Jack Mallers

CEO & Founder, Strike

Bitcoin and Cannabis With Bitcoin Mom, Bill and Jack Mallers

🎥 Jun 30, 2019 📺 The Peter McCormack Show ⏱ 104m 👁 1577 views

In this interview, I travelled to Boulder to interview the Mallers family: Brooke, Bill and Jack about Bitcoin & Cannabis. We discuss the Mallers family history in trading, how the Bitcoin space has changed, and their investments in the cannabis industry. LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE AND ACCESS LINKS TO THE SHOW NOTES https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcas... WHERE TO FIND THE SHOW → My website: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/ → iTunes: https://apple.co/2OOlzVV → Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ygc4W1 → Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2IQO8fX → SoundCloud: https://bit.ly/2CGSVQR → YouTube: htt...

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About Jack Mallers

Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike and Twenty One Capital, has been publicly discussing the financial structure of MicroStrategy (now Strategy) and its Bitcoin holdings. In multiple interviews and conference appearances in May and June 2026, Mallers questioned the sustainability of Strategy's capital structure, which he described as having four classes of stakeholders: Bitcoin holders, debt holders, preferred shareholders, and common equity holders. He argued that the company's obligations, including a reported $2 billion annual dividend payment on preferred shares, create a "drag" that makes the true accretive net asset value (NAV) higher than commonly assumed. Mallers stated that if Bitcoin does not rise to new all-time highs "relatively soon," someone in the capital structure would have to bear the cost of meeting those obligations. He also said he does not consider Strategy's preferred shares to be equivalent to a money market fund or the risk-free rate. Mallers has also been promoting a proposed merger between Twenty One Capital, Strike, and Tether's mining arm Electron, which he described as an effort to build a "Bitcoin company" that combines operating income with a Bitcoin treasury. He outlined a four-pillar strategy for Twenty One Capital: financial services, Bitcoin infrastructure, capital markets, and M&A. On macroeconomic topics, Mallers stated that Bitcoin benefits from all scenarios—inflation, deflation, war, or peace—because it is a fixed-supply asset that cannot be changed by governments. He predicted that Bitcoin could reach $500,000, citing U.S. debt levels, potential money printing, and what he described as a coming liquidity crisis. He also criticized what he called "fear-mongering" about large institutional holders like BlackRock, arguing that Bitcoin is for everyone, including institutions.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Jack Mallers's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (147 segments)

✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution

Peter McCormack0:01

Podcast. Hi there from Bedford. How are you all? Welcome to the 'What Bitcoin Did' podcast, which is brought to you by Kraken. I'm your host, Peter McCormack. Today I've got a really special interview with the Mallers family. I've got Bitcoin mom, Bill, and Jack on to discuss Bitcoin and the cannabis industry. But before that, I've got a message from my show sponsors.

Today's show is brought to you by BlockFi. Tomorrow I'm flying back out to the states for another couple of weeks for a whole bunch of interviews and meetings. While I'm out there, I'm going to be meeting up with Zac from BlockFi and Jeremy Welch from Casa to discuss their new partnership. Have you heard about this? The announcement that BlockFi and Casa are going to be working together. Their partnership allows BlockFi clients to have access to both market-leading financial services and secure self-custody solutions. Through the partnership, clients will be able to access Casa's multi-sig software for long-term savings and security. So this is pretty cool. Two of my favorite companies in the space working together, totally badass. Through the partnership, BlockFi clients are eligible for a $50 offer on a Casa node, which includes the Go subscription. They can get $200 off their first year of Casa Platinum with a five-key shielded multi-sig, and $500 off the first year of Casa Diamond with three or five shields and full team support. Additionally, Casa members are eligible for reduced rates on BTC-backed loans at BlockFi and an additional 10% interest each month on Bitcoin interest accounts at BlockFi's current rate of 6% annual interest, which will mean Casa clients are eligible to earn six-point-six percent annual interest. Neither Casa nor BlockFi are earning profits directly from this partnership; instead, they pass it on to their clients. This is so cool. I love both companies. I love Zac and I love Jeremy. I think this is amazing. So I can't wait to talk to them both about this. If you are interested in trying it out, I recommend you do your own research and then head over to BlockFi.com, which is B-L-O-C-K-F-I dot com.

This show is also brought to you by the amazing and epic Kraken, who are without doubt the best crypto exchange in the world, the only one I use now for buying my Bitcoin and for selling my Bitcoin. What exchange are you using? I'd love to know who you're using and why. As part of this trip out to the States, I'm going to be meeting up with Nick Percoco, who is Kraken's Chief Security Officer. We're going to talk all things crypto security, something we've been trying to get at the door for ages. It's now booked, it's happening, and it's going to be amazing. Also, check out Kraken's range of companies and products because they're not just an exchange. They've got Kraken Security Labs, which is their dedication to improving security across the industry. I'm going to be talking to Nick about that. You've got the Kraken OTC desk for large trades with private and personalized services. They've got Cryptowatch, where you can trade on multiple crypto exchanges from a single platform. They also offer margin trading, futures, and indices. If you're a trader, Kraken has got your backs covered with everything. So join me in supporting Kraken. Head over to Kraken.com, which is K-R-A-K-E-N dot com.

So on to my interview with the Mallers family. This one was a lot of fun. I had already previously recorded with Jack as part of my Lightning Month when I was at the Bitcoin Expo at MIT, and we discussed the idea of doing a Mallers family show. So Jack invited me up to Boulder to do this. Then when I was in San Francisco, I finally got to meet Brooke, the amazing Bitcoin mom who, I think, within Bitcoin is everyone's mom. Absolutely love Brooke. I talked to her about the idea I'd had with Jack, and she invited me out as well. I booked her flight as part of the trip, headed out to Boulder, and I recorded a show with the three of them. I do have a deep interest in the cannabis industry. While I'm not really a smoker myself anymore, something I did maybe as a kid, I do think it's quite ridiculous for cannabis to still be deemed illegal. It was also my reentry back into Bitcoin in late 2016 when I wanted to buy a treatment for my mother when she was dying from cancer. So I clearly have an interest in this industry because I do see the medicinal benefits, but I also see other benefits, and it's just ridiculous that a plant can be illegal. Brooke and Bill took me to their dispensary, and for research purposes, I partook in a little testing of the product. I did that during the show, which was kind of funny. The show was a lot of fun to record. The family is amazing. They've got a really great bond, and they've really welcomed me into their home and took me out for dinner. I've got to say a huge thanks to them. Their hospitality was amazing. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you have any questions about it, you can reach out to me. My email address is [email protected].

Also need to let you know I was meant to be attending BitBlockBoom in August, but I've had to pull out. I've been traveling so much this year, and my kids have been really patient, and I just want to spend some time with them over the holiday. I need to say a big sorry to Gary because he asked me quite early on, and I did commit to doing it, and he's doing a great job of putting this event together. But I've had to pull out, so I'm very sorry about that. He has, though, offered a discount code. So if you want 30% off a ticket, use WBD. You should definitely check the event out. It looks pretty cool. So on to the interview with Brooke, Bill, and Jack. If you've got any questions, you can reach out to me. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Jack Mallers5:20

We've got wine, and we've got meat, we've got cheese, we've got the whole Mallers family. I forget the Bitcoin. We've got the Bitcoins. We've got Ethereum? Bitcoin. Quit, mom. Bitcoin mom is the greatest trader.

