EXCLUSIVE: Michael Saylor Issues FINAL Warning To Bitcoin Investors

I I think that if you're actually uh an

individual and you're using Bitcoin

right now, you're one of the early

pioneers. If you're if you keep it,

you'll be insanely rich. You know,

you're you're talking about hundred

trillion dollars of equity and credit.

Every company, look, every family on

Earth should adopt a Bitcoin standard.

You know, the base network is going to

have 10 to 100,000 big financial

institutions. A lot of people rail about

the, you know, the evils of a fiat

currency, but the truth of the matter is

there's a lot of evils with all the

other credit and equity instruments or

all the other stores of value. The logic

of burning your keys when you die is

that

All right, Michael, thank you so much

for uh being on the show. uh you've been

on a couple times before, but glad to

have you back and the first time in a

one-on-one capacity, so uh appreciate

you being here.

>> Yeah, happy to be here.

>> Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, you know,

it's been a big year. There's a lot

going on. Um, but I I have some some

questions for you that I've kind of

formulated over over time and and uh I'm

going to start with uh one that was I I

was curious about and

this one I'll I'll tee you up here a

little bit, but if you were tasked with

creating the monetary system for a brand

new hypothetical nation,

would you opt for Bitcoin as the money,

a Bitcoinbacked money or something

completely different like more elastic

elastic and separate from Bitcoin. How

would you do it?

>> I would create a currency um and then I

would back it with Bitcoin. I think

Bitcoin is digital capital. So, so you

want to have that as a reserve or a

central bank reserve just like you might

have gold in the old days or or you

might have tangible assets, but I would

create um I'd probably create another

currency that's uh that's closer pegged

to the dollar or it's floating plus or

minus a bit near the dollar as the as

the fiat currency of the nation.

So you would have a a a

currency separate from Bitcoin

coinciding with it so that people can

kind of use one as a treasury asset and

one as a a completely separate thing. I

think in the modern world the best

conception of money is that is that

money has a medium of exchange component

and it has a store of value component

and uh and you have a unit of account

for the store of value and a unit of

account for the medium of exchange. So

the white the the right metaphor is just

think of the dollar versus BTC or

checking account versus savings account.

And uh and so you're going to have sort

of high-speed

uh dollar type instruments to price

things in day-to-day and then you're

going to have uh another capital asset

that you're going to use to store your

value over the course of a hundred

years. And I think that uh it's like I

don't run a country so no one's asking

me but but uh

I think it would be a mistake to try to

establish a a currency with a capital

asset. For example, you don't really

want to price all your sandwiches in uh

New York City real estate.

Nor do you want to price your sandwiches

in ounces of gold. nor do you want to

price sandwiches and you know and you

know in Picasso paintings right u I

think that uh you've got capital and

you've got currency

bitcoin is capital it's digital capital

it's not digital currency I think the do

the a stable coin the dollar is digital

currency like tether and you've got weak

currencies and strong currencies a weak

currency is uh the boloulevard or the

naira like something which is infl

inflating at 14% a year or 30% a year. I

even got strong currencies that are

inflating at 7% a year. And then you got

capital which is not inflating at all.

>> Bitcoin is capital. It's not a strong

currency. It's not a weak currency. It's

it's a capital asset.

So

this kind of then leads me to um you've

discussed many times and as you kind of

outlined here um that you see kind of

obviously the US dollar and Bitcoin

coexisting

um at least you know for the foreseeable

future side by side. Um, does that

position apply to um other fiat

currencies that exist? Some of them, all

of them, none of them. How do you feel

about others?

>> I think that um

that you have a few currencies that are

kind of pegged to the dollar that are uh

that are struggling on and I think you

have a lot of currencies that are

collapsing against the dollar.

And then you have the dollar.

And so if uh if the stable coins uh

succeed, and they're going to succeed,

if if the US uh passes the genius bill

and then US corporations and banks are

able to issue stable coins backed by US

dollars, then that market's going to go

from 250 billion to a trillion to two

trillion to 4 trillion to 10 trillion.

