I love Bitcoin. I don't love that. I don't do business for the sake of business. I didn't go to business school. I'm not a Silicon Valley guy. I love Bitcoin. If what the company became and the direction the board wants to take it in was initially the decision made at founding, I would have never started it and I would have never been a part of it. Once you stay the course and you see the other side, you realize like things that you mistake for punishments are really just gifts. The world had to teach me a lot if I wanted to become the man that I am now. And how else would I have acquired what I needed to acquire if it wasn't then and if it wasn't that? I want to build what I believe in. I want to build for people that believe in the things that I do. I want to build for Bitcoiners. I want to build a company that I want to work for. I want to build products that I would actually use.
Ready to go, man. Nice. How you doing? How you feeling? Things have changed a bit since last time we recorded.
You just made the announcement at the conference. Um, everything like when I saw the news that you were leaving 21, I was very surprised. I was actually at Odell's house.
I was the first one awake that morning. He walked in. I was like, 'Holy [__] Jack's left 21.'
Um, tell the story. What happened?
Um, I so the company that I uh co-founded and wanted to build and the company 21 was becoming were no longer the same.
And I felt it was the right thing to do for a lot of reasons to exit the business. So uh I stepped down as a CEO and 21 still goes on. It's still a business, still listed on the New York Stock Exchange and nothing about the company has changed except for who leads it, which is obviously a big change. Um, and yeah man, I mean listen, it was uh disappointing. I own the fact that I uh started a thing and set expectations for said thing and I didn't achieve it and that part is very disappointing and it sucks, but um I also know it's the right thing to do uh which we can get into. I feel good about the decision that I made uh and um I also wrote an essay that I hilariously wasn't allowed to publish because I was still a public company officer, so I published it only recently after I publicly stepped down. But um part of that essay is centered around this idea of what punishments are not gifts, which I think is very bare marketesque of Bitcoin. Bitcoin to me is the money of integrity and humility. And uh through the seasons that Bitcoin experiences, I've experienced seasons as well. And this is my latest winter. And uh although it's been painful and I own uh all of the unfortunate outcomes as the CEO, um I I think uh there are many gifts embedded in this and I feel good and obviously doesn't change how I think about Bitcoin, but I'm happy to tell you now. I could say whatever I want. So I'm happy to tell you any, obviously I don't want to talk on behalf of a company that I am no longer employed by and work on. Um, so even if I was allowed to do that, just the man I am, I would not do that. It's their company and those guys are still my friends and I still think they can go on and crush it. But anything about the founding and any of the stories, like ask me whatever you want.
It's funny because you're saying you weren't able to release that article uh because you were still the CEO of a public company. Yeah. When me and Odell were talking about it on the podcast, which was really awkward, by the way, because we're essentially talking about you, who's a friend of both of ours, while you're not there, it's kind of a hard thing to broach. Like I'd much rather have, you know, the harder conversation with you directly. But um one of the things I said is like the thing that I'm most excited about in a selfish way is that like I feel like Jack's back. Like I feel like this is Jack on Shackle again.
Which is awesome. Um, but so let's go through like where did the divergences between your vision for the company and the board's vision for the company start? Like what were the problems that you encountered?