Peter McCormack5:50

All right, so I'm speaking with my mouth full here. I want to start—I want to go back. There's two things I want to do early on. Early Bitcoin. Were you both in Bitcoin when you first met, or was it one of you who got the other into it?

Bill Mallers6:07

Yeah, it was me. I would never have understood it. I don't have a background in cryptography, and my politics don't overlap with it. So it's doubtful I would have found it in 2013 if it hadn't been for the Liberty Blitz newsletter. It was written for Cyprus.

There's a whole history to the Mallers family. A deep financial connection. My father was chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade. He was the youngest chairman in 1969. His generation of exchange leadership really ushered in financial futures. It was all pork bellies, wheat, corn, beans. My dad came up in the wheat pit. I really admire those guys. I see so many parallels between that generation of exchange ownership and what we're seeing now in crypto. It's just the ability to take on—put it this way, if I'd asked you where you thought stock index futures would take off, you'd say New York, maybe London, and certainly not next to the pork belly pit. But they did. I remember when T-bonds got big, we traded them right in the soybean pit. So I grew up around a lot of financial innovation. That's kind of how we got here.

In 1984, discount was the rage. My dad and his friends used to say, 'If you want to stay ahead of what's going to happen in futures, watch the trends in securities.' That was in the 80s, when Charles Schwab and stuff was starting to take a lot of business away from the more traditional, hand-holding full-service firms. So my dad's friends were like, 'This is going to be the next trend.' But they frequently had conflicts. It's hard to maintain your current business and then open a deep discount that's a lot cheaper than what you're charging current customers. So they wanted to be a part of it, but they didn't want the name associated with it. They set me up, and I got my mentorship and education from the really innovative generation of Chicago traders.

Peter McCormack8:41

Where did you meet Bill?

Brooke Mallers8:44

We were fixed up. We have a blended family. We were fixed up in 2005. Bill has four kids, so Jack has three siblings on his side. I have two kids on my side. The joke was when Susie said, 'You gotta meet Brooke, you'll really like her, but don't tell her how many kids you have. Don't tell her that you're Jack's dad.'

Jack Mallers9:14

I was in the same grade as her son.

Brooke Mallers9:20

Just tell her that you're a really good trader and you'll live right off the lake. On subsequent dates, if it looks like it's working, then you could say, 'Oh, I didn't tell you about Shawn. Actually, I've got 12 kids, but I've only introduced her to four.'

Peter McCormack9:42

What was it like? Nowadays or maybe a while when they were younger, because all the kids in this blended family are all one year apart. So there is a certain period of the year when it's a certain birthday. If you said, 'How old are your kids?' I'd say 19, 20, 21, 22. But you have six kids, and Bella? Noise?

Brooke Mallers10:04

No, Bella's fine. She's crazy.

Peter McCormack10:07

Do you remember the first date? What'd you do?

Brooke Mallers10:12

We were supposed to go see 'The Aviator,' the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Got the ticket stubs, never went. We went for dinner. There was a huge snowstorm in Chicago, and we ended up staying. We went at six. It's funny, I didn't know what he looked like. I got out of my car, and there was a guy who parked a few cars behind me who was sort of boxing into the air. I was like, 'Okay, that's weird, what's he doing?' And it was him.

Sorry. The first real date was with 'The Aviator' movie. We had my lunch date. She wouldn't pick Quinn back then. That was in 2005.

Jack Mallers11:01

Yeah, I used to put '15 years Bitcoin' as my Twitter description as a joke. People would say, 'You have to be 15 years? Bitcoin is 10 years old, you idiot.'

Peter McCormack11:19

Okay, so 2005 you met, stuff happens, and then Bitcoin comes along. Who found it first?

Bill Mallers11:29

I did. I kind of pride myself on finding unique gifts. Yes, I like, 'What am I gonna get Cookies for?' Sorry, that's my nickname. Cookie, she's a jewelry designer, so I can't get her a ring or anything. I had heard about it through Liberty Blitz, and I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be a cool gift.' So I bought a five lot in the summer of 2013. But your birthday wasn't for another four or five months. There's no way I'm going to make it that long. This is too much fun. You know how that feeling is when you first discover it. I jumped the gun on your birthday.

Brooke Mallers12:09

No, he vomited it all. One-hour session where my head was spinning, and I was like, 'Okay, that's proof of work.' It's brilliant. Did you know tree rings? It's like... You really had to learn. There weren't that many books to learn about Bitcoin back in the summer of 2013, but you did. I think you found a 'Bitcoin for Dummies' book or read whatever you could. Watching Andreas's videos.

Bill Mallers12:41

No, we didn't know about hundreds. I always like to say that Bitcoin is exciting because you kind of got interested in it as a speculative thing because the price kept going up at that time. Then Silk Road went down in early October of that year, and the price started to really climb later that month, early November. There were going to be these congressional hearings, the first ones that I know of, to discuss Bitcoin. So Bill had already vomited about Bitcoin. We were learning a little bit and thinking, 'Wow, this thing is going up in price, this is cool.' I got this great idea. I opened a Twitter account for you. You're going to be 'Bitcoin Mom.' Too many kids, not enough nick. And she was like, 'What?' I said, 'I open this account, 'The Bitcoin Mom.'

Brooke Mallers13:28

Back then, Bitcoin was the least wholesome thing you could think of. So I tried to personalize it a little bit. You don't have to be a Silk Road customer or trying to evade capital controls in some way. I don't want to end the Fed. I'm from the era where the Fed and Volcker's reign is fairly well regarded. I've never come from that side of Bitcoin. But I have come from a business where you have to give margin calls, and you need the money in an hour, and that's a really hard thing to do through the banking system. I was fascinated by the fact that I could wave a phone or QR code and get almost instant money transferred. That's my background.

So the 'Bitcoin Mom' account on Twitter was meant to combat all the stereotypes that were coming into more national focus: 'Is it for terrorists? Drug dealers? Money launderers?' It's like, 'No, you're acquitted. Moms can use it. Moms hold the purse strings. Mom stocks with it.' This was the era where we really thought that merchant adoption was going to be the major catalyst for Bitcoin adoption. There was 'Bitcoin Black Friday.' You were supposed to go to a grocery store and... Anyway, I don't know why that has faded. We do know. Jack's store value oral? We discovered, I think as a community, we all learned together as Bitcoin evolved. Nobody knows what it is. I mean, doesn't 'Genius' and 'Lab' have that great piece about the coin toss article about 'Nobody Understands Bitcoin'? We really are all evolving to learn what it is. Unfortunately, along the way, you're going to get the civil wars, people who split off ideologically.

Back to that time, I remember asking Bill, 'What am I gonna tweet about?' And he's like, 'Hey, Mike, forget about shopping.' I'm a former academic, and I kind of pride myself on deeper thought. But I tried to tweet about shopping art. My first tweet was my first Bitcoin transaction. Shoutout to... It was pretty cool. Bill's like, 'I'm gonna show you how to send Bitcoin.' I sent a quarter of a Bitcoin to the Bitcoin Foundation. That was all part of it. It was pretty exciting.

Peter McCormack16:07

Who has more fun of us, Jack?

Jack Mallers16:09

Um, it's close. But who's higher on the high score? I think it's you. We're really close. I feel like one...

Brooke Mallers16:23

Where they rank you in terms of influence, it's funny. Deservedly so. Along comes Jack.

