Jack Mallers | Wall Street Is Rebuilding Around Bitcoin

Money is property and is a fundamental right. Human value exchange should not be governed and operated by a single entity. They can debase the money. They can debase you. The world is moving more multipolar. And I don't think anything is positioned to benefit from that as much as Bitcoin in terms of like global money.

There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than Bitcoin. Bitcoin can change the world because the world can't change Bitcoin. Where wealth exists today will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow. Do you think fiat can survive this? How many more cycles can we go through? Your food prices are going to go up. Your rent's going to go up. So you want to print money into that. That's when the opposite of fix the money fix the world. Break the money break society. Bitcoin's going to win no matter what. And unfortunately, it might take time.

We're back.

Still empty. Well, oh, are we recording?

The Ninja launch. Um, big week though, ma'am.

How you feeling?

And the announcement went down well.

See, the thing that I think is cool about this is for so many months now, I've been banging on about like these Bitcoin treasury companies and like some of them have done really well and it's awesome. And I just have never been totally convinced that these like smaller pure play treasury companies were ever going to kind of make it. And I think we spoke about this last time, but you're clearly not building a like quote unquote pure play treasury company. You're building a Bitcoin business, right? Um, do you want to let's just start because for anyone who might not have seen the announcement, do you want to explain what's actually happening?

Yeah. So, I had a keynote at Bitcoin 2026 and it was fun because everyone says online, I wear two hats. So, for those that don't know, I'm the founder and CEO of Strike, which you can think of as like a Bitcoin bank of sorts. We're not an actual bank, but we provide Bitcoin financial services, buy and sell, custody, credit, lending, all sorts of stuff. And then the other hat I wear is I'm co-founder and CEO of 21. And 21 owns 42,514 Bitcoin. That's the second largest corporate holding in the world behind Strategy. And we're a public business traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XXI. And as I became increasingly confident that I would be talking about both of my businesses, I was like, should I just pack both my hats and make the whole meme that I wear two hats real? And so I did and I got on stage and the first half of the presentation was about new future Strike launch predominantly in our credit products and some of them partnered with Tether. And then for the 21 section, I outlined my vision as you described for a Bitcoin business that isn't necessarily a treasury company or a crypto exchange and tried to counterposition 21 in a way that makes us unique because ultimately that's why Tether and I started the business with this vision in mind. Now the order of operations and how we got to where we are we can discuss and potential mistakes we made and things in hindsight we would have done differently but nonetheless that's why we started the company and finally communicating that vision was really exciting. So I think that's what you're referencing and the vision itself we can get into but the way I see the crypto bitcoin space at large is on one side of the spectrum you have what I called crypto exchanges but it's not even limited to that. I would say you have companies that are monetizing speculation. So, one way that you can monetize and build a business around currency debasement and this current era of fiat that we're in is provide a place for people to speculate because the reality is whether people know it or not, they're all speculators because the currency that they're getting paid in and that they're forced to use via their government is being debased. And so, you can't actually just save in the money that you're forced to use via law. You have to turn that money into something that can actually preserve purchasing power and that you can save in. And so whether everyone knows it or not, we're all speculators. And so a great business during this little window of human history will be a place for people to speculate. And we're starting to see all these businesses form into this same thing. Coinbase, which was a crypto business, is now offering equities and sports gambling. Robin Hood, which was an equities business, is now offering crypto and sports gambling. Sports gambling companies are now interested in offering crypto and equities. Prediction markets which are a new phenomenon are now offering crypto and want to list equities. And so that side of the spectrum as I define it is monetizing rampant speculation. And I would say on the total opposite side of the spectrum as I view it are treasury companies. And they're the opposite because they have very much conviction in Bitcoin, but they don't actually focus on and invest in and build operating business. So, on one side, you have Coinbase and Robin Hood. These are great companies economically. I'm not saying that they're good or bad. I'm defining them as what I view them as, which are businesses that make a lot of money, experience a lot of growth, but don't necessarily have conviction in Bitcoin or anything for that matter. When you look at Coinbase's balance sheet, they have over $10 billion of fiat and a billion dollars of Bitcoin. And you're like, well, wait, do you guys even believe in what we're all working on here? And I think Coinbase's my interpretation of Coinbase's position as a company is neutrality. They can't say what their favorite altcoin is. They can't say what their favorite equities are because that would turn off all the other customers that are there to list their own token and their own project. They have to be neutral as long as everyone's there and depositing money and placing bets. They don't care who they don't care the future of the world. So you have a very successful business without a convicting vision of Bitcoin and a sound money future. And then treasury companies on the totally opposite side of the spectrum. I mean, Michael Sailor, Metaplanet, they sell Bitcoin conviction. That's their product, right? They never sell. We're going to buy as much as possible. So, they have all the conviction in the world. You can make the argument that no one's more convicted, but they don't have operating cash flow to finance that conviction. And so, then philosophically, you ask the question, well, who's financing their conviction ultimately? How can they afford to be so convicted in Bitcoin? Because the operating business is not what I describe as productive. Productive meaning it produces more value for the world than it consumes from the world. That's a profitable business. And so what I outlaid is 21 would like to be in the middle of those two where we take the best of what a Coinbase or Robin Hood is, which is a cash generating high growth business whilst also displaying high Bitcoin conviction while owning Bitcoin on our balance sheet. Firmly believing in a Bitcoin future and expressing economically via potential leverage and accumulation that Bitcoin is the future we want to see. Does that make sense?