And you have to ask the question, who's

going to be buying it? And the answer is

people that might have otherwise had

rubles or CNY or every African currency

and every South American currency. So,

so I think the weak currencies of the

world are going to gradually be

marginalized

like uh and uh I think that the dollar

will grow. I think we currencies will be

marginalized.

So, you see us leaning towards a um I

mean we already obviously have the

dollar as a world reserve currency, but

you see more and more people globally

leaning into things like US dollarbacked

stable coins and then perhaps using

Bitcoin as a as a long-term store of

value.

Yeah, I mean if if you look at the

demand for stable coins, most of it's

for US dollar stable coins, USDT, USDC.

>> Mhm.

>> There's not a lot of demand for stable

coins that represent, you know, your

favorite Egyptian currency or South

African currency or Nigerian currency or

the like.

>> So, it's that's what I think. Yeah.

>> All right. All right. Uh, I want to

shift gears a little bit. Um, I wanted

to chat a little bit about um, you know,

I guess maybe I'm one of the the the

crazy people that is kind of living on a

Bitcoin standard. Um I of course I'm in

Canada so we've got our Canadian dollar

that's um you know less desirable than

say the US dollar but I do uh use US

dollars in terms of when I'm invoicing

things like that. So I'd say my my unit

of account is USD but uh when I'm

receiving invoice I'm getting paid in

Bitcoin. I'm saving in Bitcoin. I'm even

using Bitcoin dayto day. Um my my

question is kind of pertaining to um you

wrote the mobile wave. It is 14 years

old now. So getting close to 15 years

old now. Um and you were able to kind of

foresee you know the the the future and

how integral mobile technology would be

to our lives at that time. So, taking

the same uh the same kind of

forward-looking approach to Bitcoin, 15

years from now, what do you anticipate

the average person's interaction with

Bitcoin will look like? Are they

engaging still directly with the

protocol at all? Are they engaging with

layers of Bitcoin or are most people

using some sort of Bitcoin bank um for

custody? What does that landscape look

like?

>> I think that there are 400 million

companies in the world

and there's 40,000 big banks in the

world.

So I think that and of course there are

lots of institutions. So I think that as

um as Bitcoin is integrated into the

fabric of uh of the global economy, I

think you'll see

Right. Uh, how about a thousand banks

that are actually trading peer-to-peer

with each other? I think that the banks,

the custodians,

mega corpse, I I mean I could I see a

world where every major bank and and

every major tech court, maybe a Google

and an Apple and a Microsoft, you know,

they're all bas they're all settling or

moving large amounts of Bitcoin around

on the base layer. governments. You

would think that the biggest users of

the base layer would be Apple and Google

and the US and Bank of China and Bank of

Russia and Bank of of England. I mean to

the extent that any of those things

exist, right? If if the nation exists,

if the bank exists, you know, you would

think that city uh city would be moving

billions of dollars of Bitcoin to BFA,

to Wells Fargo, you know, to to

Santander, to Deutsche Bank, to Swiss

Bank, to Bank of Japan. Uh I would think

that Microsoft will move billions and

tens of billions of Bitcoin between

Microsoft and Google in order to work

through some, you know, technical issue.

I think all the, you know, I think Visa,

any of the payment networks, they'll

have massive amounts of Bitcoin. So, I I

think that if you're actually uh an

individual and you're using Bitcoin

right now, you're one of the early

pioneers. Uh if you're if you keep it,

you'll be insanely rich.

If you take money off the top or you

sell it, then you know you'll remember

that you used to have billions of

dollars of Bitcoin but you sold it for

Ferrari and that will be unfortunate but

yeah and so I think that there'll be

some OGs that will still be heavily

engaged

but I think ultimately

ultimately uh you know the base network

is going to have 10 to 100,000 big

financial institutions

that are going to be settling large

amounts and I think the network's going

to scale in the layer twos and the layer

threes. I think something, you know, the

lightning network is going to end up

being a a high-speed, low, high

frequency, low or value settlement

network that will stitch together a

100,000 or a million websites or a

million mobile apps or you could imagine

everybody with a mobile app that has

payments built in, at some point they

might go peer-to-peer. They won't do it

on the base layer. They'll do it on a on

an open protocol layer two most likely.

