making money on re-hypothecating it or reinvesting it. We're making money on, I charge you for this service in the form of the rate. That's it. So explain that because I think I truly don't understand the heat you got for launching a loan product. Like it makes no sense to me. But I assume the way you make money is there's a spread between the borrower and the lender. You take that spread and there's maybe like an origination fee or something. Yeah. So we have zero origination fees or zero early repayment. The reason I did that is because I'm very confident. I'm going to go out and be able to get cheaper money and cheaper money and cheaper money. The fact that Bitcoin is no more risky than an average stock. But the rates, to borrow against it are so much more expensive, to me that's inefficient. To me, that's going to come

down. And I'm very confident. I'm well positioned to go out and get that money for Bitcoiners. And so zero early repayment and zero origination, I'm not going to charge you guys to close out a loan that you open with me at 12 percent, to open one with me at 8 percent. That's bullshit. That's not fair to you, Bitcoiners. So no fee, the only fee is the rate I'm charging you. and I make money by I get the dollars for a certain amount, and I tack on a fee for myself, and I give it to you. And then the Bitcoin just sits here. No risk, segregated wallet just sits there.

You know, eventually we're going to launch a version of this product where we can point to it in the app and you can click a button and verifiably prove that like your collateral is right there. And it's a very straightforward business. And I understand the history that in this industry, and I think some people are like, I can't believe Jack is offering yield. It's like, I'm not.

Like, depositors on strike don't get anything other than like a really cool wallet. There's no yield. It's if you want a loan, I charge for that. And I think, you know, at strike, we've taken on this personality of trying to be the most customer-focused company ever. Because really, I've made some mistakes in my history of being a Bitcoin entrepreneur. Like, I got the timing of some of the lightning stuff wrong. I mean, it's nothing I'm ashamed of. It's just, you know, you live and you learn.

And we've taken on this personality of take the ego out of thinking that it's your job to know what's right for everybody. You know who knows what Bitcoiners want? Bitcoiners. And so how about you just shut up and listen? And what Bitcoiners want is a transparent, trusted, honest, fairly priced and simple way to get a loan against their sats. And so they are coming to us with like, hey, it seems like you guys are well-positioned. to do this. And that's what we did. It's no re-hypothecation, as cheap as I can offer it, no origination, no early repayment. And I think we're embarking on building a lending market on

this asset, which again is a hoddler's dream. It's, can we find ways for you to not get rid of the scarce land that you've acquired in Bitcoin, this digital land, this digital liquid land? Can I allow you to get the house without pardon with the sats, given it, you know, it makes sense for you. I'm not implying. and encouraging people to take on debt when it's not useful to them, but for many it's useful. We should talk about when it is useful, but I have a very unpopular opinion in Bitcoin.

Like, you said earlier, like Bitcoin is a perfect free market in the sense that people can just go out and try things. Like, I don't even understand why re-hypothicated loans shouldn't exist. Like, I wouldn't use one, and I wouldn't recommend one. But, like, it's a free market. If two people enter an agreement together, fully understanding the risk, like, who am I to say that product shouldn't exist?

Yeah, I mean, also at Strike, we take this opinion that, and this is also more for me personally, you know, what's so interesting about Strike, we've published, we have zero customer acquisition costs, so we don't do any marketing. A lot of, I mean, not a lot. All of our business growth is through our brand and through my voice. And so it becomes sometimes very personal for me running this business. And sometimes it's not like, oh, Strike screwed me over. It's Jack screwed me over. Right. And sometimes it's, I'm human and it, and it becomes personal. And so I think I've taken on a stance where it's not my job to decide what's right for Bitcoiners. Exactly. And sometimes they may imply that or accuse me of that. But I'm very stern that like, I have to respect the free

market because I think that's what's best for the world. And I'm going to offer a product that has risk. But just because some people are going to use it in a really like irresponsible way, that shouldn't price out those that actually need it and want to use it in a responsible way. And so to your point, I'm kind of like, listen, guys, like, use it how you want. Be careful. We're going to be as transparent and forward as I possibly can. I'll do every podcast. Anyone asked me to do. I'll answer any question anyone wants. But it's your risk. As far as the rehyd publication, I mean, the reason that we, as a business, we have the product we have is it's my opinion that what Bitcoiners want is a trusted, transparent way to do this. They actually care