Totally. Yeah. And I mean obviously Tether is my co-founders. We knew that this was going to be hard. I think there's a reason it doesn't exist. I view it as a great idea and something that the market would value tremendously. It's my opinion. And that's why I started it. Um, but it's hard and I think if it were easy a lot of these would exist. Um, so yeah, our our vision is to be more specific to have multiple divisions within the business. So financial services and distribution so that we can build brokerage products, lending products, custody products, payment products, prime products, potential banking services. So cards, I mean there's a full yield on assets on the platform like yield on cash. I mean there's so much we can do to distribute Bitcoin economic financial services. Another division I call Bitcoin infrastructure. So there is a physical layer to the Bitcoin economy. We're talking about power generation. We're talking about energy markets. I view the story of humanity as commercializing energy from the sun. And the better we have access to energy, the more prosperous our lives are and our species is. And I think Bitcoin is going to play and already has played an important chapter in that story. And I think that 21 should be a participants in that. And then we have the more treasury side of the business, which is capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. And that is exploring opportunities and potential leverage. Like I don't think leverage is a bad thing. I would ideally like to be able to finance it with things like cash flow instead of implied dilution. And mergers and acquisitions where we can look at other assets that would be viewed as strategic or other companies that we think would be better off joining us in building this network effect and economy to scale and almost this Bitcoin conglomerate of sorts. And even on the capital market stuff, man, there's so much we can do. Um, so far what's been displayed as Bitcoin has interfaced with capital markets are convertible bonds, preferred equities, but as a business that potentially also has lending and mining, we can securitize our loan book. We can securitize our mining revenue and we can try and aim to have these things AAA rated. And there's so much innovation that we view as bringing operating businesses and cash flow to the capital markets as well. So that's some more detail on the vision. And you know, I think Dorsey is one of Bitcoin's unsung heroes and Block is like one of my favorite companies personally that exists today.

Um, well, I I wouldn't go so far as to make that like declarative statement that like, oh, we screwed up. I don't think we screwed up at all. I think 21, the second largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world listed on the New York Stock Exchange, I'm tremendously proud of.

wouldn't have gone out with Dylan the night before.

That's for sure. Yeah. Um, so no, I just more meant with the benefit of hindsight, I think we'd all do stuff differently. And you know 21 was super interesting founding story where initially it was just Tether and myself and SoftBank approached us with an interest in not only 21 but just Bitcoin and incorporating them as a minority but important partner and they sit on the board was fun and then trying to list the business publicly whilst you had the election and a change in administration in the United States and at one point the government shut down if you guys remember that and so the government is inclusive of the SEC and the SEC approves us going public and approve our merger and so then we had delays and by the time we had gotten approved the entire market had changed mind you when we founded 21 you know companies were trading at five times MNAV and we were like whoa we should probably get public as fast as we possibly can and there is value in being in the capital markets and we have ourselves a ton of capital and a ton of assets. I mean, I would argue Tether's one of the most, if not the most successful financial services firms in the world today. We're like, 'All right, let's go attack the public markets.' And then by the time we did get approved, because of delays and government shutdowns and changes in the administration, the market was changed entirely. Bitcoin treasury companies weren't selling common equity at a premium to MNAV, and they weren't that interested in the convertible markets, and the convertible markets weren't that attractive anymore. And there was this whole new thing which was preferred equities and you know Bitcoin treasury companies were trading below MNAV and all of a sudden the ultimate vision in the second chapter the 21 2.0 if you want to call it I've seen people reference it that of building up an operating business and further extending this whole strategic vision. All of a sudden that became the focus. So maybe in hindsight, if I knew that we would get approved when we did and that the governments were going to be shut down and stuff, maybe we would have started off with 21 2.0 as opposed to just going with our Bitcoin treasury and seeing what opportunities we had in the markets. But like I said, I wouldn't describe that as a mistake. I think what we've achieved so far is awesome and the strategy that I outlined is exciting. Um but yeah, I mean knowing what I know now, I probably would have made a few strategic decisions differently, but in the same way that I would have picked a different seat on my flight.