I don't know who has more followers. But when I used to go to Bitcoin conventions, it was 'Oh, Mallory's Brooke's husband.' Now the last one I went to, it was 'Oh, Mallory, is there any relation to Jack?' About followers, I think Jack might have surpassed you.

Jack Mallers16:51

But you're the quiet one, because you know, 123 followers. The snark. He's like the guy in the movies where there's so much happening, chaos and fighting and loving, and you're like 'How is this all happening?' And then it cuts to the guy in the darkroom who's got all the video screens up, pulling all the strings. That's him. He started the Bitcoin. He got me involved. I mean, the amount of influence my dad has had on Bitcoin that isn't associated with him is a lot.

Peter McCormack17:36

So who was it first, Brooke or Jack, that you got into Bitcoin?

Jack Mallers17:38

I was in high school. I was finishing up high school. We talked about it in the kitchen. I actually asked about it because I had a classmate. Context: I went to college for like 90 days, less, way less, 45 days. I came home and entered a coding bootcamp. One of my classmates, we had to stand up and introduce ourselves. 'What are you gonna work on?' I was like, 'I'm gonna build a way for MBA officials to have to own up to horrible calls they would make.' Some guy gets up and he's like, 'I'm gonna work on Bitcoin. It's this money that's gonna be better than the dollar.' We were all like 'What the hell?' So I came home and I was like, 'Hey, school was good.' I was 18 years old. 'Yeah, school was great. We learned this and this. This crazy man was talking about this Bitcoin thing.' And dad was like, 'You know how do you know about that?' It wasn't like 'Oh, that's so fun, go to bed.' It was like 'Say that again.' Bitcoin. It was connected.

Brooke Mallers19:04

In the fall of 2013, we pulled that stunt with all the kids. This is when you could use Bitcoin to buy a Gyft gift card that you can then use at major retailers. So we put the Gift app on every phone with all six kids and a couple of others. All six kids in school, and everybody went down to North Michigan Avenue to go shopping with their gift cards that we had funded with bitcoins. Because at that point, Bill had bought Bitcoin really low, and it was shooting up. It was like $1,100, $900 around that. So we felt like it was free Christmas. It was so cool. Sat at a restaurant on Michigan Avenue, and the kids did all the shopping. They had paired up as Secret Santas where they had to buy presents for each other. Jack would text us, 'Okay, I'm in the line at the Nike store. I really want to get these shorts for Betsy, but I need more money.' And Brooke would just shoot him some Bitcoin to refill the card. There's a picture of all of us with our gift cards on the phone.

How much? Oh, we can go through an array of things. Bill said he bought Bitcoin at $400. When was this? Late 2016, maybe 2015. He said, 'If it hits $400, you can go buy me that bike for Christmas.' We had a local bike store that accepted Bitcoin. That was seven Bitcoin. I got a good one.

Jack Mallers20:46

I'm living in my... what was the apartment? This is a year ago, and Bitcoin is at what, $20,000? Now it's 18 months ago. We have the painting that we paid six BTC for. That was an auction at the Latin American Bitcoin conference, and the money went to charity. So I have it up in my apartment. I'm 23, and I'm living with a buddy. Buddy's like, 'What is that?' I'm like, 'Dude, I know Bitcoin is $20,000 now, but my parents bought it for six Bitcoins, so that's a six-figure painting if you twist your words right.' It gets funnier. So he goes, 'Okay, that's amazing.' And now you would bring chicks over, and he'd be like, 'We're actually art connoisseurs.' And that's a very expensive painting done by the Satoshi Nakamoto artist on Twitter.

Brooke Mallers22:02

But there's also, we kind of felt it was our duty back then, in 2014, when these retailers would come online and accept Bitcoin, we felt it was our duty to buy things with bitcoins. So we did buy the proverbial patio furniture. And, by the way, for ten Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack22:26

Somebody was telling me a story of somebody on the 'rekt' podcast. Back when Bitcoin first started, something crazy like they bought a wizard's cloak for six thousand bitcoins or something stupid like that.

Jack Mallers22:48

It's the first time I've ever rolled a spliff. I don't think anyone knows how to do it.

Brooke Mallers23:01

So this was back in 2013 and '14. You followed the run-up. What was interesting is that sometime in late 2013, I came across a video of Andreas Antonopoulos at a conference in Greece called 'Disrupt.' If you guys just Google 'Disrupt and Andreas,' you will suddenly have your 'aha' moment, which I did. We had been in Bitcoin for a few months, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, now I totally get it. That's the revolutionary potential of this to change the world and lift billions out of poverty.' My head was spinning. That was great. So Andreas tweets out: 'Coming to Chicago. Anybody want to hold a meetup?' I look up all the meetups in Chicago. No one is holding a meetup. So we had one in our living room. I think we had 35 people. I invited Andreas, and we had no idea if he was going to come. I was kind of nervous about it. Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock, he tweets out: 'Going to Bitcoin mom's house to meet my Chicago peeps.' I felt like, 'Oh my god, this is like a rock star coming to the house.' He came in on this tear. It was 20 below zero or something. He came in, and I didn't want him to feel the pressure to talk. I wanted him to be a part of our community, a part of the meetup. But everybody gathered around and started asking him questions. He sat on our couch in our living room on a cold winter night for four hours. No one wanted to leave. I said this earlier, and you guys made fun of me, but it was like a 19th-century salon where people were discussing abolition or women's rights, something revolutionary. I still get chills thinking about how wonderful that night was. No one wanted to leave. He kept answering questions, and we'd be there for another hour. This was all right when Mount Gox was happening, so he got a lot of questions.

It was exactly right when I think it was 'Bitcoin Idiot' announced that broke the story, as I recall.

Peter McCormack25:36

This is really low THC, so the psychoactive effects are going to be lower because CBD effects, which are health effects, I'm a big fan of. So I'm gonna get healthy. Did you have coins on Mt. Gox?

Jack Mallers25:47

He did. Tell him. You used to tell me that you wanted to be bullish, you wanted to buy way earlier than you actually did, but you saw Mt. Gox from a mile away just from being on exchange floors your whole life. It wasn't until Coinbase came out when you were like, 'All right, if Andreessen is putting this thing on his back, then it's time for me to get along.'

Bill Mallers26:17

I appreciate the compliment, but really anybody from the financial industry saw a lot of handwriting on the wall with Mt. Gox. Something was really wrong. You could always see the charts up, and it was like, 'Something funny's going on.' They had a premium. I don't know what premium. They always had banking problems. A $100 premium back in the day was like over a hundred percent premium. It was like 2x plus. That was vomit-worthy.

Peter McCormack27:05

How is it different today in 2019 from say 2014? I wasn't around then, I don't know what the community was like. How does it feel different today?

Brooke Mallers27:18

We've all felt on the same team, definitely. People say that over and over again, especially if you were active on Twitter. The people that you got to know on Twitter, many of whom have become really good friends of ours. If you really like someone's personality on Twitter, you find that they are the same in real life.

Peter McCormack27:38

I find people say to me they find me very different from what I'm like on Twitter. In real life, most people I've had an argument with on Twitter, if I meet them at a conference, we become friends straightaway. There's only one time that's never happened. I met two people who were absolute trolls, and we ended up hanging out and getting on. So I think most of the Twitter stuff is just nonsense. There was only one person when I was out in Berlin who started trying to troll me in real life. I was just like, 'What do you do? How do you—' He was saying the same stuff he says to me on Twitter. 'You're giving a platform to frauds.'