And then there'll be like massive

competition between

Coinbase and uh Cash App and uh and all

the traders and the banks and the high

frequency

you know traders and and you know the

next person running Mastercard or Visa

and they'll try to create these layer

3es

>> and they'll have a layer three protocol

and you know and maybe Binance wants you

to move it on Binance and Visa wants you

to move it on Visa. and and Coinbase

wants you to use their network and Cash

App and then Microsoft and Apple and

Apple Pay and all these other tech

networks. They'll be layer 3es. And if a

billion people trust Apple,

you know, with their credit card, maybe

a billion people will trust $10,000

worth of Bitcoin to Apple.

And then maybe there'll be some

successor to Apple, right? like open a

you know Tesla bot or something. So I I

think that there'll be um a huge amount

of transactions,

you know, billions and billions of

transactions a day,

probably billions an hour on the layer

3es, probably billions a day on the

layer twos. And then you're going to

have the same number of transactions,

you know, on the layer one, far fewer.

And those will be hundred million dollar

billion dollar type settlements,

you know, uh between the the mega

institutions. and will and I think

you'll see you'll probably see Bitco

Bitcoin security and uh Bitcoin credit

type

ideas built into a lot of financial and

technical applications

that that and there'll be new

applications new new use cases that we

can't even conceive of right now that

will maybe for cyber security or social

security or uh or something else that

will grease the wheels of digital

commerce.

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code on the screen. Oh, speaking of kind

of new use cases, things on the bleeding

edge of Bitcoin, is there anything right

now that to you um really really stands

out that you're particularly excited

about that maybe people aren't super

wellversed in and familiar with? And on

the opposite side of that coin, is there

anything

in the development in and around Bitcoin

that you think um proposes a potential

threat or that you're worried about?

I I think the most exciting thing going

on right now is the issuance of

BTCbacked equity and the issuance of

BTCbacked credit because

you know you're you're talking about

hundred trillion dollars

of equity and credit that's

discretionary. So, so every

if I if I were to say every public

company should recapitalize on Bitcoin,

that would be a start. But that would be

an understatement because I didn't

include the 400 million private

companies, did I? And I didn't include I

didn't include every institutional

holder of any capital. So I think that

um

that's a very powerful dynamic and once

that starts that that burns

a hundred million a week per company a

billion you know that that can burn

billions and that could be billions of

dollars a week

and uh if and the same with BTC back

credit. If you look at all the credit

instruments, all the preferred stocks,

all of the fixed income, all the

annuities, all the corporate bonds, all

the high yield bonds, the junk bonds,

all the investment grade bonds, all that

huge amounts, it's all going to be

recapitalized or reconstructed on a

Bitcoin standard that's bigger than the

equity. And so, I think that there's a

there's a digital transformation of the

capital markets going on right now. And

it's profound. And what it means is a

company like Metaplanet can go from

being worth 10 million to being

potentially worth 10 billion in a couple

of years. So show me show me a better

idea. How do you go from 10 million to

10 billion in 24 months or 36 months?

It's it's not very common.

So I I really think that that's the part

that's underappreciated. I mean people

people in the business staring at it

like literally most of the crypto OGs

that have been in the business for 15

years are staring right at the thing and

ignoring it or rejecting it as it's

happening right that's the that's the

irony to me so and I think that's

because again their their metaphor is

they're looking for some technical

widget to create

>> instead of reconce receiving

the way that wealth is is stored. Um,

you know, if you're looking for the

technical ideas, the technical ideas are

just harder. They take a lot more work.