No, not necessarily. I um so for one, I don't think the ideal Bitcoin company or the best Bitcoin company necessarily means the company that owns the most Bitcoin, right? Like I think Block One, what was the ICO business? EOS. Yeah, EOS. Like they own a ton of Bitcoin. Yeah. But I wouldn't necessarily say like I would love to be a customer of theirs or I would want to work there or I would I'm interested in their products. So I don't necessarily equate like I'll put it another way. If Sailor like owns 800,000 Bitcoin or 900,000 or 700,000, I don't know if that like changes dramatically how I feel about Micro Strategy. Like they own a lot of Bitcoin and they do what they do. And I think for us it was more about a strategic direction and who we want to be as a business and where we think we can deliver the most value both towards Bitcoin and our vision and to investors and our shareholders, right? Like I mean there are plenty of companies that have a higher capital capitalization than Micro Strategy and own far less Bitcoin. So it's not necessarily implied that like Nvidia owns zero Bitcoin, but I don't think anyone would swap one-to-one equity strategy in Nvidia, right? So anyway, I think our our reasoning for our strategic direction has more to do with the type of company we want to be, how we want to contribute to Bitcoin and its story, how we want to change the world, and then ultimately how we think we can uniquely drive value to investors and shareholders. We think it's going to be very difficult to compete in with us in building operating businesses and having access to capital and building a large treasury and taking advantage of capital markets. So, I would say we're just not that interested in the preferred strategy that other Bitcoin treasury companies have deployed as of now. And if we ever become convinced, then we can do that. But we're more interested in the direction I outlined. Um, to be candid.

I mean, I laugh at that all the time. I mean, my dad, for example, has been involved in markets for over 40 years, and he'll call me and joke and be like, 'How's your torque this morning?' And cuz these are these are and not that they're bad or good. These are just like recently invented financial things. The these are not previously defined existing financial metrics. And so, no, I I would I would say I also don't know too much about like what my torque is, what I initially was telling investors, you know, about these things, they're like, is that a dance move or so? No, I mean, not that the that torque is a bad or good thing. I'm sure whoever invented it had a reason and a purpose for it and it and it suits them well. But no, for us so I guess I'll I'll more speak philosophically as a business. I think you have a moral obligation to be profitable in my opinion before even an economic obligation because theoretically in free markets if you run an unprofitable business there's a form of Darwinism where it's going to go extinct and it shouldn't have a right to exist. But you have to explore the moral lens of this idea because I if money is the market representation of the value that we create and store and exchange, well then by being profitable is the economic expression of making the world a better place, right? Because you are in theory creating more value for the world than it takes from you to consume from the world, right? And so you're doing more for others than you're taking from others. And the economic expression of that is net profit at the end of the day. And so I view money as the best, most efficient tool and technology we've built to both store, exchange, and transmit information around the value that we're creating for each other. How much is a Coca-Cola worth? How much is a flight worth? How valuable is the things I did today for others? We use money to transmit that level of information and to store that value. And so being profitable to me is like is a moral obligation. And so that's how we feel at 21 is we want to make the world a better place through Bitcoin financial services and Bitcoin physical infrastructure. And we feel deeply that that is our responsibility as entrepreneurs and business owners. And that's a tremendous asset to the company because also again if you have all the conviction in the world about Bitcoin and you have no business then ultimately how are you financing that conviction? Who's footing the bill to finance your belief in Bitcoin if it's not your proof of work and it's not your net contributions to society via profit. And so we don't want to be in a position where we create a lot of debt and a lot of leverage and are reliant on others to finance that conviction. We would love to produce enough value for society and that be realized in cash profit to then go out and finance the future of the world that we want to see which might be a convertible bond which might be preferred stocks which might be more products or more licenses or more opportunities. So I guess not only do I think it's economically viable to be profitable but we feel it's morally responsible. Um, or else I saw Adam Back tweet this morning that he he said something along the lines of Bitcoin treasury companies are a trade on the present value of fiat versus the future value of Bitcoin. And I think that's 100% right. They're a trade, but trades have a start and an end. At some point, you have to close the trade. Um, trades can't be indefinitely open. Uh now that doesn't mean that a Bitcoin treasury trade can't last hundreds of years or thousands of years or decades. Um but they're very path dependent, right? It's an arbitrage. Uh, if bananas on the west side of town are a dollar and on east side of town are $10, then you buy the bananas that are a dollar on the west side and you drive over to the east side and you sell them for 10 and you cash out on $9 of profit until the bananas are efficiently priced at $5 on both the west and the east side and the trade's over. And that's not how Tether and I view Bitcoin and the opportunities. We think that this isn't only a trade but is also a business opportunity, an opportunity for us to provide value to the world, which economically means profit. Does that make sense?

