#797 Bitcoin In Your Retirement Account w/ Ryan Radloff

Ryan Radloff Is The CEO of Choice By Kingdom Trust. Choice is the first company to offer their users the option to purchase Bitcoin and place it into their retirement account. This allows individuals to achieve the tax free benefits of holding an appreciating asset, while still holding their personal Bitcoin. In this conversation, we discuss the savings crises in America, the problem with current retirement accounts, and what you at home can do in order to leverage the savings technology of Bitcoin in the most tax efficient way possible. ======================= LMAX Digital - the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading & custodial services - offers clients a regulated, transparent and secure trading environment, together with the deepest pool of crypto liquidity. LMAX Digital is also a primary price discovery venue, streaming real-time market data to the industry’s leading analytics platforms. LMAX Digital - secure, liquid, trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp ======================= Compass Mining is the world's first online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting. Compass was founded with the goal of making it easy for everyone to mine bitcoin. Visit compassmining.io to start mining bitcoin today! ======================= Crypto is all about democratization and freedom of choice. But many companies limit their offerings to centralized trading products. The crypto companies leading the pack in terms of innovation are those that extend access to the industry's cutting-edge products and services — bridging CeFi and DeFi. If you're searching for a platform that reflects crypto's promise of a more open and less restrictive financial future, look no further than OKEx. On OKEx now you can easily switch over to the new DeFi mode, connect OKEx's bespoke Web 3.0 wallet via browser extension and start exploring opportunities at the bleeding edge of crypto. From the DeFi Dashboard, you can monitor your portfolio of self-custodied assets across a range of blockchain networks and generate passive income from yield-farming with top DeFi protocols. In the NFT Marketplace, you can participate in exclusive drops and trade nonfungible tokens without secondary market fees. Meanwhile, the GameFi section is your portal to the latest and greatest in play-to-earn and blockchain gaming. Venture to the forefront of crypto innovation and connect with OKEx DeFi today. =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Ryan Radloff is the CEO of Kingdom Trust, where he is focused on accelerating the market shift into alternative asset investing, specifically hard assets through a combination of technology and regulatory IP. In this conversation, we talk about Bitcoin, retirement accounts, the saving crisis in America, and what you at home can do in order to leverage the savings technology that is Bitcoin in the most tax-efficient way possible. I really enjoyed this conversation with Ryan, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is LMAX Digital, the number one institutional crypto exchange. They offer

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  clients the deepest pool of crypto liquidity on the planet, underscored by 100% uptime track record through volatility spikes. They leverage LMAX Group's liquidity relationships and ultra-low latency technology. LMAX Digital is the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading and custodial services. If you've never heard of LMAX Digital, it's probably because you're not an institution. They have no retail, only institutions. They feature a central limit-order book streaming spot Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, all paired with US Dollars, Euro, and Yen. LMAX Digital, they're secure, they're liquid, and they're trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp. Again, LMAXdigital.com/pomp.

• 1:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Next up is Compass Mining. Compass Mining is the world's largest marketplace for mining hardware and hosting. With Compass, everyone can mine Bitcoin. Their team makes it easy to start mining wherever you want, at home or in one of their 23 hosting facilities around the world. Through the Compass marketplace, retail miners can access mining hardware with similar prices and purchase plans as the world's largest mining companies. Compass miners own their machines, they choose whatever mining pool they want, and they mine directly to their own wallets. Miners who don't want to host their machines can order ASICS directly to their doorstep. Simple and low-cost hosting agreements, coupled with best-in-class customer service, are the reasons why Compass is the simplest and most popular way to mine Bitcoin.

• 2:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Start mining your own Bitcoin today by visiting compassmining.io. Again, compassmining.io. Go check them out and let me know what you think. Last but not least are my friends over at OKX. Crypto is all about democratization and freedom of choice, but many companies limit their offerings to centralized trading products. The crypto companies leading the pack in terms of innovation are those that extend access to the industry's cutting-edge products and services, bridging C-Fi and DeFi. If you're searching for a platform that reflects crypto's promise of a more open and less restrictive financial future, look no further than OKX. On OKX now, you can easily switch over to the new DeFi mode. Connect OKX's bespoke Web3 wallet via browser extension and start exploring opportunities at the bleeding edge of crypto.

• 2:59Anthony Pompliano?

  From the DeFi dashboard, you can monitor your portfolio of self-custodied assets across a range of blockchain networks and generate passive income from yield farming with top DeFi protocols. In the NFT marketplace, you can participate in exclusive drops and trade non-fungible tokens without secondary market fees. Meanwhile, the GameFi section is your portal to the latest and greatest in play-to-earn and blockchain gaming. Venture to the forefront of crypto innovation and connect with OKX DeFi today. Again, go check them out at OKX. That's where you can find OKX DeFi. All right, let's get into this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:58Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, I got a very special treat for you guys today. We have Ryan Radloff who's here and I want to go through first, before we get started. You guys bought Kingdom Trust.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Merged.