less about, I'm sure there's going to be some super re-hypothicated way that's a cheaper rate, but you give a Bitcoin or an option that's like your collateral sitting right here. This is a very transparent rate, very transparent way. As long as I know it's going to work, Bitcoin's going up 60% a year on average. The difference between 8, 9, and 10% is nothing. What matters is that I don't lose the Bitcoin. And that's what we want to to the market is maybe they'll be cheaper ways. Maybe Chase will do it, but they'll be re-hypothecating every which way. You know with me, like, we want to give the feeling that you're good. Like, we're going to do it the right way. No, I 100% agree. And to be very clear, I think it's

stupid to enter into a loan agreement if it's being re-hypothecated. But I'm just saying, I'm not the person that says that shouldn't exist. And risk has a cost, right? That's why you will be a percent or two more expensive. I don't know, man. I mean, I try and avoid the drama and stuff. But I think there's a lot of people's marketing strategies out there that are to just talk shit about me at this point. Yeah, 100%. You've got some haters, but that means you're winning. No, it might or might not. These things don't impact my decision making. But when you're like, you know, why is everyone hating on this product, you're never going to get the answer to that question. I don't know. But my job is to make sure people know why we're doing it, how it works, and the value

that we're providing. I mean, it's a super popular product. I mean, we've, I think yesterday we issued like almost $10 million worth of loans. And that's amazing. Yeah, these are people, these are OG bitcointers that have really low cost basis that are not depositing 100% of their stack and borrowing and levering themselves. It's like 10% of your stack, taking some money out to do whatever. I have some really cool customer stories that people want real world examples. But if they need to add more collateral, they can and they're realizing the wealth that they've built over the years without selling. And so, you know, for those people, it makes sense. And for others, I don't know, maybe, you know, like saying that strike is bad. Strike is bad. Use my app. Like, what can I do about that?

I can't do anything about that. No, I think it's a very cool product. And I would 100% use it if it was in Australia. You're in like a million countries. How many countries will you be able to offer this to? We think all of the countries we're in today. So we're in over 100. The way strike works is in the U.S., Europe, and the UK. We offer the fiat currency plus Bitcoin, so a dollar, euro pound. And that is what you would expect. You can direct deposit or paychecks, move money, pay bills, buy sell Bitcoin,

DCA, Bitcoin wallet, blah, blah, blah. In Latin America and Africa, it's tethered plus Bitcoin. Yeah. So these markets, they actually, yeah, they actually don't want their fiat currency. They're like, give me tethering Bitcoin. So we think we'll have loans in dollars, loans in euros, lows in pounds, and loans in USDT this year. And we'll just go one by one.

And yeah, continue to improve the product. Like I said, I think the fact that a margin loan on some like pick your U.S. equity is six, seven, eight percent. And right now a Bitcoin, well, now we're bringing the Bitcoin loan market way down. We're really proud of that. We should be for no re-hypothecation, a single-digit rates, got to be market leading. I don't want to make declarative statements like that. But how do you get to single digit?

Because the obvious answer to this is it can't go below like four and a half percent or whatever treasuries give you. Because no one's going to park that capital there when they could just put it in treasuries. So like what is the lower bound that you think you can get to? I think it's what your average stock margin loan is. So for plus one. two, so whatever, five, six, something like that. That would be insane.

Yeah, and as rates come down, that number will come down too. Yeah. But yeah, I would say, so right now, strike is probably like Sofer Plus. So Bitcoin loans, when I got involved, and we started building this product with like Sofer Plus, five and a half to 10. So you're taking whatever the four and a half is and you're adding at least five and a half six. So you're talking about 10, 11 percent at the cheapest. and you're going all the way to like 18%. And versus a margin loan on a U.S. stock is like, you know, five, six percent.