I want to be that, right? I believe in Bitcoin. And if it were up to me and I can just like snap my finger, I would own like a million bitcoins. And I would also like there's a ton of things if I could snap my finger I'd love to be the point guard of the Chicago Bulls as a another job, right? But like so but like I also don't view that as like my job isn't to catch anyone else. I view my job is to execute on the vision that I have as the CEO and ensure that I'm both benefiting the world and progressing forward towards a society that I believe in which is hard money and you know Bitcoin based whilst also producing value for my shareholders and my investors. I don't I don't I don't know my greatest competition is always my ability to execute and see forward on my ideas not necessarily what someone else is doing.

Yeah, it is worth saying. Uh Tether proposed an idea. Yeah. Um the CEO of the company for you know more or less agrees with the idea. I mean, there are things that I, as a CEO, want to make sure of and there's a process, but there's been no formal offer. Like, as the CEO of Strike, changing my hat, we have not received a formal offer. Is Strike interested in being acquired? Potentially, Strike is interested in furthering our mission, helping Bitcoin, helping our customers, doing right by our investors, and doing right by my colleagues and my employees. And that goes for a potential offer from 21 or any other business for that matter. Strike's been offered to be acquired many times. I mean, that's never been a public thing discussed on stage, but there's lots of companies that have historically wanted to buy Strike. And my answers have always been no because of those things I listed. It just didn't foot the bill for me. Um, but no, I mean, as the CEO of 21, I think this is a tremendously exciting idea for Bitcoin, for our investors, for our employees. It's something that I would want to work for and work on, something I would want to own equity in. It's something I would want to be a customer of. So, the idea to me is interesting and aligns with my worldview and my vision, but there's been no formal offer. And so, people should know I I I really don't want people to say, 'Oh, I did something because I thought this.' you know, there's been no formal offer. The largest shareholder and board control board member proposed an idea and the CEO of the company said, 'Now, this sounds cool. This is my vision as well.' But that's to the extent of it as I'm talking to you now.

Sure.

Yeah, theoretically I mean from what I know about Electron the business and I think what's been publicly disclosed as well is they produce a lot of bitcoins a day. Uh so that's cool. our treasury would be going up every day just by waking up and doing our jobs.

Um, strike in the same way produces bitcoins every single day.

Uh, both actually. So another way to ask your question is what is your revenue and profit ultimately generated in? Uh, and it's both. So we generate revenue in bitcoin. We also generate revenue in cash. And then we actually have built out internally that like how insane I am as a CEO. One of the things we've done at the company is, you know, run it like as lean as we possibly can all in on Bitcoin. So every single day we do actually go about the process of sweeping net profits into Bitcoin. So Strike is like a fiat Bitcoin miner. Uh a potential mining arm of 21 is like a to your point energy Bitcoin miner. The classical definition of a Bitcoin miner. The capital markets arm of the business would be like a capital markets Bitcoin miner. Hey, what's the convertible market look like? Are there preferred opportunities for us? Can we securitize some of the assets at the other part of the business? And then the M&A part of the arm is like a mergers and acquisition Bitcoin miner. What are accreative opportunities? There may be an incredible Bitcoin startup that is a bit smaller and not necessarily as profitable, but by joining us like we create something even bigger. Like the sum of the parts, as the famous saying, is better than everyone living independently. And so everyone's job ultimately is to build something great. And when we have excess profit, no matter what that's in, energy, fiat, Bitcoin, the best way for us to save that value we're creating and that wealth we're creating in our opinion is in Bitcoin. And and so we'll always likely optimize to to store Bitcoin on the balance sheet and have that value accrue to our sharers.

Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, listen, you know, Taylor and I, and I've I've been referencing them a lot, like, Paulo, John Carlo, like, these guys are my like we're very aligned on the long-term vision of Bitcoin and how we think it can help the world. And so we think in decades, now it doesn't mean that we're not also trying to provide value today, but I think that that makes us potentially very different. Like for a lot of these crypto casinos, it's a dubious long-term strategy to be selling products to your customers that make them poorer.

We've got no customers left.

No. I mean my one word answer that's no. You know a few things. One, if Wall Street getting into Bitcoin

Kills it, it was never going to be successful in the first place. Yeah. You know, Bitcoin's in my opinion is predicated on this idea that it is money for all and the all part should be explored. That means your enemies, too. That means, you know, the ex-wife that cheated on you. That means your neighbor that's a fan of the opposing football club. Like, that's everybody. That means nation states that are your enemies, nation states you're at war with. That means for all. And the philosophical idea for me is that money is property and is a fundamental right. Again, it's your time and energy in an abstracted form. And if that responsibility is ever delegated to a person or a government or a company, they can debase the money. They can debase you. And so I think that that needs to be an independent property that has property rights. And so yeah, anyone should be able to get into Bitcoin and Bitcoin should succeed no matter their intentions or their usage. And if that's not the case, then we built and designed a product that is flawed. And so I don't believe that to be the case. And I believe that Iran and Russia and China and the United States and Wall Street and cypherpunks can all use this thing and work on this thing and it's going to succeed no matter what. And that's still my foundational belief.

And then the other point is, listen, Bitcoin is a wealth transfer. It's arguably the greatest wealth transfer in human history. We are actively monetizing a new thing. And what I mean by monetizing is, you know, the total ownership of assets of things by humans today is about $900 trillion. Half of that is we're using it as a money. So you know, $900 trillion is made up of currency and government debt and real estate and equities and precious metals like gold and bitcoin and fine art and all the stuff that we have. Okay. And about half of it, so 400 to 500 trillion dollars worth, we're monetizing. So people are owning real estate not because they sleep in it, not because they live in it, but because they're trying to save money. People own art not because it's hanging on the kitchen wall where their toddler can throw spaghetti at it and ruin it, but it's in a vault. So like Ken Griffin's art is in a vault and he's storing it because he paid $10 million for a painting and he thinks it'll be worth at least $10 million in the future. And so these are, we are humans are actively trying to monetize things that perform best for them in a monetary sense and Bitcoin is competing for that. It's actively being monetized. But what that implies is that where wealth exists today will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow. And in our opinion collectively it's Bitcoin. So that means Wall Street and art collectors and real estate portfolio managers like what's the two brothers, the Cardone. Oh yeah, I don't know much about them, but they seem to be real estate guys that are turning that wealth. They monetized real estate and now they're monetizing Bitcoin. So it has like our vision has the implication that where wealth exists today, those things will be demonetized like real estate will be demonetized, fine art will be demonetized, government debt will be demonetized, and Bitcoin will be monetized. So it has the obvious implication that these people will be involved at some point. So I find it a little contradictory that like people are like Bitcoin's going to be the money, but like why is Wall Street interested in that? It's like well I mean I don't know if that's a serious question.

I mean I guess, I mean no the first thing I did was play chess when I was four, right? You know, when you build in the public like this, you know, people feel like they know you and know your life. So it I guess it depends on who you ask what the first thing I did but the first publicly in Bitcoin. Yeah. I mean maybe my parents started the first Bitcoin meetup in Chicago and I helped them with that. That was the Bob O meetup here in Chicago and that was 2014. That was publicly. I wasn't hiding. I wasn't under a nim. But yeah, I think what you mean is the first thing that I got recognized for and that people associate with my story. Yeah, probably Zap was the earliest lightning wallet and that was 2016.

It certainly used to and it's definitely not easy. Or it hasn't been easy. But I would say no it doesn't anymore. My like just how I think about the world and myself has just matured and changed quite a bit. I used to as a kid I used to think that the goal was to be happy. Duh, right? Like I'd rather be happy than sad. But my opinion on that has changed. I strive to be at peace now. And things like happiness or sadness, anger or euphoria, those are emotions and ultimately for me that's information. I don't think that you can avoid being sad or being disappointed or being angry or being frustrated and I don't think you can always optimize to be happy and content and euphoric. I think a good life and life generally involves all of those things and they're useful information, right? Like when I do something and it makes me happy, the information is, oh man, I should try and make that happen more often. And when I do something and it makes me sad, I'm like, Oof, you know, my lived experience, I'd rather have less of that. But no matter what, across all of the emotions I feel, I strive to be at peace and I've been able to achieve more peace in working on other things in my life that aren't Bitcoin. Like I recently got engaged and congratulations. Thank you. And it was the best feeling in the world coming home yesterday from the Bitcoin conference to my fiance. And so anyway, does it get me down? No. It's information, right? When I do something and people are really upset, that's useful knowledge for me. And I'm like, dang, I want to be a helpful participant in changing the world for the better. And the feedback I'm getting is I'm not doing that. And maybe I need to reconsider or maybe I need to do something differently or maybe I need to clarify something. And if I do something and people are like, Dude, that was awesome. Thank you so much. I'm like, Awesome. Cool. That's good feedback. I should probably understand why that was awesome and try and do more of it. And then there are things that people say like cut your hair or why'd you wear that? And you know that's the stuff you can just ignore.