So I think uh when we founded it and we is Tether and I and Tether means really Junk Carlo and Paulo. Apollo, everybody knows the CEO, John Carlo, is the founder of Tether. And this probably shouldn't become a Tether podcast, but people say Brock Pierce co-founded Tether. And there's like some vague truths to that, but like the actual founder of the stablecoin and the actual founder of Tether and the chairman of the business is Junk Carlo. And so J Carlo and Paulo and I and you know the rest of the Tether team is great but I would say like those are the core conversations of like creating this thing and what it would look like, what it would be called. Like I branded 21, I came up with the name, I registered the ticker, like all of that stuff. Um, that was the group and that group and we still do share this unified vision of well on one side of a spectrum you have a Coinbase or a Robin Hood. These are classic fintechs that have customers and they have products and they produce cash flow, right? Their cost to run the business is less than the revenue that they produce. They have profit and that gets investors excited. The business is worth a lot. The business is growing. However, their conviction in Bitcoin is either small or non-existent. They don't hold a lot of Bitcoin on the balance sheet, if at all, relative to other assets, their focus and how they ship products, where they focus their lobbying attention in Washington DC, everything about the company. Like I think Coinbase, I don't think it's false to say that they care more about Ethereum than Bitcoin historically. So that's one side is you've got good businesses with cash flow and growth like historically what an investor would look for. You value these businesses on discounted cash flow or some future. Okay. The other side of the spectrum are what became treasury companies which I would say the opposite. These are businesses that don't have customers, don't have cash flow, don't have products at all uh purposefully so um but do have conviction in Bitcoin. That is what they sell. They sell like not only do I believe in Bitcoin, I believe so much I'm gonna lever myself to believe in it and I want to be the biggest believer in it. And when you buy this equity, it means you believe in it more than anybody else. And these are like two polar opposing things. And Tether and I and specifically Junk Carlo, Paulo and I had come from I mean we've all been in Bitcoin for a very long time and so we've been through the like when Silk Road went bust, when Mt. Gox went down, when Coinbase was a Bitcoin company and became a shitcoin company, and then Binance was going to be the Bitcoin company for the world, then FTX was going to be the Bitcoin company for the world, and then Junk Carlo created Tether and Tether was after he created Bitfinex or he didn't create Bitfinex but we had experienced the industry for a long time and we were like surely we can create something that lives in this synergetic middle.
Where we've been able to create cash generating businesses, businesses that have been successful, meaning we produce more profits than we have costs. But we believe in Bitcoin and we believe Bitcoin is the innovation. It should be the sole focus. And I've gotten there through Strike, they've gotten there through their businesses. And that was the vision is can we create a public equity that was both? And I think eventually how we got there uh and how we were going to achieve that changed. Like for example, I'll say this like if what the company became and the direction the board wants to take it in was initially the decision made at founding, I would have never started it and I would have never been a part of it. And you know some other things that the public doesn't know was like you know Strike being a part of 21 was never part of the initial discussion. In fact, I'll never forget sitting in one of what I would consider like the founding meetings and saying like I just got to a point where I was lucky enough and worked hard enough to have a thing that works and Strike and like I don't consider myself one of these like serial entrepreneurs. Like I don't want to do this again. Like I done it. Yeah. I don't build companies because like I love it and like I love like sleeping on your friend's couch and like drawing on the chalkboard. I don't love that. I love Bitcoin. I don't love that. I don't do business for the sake of business. I didn't go to business school. I'm not a Silicon Valley guy. I love Bitcoin and I love promoting Bitcoin. And so I had a very blunt conversation of like I have this other thing. And they're like, you know, you should be the CEO of both and like we'll support that. And so eventually obviously that changed and why that changed the market evolved like when we started it. Bitcoin was in the middle and becoming of a bull run by the time we listed on the New York Stock Exchange like strategy had changed the definition of MNAV like treasury companies were distressed. Bitcoin is falling off a cliff. So things change, markets change. Uh I mean SoftBank was on the board. Uh SoftBank stepped down from the board. The board changed and so things changed. Um, but that's okay. That's okay. Like these guys are great guys. They're real Bitcoiners. And at the end of the day, 21 was never mine. Um, which is very unfortunate. Uh, because I think I set expectations uh in a way that like I need to own of like I laid out my vision, what I wanted us to do. Um, and ultimately I wasn't able to see that through. Um, which I feel awful about and I own. Um, but I had no governing control to do what I wanted to do. It was ultimately up to the board and one day the board and I started to diverge a bit on how we were going to achieve the initial vision based on the world changing and doesn't make anyone a villain I guess if that makes sense and I genuinely mean that.