Brooke Mallers28:40

It's so interesting that you are trying to piece together the whole history of what we all have like battle scars. Starting around Mt. Gox, with the congressional hearings, the Silk Road thing, it always felt like it was facing an existential threat. There was always something. Things as mild as 'The blockchain not Bitcoin stuff is old.'

Jack Mallers29:05

I learned to code right after I dropped out, and I would be working on the couch on whatever. It started to get really Bitcoin-focused at one point. I remember looking at the chart, working on a change tip plugin for free, and Bitcoin starts to fall under $200. Mind you, it was like $1,100 when my dad said, 'This thing's interesting.' I remember looking at it like, 'Oh, this isn't going to go away. Then I'm going to have to go to college and introduce myself as a freshman who's gonna be 40.' I was like, 'Oh my god, what's wrong with 40?' But I remember running up to my dad's room like, 'Hey, is this thing on? Is it working?' He was a better trader than ever, but falling all the way down there, I was like, 'Dad, should I apply to college?' He was like, 'Hold on one second, I'm on Coinbase.'

Peter McCormack30:16

I think the first full bear market is scary for anyone. I experienced my first one. I did some CFD trading of Bitcoin back in 2013, made money on the way up, lost it on the way back down. They're not legal here in the US, but we have them in the UK, so you can do leverage plays on what's going to happen. I made money on the way up, lost on the way down, and forgot about it. Every now and again, I'd see Bitcoin in the news, and the price would drop more and more. It went down to around $200, and I thought that thing was dead. Then it started to go back up, and I got back in. Now I've just had my first kind of bear market. It's quite scary when you really live it. You can come out the other end of it, which I have, and some people haven't. You have to put the PSA in here right now: Never invest more than you're willing to lose. I didn't invest more than I could afford to lose. I only put $32,000 in. I lost more winnings than my emotions could take, but it doesn't matter. I've got this stuff now.

Bill Mallers31:37

You talk about battle scars. Different people from the you know traditional finance say, 'Oh that stuff's a casino.' I go, 'What were you around in 1987? That took 90 minutes to take 20% off of the stock market.' How about the currency markets during the 90s? How about the grain markets during the drought or the flood? Whoever thought the Midwest would flood? I was a risk manager during some really dangerous markets, and crypto isn't any different in character than some of those financial markets.

Brooke Mallers32:22

What are the battle scars? Especially ones I have. But the 2017 civil war really got to me. I got really involved. I renamed myself really early on the 'UASF Mom.' It's been a lot of time and energy trying to understand big blocks versus small blocks. We tried to not line up ideologically in the beginning. We were just trying to wade through these waters to see what's what. I don't think I understood everybody's motivations on both sides. That's a battle I felt. Normally, I am very non-contentious on Twitter. I'm pretty nice and diplomatic. I don't promote companies, take sides, or get into fights. But that one I felt was bad.

Peter McCormack33:16

If you're kind of new to Bitcoin, I think you can see both sides of the big block argument and the small block argument at first touch and go, 'They both make sense.' You can fully empathize with why people think big blocks make sense. Maybe over time you learn a bit more and get a bit more educated, but I can see how people then go off into a certain camp and get indoctrinated into the cult of that camp. I think both can be cults at times. It's very easy to get drawn in. I certainly didn't fully understand. I kind of kept my Bitcoin as all my Bitcoin Cash because, gut feel based on who was supporting each project, you've got Jameson Lopp over here, various developers over here, Andreas over here. Over there you've got Roger Ver and a bunch of people I don't understand. So my gut feel was based on who I trust. I see how people got lost in it.

Brooke Mallers34:17

Can I tell you a little irony? You might have to edit this out.

Peter McCormack34:23

Loose lips. Cookie, here we go.

Brooke Mallers34:30

I'm not going to tell any of Jack's secrets. But because of that fork, we used the BCH airdrop to fund Jack's Zap company or whatever his efforts. We helped fund difficulty swaps and derivatives. It funded lightning stuff and funded a Bitcoin Core engineer at one point. So Roger Ver, no matter his intent, created money out of thin air and gave us good money for it to fund good things.

Peter McCormack35:28

The purple one is actually Alerus. What price did you say for Bitcoin Cash?

Brooke Mallers35:37

At first, I didn't feel confident enough to split the coin, so I was ignoring it. Then I was like, 'I can't not do this.' I sold at about 0.12 of a Bitcoin. I think that's pretty decent.

Jack Mallers35:59

I sold for about $400 pretty quick. It started pretty low, then pumped up to $4,000.

Brooke Mallers36:20

I think the Lightning people keep saying it's going to take 18 months, it's vapor, it's never going to happen. But we were funding a very active application, and Jack was able to quit his normal job and work on Zap full-time. That was great.

Peter McCormack36:38

What was the normal job?

Jack Mallers36:43

I've had one normal job in my life. I was working at a startup in Chicago. I was hired to be an engineer, but then I ended up leading product design and engineering. There's a patent for it. The company was struggling a bit. I built a solution on the weekend. I'm the most competitive person, so if I do something, I do it all the way. I built something on the weekend, proposed it to them, and it turned out to be really successful. They put a patent in my name for it.

Peter McCormack37:25

There's a lot of wine. This is my Joe Rogan episode. I never normally drink. Imagine having a whitey during the interview and just passing out.

Jack Mallers37:51

I love that story. Roger Ver helped fund that app. I think that's the type of thing this show will be about. Miners are going to be hedging like difficulty swaps and derivatives. We even funded a Bitcoin Core engineer at one point. There are lines of code thanks to Roger. It was really the craziest thing. I used to describe to my friends, 'What do you mean you got money for free? This is not how it works. No, no, check this out. Let's say I created money out of thin air from my toenails. I clipped my toenails and said, 'Here's some new money.' And you said, 'Well, I can't do anything with your toenails. I can't exchange it for any goods or a dollar, so no thanks.' It's like, 'No, no, I'll give you my toenails, and then I'll buy them from you.' That's what happened. So it's like, 'Oh, thanks for this fresh batch of toenails, Roger, and you'll pay me in Bitcoin for it. How lovely. Thank you so much. I can't wait for next Christmas.'

Peter McCormack39:18

That's the second time you've used that analogy. It's my go-to.

I just got back from San Francisco, and we've been talking about gross things for days. The new Call of Duty zombie map is set in San Francisco. Defeat all the naked apocalypse zombies. I had it today when the Uber was taking me to the airport in LA. We were driving on a dual carriageway, and a woman was just walking down the road. She looked at the driver like he was an idiot for being in a car. She was obviously messed up. I was blown away by how bad San Francisco has gotten. I've been going there for ten years. The first time I went, I had the most amazing time, no problems. Every time I've come back, it's gotten worse. I was staying up at Union Square, went for a jog, and thought I was in an episode of 'The Walking Dead' with the rows of tents. It's really sad and depressing. You could be outside and hear a dude shouting at nobody. It's somebody said to me recently, 'San Francisco is now 10% dystopian future.' Absolutely.

Brooke Mallers41:05

We have a terrible homeless problem here in Boulder, but it's different. They love us. They're sweet and they're relatively well taken care of. It's a huge problem, but in San Francisco, there were a lot more people with mental health problems and probably a lot more people on drugs.