I mean, eventually

eventually you would think that uh,

Bitcoin is the basis for all payments,

you know, via something like the

Lightning Protocol. And so, clear

clearly the internet of money that's a

that's a a cool idea. It's a lot of

work. It's going to take a while. And

then I think um I think Bitcoin is the

basis of all identity and

authentication. It's another interesting

technical idea. Presumably public

private key cryptography on a Bitcoin

network. It it ought to you know it

ought to replace most of the forms of

authentication and identity and

verification in the world. So I think

that those are two technical dynamics

that are that are operating. But

but on the other hand, if you launch a

100 companies with those two ideas, 99

out of a 100red are going to struggle

and one will achieve something maybe.

Whereas I can take a dying hotel or a

dying restaurant chain and I can make it

worth a billion dollars just using

Bitcoin as digital capital. and on the

margin is more likely to work than not.

And so so I I I think that uh the really

big compelling ideas of the monetary

ideas of the financial financialization

of Bitcoin, the securitization of the

network. I think the technical ideas

will probably come later. They will they

will come. They're coming. David Marcus

is doing great job, you know, with

Spark, you know, and Light Spark. I

think it's very interesting and and and

they're having good progress, you know,

and I think we'll see a lot more things

like that, but but uh those are a little

bit more difficult to forecast because

of the vagaries of technology

entrepreneurship.

>> I want to touch on the the the treasury

part here as well. Um, obviously, you

know, you really spearheaded this whole

movement and it seems like every other

week or every week now we've got new

announcements. It's it's pretty wild.

Um, my question is, are are we still so

early that simply adopting a uh, you

know, a Bitcoin treasury strategy is

enough? or are there certain

fundamentals that the underlying company

must have? Are there instances where you

might not suggest it? Um, so I I'm just

kind of curious your thoughts around

that.

>> Every company, look, every family owner

should adopt the Bitcoin standard,

right? What is that, a billion families?

>> Yeah.

>> Every person on Earth should adopt the

Bitcoin standard. That's 8 billion

people. Every company on Earth should

adopt the Bitcoin standard. That's 400

million companies.

Now, now your next question is, well,

is there anything I can do that's better

than that? Well, well, there are a lot

of other twists to it. If you know, if

you if you take a private company, take

it public, right? You add value. Now,

all of these companies are competing to

do something. The issue is what's the

something?

It depends on the company. So, I think

we're very early. I mean, not even.1% of

companies are doing this, right? So, I

mean, if you're less than 1% adoption,

you're still pretty early. There's a lot

of different business models you can

pursue. Um, if you're a private company

and and

you're raising $10 million in order to

fund operating losses, you could just

raise 50 million and buy 40 million of

Bitcoin and fund 10 million in operating

losses. And I would definitely recommend

that. That's better, right? Mhm.

>> Right. So, so every private company can

do that. Uh, now the question is, can

you raise the money? Okay. Well, that

depends on who you are and whether or

not we like your company and whether

you're trustworthy. So, so this all

becomes an exercise in capital raising.

And the question is, will some companies

be better at raising capital than

others? Sure, they will. Are there some

markets if you're launching a company a

Bitcoin treasury company in Japan your

odds are higher than if you're launching

that same company in Venezuela

right I mean where's the money right so

so I think that the successes will be uh

companies well first of all every

company will be successful right there's

what's the alternative you know you're

holding Egyptian pounds in your treasury

so so every single Egyptian company that

adopts the Bitcoin standard will be more

successful than if it did it right. It's

just that there are certain options

right now uh for people that are

creative

um to go beyond just uh just success. If

you're the first company in Japan to

adopt a Bitcoin standard and you grow

rapidly and you generate a lot of

capital, then not only do you have the

most compelling BTC backed equity in the

Japanese capital market, you can have

the most compelling BTC credit

instruments.

Well, there's trillions of dollars in in

in Japan, right? So, how many companies

in Japan can do that?

Well, I don't I mean, not every company

can be the Amazon

of, you know, of whatever of capital

markets in Japan, but at least one can

be. Now, what about the rest? What you

know that the subtext is always, well,

is it too late for the rest of us? No,

you're still better off than if you

didn't,

>> right? For example, how many companies

have issued mortgage back securities?