Um, it is unfortunate but I mean 21 has what it needs to be successful. I mean what did we achieve? We built the second largest treasury, which there's some FUD around that of like we never actually bought Bitcoin. It was all contributed by Tether. That's not true. We bought almost a billion and a half dollars worth of Bitcoin. And uh we listed in the public capital markets, which not easy to do.
No, I remember uh having a conversation uh with my fiance and I was like, I mean, I really I mean, this stuff is hard, man. uh I feel like I let people down and I own that and um and I was talking to her about it and she didn't know uh Adam Back uh by name and the company he was trying to start but she was like hey you guys actually stacked a bunch of Bitcoin and listed in the public markets and the 21 board has what they need to be a successful company like you know at least you know the transaction didn't get cancelled and I'm not, you know, Adam knows I love him. I'm not in any way discrediting or speaking. I don't know what happened there, but yeah, I mean, um, we did a thing.
And at some point, I wasn't the right guy to lead it. Unfortunately,
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It's funny you say the thing about Strike merging with 21 was never part of the plan at the start because you said that to me when we first did the show after I took over the podcast. Um it was just after you had announced the launch of 21 and you said that and I believed you and then when you made the announcement that they were going to emerge I was like oh was I being naive because you were the CEO of a public company like there's things you just can't say but that really was never part of the plan originally.
Yeah, it was never part. In fact, what I would consider like the founding meeting and that's the thing. I've known these guys for a very long time and I'm obviously still do but there was one specific uh time we all met up and uh yeah I made the point I was like you know the Strike thing to me like I don't and we can talk about this. I don't need to be like the biggest or the best or own the most bitcoins, you know. Obviously, this isn't an ego race with Michael Saylor. And it's not even about Saylor. It's um and this is what I talked about in the essay. Uh Bitcoin is the great humbler. Uh it is the death of ego. It is the money of humility and integrity. And you know, when I think about like the Mount Rushmore for me is like Satoshi Nakamoto. That is the greatest like display of build something great for the sake of what it represents and what it can do, not for what it like can make you and what it brings you. Uh, and so I try and embody that level of integrity and honesty. Um, and so yeah, like I was I am okay with just being a Bitcoiner and orange pilling people and building, you know, I like building my company that uh I build products that I want to use. I build a business that I would want to work for and I'm okay with that. I don't need more than that. And I had that conversation. Mhm. Um, and the result was like, well, there's many people that run two businesses and we have plenty of ways to support your ability to do that. And so, like I just made it known a known thing. But yeah, it was not part of it. And obviously at some point that changed and I would say that the I mean listen investors in the market was pushing that on the board saying like you know the market wants to see Jack's efforts consolidate into a public equity. Yeah. People want to buy Bitcoin. They want to buy Jack. They wanted to buy Tether and having these things kind of um spread apart and what's what. And when Jack makes a product announcement, is he talking about the thing that I just invested in or is he talking about another thing? And so to be clear, I'm not implying there was some like sneaky plan. I think things evolved and then the board and specifically Tether thought that that was a good idea and they wrote that blog post and then the Bitcoin conference was me opining on the blog post and sharing where the visions overlapped. Um, but I was obviously I was very careful and like if we could make it work at the time there was a lot that wasn't figured out and obviously the world now knows that we couldn't figure it out. We couldn't make everybody happy. Um and uh and yeah, that's why I mean um above all else, uh I'm not afraid I I again I own the outcomes. Like I have one of the reasons uh I wasn't I wouldn't say dubious about doing the show, but um I don't want people to perceive my words as like asking for sympathy or asking for acceptance or being like, 'Okay, now I understand your side of the story, so like I forgive you.' That's all I'm asking for. Like I deserve to be held accountable for decisions I made that I in hindsight would have made differently and for outcomes or rather lack of outcomes. So I would say, you know, I'm not trying to justify anything. It is what it is. Um but I hold myself to I'm not afraid to be wrong. I'm not afraid to be wrong. I'm not afraid to fail in public. I'm not afraid to prioritize integrity and truth and principles over money and fame. And um I think it's important and I think it was important for me to learn that through experience and be tested to the fire because you say things like some things aren't for sale, right? or like you know principles over everything or like this is what it means to be a Bitcoiner and then you're offered like an unlimited amount of money and Wall Street and stuff and then it's like you know are you who you say you are and uh I mean that experience was invaluable as well for me. So,
I don't think you should think of this as like it doesn't come across as asking for forgiveness, but people love you. Like, people want to know what the story was and what happened. Like, I think it's important that you do tell your side of the story and let people judge it however they want.