Yeah. You know people are like wow you went on stage and you weren't wearing a hoodie. You were wearing a shirt. And the truth is I was wearing that shirt because that's my fiance, my fiance thinks I look best in that. And ultimately all you guys on Bitcoin Twitter, as much as I value your opinions, like you know that's my lady. And if I care more about what my lady likes me in than what you guys like me in at the end of the day. So yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but I've certainly matured. It was not easy. I mean some of the most painful years of my life have been, you know, the last four or five years of trying to build and find myself and find my relationship with the world. And the other thing I'll say is I do think that what I'm building is not only products or not only a company. My approach to being a founder and a Bitcoiner is also very different. I see people say like, Wow, this guy's replying to tweets online. Like Sailor doesn't do that. Brian Armstrong doesn't do that. That's what I want to be. I want to be approachable, authentic, real. I think the world is kind of sick of politicians which many businessmen are just not in the government sense but you know they are limited in their ability and they make decisions based on legal risk and I don't think the world wants another one of those. I think the world wants more real and I think the world is dying for something authentic that they can relate to and that they can believe in. And I view that as what I'm building as well. And when I, you know, go on TV or leave the empty closet empty, I think it's about being funny and honest and, you know, not building this social separation of like an elite person that absolutely needs security and stuff. And what comes with that though, there's a price to pay for that. Because I don't want to turn off notifications and have someone else manage my social media accounts. I want to be vulnerable in the crowd of the people. I want to be different in that way. I think it's important, but it's not easy, right? Because that means that when I open my phone on a given night when I'm having room service and everyone's tearing me apart and saying I suck and that like I'm, you know, making up rumors about my family. Yeah. I mean, it's not like the easiest part of my job, but I think it's worth it. Some people may disagree. Some people may rather have a Larry Think character. I'm okay with that, but that's not what I'm building. And if that makes sense, too. So,

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know what's been interesting for me? So, first of all, I think that in my experience, it's all about bull and bear markets. So, when Bitcoin's 40 to 50% off its highs, it doesn't matter what I do. People have an easier time blaming someone that isn't them. And I'm not giving myself excuses, by the way. And in fact, I want to be very clear. I enjoy the relationship I have with the public. It's a very spiritual one, and it's been fun, and it's made me a better person. And I like when people are critical of me because it again it's information and if I could be doing something better I shouldn't prioritize my feelings and my emotions over betterment of the world in Bitcoin. So I'm willing to take the brunt of that to be a better founder, be a better leader, be a better Bitcoiner. So with that being said, in my experience, when prices go down and people get poorer, it's hard to look in the mirror and be like, Dang, I screwed up. I owned too much Bitcoin or had too much leverage or was irresponsible with my finances. It's much easier to say that 32-year-old in the empty closet is such an idiot and why is it empty and I heard his dad is an evil banker and he's a liar and he's a scammer and Tether has his arms tied behind his back. Like it's much easier to do that and go to bed thinking none of this is my fault, it's his fault. And then conversely in the bull run it's the opposite is like people are like that guy's a genius. I don't think I'm a genius at all like that guy. And so I think it's more correlated to that. And the things that I find the most fascinating are the lies. And I don't think people are purposely lying. Maybe they believe in what they're saying, but the false that it's just not true. So yeah, that is I guess the part that bothers me. Like when people talk about my father, like that's always a weird thing. Like when your dad calls you, you know, he's my dad, right? And he sees his son getting torn down in public on the internet. And it doesn't really matter who you are, what you believe in, what you're working on, like when you see your kid getting unfairly like that. It's your father. And when he calls me and he's worried about me, like that's always hard. Or when I see people like lying about my family and saying like my family like supported Jeffrey Epstein like that's crazy man like so like those type of things are like yeah that sucks. That yeah but again like what I tell Dylan and my employees all the time is some of the most painful times of my life are the best thing that's ever happened to me like I didn't understand how valuable it was and what it meant to build a profitable business or to not make big announcements that didn't have like actual follow through. I mean, how can I say like when I tried to do all the merchant stuff and the markets fell apart and NCR and that relationship didn't come through like I had to learn these things as a kid out in the open and that was really hard for me and really painful. But I acquired such valuable experience and such valuable knowledge and such valuable lessons. You can think of these things like assets. Like I acquired assets for about as cheap as I could have ever imagined if I didn't acquire them that way. I mean, how expensive would I have had to acquire them? Maybe I would have had to lose what is now my fiance or maybe I would have had to compromise on my health. I mean, I still have my business. I still have my family. I still have my friends. And so, yes, these things suck, but like I said, like being sad isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen to you. It's information. So, I don't know. It's okay. But, no, I mean, having my friends text me and say, Dude, I just want to be clear like you don't like support Epstein, do you? Like, I've like that's not the best use of my time. I hate having to spend my time telling people like, Yo, when Epstein was on his island doing awful, terrible things like I was in kindergarten like in Chicago like I don't know.