Peter McCormack41:36

Why is this such a huge problem? What's happened? I can't understand it.

Brooke Mallers41:42

In San Francisco, people have said it's gotten so expensive to live there, so you have some people who are homeless because they can't afford to live there anymore. But there's also a lot of mental health issues. Insurance and healthcare—don't get me started on how they treat mental health. We have six kids. Jack has panic attacks. We have a daughter who is being treated for pretty severe chronic anxiety. It might be something about this generation.

Peter McCormack42:22

Your chronic anxiety and panic attacks, where did the first one come from?

From drugs. I had a drug problem, and then I went through two years of really bad anxiety and a panic attack probably once a week. You think you're going to die. I had one even on the tube in London. I collapsed on the tube and thought I was dying. They took me off the tube by the track, took my shirt off, brought the paramedics down, and I got an ECG in rush hour. But what spurred the panic attack? It just hit me after my separation, my divorce. Everything changed. I got rid of it by running. I went to the doctor, and they wanted to prescribe me antidepressants. My brother has them, and he's never got off them. Every time he tries to wean himself off, he gets depressed again. So I Googled alternatives to antidepressants. The three things that came up were running, yoga, and meditation. I did all three. There's an app called Calm that I used when I had really bad panic attacks. I put on my trainers and ran nearly every day for a year. That's what worked for me.

Jack Mallers43:58

Do you run? You do? Jack's a pretty great athlete.

Brooke Mallers44:03

Are we talking about my panic attacks on the podcast? People might be helped by it.

Peter McCormack44:10

It does help people, actually. I've had panic attacks forever. During the panic attacks or just in general, because anxiety is not binary, it always exists. People who struggle with mental health, myself included, have to constantly maintain it with running or diet. You're always just taking care of it.

Brooke Mallers44:37

We've been giving Jack CBD. It's helped Bill and me. We discovered it when we moved to Colorado. We took it every day, by this company here in Boulder. It was extremely stressful and took a really long time. The CBD has helped me stay steady and cope with stress a lot better. Here's a tip: CBD works best if it has a little bit of THC to activate it. It's called the entourage effect of the whole plant. We take a tincture every day with a 20:1 CBD to THC ratio. I think it helped us so much.

Jack Mallers45:37

Yeah, I've gotten much better over the years. I used to be much worse. I used to not be able to go to my first classes in school. My parents are divorced, so Brooke is my stepmom. On days when I had to go from my dad's house to my mom's house, I physically couldn't leave his car and go into a class. I would go to a specific teacher and I would just have panic attacks for about an hour and a half straight. I didn't go to history or English in seventh grade. It used to be really bad, middle school. Now it's fine. If someone calls me an autistic 14-year-old virgin, I'm okay. I'm much better.

No one ever really cared about what I had to say until recently. That might be forgotten, but this is all new to me. The Magical Crypto Conference was the first time I ever spoke at one of the big conferences. That was the derivatives talk. I was so proud of myself. I didn't know if I did well, but I know I didn't blow it. The audience was laughing, and I was cursing up there. So I went back and watched it on YouTube. I was looking at the comments. I was talking about how corn farmers traditionally hedged themselves through derivatives. That was a very Chicago thing: agriculture hedging and derivatives. I was walking through how a corn farmer hedges and how Bitcoin miners need to hedge. In the comments, somebody said, 'Hey, I just sat down, what's this guy talking about?' Someone commented, 'Oh, it's just some 14-year-old autistic virgin who's trying to put corn on the blockchain.' I thought it was so funny. That was the first time I'd ever had any trolls. I was like, 'Yeah, autistic virgin who puts corn on the blockchain, you're damn right.' When you get trolled, I don't mind the really insane ones, like people laughing at my mom for being dead or telling me they want me to get cancer and die. Those don't get to me because that person is insane. It's when somebody says something like, 'I listen to your show, it's rubbish.' That gets to me.

Brooke Mallers48:51

Most 25-year-olds will tell you a story about how their mom tried to make sure they didn't take drugs. Jack can tell stories about how his mom told him you need a little THC to properly activate the CBD. That's a pretty cool mom.

I only got trolled during the Bitcoin civil wars in 2017. I blocked a couple of people. One of them was on the big block side, and his account name was 'Twatter.' I'd say something about UASF against SegWit2x, and he'd call me a 'c*nt.' I couldn't believe it, so I had to block him. I've never blocked anybody else except the Bitcoin drama. Bitcoin mom is everyone's mom, so they can't talk to you that way. I have about 2,500 people blocked. It makes me cringe the things people say. But I give it out too, and I deserve some of it. But Peter is really nice in person.

Peter McCormack50:37

Next up, I talked to Brooke, Bill, and Jack more about Bitcoin and cannabis. But before that, I've got a message from my amazing show sponsors. First up, I'm going to talk to you about DropBit, the best mobile Bitcoin wallet in the world. The one that I've become kind of addicted to using. It's something I'm using quite regularly now. Have you downloaded it? You must have heard me going on about this on Twitter or on the podcast. You definitely need to try it out. They described it as the 'Venmo for Bitcoin.' In the States, people use Venmo. DropBit is the easiest way to send and receive Bitcoin that I've found. They allow you to paste addresses, text Bitcoin to people, you can even tweet Bitcoin to people. I've done that a few times. It's super cool, and the UX is amazing. They've also got loads of cool exciting things coming. I'm talking to the team regularly. I've loaded up my wallet for my trip to the States. If I see you out there, come up to me, and I'll send you something from my DropBit wallet. Go and check it out. It's available for iPhone and Android. Head over to dropbit.app, which is D-R-O-P-B-I-T dot app.

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So let's do the weed story, because that's half of the story already. I already know the show is going to be called 'Bitcoin and Weed.' Well, the weed story you have to tell starting back when I was growing up.

Jack Mallers53:06

How can you tell Jack to get high? I'm not having a hard time. Take CBD with you. There's no psychoactive effects at that level. You're like a modern-day Howard Marks, the weed guy. Used to bring it in on the plane. There's no modern-day weed guy like that.

Brooke Mallers53:25

What we're about to do is legal. It's fucking great. Cannabis is illegal in the US at the federal level. It's a Schedule 1 drug. That whole history is so fraught with injustice and racism. But it's legal here in Colorado. How many states have at least medical marijuana? Like 47 states. They've recognized that the voters believe it has some medicinal benefit. Schedule 1 means at the federal level it has no medicinal benefits. It's up there with what else? It's worse than meth. It's ridiculous.

Jack is talking about the transformation. We raised these six kids who were all teenagers at the same time. Our house was the house that everyone came to because we had an open-door policy. Jack always had tons of friends. Listen to this. When I was in middle school, our house was the best. My dad was the coolest dad in the world. On Fridays, it was a competition to get to the house first because my dad would go on these notorious runs to Costco. My favorites were when I was at my mom's and some weekends I'd go to dad's. Dad's house would load up at Costco. We had rope swings and 50 kids. My whole middle school or high school class would come over. It was a competition to get there because he would make so much food. If you showed up too late, you weren't going to get any of the bourbon chicken. It became a competition that kids would start ditching their classes late or faking injuries. My mom lived about a block away from the middle school, and my dad lived about a mile and a half. Kids would start ditching their ninth period on Fridays when Jack was at dad's house just to get the bourbon chicken first, be first on the trampoline, or first to play basketball. Our house residence was like that.