And I think there's, Bitcoin's no more risky, if anything, it's better than a U.S. stock. And so that should be compressed. And I mean, we've already had so much progress with capital allocators. It's a combination of things. I think our maturity as a business, people realize the size and scale of strike. The Trump administration's been obviously, like, immensely helpful and giving banks regulatory clarity. But I mean, since our announcement, we've had banks in the United States reach out and say like, hey, you know, we're in the business of like lending dollars.

Yeah, like any chance there's room for us. And so we have like not only cheap capital, but a vast amount of capital. So it's not like, you know, some other products will wrap your Bitcoin in some Ethereum shitcoin blockchain. And you can only borrow up to 100K or something. Like if someone called me, if President Bucheli, shout out to. Salvador, if he called me and was like, I want a $100 million loan, I give to him in an hour. That's incredible. Have you made it public who those backers are, who's giving you the dollars? Like, is it, I assume it's like tether?

Not made a public. And for the vast majority of them, they don't want to be public yet. Fair enough. But I think the ones I've had, like I made Nydig public. You know, shout out Ross, Stephen, Stone Ridge, Nydig. So they've been an awesome partner to us. Ross included this lending. He called him Hoddle loans.

So again, for the hodlers, for the bitcoins. We're not going to be replacing like credit card debt for every American with this product, at least yet. This is for bitcoiners that don't want to part with the sats. And so he's been on this mission with me. That's one that I've been allowed to publicly disclose. But some of the others, we'll see. I'd love to have a press release with a U.S. bank that, It's orange-pilled, but...

That's cool to me as well, because Ross makes sense. He's a Bitcoiner. It has a lot of money. But if you did get a US bank someone outside of the Bitcoin world doing this, I think that's a very clear signal. Yeah. And there's a lot of money out there that provides what they call float

to collateralize loans. And again, this is not... I'm not in the business of, like, assessing your creditworthiness and, like, owning your life if you can't make me hole on it. It's... We get physical collaboration.

and we give you money against the fiscal collateral. So given that Bitcoin continues to be liquid, regulated, and fine, you know, you'll open up to more and more pools of capital that are in this business already for margin loans on U.S. equities and stuff. And so for strike, we want to be the way Bitcoiners get access to. You know, we've always found ourselves to be the best, like, global distributor of Bitcoin financial services. That's really where I think we're market leading at this point is when Bitcoiners need a financial service. So we don't actually shit coins and we don't force you to speculate on a plethora of garbage. It's Bitcoin financial services and we can build it the best way and distribute it to over 100 countries and connect

you with the highest grade of services. And I think Bitcoin backed lending is the latest iteration of that is that I think we're going to be the best in the world at it. That's very cool. And I believe at Vegas you're going to make an announcement about the number of states this can be in. Is that right? So the announcement will be, yeah, we'll have, I believe, Not quite 90% of America, but like pretty much all of America. Little to no minimums, it depends on the state. So a minimum like 10 grand maybe is the smallest loan. And like I said, try me.

Ask me for a billion dollars. I bet I can fill it for you. And then single digit rates, we'll tier it. So if you want a $10,000 loan, I don't know if I'll be able to get you for single digits. But if you get a billion dollar loan, I can get you. as close to Sofer, I think, as anyone else. And I think another part of the announcement is, you know, at strike, we build products that either I want or we want as a company. And part of that is self-serving. But I think also

those make for the best products. We are bitcoinsers. I am what I preach. I'm not telling people to like live on zero, own no dollars, you know, embrace Bitcoin, hyper-bitcoinization, but then actually have like a ton of treasuries in my Chase account. So strike, we're announcing we've never disclosed how much Bitcoin we have as a business. I think according to the public list, we're a top 20 Bitcoin treasury in the world. Whenever this comes down, I'm not sure, but we're at about 1,500 Bitcoin. And so we don't want to part with our stats either. And so, you know, borrowing against Bitcoin was we couldn't really find a good way to do it.

