All right. You've been in this industry for a long time. You've seen the ups, the downs, you've seen the craziness, you've seen the lending, you've seen all the trading. What is your general take right now on what is going on? Why is Bitcoin not higher? We've heard a couple different theories today, but just let's start kind of as a base case. This thing has grown up a lot, but also at the same time, maybe all of the debacle has not left Bitcoin.
Yeah. I mean, I used to try to figure it out. Now I have a simple theory like just more sellers than buyers. But then I sort of moved on from that simple theory to a more complicated theory. I think that Bitcoin actually is like the market is driven by some like godlike AI and it tries to find the path, whatever price path will blow out the most number of people financially and emotionally. It finds that precise pathway.
Yeah. So if you want to know exactly where the price of Bitcoin is going, you just have to figure out what price pathway will beep the most people.
Well, what is Elon's thing? The most entertaining outcomes the most likely.
It's 100% true with the Bitcoin price. Like if everyone gets liquidated, if all the longs will get liquidated by the price going to 40 and then all the shorts will get liquidated by the price immediately going to 100K in a week, that's what will happen. I'm not saying that's what I think is going to happen. It's just whatever is the most entertaining and catastrophic market tape is what will happen with the price of Bitcoin.
Let's talk about regulation as a competitive advantage. I think that people usually think of regulation as slowing them down, preventing them from doing stuff. Maybe you have some different thoughts.
It is a moat and like for us at this point, you know, we hold I think over 50 licenses around the world. You sort of every major country we have a license. It is a moat. It's sort of like the most sad moat though and I feel like emotionally feel complicated about it because it's a moat that we have and we've built and we've spent a lot of money on but I think it's kind of like a really it's a lame one to have. It is a really serious moat but I would rather live in a world where just all just kind of like trying to build the best product and give customers the best product experience. Unfortunately, you know, that's not quite the world that we live in. And a lot of that moat comes down to what is essentially regulatory capture.
Better or worse than the United States versus internationally.
The US is the most backward major country when it comes to crypto regulation.
Really? Even more so than Europe.
Oh, Europe is probably the most advanced. Europe has a full licensed framework for crypto financial services activity as well as derivatives activity. Now, I'm an American who's lived most of my adult life in London and now increasingly in the US. And if you asked me 10, 12 years ago in crypto, would the EU be further along in crypto regulation than the US, I would have just burst out laughing. But that's actually what's happened.
Maybe that's a negative thing though. Maybe the fact that they are so advanced on the regulatory standpoint means that they are stifling innovation in a way that the US isn't.
I don't think so. And I love how pro America you can spin everything. But I'm here for it. But I think that what...
You're here, you better be careful. You may not leave.
But this is why when I'm in DC, and I'm in DC a lot right now, I tell US lawmakers, it's really vital that we actually pass the Clarity Act. Even if it's an imperfect bill, I think it's a huge step forward for the industry because it gives you a lot of certainty. It gives capital certainty that they should invest in these businesses. It gives market participants certainty and it gives entrepreneurs and consumers certainty about the sort of like regulatory framework that we're all in. And so the UK has established norms now, the EU, Korea, Singapore, so on and so forth all the way down the line. The US is the last major market that doesn't have it. And it's really important that we get it done so US remains the center of the crypto world.
You are a founder and entrepreneur but also you do a lot of investing. Crypto and AI seem to be almost the same thing at this point like they really do feel like they are coming together in a very unique way. Some people want to talk about payments, some people want to talk about other aspects. What are you seeing there? What are you interested in? Where are you putting money?
Yeah, I think they have converged and one of the ways they've converged is just like they both require either a lot of compute and/or a lot of energy, right? AI and crypto both. Whether you're talking about Ethereum or you're talking about Bitcoin, it's energy and compute. And so for me as an investor right now, I'm really focused on either companies that will dramatically benefit from AI via like higher margins. Like our margins are going up every year because of sort of extensive automation and use of AI agents. The second thing I'm looking for is the sort of raw inputs required to build these things. So, electricity, rare metals, land in key places, grid, that kind of stuff. I actually haven't invested in foundational model companies, partly because it's really hard to see people beating Google at it.
You think Google is like the king?
Yeah, I'm running a very large concentrated Google position on my sort of family office side because I think that Google has the advantage on the compute, they have the advantage on the chips and then they have the advantage that they can take those models and directly use them to make their core business far more profitable.
What are you guys doing with AI inside of the company?
Yeah, so we've replaced a lot of process-based staff with AI agents. Most of our highest rated customer service agents are now AI instances, which is very funny. We decided to track them as like, oh, like what's your rating AI agent?
Wait, wait, hold on. Your highest rated customer service reps are the AI agents?
And oh, what are they doing? Are they just answering emails? Are they getting on the phone? What like to what extent are they interfacing with the client?
They can do almost everything that the humans can do now.
So they're even getting the rating if they're talking to them on the phone?
Yeah. And we had hundreds of support staff and now we have dozens.
Did you use your voice for the voice agent?
There was a suggestion of that once, but my general thought is that people have heard me talk enough over the last 10 years like we don't need me on the support desk too.
All right. If you need a voice agent, just let me...