• 4:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Merged.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is the owner of Choice.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And Choice is what I use for my retirement accounts. Let's get that out of the way.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:21Anthony Pompliano?

  We've worked together for quite a while now. I'm a big believer in alternative assets, as most people have astutely figured out.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:29Anthony Pompliano?

  And Choice itself is not just Bitcoin. It's basically alternative assets in general. You allow them to put that into retirement accounts. Is that a fair characterization?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  That's right, but except the difference is they let a Bitcoiner run the company. So we've got, you know, we've got 20 billion in assets, except they have a Bitcoiner at the helm.

• 4:49Anthony Pompliano?

  All right.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  So, you know, there's, there's one thing we're, I'm really focused on advancing is Bitcoin. But yes, I don't believe, you know, as we're seeing our, the Bitcoin community advance and becoming a more financial literate, you're seeing other things happen, but Bitcoin is the nucleus of what we're doing.

• 5:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. So let's talk about the retirement problem in a minute first. It's atrocious. Like when people start unpacking the numbers, it's literally pathetic.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:11Anthony Pompliano?

  And I don't remember exact data, but basically the average person at retirement age has about $200,000.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  It's less than that, actually.

• 5:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Less. Okay. What is it? You probably know. You tell me.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Well, if you're over 50, you have less than 200,000 bucks, right? So you're sitting there at the end of your career and you're wondering what's next. And $200,000, especially inflation adjustment is what? It's, it's not much, right? So it's a bigger issue.

• 5:33Anthony Pompliano?

  If you live on $20,000 a year and you retire at 62, you don't even make it to the life expectancy of, of, uh, some of the United States.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  And the good news on the health front is we're getting longer and longer lives, right? But your financial life is getting shorter and shorter, it feels like.

• 5:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  And, you know, so it's, you're over 50, you don't have enough. If you're under 30, you probably have nothing is what the data shows. So this is a big issue and not only that.

• 5:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Under 30, you have nothing. Over 50, you basically have 200 or less. And, uh, when people actually get to retirement age, do we know what the number is in terms of like the average amount? It's gotta be what? 200,000?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  It's 200 ish, right around there. Yeah.

• 6:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  59 and a half is what, is what we define as like the retirement age.

• 6:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  At least when you can start withdrawing from IRAs.

• 6:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. So at 200,000, again, if we just do simple math, if you spend $50,000 a year, uh, you make it four years.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Four years.

• 6:19Anthony Pompliano?

  If you spend $20,000 a year with no other income, then you basically get a decade. So you make it to 70, average, uh, life expectancy, 77, 78, 79. And so you don't even make it to the end of your life with the money you have, let alone if you want to pass money on to your kids, family members, friends, et cetera.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Right. And you have some social security out there that is obviously, let's not get too, uh, negative, but it's completely bankrupt. So, you know, you have not only this undersaved.

• 6:43Anthony Pompliano?

  They say, they say, look, they're going to run out of money by like 2034 or something.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Look, we're, we're done.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So you have an, you have a population here in the U.S. that's, that's current account is, is, is too low. And you have a completely bankrupt social security system. And yeah, it's a crisis, whether we want to admit it or not, it is. So that's, it's a big deal.

• 7:01Anthony Pompliano?

  The thing with the social security that we've talked about numerous times is, uh, who was the two guys? I think Ken Langone was one of them. And there was another guy on CNBC, basically was telling like, uh, some of the politicians, Elizabeth Warren, that, uh, yo, I'm a billionaire. Why am I getting a social security check? Like, like this makes no sense here, right? And also they were saying the same thing about pandemic checks as well. But the idea that we basically just give everyone the money rather than the people who need it.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Just seems like such a government bureaucratic thing to do that obviously is wasting money in many ways.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  It is, and you know, this is the, this is the fight that we're fighting though. So we're here as a country and we got to figure out a way.

• 7:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So when you think about today, let's, let's take people under the age of 40, maybe, right? What is like the path from a retirement standpoint in terms of what they should be doing, right? Not necessarily what assets should probably like, how do they actually think about retirement? What they can do on a day to day basis to put them in a better position so that they actually have money at retirement age?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  You know, it depends. So like the, the thing I got to wrap all this as you guys do a great job of, I don't give financial advice, but the, the, the deal is what, what happens with, when you have retirement savings is it enables you to take more risks in your career. So what, what we see right now is that people put too much into non-qualified or non IRA money. They don't really think about that post 59 phase. And what that does is it gives them a shorter lease of what, of what to do over the next like 15, 20 years. So, you know, in terms of the IRS allows for a $6,000 a year IRA contribution, much more than that in the 401k standpoint. But yeah, we don't see enough people putting more money away and that's really the problem. I think the bigger issue is that the IRA companies and like the legacy guard, it's broken.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  It's like, have you guys ever, you, you guys have worked at a few places before running this media empire that you've got. What happens is it's so boring. It is so terrible, like, like rolling something over from a Vanguard or the old guard. It's, it's, it's awful. It's like going to get in colonoscopy, if you will. So, you know, nobody wants to do it. So what's even worse about that is you've got a trillion dollars and you guys covered this about a month or two ago. You have a trillion dollars, think about that number for a second, of savings that is completely forgotten about. No one is even looking at it. It's exists. And what they, what the managers are doing is they're just eating fees every year, like clipping those tickets.