Jack Mallers56:03

Kids would start ditching, and by the time I got home to my own house, the bourbon chicken was gone. I couldn't ditch ninth period. I know how I was raised. So we would get out of ninth period, and someone would fake an injury. We'd walk to mom's house and be like, 'Hey mom, Ciaran really fucked his ankle. We can't walk all the way to dad's house. We need a ride.' So we started getting a ride and would be driving past the kids who ditched ninth period like, 'Motherfucker, we got a ride.'

Brooke Mallers56:40

The craziness of that house. I think we just sold it, so it's kind of sad that it's closed. But we sold it for Bitcoin. Do you remember when you chased those kids out of the alley because your sisters were having a 7th or 8th grade party? You said no, but you set me on the job. 'Hey, would you mind standing in the backyard and watching for someone trying to sell drugs to my daughter?' Sure, that's my turf. Anyone around here is a big cut. 'Get off my turf!' Sure enough, here come the ninth graders trying to sell weed to the middle schoolers. You guys chased them out of the alley.

There was that one time you had that friend that came over, and I was like, 'Jack, the kid reeks of weed. I don't want him in the house.' We had a kind of contentious relationship on some of that stuff. At the time, it was so stressful because we just didn't want to be that house. There was another really popular house in our town that was kind of known for big parties and parents that turned a blind eye to underage drinking and drug use. We didn't want to be that family. I didn't drink or smoke all through school. Kids would come over and want to try weed, and they would leave out of respect for me. I was the only kid. The irony now, trading Bitcoin and slinging dope. But it wasn't just the parent thing, it was the culture of the house. We had to protect that culture and make sure it was a drug-free, alcohol-free home. I think we did a pretty good job, sort of gave up on the last ones.

That has been quite a transformation for how we raised our kids. Chasing that out and making sure we stayed the house that parents felt safe sending their kids to. We guarded that. The police still call, but that's because someone is screaming obscenities.

Peter McCormack59:41

Let's get into the weed business. You told me it was originally to do with Bill.

Bill Mallers59:50

Sleeping problems. What's the story? How do you discover weed, and how does that mean you own four dispensaries?

I have always had problems with sleeplessness. Part of the problem was moving to this elevation. We didn't even expect to live here full time. We lived here half time. When you go your whole life living at almost sea level in Chicago, the effects of moving to a mile high are pretty severe. You have nausea, insomnia, and a weird kind of nausea. I felt fine, but I couldn't keep food down.

One of my big friends, Krypto Redick, said, 'In order to deal with your sleeplessness, have you tried cannabis?' I said, 'No, I don't. My generation, I grew up in the 70s where everybody's parents smoked, and your house smelled like an ashtray. I don't want to smoke.' He said, 'They've got edibles or tinctures.' We walked into the dispensary, and I said exactly that: 'I can't sleep, but I don't want to smoke.' They were so enthused. They said, 'Try this. If it doesn't work, come back, and we can tweak it.' I was so impressed with the quality of the staff and the knowledge they had. I don't know if you've ever built a business, but it's not an easy thing to do, particularly a retail business with salary constraints. These people on the front line talking to a tourist were so engaged. I just loved that business. We got to know the staff and kept coming in. They started calling us 'mom' and 'dad' even before we knew them.

Brooke Mallers1:03:48

One day we were at the coffee shop next door, and one of their managers came down. We asked, 'Why don't you guys accept Bitcoin? It seems like such a great solution for the cannabis industry.' You can't take credit cards, only cash. She said, 'The owners have been trying to sell the place, and they don't want to make any changes.' I looked at Bill and said, 'Oh my gosh, it's for sale.' We thought we were retiring here. Retirement is boring. We're only in our 50s, so retirement seems premature. That's not a hint for grandkids, by the way.

We went and started the process of buying this company. It was the most onerous process you can possibly imagine. It took eight months. There's regulatory stuff. The motivation is good; they want to make sure there are elements in the cannabis business that they want to keep out. They interview you hard. Our first application, called the pre-suitability application to the state of Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division, was at least 600 pages and took several weeks to compile. They wanted copies of our college diplomas from Duke from the early 80s, which I don't have anymore. Then financial records. They want to know if you're financed by somebody they don't want in the business. I have this in my Bitcoin scrapbook. A state regulator asked, 'How are you going to pay for this?' I said, 'I'll probably liquidate some of my Bitcoin.' She said, 'Mallers, wait, top sir.'

Bill Mallers1:05:24

What resistance level are you looking at? Max.

Brooke Mallers1:06:39

I'll take care of the money. After pre-suitability, we got approved and were fast-tracked because we have a squeaky clean record. I think I have a speeding ticket from 1991. Then you do the purchase agreement and a new application for changing ownership to the state of Colorado and the city of Boulder. That was another 600 pages and tens of thousands of dollars. They told us it would take six weeks to six months. It took a long time. We finally were approved for ownership in late January. We are really new to this business, but we're not pros. We bought a viable business with fabulous staff. There are 65 employees, and the executive management is unbelievable. It's been a lot of fun. I'm focused more on the medicinal side.

Peter McCormack1:07:43

Do you have to accept cash because you can't get banking?

Brooke Mallers1:07:46

Yes. Most cannabis companies can't get banking because the banks don't want the feds to come down on them. It's a Schedule 1 drug.

Peter McCormack1:08:00

How does the conflict between federal and state level laws work? How can you be legal at the state level but illegal at the federal level and not know whether or not someone is going to arrest you?

Bill Mallers1:08:14

It's a problem. But if it weren't sketchy and have questionable legal status, a guy like me wouldn't be able to get a big part of it. Corporations are not going to be able to access this opportunity because they are constrained by legal issues and PR problems. I look at it like a speculator. The only reason I can get in is because there aren't many people that can. Investment opportunities that just can't touch it. It is good for the body, and Bitcoin mom has gotten into all the science of it. It's probably an amazing retirement. For me, I'm a trader. It's almost like a call option that will never be out of the money. It's got the most upside. You look at a portfolio, and you have cannabis in there somehow. Bitcoin, those are the type of never-expiry, never-out-of-the-money call options. Those are the trades that can be generational.

Peter McCormack1:09:41

Now your investors want exposure to cannabis. I think there are maybe two Canadian companies you can look at, Tilray or Canopy Growth. But you can't really get exposure in this business because of the legal status.

Brooke Mallers1:10:00

We're in a fortunate position because we're licensed in a legal state. People come to us and say they want to do research on the cannabis plant. We don't have the licenses to touch the plant, but we have all the equipment to test it and do genetic stuff. We have a company called Colorado Seed Inc., which used to just sell seeds. Now we're pivoting because we have a fabulous scientist doing some great work.

Peter McCormack1:10:41

You guys are going to get tired of hearing me analogize between Bitcoin several years ago and cannabis now. Every Bitcoiner five years ago had to hear, 'Oh, that's kind of sketchy, arguably illegal, somebody's gonna shut it down.' That's the same thing you hear about cannabis. As Jack says, 'I'm a speculator, that's an opportunity.' It's a completely cash business. Do you have to pay the staff cash?

Brooke Mallers1:11:15

No, but if you don't have a bank account, you use a personal account. You have to stay away from that. In Boulder, on a given day, you'll see Brinks trucks lined up like the TV show '24.' They're just responsibly transferring six figures in cash.