Totally. I just am sensitive to like um you know, we have a culture internally at Strike. Um, so this is something that I've enforced on myself and people in my life and that work with me for years, which is, uh, I don't believe in pointing fingers and delegating blame. And what I tell my employees is say, if you come to me and I say, 'Hey, what's going on? Why did X, Y, and Z happen?' And you come to me and you say, 'Well, it was that guy.' I tell everyone, don't do that because what you just told me is that guy determines the outcomes. That guy determines fate. That guy is truly responsible. So then I'm going to ask, why are you here? Mhm. You must not be that important. And this gets into a deeper philosophical idea of like to be sovereign is to own your destiny. To point at somebody else or to say, well, you know, if the Bitcoin price didn't go down or if only the board did this or if only timing was different, then by proxy, I'm saying the outcomes of my life, my success, my future, my contributions, the relationships I hold with the public market or with Bitcoiners or with my customers isn't truly up to me. Um, I feel like that's a very weak position to hold. And so I only come from it from a stance of I own my outcomes. The buck stops here. You know, my high school coach uh had a very lasting impression on me, high school basketball, and he said, you know, a great leader gives credit when we win. When we win, it's all about the players and the plays you guys made and the hustle you showed on defense. When we lose, it's my fault. And that's ownership. That's integrity. That's leadership. And so that's what I mean. I, you know, like I think it's really important to say like hand up. Like I tried a thing. I did it in public. Uh, and it didn't go the way I wanted. And I know that impacts people and I know people are going to want an explanation. And I know people are going to want me to own it and say sorry. And I do. I do not point fingers. I do not cast blame. I never have. I never will. I don't believe in that.
So is that part of the problem in that at Strike like you're the dictator essentially, right? Like whatever you say goes and then with 21 you're working under a board and it doesn't like you can say the buck stops with you but does it actually like do you have enough control to do what you want to do?
Yeah. No, 21 and Strike are not apples to apples comparisons cuz yeah uh 21 I could not make decisions on my own and you know to an extent right like I named the thing but if the board disagreed with my name then yeah I wouldn't have been able so there was no unequivocal whatever Jack the direction Jack needs to take and so that's you know why we would have a very clear vision and very clear steps that we wanted to take but we seemingly couldn't get it done and couldn't get execution across the line and that's because at the end of the day there was a disagreement um and I mean obviously uh I won't go too much into the whole SoftBank chapter but obviously there was disagreement there too at some point and so at the top you need to have unified vision people need to be working in lock step and that's ultimately too when I realized like if uh this isn't something that I set out to build and want to build and believe in building that I shouldn't lead it and uh I don't even have the fiber and the bones in my body to do that. Um so yeah with Strike I mean I am the founder, the CEO, the chairman, all of the useless titles that are casted like I'm all of them. Um when I want to do something we do it. When I want to stop doing something we don't. And if you're not okay with that, then you're fired. And that's how it goes. Bitcoin is very decentralized. Strike is not. And that's why Strike, I think, ships at an incredible pace, achieves what it can, is very unified in what it's here to do, what its plans are when it needs critical decisions, like we know how to make them. So yeah, just very different, very different companies.