• 9:15Anthony Pompliano?

  They're stealing.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  They're just.

• 9:16Anthony Pompliano?

  I said it, you didn't.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  You said stealing. I agree with you. I'm not going to say it outright, but it is, it's ridiculous. And it's because of this like boring crusty nature of like how savings are looked at. And you know, it's, it's sad because what that does is again, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're trying to get a new job, if you're not, if you don't balance that like long-term view versus short-term savings, it shortens that leash on what you can do and risks you can take in your career, which puts you in a worse financial position.

• 9:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I forget the analysis that I saw, but a lot of these kind of managed retirement accounts, basically they go into assets that one, don't have great financial performance.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Two is there's either egregious fees or higher fees than you would get in like a low cost index. And then third thing is that over a long period of time, when you add up all the compounding, like the difference of if you just bought the S and P 500 in a low cost index fund versus one of these things, it like gets very egregious. And so not only are people not aware of where their assets are, what they're invested in, what fees they're paying, but actually even if they don't know any of that stuff, at the end, they get screwed.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:20Anthony Pompliano?

  They, they just don't have the amount of money that they need there. And so how do you guys think about like educating people and like, go find where your retirement money is and where, where the hell it's invested?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Well, the, the old guard, like the old retirement guys wants you to have this phase, like set it and forget it. Right. And, and that's what leads to what you're talking about. It's set it and forget it. And it's like, I'm in some time dated mutual funds that expire in 2040, 50, 60, 70. And what's going on is these, the, the front end, back end fee loads are just destroying you. Even if you get your inflation adjusted three or 4% a year, they're taking their 20% no problem. So what we're promoting is engaging, just engage with it. We have a program where we can go find your old 401k or IRA from the company you left. Go find it and actually do something with it, you know, especially, you know, the people we're talking to are the Bitcoiners. I mean, there, there's 15.2 million Bitcoiners today in the U.S. that are stacking stats every day.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  They're thinking of ways to advance themselves, but they've got some IRA sitting over at like Vanguard or somewhere else that they're doing nothing with. That probably has somewhere between 30 to 50,000. So that's like, that's the calling right now. It's like, let's not set it and forget it. Let's engage. We're not. Our parents and our grandparents, times have changed. The Fed is changing the game right in front of, right, right under our feet. And we can't just sit there and expect that Wall Street is going to take care of us. It's not, it's, it's not going to happen. So what, what we're not, again, we don't give advice. We want you to engage. We don't want you to sit there and let Wall Street eat your savings away. We want you to reach out and engage in your savings and start figuring out what's best for you. And, and structurally, we believe that Bitcoin, uh, this is personal, not necessarily, um, financial advice.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  We believe Bitcoin is the best long-term savings technology that's ever been invented, bar none.

• 12:02Anthony Pompliano?

  I agree.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  So what we're aiming to do first and foremost as a mission is first, we want to advance Bitcoin. Right? So that's number one. I, I wake up every day to advance Bitcoin. The second is I want to make savings fun. I don't think we can solve this issue unless we make this thing really fun. And, you know, it, I've seen, what I'm actually pissed about is I've seen too much of our movement get hijacked by this, by this movement of let's, let's push the newest coin down our users throat and let them day trade their wealth away. That's not what this is about. Let's, let's build wealth into the best savings technology for the next 10, 20, 30 years. Not just sit there and look at the newest coin that comes out and hope that it's going to go up. This is about, it's about discipline. And I think that's the most important thing.

• 12:47Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I completely agree. Um, I've got a, a choice count as I described. I think that, John, you've got one, right?

• 12:52Speaker 02

  I got one as well.

• 12:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And Joe is in the process of moving it. But, uh, as Joe has

• 12:57Speaker 02

  We'll work on Joe.

• 12:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, no, no, as Joe has went to move it and John went through this as well, so did I, is, it is incredibly difficult. It's, it's like trying to cancel a cable subscription.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Oh, it's ridiculous.

• 13:07Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, you call and they're like, oh, sorry, I'll transfer you, uh, departments. Right? And they're like, oh, send an email here, bounce, right? Like, it's just every single step of the way, they make it incredibly hard to actually get the money out. How do you guys think about like reducing that friction? Like, even the people who say like, hey, I want to move it out of X account. And I love this idea. I want to actually get Bitcoin exposure in my retirement account. Like, are there things that you guys do or can do to actually reduce the friction? So that people don't have to go bang their head against the wall?