The prior owners waited ten months for a bank account at a bank that specializes in cannabis. It's a state-chartered bank. They were kind enough to transfer the account to us when we took ownership. Otherwise, we would have been screwed and would have had stacks of cash on the table, paying all vendors and employees in cash. That's dangerous. Our CFO said he used to be really nervous about working here because of how much money was in the safe. But now the money gets taken to the bank pretty quickly. We also accept debit cards, but crypto is a great solution. We accept Bitcoin and Litecoin. We are the rarity. People come and say, 'I've got a solution for you to help you accept crypto,' and we're like, 'Yeah, yeah.' Because a lot of those are payment processing workarounds that make it possible for the store to quickly turn it back into dollars.

Peter McCormack1:13:18

What kind of weird things have you learned about moving into the industry? You come in cold. You know about getting high, maybe medicinal. You've gone into it. For example, when I was a kid, you basically bought weed and smoked it. But now you have all different types of ways of consuming it: drinks, gummies. What are some of the things you've learned about the business that have surprised you?

Brooke Mallers1:13:43

The quality of the customers. You think you're going to a pot shop and get dropouts or fin de siècle types. Not now. You get tourists, high-end customers. I love our customers. I love hanging out in the shop. We also have a store up in Lyons called the 'Bud Depot.' That's the last dispensary on the way up to Rocky Mountain National Park, a huge tourist destination. We get everybody there. That store does so well. This weekend, there's a big Grateful Dead concert here in Boulder. That attracts a ton of people. That is our biggest sales weekend. We get so many people. Our store is right on Pearl Street, the main drag. You see everybody there: old guys, people my age and older who say, 'Gosh, I haven't done this since the 1970s. I'm only doing it for this weekend.' Also, because the University of Colorado is here, you get all the parents coming.

Peter McCormack1:15:13

Loose lips. You already told us. I took a bite of a gummy but forgot I did it. I woke up the other night and thought I was having a stroke. I couldn't speak. I scared the hell out of Bill and our daughter. The paramedics came. They asked if I took anything, and I could hardly speak. They gave me an IV. Bill and my daughter got in the cop car and went to the hospital. They gave me a cat scan because at my age they think you're having a stroke. Everything was fine. They finally put me out at 5:30 in the morning to come back home. I'm coming out of it and I look at Bill and our daughter and I go, 'Oh my god, I did take some baby— I took a bite of that gummy that helps people sleep.' She said, 'Oh no, no, no. That's the one I had from another source. That was 100 milligrams.' I took 50 milligrams of that stuff, and of course I was completely gone. But the next week, I ran into the nurse who had treated me in the hospital. She asked how I was doing. I told her I had eaten one of those marijuana gummies, and it was way more than I thought. She said, 'I knew that. This happens every single night. All the parents who come to bring their kids to University of Colorado think, 'Oh my gosh, I'll try an edible.' They eat it, nothing happens in 20 minutes, so they take some more. Then it hits them an hour later.' It's a cautionary tale.

The quality of the customers. Do you think that's because people are still excited they can do this? Like, 'Wow, I can go in the shop and buy some weed.'

Brooke Mallers1:18:07

It's more than that. The people who enjoy cannabis are not what is portrayed. It's not just college dropouts and drug addicts. Every demographic is in there. You can't stereotype it anymore. My parents' generation and even grandparents are using cannabis more and more because they're realizing it is very helpful for so many things.

Peter McCormack1:18:52

What kind of balance between medicinal and recreational customers do you have?

Brooke Mallers1:19:00

Here's a little secret: there's no difference between the medical and the recreational stuff we sell. People think if you go to a medical store you're getting much better quality. No, you're not. You just get it a little bit cheaper because taxes are lower, and the dosage is higher. It's the same weed, same growth.

What else has surprised us is that the taxes on the cannabis industry are so crazy high that nobody in this mom-and-pop industry is making money yet. The state legalized it but taxed it to a level where you can't make a profit. It's almost like they don't want anyone to make a profit. But that's an opportunity. They tax it high like cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling. But there's something called Section 280E of the tax code at the federal level. You cannot deduct the cost of running a business that involves trafficking a Schedule 1 drug. It goes back to the 80s when a cocaine trafficker tried to deduct his business expenses. Congress said no. So you cannot deduct any business expenses involved in the sale of your product: no advertising, no salaries. You pay taxes on everything. We pay so much taxes, it's crazy. So this is a bet that it will get legalized at the federal level, and eventually that 280E regulation will go away, allowing us to be treated like a real company.

Peter McCormack1:21:28

Is there a significant alignment between Bitcoin and the weed industry, or is it just because you're in both that you see the two together?

Bill Mallers1:21:38

Probably the latter, but I definitely see them together. The sketchy legality, not exactly acceptable, but that's where there is an opportunity. They seem very similar to me. But others have drawn analogies between crypto and cannabis as something your kids will see as completely natural but was viewed as something for lepers five years ago.

Peter McCormack1:22:22

Is there a preference to accept Bitcoin over cash, or do you not care either way?

Brooke Mallers1:22:37

Cash is expensive. You need a big safe for it. With Bitcoin, you swipe a QR code, and it lands in the cloud. It's secure. But nobody has Bitcoin to spend, and if they do, they don't want to part with it because they think it's going to go up in price. We offer a 10% discount if you pay with any crypto, which is an incentive. But as soon as the US Congress passes the SAFE Banking Act, it will make it possible for banks to bank the cannabis industry, and then we will be able to accept credit cards. That's a lot easier. So I'm not sure how long this use case is going to last.

Peter McCormack1:23:57

I think it's a very bullish thing that Bitcoin falls in last of what people prefer to spend. You look at my wallet. What's the best money and what's the worst money? Good sign that Bitcoin is winning the hard money game. People want to keep the Bitcoin. That's the best money.

Brooke Mallers1:24:35

This banking act is new. There's a lot of pro-marijuana legalization bills before the US Congress right now.

Peter McCormack1:24:50

Do we know how much tax revenue they make per year?

Brooke Mallers1:25:01

I'm not sure. Some guy told me the US is not going to let go of that 280E regulation even if they do reschedule it. It reminds me of people who are exonerated from prison after 20 years but don't get to walk out that day. It takes a long time to get them out. When cannabis is legalized at the federal level, it won't be immediate. It'll take time because the government doesn't want to part with those taxes.

Peter McCormack1:25:50

Is there anything going on at the federal level at the moment? What is the status of regulation?

Brooke Mallers1:25:53

The next election. The president of the United States has the highest marketing job in the world. They are marketers. Whoever wants to be president is likely going to have to side with the substance that everyone is using to improve their lives. What's actually happening is that whatever marketer is going to pitch themselves to run our country is going to have to cosign to the rest of the world's innovation.

Peter McCormack1:26:40

We in the UK tend to follow US elections closely. I'm less interested in the nominee or the candidate debates. They are campaigning for 2020. Do you know any candidate?

Jack Mallers1:27:10

I am blessed with an inability to give a crap about it. It's a benefit from growing up during Nixon's presidency. I just don't care how many candidates are on the Democratic side. I think you'd be an idiot if you were a Republican and decided to take the other side of the cannabis trade. Everybody's got to be pro-cannabis. It changes the business significantly. It allows us to ship out of state. We are preparing for that, doing some things.