From your like public comments, I was getting the impression, and tell me if this is wrong because it could totally be wrong. True. But I was getting the impression that you were not very into the sort of more pure play Bitcoin treasury company for lack of a better word. Yeah. And that like the idea of just issuing perpetual preferred equity wasn't going to be something that maybe you wanted to do. Was that part of the sort of disagreement with the direction of the company that caused this? Um because I understand the drive to want to do something like that when you sat on so much Bitcoin and like I know Stretch and SATA have been having a tough time, but I'm sure they're going to be successful products. So, uh, I mentioned earlier, I don't know when we hit record, but I think I'd mentioned earlier, uh, I don't want to talk on behalf of 21. Yeah. One, because I probably am not allowed to. I know I'm no longer interested in asking lawyers because I don't have to. Um, but I know I'm probably not allowed to, but um, the other is because I shouldn't. I don't run. So, what has the day in the life of working at 21 today? What decisions did they make? What's their road map? I wasn't there. And so that's just being a dick. If I were to sit here and try and like convince you it's not my business, it's not my responsibility. And there are great people there. And like I said, these are my friends and I believe in them just because we have a disagreement on you can look at an opportunity and arrive at different ways to attack it and build toward it. It doesn't make someone a bad person. And so I need like I feel as a man I should respect their right to build their thing cuz at the end of the day it clearly was not my thing. It's their thing and they should build it. So I'm not going to speak on what they're going to do. I don't know. Maybe they changed all of their minds again today and I have no idea. I do think though I finally get to say that the questions that I had for Michael Saylor and the related industry that felt they were you know uh needed to answer the questions I was asking had nothing to do with me being the CEO of 21 like at all. I still have those questions. In fact, I think in hindsight they were good questions because the definitions have changed and STRC did dislocate from 100. And that doesn't make these products bad. It doesn't make Michael bad, but it makes my questions were reasonable. Um, and yeah, no, you're accurate and say I still don't totally understand a lot of that space. And I'd be hard pressed for someone to tell me that they do because it feels very much like engineering the plane while you're flying it, which is fine. That's business. That's startup. That's problem solving. Yeah. I think when people say like, I've planned the next 5 years. No, you haven't. You haven't. It's such a meaningless exercise. Um, and so that's all of that is fine, but also like as a Bitcoiner. I'm going to we can acknowledge, you know, these things. And so, yeah, I don't mean, the strategy has changed a bunch, the metrics have changed a bunch, the guidance has changed. I mean, everything's been changing. And so, having questions, I still don't totally understand how it's going to work, how it's going to play out, how sustainable all of it is, but whatever. Um, I'm also like not like king of the jungle and the smartest person ever. So, you know, I can miss things.
As someone who's also been on the receiving end of the Twitter treasury company mob for asking questions, I think your questions were valid. Like, I think we should be able to ask questions. We should ask everything. Um, what would you have done differently? Like, I know that's very easy with sort of 2020 hindsight to pick at the moment, but is there any one thing that sticks out as that you wish you'd not done?
I think uh the level of expectation uh that I set publicly in hindsight should have been much more measured. I'd never experienced Wall Street. I'd never been a part of a board where I ultimately couldn't act decisively when I felt convicted. I had never been part of a public company. And so I think, you know, I think fundamentally that optimists define the future. I think it's so uh artistic almost that going long something pays way more than going short something. You can never make more than a, you know, 100% going short or whatever, right? Like you get paid way more for being an optimist. um people that believe see the glass half full, you know, are passionate and full of energy about the future are the ones that define it and build it rather than the ones so it's, you know, it's part of my personality. It's part of being a leader, but in hindsight, um I think I was I did not do the best job at managing expectations when it became this web between shareholders and the board. And because our my ability to take conversations about a unified vision and dispel them into expectations and conviction to the public only to realize that following through on that was harder than it has historically been in my career at Strike. I regret that. I did not mean to set an expectation uh about what this thing was going to become while I was leading it without, you know, fully appreciating what it was going to take for me to follow through on that. Um, and that's where I own that. Um, because I know that people believe in me, believed in me. Um, and specifically as the leader of this thing and um, and probably and I know just from being on the internet and seeing the comments like feel let down in that way that they heard me say things and set expectations and didn't see the follow through there and and uh feel as if I was misleading or or if I um, yeah, so that that was probably the biggest one. And of course, like throughout the whole thing, there's tinier ones, but that's probably um the biggest one because we did I mean, we did accomplish stuff and we were on our way. Um and 21 can still go on to accomplish great things and be something meaningful for Bitcoin and return a lot of investment capital for shareholders. Um but my lack of ability to achieve what I said I would and what I wanted to while I was there um you know in hindsight I would have managed that differently.