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the first thing we did, I mean, we, we noticed this when we launched it like Years ago, we were like, okay, we expect Bitcoiners to move and be excited and we're getting that cohort. But then all of a sudden, it popped, as you mentioned, it is tough. It's an old crusty environment and they don't want you to leave that money and they don't want you to give up those fees. So what we've done is we built a whole concierge service that walks you through that, navigates you through that and makes it easier. So that's really, it's, it's still not like necessarily some overnight, like flip the switch thing. It requires talking to someone in a concierge to build out the right forms and navigate through. It's like the DMV, but we have a concierge helper to navigate through that DMV, the old crusty system. And you know, that's the price it takes to get into something that's scarce. You know, there's nothing else like that that exists in the legacy side. So that's, that's our answer for that.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  But more importantly, I think, you know, we'll talk about getting people excited about this is more important to me than anything else. Like is gamifying savings in the same way that what our industry has tried to do, which is gamified trading, which I don't agree with.

• 14:34Anthony Pompliano?

  So once somebody gets a choice account, you basically have a couple of different ways to get exposure, right? You can go the route of publicly traded funds or trusts like GBTC, etc., which you can buy other stocks, etc. in this account. Or you can actually buy Bitcoin directly and hold your private keys. Talk us through kind of both of those exposure options from a, from a, somebody who opens the retirement account, actually wants to get Bitcoin exposure.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  So choice kind of in our core is we don't, I don't want to tell you what to do with your, your funds. I mean, obviously you guys know I'm a Bitcoiner, I'm trying to advance that, it's a nucleus of our mission. But how you get Bitcoin is up to you. You've got the option of going through, you can do any ETF or stock in your choice account or the top Bitcoin and the top 20 cryptos. I view those as two separate things. So you can buy the physical and you can either have that in a free account. You can park that at Fidelity Digital, which is the most, one of the most institutional grade. Or you can, as you said, hold your own keys. You get the choice, kind of the, the name of what to do and that covers the full gauntlet. We have our full libertarian core in our community, as you guys know, and it's not your keys, not your coins. We want to make sure that we nail that. I want to bring people down the rabbit hole as they're going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole of understanding the importance of doing that.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Like personally, the nucleus of mine, I have 70% In my IRA where I hold my own keys, I have a little bit with fidelity and I have a little bit that's out there earning interest. That's like a balance. So when I think of diversification for me, it's not necessarily about do I have the right debt to fixed income and crypto. It's like, how is my Bitcoin structured? I have Bitcoin that's in my liberty. I call it a libertarian stack. It's in my multi SIG spread across the country that's in my IRA. I have some that's parked at fidelity digital because I trust that gang. I think they're doing an amazing job. And then I have some that where I'm I'm out there earning interest and and in the worlds of of of the interest bearing Bitcoin, that the smallest amount, by the way, but it doesn't mean that I

• 16:25Speaker 02

  don't participate. So for me, what that means is we it covers the gauntlet. But I think Bitcoin CEOs have an obligation to move people towards that hold your own key model. I think that as your users are going down the rabbit hole and learning about our space, the end goal needs to be that you have your nucleus sitting there in multi SIG or in some, you know, hold your own keys methodology. And I think that is anyone not doing that has got some casino trading goal in mind, which is what I'm saying has been hijacked. A part of our movement has been hijacked from. So it's really a big deal. And and that's what we're focused on doing over the next 20 years with our customers.

• 17:03Anthony Pompliano?

  And when you start to think about people who do this, are you seeing this from the Bitcoin community? Are you seeing non Bitcoiners go ahead, open an account and also learn about this and kind of get exposure? Like, where are people coming from?

• 17:16Speaker 02

  I mean, we because it may be because of like, the temperature that I'm setting and the bar that I'm setting, but we're we're Bitcoin focused. I view Bitcoin and crypto as like, I'm happy that crypto exists. I think it's fascinating what's going on in NFTs and the rest of the world. I think you need this kind of Darwinism natural selection to compete. But what we're structurally advancing is Bitcoin. And if our users want to expand that beyond Bitcoin into other crypto and other stocks, we're all for that, which is why we offer 20,000 different assets. Bitcoin is the most we're seeing. In fact, I got a stat for you this morning today, 70% of our volumes. John, what do you think it is? Buy or sell of Bitcoin? Buy. Buy. 70%. Buy of our user base. We have 20,000 users and it's grown by 5,000 a month.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Those are people that aren't tourists. Those are people that have conviction that are here for the I'm graduating with them over the next 20 years. They're not sitting there day trading for the next three or five. These are long dated IRAs. That tells you something. These people are not here just to go in and out hoping that they get rich quick. This is a 30 year structural view when on days like this, we buy.

• 18:24Anthony Pompliano?