it that was trusted and that we felt was giving us deep pool of capital with good pricing. And so in part, this is a product for us to continue to stack. And if we ever want to access our balance sheet in this capacity, we can now by being a customer of our own service, which is pretty cool. And yeah, I'm trying to think what else I got for Bitcoiners. That would be fun. But yeah, no, I mean, strike, it's a great lending product and 1500 coins. I think what?

what's the price right now? So we've got almost $200 million on our balance sheet, and less than 100 employees. I'm trying to meme into reality and just will it to existence. We're what, a 5x away from about a billion dollars on our balance sheet with less than 100 employees. My goal is to not hire the 100th person before we get a billion cuckbox on our balance sheet. We'll see if we can pull it up. In terms of the percentage of someone's Bitcoin that they should use to take out a loan, I know you can't say what everyone should do, but generally, what do you think is like a safe amount? Not 100.

So I mean, so just so everyone knows, the idea is if you deposit 100% of your stack to borrow and then Bitcoin goes through a bear market, well, you don't have any more sats to post as collateral. And that would be an issue as if we need more collateral from you because Bitcoin goes through an 80% drawdown. And the loans are only 12-month terms. So I wish I could give you a 30-year fixed Bitcoin loan like a mortgage, but I don't have the implicit backing of the U.S. government yet. So I can't. Yeah, yet. Let me get Trump on the phone. But I can't. So it's 12 months. And so what would be a bad scenario for some individual making their own decisions and not listening to my financial advice because you're an adult and you can decide for yourself is if you deposit all of your Bitcoin and you don't have any more collateral to sustain a job.

draw down. So what's the right number for you? I don't know. Is it 10? Is it 20? Is it 70? I don't know. How big is your stack? If you have a million Bitcoin, you could deposit 75% because you still 25% of your stack is like a massive amount. But if you have one Bitcoin and you're looking for a tiny loan is 90% of your stack still like way too levered, probably. But I think what you have to account for, what people don't necessarily appreciate is, let's, you know, let's, you know, say you deposit $200,000 for the Bitcoin, you borrow $100,000. Bitcoin goes up 1,000 percent, which it does in these bull runs are just so extreme. And let's say Bitcoin goes and almost hits a million. And so now your collateral goes from $200,000 worth to $2 million. And you want

to refinance the loan, which we allow, right, roll these loans over, persist it. You don't ever have to close out your loan with us if you don't want to. We have a version of the product called payment at maturity where you don't make monthly interest payments. You just owe us at the end of the term, whatever the rate was. And so you can constantly refinance it, refinance it. And if you're a bit-coiner with plenty of sats, you can just open, you can have a rolling line of credit with us effectively forever. And so let's say this person now has $2 million a collateral on strike instead of $200,000.

And they're like, oh, yeah, this is, I'm feeling myself. I'm going to take out a million dollar loan. 50% LTV. Let's go yachting. What a fancy yellow car can I impress chicks with on my Instagram? And then Bitcoin corrects 80%, and they don't have any more collateral, and they can't pay me back a million bucks. And then I got to unfortunately liquidate you.

That is what not to do. So it's always make sure you're living within your means, always make sure it's not 100% of your stack. To me, it's the Hodler's dream is what we're working towards, if not already achieved it. But there's risk, of course. I mean, you know, you owe me money at some point. And so make sure that, you know, you have the capital to make hole on the agreement. You know, so.

The big risk is always these like 80% drawdowns, which we've had every cycle so far. Yeah. Do you think that might be changing in terms of like the Bitcoin cycles? I don't personally. Mm-hmm. But I don't think of that as a function. You know, people think Bitcoin's going to mature.

So therefore, we're done with these cycles. And I think actually Bitcoin is so appealing and solve such a big problem, and it's such a free market that human nature is to get exuberant. And this thing might tap a million before you think it ever could. And then, of course, it's going to go back down to 200,000 or whatever. I'm making up math. Those aren't real predictions. But I think the drawdowns are actually a function of how well Bitcoin works and how free of a market is because it's going up so high.