So it's very hard for I think probably almost everyone listening to imagine the pressure that you were under while you did this. Um like I have no context of it. I have no idea what it's like working on Wall Street. Like this is a new thing for you as well, right? I'm sure you've learned a ton about yourself, about business. Um, but does any part of you regret ever doing it?
No, I don't believe I also don't believe in that. I don't believe, you know, um, I'll tell you a story about the last bear market in 2022. So, for people that don't know, in 2022, this was the Bitcoin conference that directly followed the El Salvador announcement that I made. There's lots of pressure, expectations, and Strike was a tiny little child baby. I think we released like a beta in the app store in 2021, right? So, pre-revenue. Um, and mind you, after El Salvador and Bitcoin was in this craze bull run, like the bull run, I'm putting it in air quotes for the podcast listeners, that we experienced in 2025 to me was not real. We didn't hit all-time highs in gold terms. It was not an actual like 2021 was the last bull run in my mind and I was surrounded by professional athletes, um superstar artists, um the top VC firms and everyone was inviting me to parties and giving me uh investment capital. I had no idea that I needed to like generate revenue, turn a profit someday. I literally I was a kid and I thought that all I had to do was champion Bitcoin and like build stuff that like was popular and people I thought were downloading it but I didn't even know and run around and like make sure that like the orange pill message was getting through and like I don't like aren't don't VCs fund the payroll? I had no idea. And we had worked on some partnerships that were in the very early stages with some merchant vendors. And I got out on the Bitcoin conference and I laid out the vision that I had and how we were going to through these partnerships get Bitcoin accepted pretty much throughout the United States. Now fast forward um the Fed hiked rates faster than they ever had. The bull market turned into a bear market. Every vendor, partnerships, R&D, crypto department got fired. Our partnerships fell through. None of it ever met the market. And Strike almost failed um because all of the VC money that was like around and like here take this take this like disappeared and like we didn't have any revenue we didn't have anything and that was one of the most painful times in my life. Feel abandoned, you feel used, you feel angry, you feel depressed and like lots of fingerpointing like why well why did this person tell me this or why did this person convince me world work that way. And then it was that moment where I acquired some of the most valuable lessons I've ever acquired in my life, like about ego, about who I am as a man, what I care about, what Strike should be, about business, about everything. Now Strike turns out to be a very successful thing, very profitable now, big company. Um, now what I tell myself and what I tell my employees all the time is how expensive were the lessons that I acquired in that moment. Think about that in hindsight. And that goes back to what I wrote in the essay. What punishments are not gifts? because I acquired a wealth of knowledge, experience, really, really painful but valuable tutorial of how to build things, who to trust, how to set up Strike. I acquired that, Danny. I didn't lose a limb. I didn't lose my parents. I didn't lose my business. I didn't lose my friends. I didn't lose any bitcoins. Um, I just
took a couple really tough punches to the ego and needed to adopt a decent amount of humility and just emotional pain. And so I don't know that chapter of my life was and it was very hard like oh Jack is a hype marketing overpromising you know all of the things and you know some of those things hurt because you started to question like is that true? But then once you stay the course and you see the other side you realize like things that you mistake for punishments are really just gifts. The world had to teach me a lot if I wanted to become the man that I am now. And how else would I have acquired what I needed to acquire if it wasn't then and if it wasn't that I could have it could have been a lot worse or I could have never acquired it at all.
Yeah. You only get those lessons from putting yourself out there.