How many companies have issued

mortgages? Or or how about how many

companies have ever issued junk bonds?

If you're the first company to issue the

junk bond, then I guess that's good. But

what about the second or the third? It

worked for them, too. So, I I think as a

practical matter, uh, everybody

benefits. The early adopters benefit

more. Those that are run by a

charismatic leader and a good management

team can grow faster.

Um, the more creative you are, the

better. And if you're, you know, if if

you're um not disciplined in the way you

run the capital structure, then you

won't do as well.

>> Do depends.

>> So my my I guess followup to that would

be um you know, historically we've seen

uh ill-placed criticisms thrown at

Bitcoin because of um people doing

irresponsible things with it and their

companies blowing up. So, I'm talking

about, you know, exchange blowups and

paper Bitcoin and all all this kind of

stuff and and Bitcoin is very efficient

at at pointing out the irresponsible

behavior and and punishing it. Um, so I

guess my question as it pertains to uh

companies that go um with the Bitcoin

Treasury strategy, if companies come

into that space that um you know we're

underwater already that uh you know

weren't running an efficient business

and then you know more or less ape into

Bitcoin with debt that they perhaps

couldn't afford and the market hits a

downturn, does it also

in a way kind of clear out the riff raff

in an expedient matter manner there or

does it does it rescue those people that

that weren't being uh particularly

prudent with their funds?

>> Well, there there are good companies and

bad companies, right? So, if I give you

a company making a hundred million a

year and they adopt Bitcoin and they

start buying a 100 million worth of

Bitcoin, they'll be 10x better. If they

borrow a billion, they'll be 100x

better. If they manage to launch in a

two market, they'll be a thousandx

better. If they screw it up, they won't.

If I give you a company that's losing a

hundred million a year and they announce

that they're adopting a Bitcoin

standard, no one's going to give them

any money. Maybe they don't have any

Bitcoin. So, the point is, you know,

putting a you know, putting out a press

release doesn't solve your problem.

>> Yeah. So, so

you know, in that particular case, if

the company's got a billion dollars of

debt, losing a hundred million a year,

putting out a press release announcing

that you adopted the Bitcoin Treasury

model doesn't help you, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

>> Right. Um, if I take uh a bad company,

if I take a bad P&L and I attach a good

uh balance sheet, eventually I burn all

the money on the balance sheet. Like

would you invest $500 million of Bitcoin

into a company losing 100 million a year

that intended to keep losing it?

Probably not, right? So, so the thing

about this market is the Bitcoin

treasury company movement is is

traditional companies trading in the

public markets that have adopted the

Bitcoin standard. It's not crypto

companies. So it's impossible for them

to actually generate or or take on the

leverage the crypto companies took over.

The crypto companies were levered 20

to1, 30 to1, 50 to1. It was very common

for in the you know in the crypto

uh in the in the height of the crypto

era, people would give you a billion

dollar loan for 800 million of Yo-Yo

token as collateral.

Okay.

um you can't get a loan to buy Bitcoin

in traditional finance market.

So for for example, I can't sell a bond

like like uh and so all these Bitcoin

treasury companies, they're not getting

levered up. They're raising equity.

They're not raising debt. The debt

markets won't give them capital. So, so

whereas if you look at what created the

crypto winner, it was I was levered up

20 to1 on FTT token and then I pledged a

billion of FTT for some Tether and then

I went and I bought some whatever Luna

or something and you ended up daisy

chaining 10x leverage three times and

created a thousandx leverage on Yo-Yo

token and Yo-Yo token collapses and the

entire thing collapses. Um, you can't do

that in traditional finance markets.

Like if you you can't borrow a billion

to buy Bitcoin.

No one will give you the money. If you

had a billion dollars of Bitcoin, you

can't borrow a billion against it.

>> You can't even leverage it two to one.

Like my company's levered 1.1 like 1.2.