  When people put other assets, so non Bitcoin, the one example I always use is fire trucks. Like, explain some of the other stuff that people have put into these accounts.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  A lot of real estate, actually. We've got 400 million of gold, which I think is, you know, is I was always a big gold bug, still have gold, but we have fire trucks, real estate, physical hard assets. We're seeing a lot of people that we do have about a billion of stocks too, which, you know, again, I own stocks. I'm not going to not own stocks. I have a financial advisor that I disagree with basically everything on. I want him, you know, to do stuff that I don't that I don't believe in almost as a diversification strategy. But we have some really cool stuff, you know, and a lot of niche opportunities where you can build that Bitcoin is your nucleus, have some stock exposure, but also not lose rental income in your IRA. That sounds like

• 19:13Speaker 02

  ridiculous to say, but yeah, all of those 20,000 assets. Bitcoin being the nucleus though, you know, and I think that's the user base that we're building over the next 20 years for is a like a financially switched on Bitcoiner because we're growing up, you know, it's not, we have, we have wealth, obviously a little less today than maybe three days ago, but we've got, it's now about having that as a nucleus and how does Bitcoin interact with kind of the rest of your portfolio? And I think that's what's really cool to see. And that's what they're demanding.

• 19:42Anthony Pompliano?

  How does the custody work on choice? Like, not only from where it's actually being held, but the fees associated with it?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  So you either have a free version, you can park it at Fidelity. So the free version we take care of as Kingdom, you park it at Fidelity, which shouldn't be cheap. Again, I'm one of those people that I think that Air Gap Cold Storage is not necessarily a race to the bottom per se all the time. You know, GBTC charges 2%. We charge half of that to put it at, I think, the most institutional group in the market, which is Fidelity. And then you can hold your own keys, right? So it's all three of those options. And as I said, like, as you go down that rabbit hole, as your stack gets bigger and bigger, you know, moving bulks of that towards multi-sig helps balance that.

• 20:22Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about how people can buy Bitcoin and pay no taxes on that, like, explain how that works according to the current tax code.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  So what the IRS has built, this is back 30, 40 years ago, is they built what's called a qualified wrapper. Think of it as like a brokerage or a Coinbase account that has this wrapper around it that enables you to not pay short-term capital gains. So when you trade on Coinbase and you're, or any of these other exchanges, you have the situation where you're paying income tax, basically, if you're trading within a year. When you're in an IRA or a qualified wrapper, that doesn't exist. You can trade your heart away until you're old, fat and gray. And you don't pay capital gains on that until way, way, way later. And then you pay a total tax on income once you take it out. So the IRS has built this for us. It's built for hodlers. It's amazing.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  So it's not just trading, but hodling. You can accumulate and you don't see any taxes until you're old. And if it's a Roth IRA, you don't see any taxes ever. And so we're seeing a nucleus of a cohort of users that are putting dollars into Bitcoin in a Roth IRA. And then when they are, when they graduate to that 59 and a half age, they never have to pay taxes on that again. They're living in a Bitcoin circular economy at that point. And they're starting to think, think about that where Bitcoin is the actual currency that they're looking at using.

• 21:39Anthony Pompliano?

  So when I basically have post-tax dollars and I use a Roth IRA, I put those post-tax dollars into my retirement account. I can buy Bitcoin. And regardless if I think I'm a genius day trader, or I want to just hold at age 59 and a half, I can begin to take that stuff out and I pay no taxes.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. Also, seek your own tax advice, but that's the way that the written rules work right now.

• 21:58Anthony Pompliano?

  And then in terms of if I don't use a Roth IRA, if I go ahead and I put dollars into my retirement account, I trade, no taxes. And then the only time I would ever pay taxes in that scenario is at 59 and a half. When I go to take it out, I basically pay taxes at the very end, whatever the amount is that I'm taking out.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Bingo. And by that point, what we see in the US retirement system and like Americans is that you're typically working a little less, your, your, your like salary will go down. So your total income tax will go down, hopefully. We'll see. But, but that's the point is you're building, our users aren't like, I don't think, when I think of choice, we're third. You typically don't buy Bitcoin for the first time in your IRA. You typically go down the rabbit hole with GBTC or Coinbase or Kraken or one of these others. You then go, you then learn about it and then you realize, oh, there's 30, 100,000 bucks sitting in this thing over here that I haven't looked at for years. We want to be second and third. It's a third stack, right? So if you're out there stacking sats every day, this is not necessarily the primary way you got in.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  But now it's the completion of your financial picture of where you've got Bitcoin exposure in that qualified capacity, which is big.

• 23:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Can people actually contribute Bitcoin into their retirement or does it contribute dollars first?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  I'm working, I'm lobbying on that right now. So right now, the way that the IRS has written this is that you got to do dollars. But here's the good news about that. So to be clear, you have to go dollars into retirement account. You can't go Bitcoin from your Coinbase or whatever account into.

• 23:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Your retirement.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Right. But on a stock to flow model, that's really good because what we're seeing is net fresh new dollars coming in and buying Bitcoin. So that's, it's a positive thing, especially for me as a Bitcoiner that's trying to advance this space. I'm looking at every, a month, we're getting between 30 to 100 million dollars a month coming in from the legacy retirement system in dollars. And it's going into Bitcoin. And to me, that gets me super excited because I know that that's 20, 30, 40 year capital from the average Bitcoiner who's like 30 something years old, had a few jobs, et cetera. So that's, that's quality.