If you bought Bitcoin years ago and think it's going to go up, what's the actual trade? When do you cash in? For the marijuana industry, the trade you are looking to maximize is the taxes. If I go from paying 70-plus cents on the dollar to 20 cents, the returns on that trade are amazing. Plus the ability to expand your business online and ship. We have a company called Colorado Seed Inc. If you need seeds, you might Google 'Colorado seed' and we'll come out first. Also, shipping out of the country because Africa is going to be the next great agricultural mecca for cannabis growth.

Peter McCormack1:29:31

Conversations in the UK have changed. There have been incidents of parents with epileptic children who bought weed oil and had it confiscated. The Home Secretary actually intervened to allow one boy his treatment. There's real pressure on the medicinal side in the UK. I'm hearing about things in Germany and various countries. It's almost like a generational shift. There are people who don't want it irrationally because they don't understand the arguments.

Jack Mallers1:30:20

If you were to edit and sniff that soundbite, it could apply to Bitcoin or cannabis. There are people on Twitter who were simply born too early to ever learn how Bitcoin works and why it's helpful. Same with cannabis. It doesn't feel like a justification for a major investment, but it is part of our attraction.

Brooke Mallers1:31:05

The 'just say no' crowd. There are medicinal benefits, and it is a healthy intoxicant, way better than alcohol. Alcohol is a poison that can ruin your liver. I don't think anybody has ever OD'd on cannabis. The two worst things you can put in your body are alcohol and sugar. Two things that are legal and intoxicating. Cannabis is a good answer. I had a dear friend with stage four cancer on her fourth round of chemo. This stuff really helps with the pain and nausea. It is a plant. As Bill always says, it's like cutting your grass and taking your grass clippings and turning them into some magical substance.

Peter McCormack1:32:20

When my mum was dying, we wanted to give her cannabis oil to try. We had to buy it online with Bitcoin from a website. That was the only way to do it. It's proof that Bitcoin is brilliant. But if it were legal, we would walk into a shop and get consultation and advice. You professionalize it. I think of the Silk Road, which professionalized the drug market and made it safer for everyone. Buyers knew what they were buying, sellers were reviewed. It was safer for the dealers. A guy I know working vice went to an operation that was just a professional warehouse packaging and shipping it. It made the product better and safer.

Brooke Mallers1:34:01

The irony is that in our story, we bought a print from Cryptograffiti that is an homage to the Silk Road. We are able to hang that in our dispensary where we can sell legally, while Ross Ulbricht is serving two life sentences in the Supermax down the road. If that doesn't make you want to cry, you have no heart. It's unbelievable.

Jack Mallers1:34:41

I was with Tatiana yesterday. We were talking about this. The worst thing is that the whole story was used to set an example. The guy set up the Silk Road, while the guy who set up a worse site served like seven days. It's a complete travesty.

This business is a bet, speculating on law changes. It doesn't seem like it would make any sense to reverse all this now. They've tasted the tax revenue. At the federal level, who knows what Trump would do. But follow the money. We paid so much in taxes. That saved my last business in the futures industry. It's probably playing out the same way for the cannabis industry. They pay a lot of taxes. It's good business for Boulder. So I think that's our shield. I don't really worry about abolitionists. Cannabis is a really big money-making business.

Peter McCormack1:36:20

How much tax revenue does it bring for the state? It's about a billion dollars for the state alone. I don't know the budget, but it's been a huge boon. It's supposed to go to education, road building, and all kinds of therapeutic benefits. They're not going to get rid of a billion dollars. At the federal level, that's the real battle.

Brooke Mallers1:36:56

How many states is it legal? 47 for medical, and about 13 for recreational. It's moving quickly. Illinois just legalized it. You look at the tax revenues in Colorado, and Illinois is broke. They hope to do it right. Think about it: if you want to raise property taxes, people will leave. Riverboat gambling is predatory. Or you can let people smoke weed. It's really more a money thing than the 'just say no' generation.

Jack Mallers1:38:03

Schoolteachers' pensions are there. Cannabis is a great solution. Like Bitcoin, the younger generations grew up with no bias. People my age are so comfortable with drugs, from cannabis to Xanax. The people who are such strong vetoes against it are going to end up dying. The people who grow up native to it will say, 'You're stressed out, you should take a puff before you go to bed.' One of my good friends ran for mayor of Chicago. Those are the type of people who are going to run the world. Eventually, the stigmas and the vetoes will quite literally die. So it's all Bitcoin and weed, and you guys are right in the middle of it.

Brooke Mallers1:39:15

I can't believe I married her. I can't wait. It's going to be psilocybin next.

Jack Mallers1:39:21

I actually believe in psilocybin, low-dose microdosing. I've never done them. Is there anywhere where that's legal for medicinal? Denver decriminalized it. We have one medical patient at our store who is staying alive on that stuff. That would be the next step: a mushroom farm. I also heard about MDMA being tested for soldiers with PTSD.

Brooke Mallers1:40:24

There's Michael Pollan's book 'How to Change Your Mind,' all about the potential of psychedelics to help with mental health. LSD, psilocybin, all under the care of a knowledgeable and attentive professional. I read the book. It's quite a change over the last few years. When I grew up, all drugs were bad and evil. Now we're moving into a world where many things are being reconsidered.

Peter McCormack1:40:59

All right, well we've just crushed an hour and 36. What are we thinking? Should we get some food?

Brooke Mallers1:41:11

Anything you want to leave? Do you want to tell them where to come find your shop? We have the Bud Depot in Lyons, Colorado, and Helping Hands Herbals on Pearl Street in Boulder. I'm Bitcoin mom on Twitter.

Bill Mallers1:41:28

Thanks for giving us a chance because this is not a get-rich-quick thing or a midlife crisis. We really believe in cannabis as a business to hand down to my kids.

Peter McCormack1:41:45

Anytime. Jack knows he's always welcome. All say goodbye? See you guys. I'll see you on Twitter. Check out Zap.

Jack Mallers1:41:56

You're not mad?

Peter McCormack1:42:18

So what did you make of that? Did you enjoy this interview? It's a bit different, more of a chat with the four of us hanging out and talking about Bitcoin and weed, laughing quite a bit. Loose lips, Cookie let her loose lips go. I loved making this and really enjoyed finding more about the cannabis industry. It seems that as it's become either decriminalized or legalized, the industry has become a lot more professional. Instead of meeting someone in a car park, you can go to a shop with a range of professional products and speak to experts. It's not really for me, but I don't have any issue with anyone else doing it. It's quite ridiculous that a plant can be illegal. It was great to hear about the early days of Bitcoin when Brooke and Bill first got involved, how they introduced Jack, and also seeing the alignment between Bitcoin and the cannabis industry. Both are battling regulations and people's opinions on legality and use case. It's very similar to Bitcoin and going through similar changes. I want to say a massive thanks to the hospitality they showed me, for inviting me into their home, taking me to dinner, and really looking after me. Thank you so much, Brooke. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Jack. You're always welcome on my show. Also, a big thanks to anyone who supports the show. If you leave a review on iTunes or click subscribe, everything helps me grow the show. If you want to find out more, check out my website at whatbitcoindid.com. Click on the support section to become a patron or leave a review. I'm back off to the states tomorrow. I've got a bunch of interviews and meetings in New York, Chicago, LA, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington. If you want to hang out, let me know. Have a great week, and I will see you on Friday.