Like so you might get 10 20% leverage,

maybe 30% leverage. You can't get 10x

leverage. And so all of these companies

that are being launched are governed by

much more conservative

uh financial principles.

The the the thing that bothers us is

let's take the capital markets or the

credit markets. You can't get a credit

rating. We're 10 we have stuff that's

10x we have bonds that are 50x over

collateralized 50 times. We can't get a

credit rating on them. Okay. So

why would you sit around worrying that

these guys are getting overlevered?

That's not the problem at all. Every all

the Bitcoin treasury companies can't get

over levered if they wanted to because

the because the conventional credit

markets are so hyperconservative.

They actually value Bitcoin up until

right now is worth zero. You can't lever

it at all. So So who's funding all this?

It's equity.

and and and uh you know who's behind the

convertible bonds? That's equity. For

example, when someone buys a $200

million convertible bond from you, they

sell $150 million of your equity in

order to in order to hedge it. So, what

you've really got is uh probably not

even 5% leverage in the entire system.

Like at if you had a hundred billion

dollars of Bitcoin, you might have $5

billion of something that looks like

leverage. That's about all you have.

>> So, there's really not that much there

because there's no way to get it, right?

The only way to sell a convertible bond

is have so much liquidity in your equity

that the convertible arbitrageers can

short the stock. You see? So, if you

don't have liquidity and if you don't

have cash flow,

then how do you get a Bitcoin treasury

company working? And the answer is you

have to actually go and find equity

investors.

You have to find someone that will will

inject a slug of a hundred million, 50

million, 200 million, 500 million of

equity. And they might do it in the form

of of US dollars or they might do it in

the form of euros or they might give you

bitcoin but at the end of the day

they're equity investors.

And so this entire movement is really uh

the creation of uh BTCbacked

equity. And the reason it works is

because if you look at a chart and we we

put a chart like this in our our stride

presentation about a week ago. Out of

about a hundred trillion dollars that's

under control of institutional money

managers where they can reallocate it

any given day. 35 trillion is equity. 65

trillion is earmarked for credit.

There's only three trillion that's

invested in something that akin to a

commodity.

2.3 trillion of it is gold held by

central banks.

They're not going to sell their gold to

buy Bitcoin any or or to buy your equity

anytime soon. So, you've got about $700

uh billion dollars of uh money

in the institutional market um that

could be invested in commodities

like Bitcoin. So

there's a 100x more money available for

credit or equity, you know, and it's

like 700 billion versus 35 trillion

available for for equity. So at the end

of the day, the money is sitting in

these funds that have mandates to invest

in equity and they can buy blockchain

group or they can invest in smarter web

or they can invest in meta planet or

they can invest in strategy. They just

can't invest in Bitcoin.

>> They can't they won't they just can't.

It's just that simple. So, so these

companies are essential in order to

bridge the traditional finance economy

with the crypto economy. And if you

don't have the companies in the middle,

there's no way for the capital to flow.

But with the company like uh like

Smarter Web or like MetaPlanet, then the

capital that is locked up in a

retirement account in Tokyo or London

can flow into a Bitcoin treasury company

that can then take it and buy Bitcoin

with it.

And you know, I we could go into lots of

lots of details about why is it like

that and is it fair and is it rational?

Is it's it's above our pay grade. The

world is structured the way it's

structured and that's where the capital

is and the way you got to look at it is

is uh

in a couple of seconds the money can

move from there into the equity or we

can wait 30 years and see if the world

changes and then maybe it will or maybe

it won't but it's like 30 seconds or 30

years that that's your issue. So, so the

Bitcoin treasury companies are meeting a

need, right? they're bridging the gap

and uh they're solving this problem for

the investor

and uh that's worth something and so

that's why they merit a premium and then

because because they generate that

premium because they're more tax

efficient they're more capital efficient

or I guess simple example I give you a

suburb and on the left side of the

street are houses that you can buy and

put a mortgage on with no money down and

it's cheap mortgage

and the right side of the street. You

have to pay for the house in cash.

Okay.