• 23:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Are most people trading inside of their retirement accounts or are they just buying assets and holding them for a long period of time?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Two cohorts, you know, the guys and gals that are holding your own keys, they're not trading. They're, they're here, they're here for the long run. The ones that are holding it fidelity digital, they're long, long-term people. You do see, I, I trade a little bit. I've, I've traded some in the last few days. You do see some cohort that are doing it because they don't have to pay that short-term capital gains issue that they're getting in all their crypto exchanges. That's good. We, I don't necessarily fault that. But what, again, what our mission is trying to do is I don't want you day trading your wealth away, right? Even if, even if you may have the ability to do that and that's great, not all of our users do. I want you building wealth every day. And that's a big reason why we've actually, you know, if you think about our second mission, that's a big reason for what we've done with something called Blinko.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  This game that literally gives you Bitcoin if you play it every day and puts a little bit in your pocket towards that long-term savings. So we want people that are thinking about it in a long term. John, you had a good text this morning in light, especially what's going on. Most of our users that are coming to the market and are coming to us right now, aren't thinking about how do I accumulate Bitcoins so that I can be rich in two to three years. They're thinking about how do I accumulate Bitcoins to diversify my long-term wealth over the next 30 years? That's the user we want. And that's, that's who we're getting. And that's, and that's the Bitcoiner. Really, if you think about it, most of us, as you know, Anthony, we're not here, we're not here for a quick like in and out. This is a long-term structural thing where I'm building a better

• 25:23Speaker 02

  financial future for my son, for our kids, not necessarily just get in and out so that I can go to the beach and hang out more.

• 25:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And for Joe's Dog Ranger. Yeah, exactly.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Makes your Rangers included.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Can you talk about that gamification aspect of it? Because I think that's really important for less friction and more like mass adoption when people know that they can actually earn Bitcoin that way?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  For sure. So what, so here's, it sounds ridiculous. And I've actually got some legacy retirement people that are pissed at us for doing this, which I, which, which makes me happy.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Good.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. So what we do is we've created a game. It's called Blinko. Blinko pays you in Bitcoin every day. If you download the app right now, the first thing we enable you to do is play Blinko. It's, it was inspired by the old Price is Right Plinko thing where you drop a pin and it hits all of the, hits all the little pins and it falls down to a box. So you play every day, once a day, and you get free sats. Right now, what we do is you have either like a, anywhere between a couple dollars to a few cents every day. And what that does is it gamifies the behavior of savings. One of the things that I'm pissed about is that, and when I say like our industry's been hijacked, I think a lot of the biggest crypto companies have built their model around getting their users

• 26:34Speaker 02

  to day trade and gamify trading. Robin Hood's done a great job. They gamified trading. Oh, you got her up right now? Are you playing?

• 26:41Anthony Pompliano?

  I got Blinko right now, right here on my, on my actual screen itself.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  So what he's about to do is going to drop this chip and that's our contribution to your long-term savings every day. He's going to get between 500s to 50 sats right now. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Oh, zero sats. This is bullshit.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  I'll talk to my guys.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  But seriously, we're

• 27:08Anthony Pompliano?

  But you can win, no, you can win 100 sats, etc.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And we do, and we do bonuses every Friday. Friday 4X, 5X, that's our big deal.

• 27:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  So look, every pin drop, we're getting like, I want 100 million people playing this game. Because think about what that's doing. Right now, what we just talked about, 30, if you're 30 and under, you have no savings. If you're 50 and over, you have not enough savings. Every time you play that game, that's a silly game in an IRA. You're, we're one step closer to solving the US social security crisis. It may sound like a game, but here's the deal. My peers are putting $250 million to put their name on an arena. I want to put $250 million in the next few years in the US social security and retirement system right now.

• 27:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Ready? We're gonna play again. I just reset it myself because I'm a genius.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:52Anthony Pompliano?

  There we go. Drop the chip.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Oh, I really hope you win this time, man.

• 27:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, me too. It's trending towards that.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:59Anthony Pompliano?

  No!

• 28:02Anthony Pompliano?

  No, zero.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Jeez.

• 28:05Anthony Pompliano?

  That means that everyone else who plays today is likely to win because I just took out two of the, two of the zeros.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  I'll tell you what, because of that, I'm gonna talk about marketing, guys. When I walk out of the studio, I'm gonna try to put some type of, some type of accelerator today. Over the next day or two, we're gonna accelerate.

• 28:18Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So when people get this, basically the entire idea is just like savings in general sucks, right? And then there is the, the ability to play the game.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 28:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, and you can earn, again, it's not incredible amounts, but you're not gonna win $500 or anything, but you can win sats every single day.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Well, we'll have.