I don't think we're going to have an 80% drawdown from this spot price right now. because that would imply we go back to 20K. I think Bitcoin's beyond that. But 80% drawdown from 800K, probably. But I think this says more about its upside and how emotional a free market is than it does about a weakness or lack of maturity that Bitcoin could have such drawdowns.

Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. This whole conversation has basically been around the financialization of Bitcoin. Do you have any concerns about capture, as in whether that's like Wall Street capture, which then may lead to like state capture of Bitcoin. And I guess the like examples historically of that

would be Executive Order 6102 and maybe the Russian Treasuries as another example. Like if fewer and fewer people are like holding the keys to their Bitcoin because they're parking that in ETFs or like micro strategies or 21s, like what percentage chance do you think that in 10 years the US government knocks on Sailor's door and says my coins now? I don't know. as close to zero as there's like a, you know, realistic number. So there's no such thing as zero,

but low. A few things, you know, because I'm asked this question all the time now as co-founder CEO 21 is like, are you capturing Bitcoin? Yeah. Yeah, the funniest thing is I could own a million Bitcoin at 21. I have no greater influence on the protocol. Yeah. And so that's one of Satoshi's innovations is it's not proof of stake. The U.S. dollar is proof of stake. Ethereum is proof of stake. Bitcoin's not. So it doesn't matter how much you own. You cannot, you know, lessen or or enhance anyone's influence over the protocol. So just to play devil's advocate on that for a second. Yeah. I think one of the interesting conversations that may happen is around like quantum. Like I'm not a quantum scientist, so I don't know if this does real, but let's just

for the sake of this argument, assume it is real. Say we get five, 10 years out and there's loads of addresses that are at risk. There's going to be a conversation of what you do with those coins. Even if you assume they're lost or someone's died with the coins, whatever it might be, do we freeze those or do we let them be stolen, essentially? It's like, do we break the property rights of those Bitcoin holders or do we let a bad act to break the property rights of those Bitcoin holders? I think the free market's going to end up solving that. But the question, I guess, is while you don't have any more influence over the protocol, there is big, like, economic weight behind the arguments that, like, a sailor makes in that

conversation. Why? Because he is so followed, he's so influential. And he wants to die with his keys. He wants to hold those and give them back to the Bitcoin network or whatever he says. Like, do you not think that someone with so much economic way influence power can change that conversation in a way that maybe is not natural? No. But I mean, I have lived experience with the block size wars. Like Coinbase and Bitmain, they had that same weight. If anything, they had more weight than Sailor does now. Because they had all the machines. They had all the machines. They had like, they didn't have just as much Bitcoin like say they didn't have 500,000 coins. But like, Coinbase might have at the time in the form of customer deposits. Bitmain probably had like the biggest Bitcoin holdings at the time. The aggregate of like the New York agreement, like they had, they were far more powerful in relative terms than Sailor is now. Far more. And I, we've lived through that. And so no.

Like, with all due respect to Sailor, I don't give a fuck what he wants or thinks. If I disagree with it, like, I run my own economic node and I have my say and I will vote with what consensus rules I run. And I would assume Michael to say the same to me. Yeah. Like, so, no, I actually don't believe that. And I think the further point is that Bitcoin incentivizes everyone to act in its best interest. Like the famed 51% attack example is like, we used to all sit and be like, oh my goodness,

would if nation states understand Bitcoin start mining it because they have access to abundant energy and resources like a nation state, if anyone, is going to be the best miners? Because there's just energy everywhere in a country. Like, what happens then? Then they're going to 51% attack Bitcoin. Well, they're all mining now. China's mining. Russia is mining. They're not attacking. they're stacking sats because guess what? Attacking Bitcoin to double spend like some random transaction of some dude buying pizza on Bitcoin Pizza