And and you've got the identical houses

on both sides of the street. But what do

you think the house on the left side of

the street that you can get no money

down will trade at a premium to the

house on the right side of the street

that you got to pay for with cash?

Right? I mean, the answer is obvious,

right? the house on the left side of the

street will be double or triple or

quadruple because the world's full of

people that want a house and the world's

full of people that don't have the money

to pay for the house. So, so the Bitcoin

treasury companies are giving you the

ability to get Bitcoin exposure with

someone else's capital or with capital

that's stranded.

And that's why uh they're growing

rapidly and that's why we need more of

them.

So in terms of you, you know, you're

talking about all this capital on the s

sidelines that's beginning to make its

way into Bitcoin via Treasury companies

um as an easy avenue to do so. In terms

of

um I I guess that type of adoption, but

even just broader adoption of Bitcoin,

how are you kind of mapping the

adoption? Are are you thinking of it as

your typical technological scurve or do

you feel like because of regulatory

things it's going to be a bit of a a

slower grind? And if we're on that

scurve, where would you say that we're

at currently?

>> I don't have a a a strong model. I just

think every quarter, every year we get

more adoption and it's going at a

different rate in different parts of the

world. That's the famous William Gibson

phrase, the future's already with us.

It's just not evenly distributed.

So, in some places, the adoption is

going to be more conservative

and and it's going to manifest itself in

financial institutions that are

conservative.

And in other cases it'll be uh through

techn new technical things

you know like like for example the um

the news story this morning was the

largest shareholder in my company is

Vanguard.

>> Okay. So that's an example of

hyperconservative

adoption because because Vanguard is a

company run by a CEO that said that he

doesn't believe in Bitcoin and they

don't want to let anybody buy it. Okay.

It's not a technology leader, right?

It's it's not a tech it's not it's not

the Bitcoin is running on an iPhone or

an Android phone. It's not an AI. It's

actually a completely passive adoption.

It's but it's it's so passive and subtle

that even the company that doesn't even

like the asset ends up owning a lot of

it. Right.

So, I guess

>> the metaphor is like, okay, you're a

retired firefighter and you own Bitcoin

even though you hate it. You see, well,

how did I end up owning it? Well, I

mean, I've got a pension fund and the

pension plan is is sitting in an index

fund and the index fund owns a

percentage of the whatever and they own

a lot of Bitcoin. So you'll you will see

that kind of adoption passively creeping

into uh the financial system. I think um

we did a we checked or we did an

analysis we observed there about 55

million beneficiaries of MSTR.

You think they all know that they own

Bitcoin? No.

>> Like most of them don't even know they

don't even know who we are, right? So,

so there's a lot of people that are

beneficiaries. They just don't know,

right? If if we ended up getting put in

the S&P 500, there'd be a hundred

million plus that wouldn't know. So, I

think that that's one end that one

extreme, which is just uh passive

adoption by osmosis just because you

can't escape it. And then the other

extreme is is, you know, I hold my keys,

I run my node, I have, you know, I have

my signing device, I have multi-IG, I'm

I'm hardcore, right? And I'm I'm very um

uh I'm very determinate or decisive

about it. And then, you know, there's

everybody in between. you know, it's I

got Cash App or or or I have have Apple

Pay and then on one day Apple will push

an update giving everybody access to

Bitcoin and it's like I didn't ask for

it but it's you know the icon popped up

on the phone you know so there'll be

that too.

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Side note on the uh on on the badasserie

and the signing device and everything.

Uh this is this is more just to scratch

my own itch here, but uh have you ever

used a cold card? And if not, can I come

show you how?

>> Um I haven't used one, but if you'd

like, you can come show me.

>> I would I would love it. Uh hopefully I

can blow your mind with one because

they're fun. Uh

>> okay,

>> but I digress. Um, uh, I wanted to

quickly touch on, so I I, um, on the

side, uh, often do some help with the

Human Rights Foundation. I'm I imagine

you're familiar with like Alex Gladstein

and all the work that they're they're

doing using using Bitcoin as a tool for

human rights and freedom. So, I'm just

curious if you had any thoughts on kind

of what they've been doing and and how

you view Bitcoin in that realm.