Yeah. And you have to pay for the lessons. This goes like to Bitcoin Austrian theory of like there's no free lunch. You can't print the money out of thin air. You can't print the lessons out of thin air. What's the tuition fee? Like what's the cost of the education? And so anyway, I want to be a good man. I want to be a good eventually husband and dad and colleague and Bitcoiner. So I don't regret any of these things. And I think people spend too much time honestly being depressed and wallowing about the past. Can't change the past. And so I do not regret it. I you know what punishments are not gifts. My intentions were real. What we built was real. I mean it's not like oh just kidding. The Bitcoin's not there. Yeah. It's there. It's a stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Gets quarterly audits by public markets. It's a very legit thing. And I tried to do a thing and the universe needed me to learn a lot about myself and about being a Bitcoiner and about being a man and integrity and humility and ego. And so I appreciate the lessons and I'm very fortunate and grateful that they didn't cost me my relationship with my fiance or my health, right? So I don't know if that resonates at all, but
I just don't believe in yeah regretting any part of the past like what punishments are not gifts. I fundamentally believe that
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It's funny when so when I first heard about this news, like I said, I was at Odell's house and he had a call with you that day. And when he got off the call, I was like, 'How is he?' Because I had no idea how you'd be taking this news cuz what I think one of the reasons that people like you so much in the Bitcoin world is because you are very authentic. You do wear your emotion on a sleeve. I was like, 'How is he going to be handling this?' And Odell's just like he seems great. Do you feel like a weight off your shoulders like you're ready to go again on you know well obviously keep going on strike but just move forward?
Yes. Um because I have me and I have Bitcoin and that's all that like it's you don't want to say that's all that mattered because of course like it kills me that you know I started this thing which is my baby in some ways like I created the logo and I branded it and I registered the domain name like when I was transferring myself out of the business like I realized I still personally owned the domain you know you forget to transfer it to corporate accounts I'm like man so of course this is not how I wanted my chapter with the business to end but obviously when I was presented with whatever it was going to be money and fame and access and all this stuff I found myself saying no before I can even reason it out and fully understand it. I just had a physical almost repulsive reaction to leading something and promoting something. And the other thing too is I just Danny, I would not be able to look you in the eye or look my employees in the eye or look Bitcoiners in the eye or my customers in the eye or my investors in the eye if I knew they weren't ultimately entrusting in me. And so yeah, I have me and I have Strike and I have Bitcoin and in many ways that's all not only I've ever needed but all Bitcoiners have ever wanted out of me. It was another really endearing and valuable experience is the emails and the texts and the notes I've been getting both before and after the resignation was public of just like who a lot of people view me as in the community of just someone who would never sell out who would never compromise on their ideals and their principles who people entrust to hold the integrity of Bitcoin. as a leader and as a CEO and as a person and yeah so I feel I'm very excited to be able to do things my way and I and that's the other thing too I don't know how big strike can be I think I mean for a business that what five six years old depending on where you count I'm thrilled I mean we've got we're in 50% off highs and we've got over $100 million of Bitcoin So what? We make a new all-time high. I've got probably less than a hundred employees, a quarter billion dollars on the balance sheet. We produce cash flow and we're still growing as Bitcoin grows will grow. I'm thrilled with that. But are we going to own the most Bitcoin? Are we going to be the cover of magazines?
I don't know. I'm bullish. I'd like to think Strike will continue to grow into a valuable institution within the revolution that is Bitcoin, but I guess it will be a side effect of what actually matters, which is I want to build what I believe in. I want to build for people that believe in the things that I do. I want to build for Bitcoiners. I want to build a company that I want to work for. I want to build products that I would actually use. And that's okay. And if Strike is just like a hobbyist business, as long as we're able to pay our own bills, I'm cool with that.
you know, like I like here's another thing.