Day is far less lucrative than just like owning a bunch of Bitcoin. Yeah, it's Bitcoin Pizza Day today. Yeah, exactly. So like China and Russia could probably like try and attack Bitcoin in reverse like Joe Schmo's transaction deposit to strike. And then or they could just use all their energy

to like have a bunch of Bitcoin as we move towards like neutral reserve status because Trump is kicking them out of the U.S. financial markets. So point in saying that is like, Saylor owns a lot of Bitcoin. He's probably incentivized to like do what's best for Bitcoin unless he wants to be poor. So it's like, you know, that's always what people forget is I think the free market will figure that out. Like my assumption is if we have to hard fork to solve the quantum stuff, then we will.

and then the old compromised coins will be worth zero because the free market won't value them and all the exchange it'll be like BTC old. And like you could buy BTC old if you want, but quantum now means they're effectively worthless and their artifacts and maybe some ordinal scammers will try and value them as a tradable artifact to hang on the wall.

But they're worthless and the free market will solve of that. And if Saylor wants to perpetuate BTC old, then his stack will just, be worth zero and he'll pay for that. And I assume he's smart and he'll act in the best interest of himself, which is in the best interest of Bitcoin, and he'll do it's in the best interest of the network. Like, that's what always happens, right? So I don't know. I don't feel, you know, the more people buy Bitcoin, the more they're incented for Bitcoin to work. And there is no, you know, you cannot flip a switch and co-opt it because you cannot garner any more or less influence.

the only way you can co-opt it is if you can convince the majority of the network to be on your side. So the majority of the people would have to want the worst for Bitcoin for something negative to happen. And what about on the like self-custody side, like the ability to self-custody freely? You don't think there's a risk of capture there either. No, I mean, I think similarly, I think it's such a difficult thing to enforce. Like, by the way, the executive order on gold wasn't, it was like, you know, we don't want you to be self-custaining gold. You're going to be in really, really big trouble if I find out you are,

so you might as well deposit it to us. But it wasn't like, they couldn't enforce that. They'd go to everyone's house and hands up, we're going to spend 12 hours looking for the gold in this house that may or may not be here. And there's a 10% chance we'll even find it. That didn't happen. And so like the odds that they show up to my house and say,

like, we're going to look for 12 words that might be in your brain, 0% chance. So could the U.S. like make it like really frowned upon and potentially enforce like some violence as to the fact that I own private keys? Yeah, but again, is that in their interest? Probably not.

I'd be shocked if it was like what I think the United States should do is what they did for the internet, which is like as long as you don't steal from people and as long as you don't harm people, there are no rules. Build what you want. And that's why Silicon Valley is here. I think that's where we're going towards.

I don't think you should get money transmitter licenses. Anyone should be able to build an exchange. Anyone should be able to build on Bitcoin. Don't steal from people. Don't hurt from people. That looks to be like where we're going because I think what the United States is realizing is like one of the greatest assets are the entrepreneurs and the technology that we have here.

It would be a really bad idea to force all the private keys. Like, by the way, how connected the world is, access to track. the internet. Another executive order, like back in the day, think about where we were in like the global scheme of things when the gold executive order happened. Today, the U.S. executive ordered me. Like, I'm going to go live in Costa Rica with Dorsey. I'm not like goodbye. Yeah. Like I have every access and connectivity to just leave. Like I'm going to El Salvador. So I also don't think it's like as real of a threat anymore. Like you have nomads and people travel. and living all over the place. So if you don't respect my property rights for the most

pristine asset to protect my labor, then like, I won't argue with you. I'll just leave. Yeah, I think you're right. And it's the same thing we see when any country tries to implement like a wealth tax. It's great, but all the rich people will just leave. Right. Like, but this has been amazing, Jack. I'm so impressed with what you're doing. I have no idea how you have the energy. But thank you for having me here. Thank you having me in the closet, the legendary closet. I appreciate it. The first closet podcast. Thank you. Is this the first closet podcast? The first closet podcast.

There you. I'm on it. Thank you. I think you're doing an awesome job, bro. I've known, I can say compliments back. I've known you for a long time. And I met you as Peter's right hand that is an employee kind of that was doing everything and nothing at the same time. And I didn't really understand it.

And now you run the show and you're killing it. So, good job, dude. Appreciate it. Yeah. This has been great. Awesome.