• 28:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And as it adds up, plus the accelerator, it could become a material amount of money. And then over a long period of time, as the purchasing power of that asset increases, right? That's where all of a sudden, the long-term thinking really is an advantage. But what I think is really important people to understand is like, your retirement account is a savings account.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 28:49Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think that people don't understand, it's just a tax advantaged savings account. So talk a little bit about how you think about the saving crisis? And then like, why retirement accounts are such a big part of the solution there?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Well, I think you're exactly right. Like, that builds up every day. We want you, and it's, it's not just about the rewards you're winning every day on Blinko. It's about being engaged and, and switching on to savings. And when you have that, the balance between having something for retirement set aside versus what you can do through ages. Thirty-five to fifty-nine and a half is massive. When you have a chunk sitting there in your IRA and your long-term savings, that enables you from a cash flow standpoint to put that towards taking risks, right? And I think that's the balance that we don't have anymore in the US. You know, our, our, our parents and grandparents will put everything in their IRAs and be what's called cash poor. There's kind of been this swap of what's happened as the millennial generation has gone from Wall Street to Main Street. We've gone everything into brokerage

• 29:43Speaker 02

  accounts and all of a sudden forgot about IRAs and retirement accounts. There's a balance that needs to happen. We need to have a balance of long-term structural savings that gives us the ability to take more risks in career and be entrepreneurs, go get a new job. These things matter. And having it, you know, the reason why we're giving Bitcoin out, again, not financial advice, but we do believe SATS every day is the best financial savings technology that exists. And that, doing a hundred mil-, I want a hundred million people playing that in the next few years. If we can get that to that level, we have a chance at solving the US Social Security crisis and the savings crisis that exists right now that you guys have talked about for a lot in the last few months.

• 30:21Anthony Pompliano?

  People are already tweeting at, at the Choice Corporate account and they're like, yo dude, he didn't win. And their response is, yeah, he's saving the wins for you guys.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  That's true. Yeah, I'll talk to my boys and see the, the gang and see if we can get a, some type of big promotion because of that.

• 30:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. So one of the promotions that you guys do have coming up is between now and Tax Day, which the, the first Tax Day of the year is, is I think the 18th of, of April this year.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 30:45Anthony Pompliano?

  As I always joke, rich people know that the Tax Day is actually October 15th.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, they figured that, figured it out.

• 30:51Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but, but April 18th this year is Tax Day. You guys are going to give away one billion Satoshis. How are you guys thinking about doing this? Why are you giving away a billion Satoshis before Tax Day?

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Well, it's back to this, this mission. I mean, we want to advance Bitcoin in the US retirement system into the 15.2 million Bitcoiners that already own Bitcoin and have some zombie account out there, but aren't yet thinking about it. And I, look, my goal the next three to five years is I want to do much, much, much more than that. I want to give away hundreds of billions of SATS into the US system where you see my peers that are doing, you know, big stadium Brands, I want that going back into the US savings systems, back into the retirement system. So yes, between now and April 15th, we're announcing we're going to do a billion SATs. I'm actually going to try to do much more than that. I'm going to talk to the VCs and all my CFO and see what I can do. But yeah, that's it. It's all back on that mission

• 31:43Speaker 02

  of advancing Bitcoin and solving the US savings crisis and making it fun. Without making it fun, what, you know, we're not going to get there. We tried it multiple times. You've got to have, you got to have fun to it.

• 31:54Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what questions you guys got about retirement and Bitcoin exposure?

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, just like, how has this conversation changed over time? Right? Like, I'm assuming a few years ago, this was not normal. People were confused and curious as to why they should do this, especially non Bitcoiners, right? So talk me through just like how that conversation has changed.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Well, I think what's changed is the Bitcoiners got more sophisticated. I think what's changed is the Bitcoiners getting older, the Bitcoiners accumulating wealth, and now they're starting to think about not just my, you know, multi-sig stack, but how does Bitcoin integrate with the rest of my financial picture? How does it integrate with my retirement savings? How does it integrate with my mortgages? How does it, how do I get Bitcoin-backed dollar loans? This isn't just an IRA conversation. This is a big percentage of Americans that are becoming more financially savvy, that have questions about how these two worlds integrate. And you know what they're pissed about is they're tired of listening to the old guard that's telling them, oh, Bitcoin's not suitable for, for anything related with mortgages, anything related with IRAs. And we're tired of it. We're sick of it. We've

• 32:52Speaker 02

  heard your old guard talk about it for way too long. We've watched our savings go to zero with your inflation, and we're tired. We're opting out. We're going Plan B. So what's changed is us, I think. We are no longer some, you know, little niche community of financial investors. We are now a big community in the United States that is sick of this old guard telling us what to do with it. I think that's the biggest thing.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  John.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  When you think about just a retirement account in general, obviously you guys offer Bitcoin. And to be honest, when I got my choice, it was super easy to set up. It was, it took me maybe two minutes to do.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Which was absolutely amazing because a lot of products are really, really hard. How do you think about the different exposure between Bitcoin and other assets in your Roth IRA or any retirement account?