No, I mean obviously or like I don't know like my dad being this powerful banker, no one in my family has ever worked in banking ever. So I always, we joke with each other like I'll text him sometimes like what's the most powerful banker in the world up to today and he's like on the beach retired in California like we joke but no I mean there's so much of, you know, I don't know I was on our flight back home because I know we were in the same flight back from Vegas to Chicago and I wasn't the obnoxious person sitting next to him just for not was not but I was, you know, I get out and I'm on Twitter and I'm replying to folks this guy's like, you know, Jack a silver spoon trust fund baby who just had a lot of communications classes. I'm like I've never been to a, I don't even know what a class. So there's so much like made up stuff but yeah I don't know.

Yeah. But the thing that I think is interesting there is that like we're trying to kind of figure out where Bitcoin is going to fit into the world. I think the world is more uncertain as to what it's going to look like in the future than ever. So like I think these are important topics. Yeah. And like how do you take in all the stuff that is happening in Iran? Like why do we start on the fact that they were taking Bitcoin as payment for ships traveling through the strait? Because I thought that was a pretty huge thing and the fact that they were doing that and stable coins and then the stable coins got frozen again. And it's like all just showing the value of Bitcoin. Like what's your read on the whole situation? Yeah. I mean firstly, why is macro important? At least the things that I like talking about. Well, it's because Bitcoin is a solution to a problem. What's the problem? Well, that's what we're talking about. The problem is people have really powerful guns and weapons that are murdering people and we're constantly at war and people are debasing human time and energy via currency. Like those are the problems. And whilst we're working on the solution and we like talking about the solution, I find understanding the problem relevant. So personally, and you don't have to listen to my show if you don't want. I also just enjoy those conversations. Yeah. Super. Obviously. And you know what government is doing like what the United States is doing has implications on my life, right? Like the city of Chicago is broke. And that matters to me because one of their solutions is to raise my taxes and I don't like that. And so, you know, these things are relevant inevitably. And again, we're building a solution to a problem. Understanding the problem and what's going on I find relevant. And yeah, in regards to Bitcoin's role in this conflict in the Middle East, it's been so validating because listen, ultimately this, what is money? Money is the market good that you use not to consume. So, a cheeseburger. I acquire a cheeseburger not to save it and later exchange it. I acquire to eat it because I'm hungry. And that eating it is consuming it. An airplane. I'm acquiring an airplane to travel. A car, the same thing. A house. Ideally, I'm acquiring real estate to live in it and to raise my kids in it and to watch movies with my fiance in it, right? Like, so money is the unique thing where you when you acquire it, your intent is actually to save and later exchange for the things that you need. So money is not defined as the dollar or not defined as gold. That's what money is. And all of us elect what we want to use as money. You can use rubles as money. You can use dollars as money. You can use cheeseburgers as money. If you want to take your paycheck, convert them all into cheeseburgers, and store those in a vault, you can. It's just maybe not the best decision. So when in a conflict, when in a pressure situation, a central bank or a government or enemies at war elect to use Bitcoin as money, I think that's unbelievably validating. In the same way that when MicroStrategy elected to use Bitcoin as money in the situation they were in in 2020, that was validating. When El Salvador elected to use Bitcoin as money in 2021, that was validating. When Iran is saying we are in a situation where one of the most valuable pieces of the global supply chain is under strain is shut down where enemies at war are needing to trustlessly trade time, energy, effort, labor and value to ensure that the global economy keeps humming along whilst there is conflict that involves human death. And they were like what should we use? Should we use cheeseburgers? No. And they picked Bitcoin. Yeah. Super validating. Super validating for the thing we're working on. Now, it's confusing and complicated because I'm not a fan of war. I'm not a fan of human death. I'm American, so what's my political bias in all of this? I'm far less interested in that. Yeah.