It does 250 million on the balance sheet count as a hobbyist business? I don't think so. No. No. But you know, I was talking to my fiance again, who by the way, like superstar. If people ever run into her at conferences, she deserves a lot of credit for helping me weather all this stuff. That's my partner. And I was talking to her and I was just obviously sad and angry and ranting and I'm like, you know, people say, 'Oh, it's early in Bitcoin. We're only at like 1% of global adoption.' I was telling her that's not true. We're not even at 1%. If the world is 85 million
Yeah. 85 million people have a vague relative understanding of Bitcoin.
Not even know. Not even close.
And I would wage to say we're not even at 8.5 million. I'm not even sure we're at 850,000.
See, I had this conversation with Checkmate a long time ago. I think it's a way lower number than people think. And it really it's very hard. It depends how you define what someone who understands Bitcoin is. But if you just use the metrics that you can see I think there's 25 something like 25 million addresses with more than $100 of Bitcoin and as you know people will own if you've been dcaing for five years at more than $100 a month you'll own more than 60 of them yourself. So I think if you count owning self-custody Bitcoin as understanding Bitcoin is probably like less than 5 million.
Oh yeah for sure. Well, yeah, it depends on your definition, right? Like some people will say, this person's got proxied proxied proxied exposure and they're proxied 401k that's proxied by the BlackRock ETF or whatever. And so they technically have exposure, but that's not how I would consider adoption. I find that frankly meaningless because if some money manager flips a switch now all of a sudden they're unadopted. I consider adopted like you understand what money is. You understand why it's valuable. You understand what this whole thing is supposed to do. Even vaguely and whether you want to own the ETF or real Bitcoin, that part's irrelevant, but it's adopted in a way that's meaningful and that you get it.
Um and anyways, I'm ranting and complaining to my fiance and she makes this point of like, well, why don't you do something about it? And it was one of those moments where I was like you're right cuz she's like well it doesn't sound like Coinbase is educating people in the way that you want and it doesn't sound like these treasury companies are educating people in the way that you want so like why don't you do it? I'm like, 'Well, you know, that's not Wall Street and you know, the business.' And she's like, 'But why do you care?' That doesn't seem like that's what it's about and what you're about and what this means to you and to all the people because it was a very endearing. So, right in the middle of a lot of this. I was going through a decently tough time. We were touring wedding venues, my fiance and I. So, it's really a weird time, right? Because in my professional life, I'm like, 'Oh my goodness.' I shouldn't be leading this thing that has diverged from what I wanted to build. But then you go on a wedding tour and you're like this is where I say I do and this is where my family's going to start and like you know hey you want a glass of champagne? I'm like I guess I sure feel guilty drinking this. And we kept it was almost it had to have been like fate or something. Every day multiple times people come running up say are you Jack? Yeah. Sorry. I don't want to take away from my fiance. She had enough of the Bitcoin stuff. She wants to get married and like no I just need to tell you you're the reason I understand Bitcoin and or you're the reason my dad finally got it or the keynote you gave in Prague was enough for me to fully commit and believe that we there's a way out and that or I don't feel alone like you distilling these ideas makes me realize that it's not me I'm not a weirdo I'm not messed up the world's messed up and that there's a community of people that are working on it and that I could join that just by DCAing a little bit. And this was happening multiple times a day. And my fiance was sitting there watching it and she was just like, 'Dude, you have it right here.' And if 1% of the world is going to come to understand what this is all about, you do that and who cares? Strike makes money and it's successful and doesn't need to be the biggest and the Wall Streetest and the whatever. Like that is where you seem happy and passionate and motivated and that's also what people have grown to appreciate out of you. I don't think people need you to be this thing. And by the way, I didn't start 21 to become a Wall Street conglomerate. But anyway, I like that was like a really touring wedding venues and I'm very grateful for all the Bitcoiners that stopped and said hi and said those encouraging things cuz my fiance was like, 'Dude, I think you can orange pill 1% of the if anyone's going to do it like who's going to do it? You should spend some of your time instead of corporate cogging.'
stuff. So that's not overexuberance of of equity based on the future. That's like wait um that's more like 2008 like real estate market of so I assume that was the Luke conversation.