Yeah. Well, I think that that the asset

and the network provides a strong

foundation for economic empowerment and

freedom everywhere in the world. And so,

um

I think that uh I think what they're

doing is interesting and uh it's good

for the world. And I think that as um

as uh the technology

uh that sits at the layer 2s and the

layer threes improves and as it spreads

everywhere in the world uh it will get

easier for them to do what they're

doing. I think I'd like I'd like to see

a world where,

you know, you've got a a mobile app

that's sitting with a lightning

interface that gives you the ability to

move frictionfree any currency and andor

Bitcoin fly switching between a fiat

currency and Bitcoin anywhere in the

world at the speed of light with privacy

with security with simplicity,

right? And and that at that point,

that's kind of, you know, the killer

app.

>> I mean, it's not going to solve the

human rights problem. The human rights

problem is,

>> of course,

>> there are other issues. If I'm sitting

in jail or someone's got a gun to my

head, then giving me a, you know, an

Android application that does that

doesn't necessarily solve my problem.

But it'll it it gives you a tool that

you can use.

>> Yeah. to empower those that otherwise

are in a pretty hopeless situation.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I will say it's been

pretty compelling watching um some of

some of these activists and people in

pretty dire situations,

you know, not not say that Bitcoin's a

silver bullet, but them realizing that

it's a tool in the tool belt that can

help further further their causes, which

is great to see. Um, I did also uh want

to ask you on a on a personal level,

especially since you've kind of come

onto the scene, you know, your

announcement in 2020 of what you were

planning on doing and um and up to

today.

What is what is one of the opinions that

you maybe held about Bitcoin at that

time as you were starting to pull the

trigger that has most shifted or maybe

completely changed over the past five

five and a half

I think I figured it out pretty well

very early on. I don't I don't have one

for you.

>> Okay, fair enough.

>> You can you can go back and look at what

I said when I went on Pomp's podcast or

Ral Ral's podcast. It was two September

of 2020 and see what I thought then. I

still think it now.

>> Um my my views of Bitcoin haven't

changed. I've I've found a lot of other

ways uh to raise money to buy Bitcoin

that I didn't know then. So

>> I did not. I guess the one the one thing

that's really evolved for me is is

my um

my uh awareness uh or at least my

appreciation for Bitcoin as a tool to

digitally transform capital markets.

>> Okay. All right. Fair enough. Because

initially I thought of it as a tool uh

to save the company or save the

individual

>> but now I actually see it as as a tool

to rebuild all the capital markets in

the world

>> which means all the credit markets all

the equity markets. So, I guess it's

another way to say it is my my view of

Bitcoin hasn't really changed, but my

view of the equity markets

and my view of the credit markets has

changed. So, I guess

if you want to riff on that a bit, it's

like you learn Bitcoin and then what's

your conclusion? The bit the big

overarching conclusion is not how good

Bitcoin is. It's just how defective the

fiat currencies are that we used to rely

on

before Bitcoin. So, bit because Bitcoin

is a pure a pure uh monetary asset, it

causes you to realize how inadequate all

the previous monetary assets were in the

previous 10,000 years.

And because it's a pure monetary asset,

you realize how inadequate the existing

equities are. And then you realize how

inadequate the existing credit is. So

you know, if you accepted the world and

said, well, the bond market is healthy,

the equity markets are healthy, the

money markets are healthy. You know,

that was before Bitcoin.

And then after Bitcoin, a lot of people

realize, okay, well, if Bitcoin is is

good money, then I guess the other

monies are defective, you know, but not

many go beyond that to point out that

the implication is all of the existing

equity markets are impaired and all of

the existing credit markets are

impaired. No. So, a lot of people rail

about the, you know, the evils of of

fiat currency, but the truth of the

matter is,

you know, there's a lot of evils with

all the other credit and equity

instruments or all the other stores of