An issue. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. No. I mean, listen, I want everyone to understand Bitcoin and view it in the brightest light. And so if they don't and there are things that are contributing to that, then yeah, I would rather them not. Like I would rather mainstream media not write a bunch of FUD and paint Bitcoin in a negative light. But with that being said, what I've always wrestled with is, you know, we're on Bitcoin's time. Bitcoin is not on our time. Meaning Bitcoin is going to be around and humming along with the block expected on average in the next 10 minutes, hopefully thousands of years from now. And at some point I'm very likely to exit this world and this life. And so I don't know. I give that context to say Bitcoin is going to win no matter what. It's going to be successful no matter what. And unfortunately it might take time and it might take more time than I'm given in my own personal capacity. And I've come to terms with being okay with that. And so if Iran and Russia adopt it first for whatever X Y and Z reason and that taints a negative this or that, you know, my focus is just making sure that Bitcoin is still built correctly and engineered properly and is going to survive like from a protocol level and from a consensus level and these other things will get sorted out like eventually people will understand Bitcoin for what it is. Eventually people will find themselves monetizing it and saving in it and using it as money and eventually eventually eventually. And yeah, would my preference be everyone understand Bitcoin today? Yeah, because I only have so much time to live. I would love to experience hyper Bitcoinization while I'm alive, but I know I'm not guaranteed it. So, does that make sense?

Yeah. I honestly think that so much of becoming a Bitcoiner for me and you know because people will make fun of us and say it's a religion or a cult. It kind of is. Yeah. I mean it depends. And even defining it in that way isn't interesting to me. I don't care. You think it's a sports team, you think it's a religion, you think it's a cult, you think it's a protocol, I don't care. Call what you want. It don't matter to me. But it has certainly changed my worldview and how I view myself and how I view the world and my role and my place here. And so people will say, Oh, that's a religious cult member speaking. I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't care. But it's, yeah, like I guess I view what it means to be human is, and these are the sort of things that Bitcoin has encouraged me to think about and philosophize about. What it means to be human is two things at least I think we all innately want. One is to be part of something bigger than ourselves. I think as a human being we all innately desire to be part of family, be part of community. I don't think any of us desire and are built to spend our experience that is life alone. And the other is to be part of something and work on something that will last longer than we will. And whether that's family and having children or whether that's working on the great pyramids that have lasted longer in great architecture. And I find Bitcoin a wonderful expression of what it means to be human because you are working on something that is bigger than you. There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than Bitcoin. You know, Bitcoin outlives and outgrows like any of what you could describe as us. It's bigger than you. And the other is you're working on something that will outlive you. Like we all have an end and Bitcoin hopefully never does and so it puts you in this philosophical state that I think all Bitcoiners go through which is a sense of ego death which is like this isn't about me and I've gone through that now just in life generally like this is about I want to build family I want to have kids this is about them I want to work on Bitcoin I want to contribute this is about the greater project and the greater world and the future of our species So yeah, that's what I mean is that you go through a sense of ego death and you realize like you know yes I wish we get to hyper Bitcoinization while I'm alive but this isn't about me and where I find myself at peace and happiest and spending my time the most is to your point controlling what I can control trying to produce value and for whatever extent I can push the world in the direction that I see fit like working on that. So, no, I don't know, dude. Like, people are going to flood Bitcoin. You know, you can't control that. I think Bitcoin will win and I'm better off, you know, hey, what does the developer community need? Do they need me to dispel quantum FUD? What do the capital markets need? Are there people I can orange pill? What is Twitter saying? Is there feedback that is warranted that I'm not doing the best job and I can be a better man or a better Bitcoiner? And then just doing that like but I you know the story of Bitcoin being adopted is it's on a need to know basis like you know people that don't need Bitcoin typically aren't that interested and so does it surprise me that initially criminals were interested in Bitcoin? Not really because they were debanked and they couldn't use anything else. So does it surprise me that countries that got sanctioned by the United States and basically said your property is not your property and you can't use the global financial system. Does it shock me that they're interested in Bitcoin? No. But yeah, I don't know.