• 33:38Speaker 02

  I think, again, as you, so Choice, we want to empower you to make those decisions. I think the type of user we're seeing is that Bitcoin is typically the nucleus of their financial life. Then what they do is they think about, okay, what's the correct? So if I'm looking at the world from a Bitcoin lens out, which by the way, in the next few months or year, I want a full Sats version of all of your assets. But I think there's, what we're seeing in our users, for instance, is a balance of about 20 to 30% stocks, 20 to 30% alternatives and the nucleus of it being in Bitcoin. And they'll, they'll also dabble in some of the newer coins, which I think is, is interesting and I don't necessarily run away from. I just think that's, like I said, there's a natural selection component of that. What we're seeing though in our users that Bitcoin is a nucleus and that's like, that's,

• 34:23Speaker 02

  and it's not just about diversification of the type of asset. There's also what's key and what we're learning is the diversification of how you hold your Bitcoin. You shouldn't just have it all with some custodian. You need a balance between multi-sig, having it parked at a trusted custodian and also out there earning interest in some of the capital markets. Cause the capital markets layer around Bitcoin is getting more mature. This is not a bad thing for Bitcoin, especially when your nucleus is sitting in a air gapped or multi-sig situation.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  So I think that's the biggest thing.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  What are the downsides to putting Bitcoin in your retirement account? Obviously there's price volatility, but if you have a long enough time period, are there other things that you guys think about, like the risks or downsides people should be aware of?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Well, if you don't believe in Bitcoin, you know, it's volatile. All right. Look at it, look at us today, like most of our users look at us as this is a buying day. That's why those volumes are what they are. The, the other thing is that there's a penalty, the, because you don't have to pay taxes. The other side of that is there's a penalty if you withdraw those funds before you're 59 and a half. Right? So this is, these are long-term savings accounts that are structured for you to save for the future. And the IRS wants you, instead of paying those taxes every year, they want you, they're going to penalize you if you make gains and then withdraw it. So that's why there's a balance. You shouldn't go everything into your IRA. Again, not financial advice, but it has a purpose. Because as I said, it enables you and unlocks you to do

• 35:52Speaker 02

  other things with your non-qualified, non-IRA dollars to advance yourself, to advance your career. And that's, that's, that's why it's a healthy thing. But I would say that distribution penalty is probably the biggest thing. It's 10% plus taxes.

• 36:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then when you, when you think about in terms of retirement in general, obviously, there are maybe legal or kind of regulatory limits in terms of how much you can put in there. What are some of the ways that people are able to get more money in, right? I know there's things like SEP IRAs, etc. Like, talk through just kind of what you see most people doing to try to actually be able to use the tax law, which is available to everyone. One of the big themes of this show is, look, billionaires, they just have a lot of resources for people to go figure this stuff out, right? So they have an advantage in that sense. But the tax law or tax code is available for everyone to use equally. It's not like you get a different tax code than me. It's just you got to understand how it works. So how do you guys see people trying to get more money in their retirement account?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Well, you have this whole self-employed qualified accounts, which is big. And that gives you much more than the 6,000 to 20,000. You can go as high as 60, you know, way up there in terms of the amount. Before I say any of this, you seek your own tax advice.

• 36:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, of course.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  The other thing is-

• 36:58Anthony Pompliano?

  We don't know shit about taxes. So make sure you go find an actual lawyer.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I know about, but I'm not, you know, it's more of a-

• 37:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Don't groom me with that.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. The other thing is health savings accounts. So that's a fun, that's a new one that most people, you can, if you have a health savings account from your employer, you could, there's companies out there, we're, we're close to offering it, where you can actually put your Bitcoin in health savings accounts. So, so there's opportunities, especially if you're self-employed, to do much, much more. Again, what I think more importantly is a balance of like where you are in terms of your discretionary savings. So every month, whatever amount you're putting in. Make sure you're thinking about which ones, what amount of my savings I put in tax qualified, long-term savings that protect me from those taxes as opposed to just sending it to wherever you are, your brokerage account, your crypto exchange, your Robinhood account, et cetera.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  There's a balance there you need to be thinking of. And again, that that gives you more of a holistic financial picture of your long-term savings.

• 37:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then when you think about people inside of the account, I think one of the parts to me that's so fascinating is like, you obviously hear stories of the Peter Thiel's, etc. They put equities and things like that. Really what you're talking about here is this is a liquid traded asset, right? There's a mark to market on a daily basis, hourly basis, whatever. Does that change the way that any of the tax treatment occurs or how people think about their retirement versus let's say like a private stock, like in his case?

• 38:24Speaker 02

  No, you know what the IRS actually does to come up a level? What the IRS does is they actually just tell you what you can't do. You can pretty much do whatever you want, except for a few things. And those things are like collectibles. So the NFT world, it's really under siege right now, whether it can go into an IRA. We don't do any of that yet. The other thing that's is called self-dealing. So you can't just buy a house and say, you know what? I want tomorrow to put that house into an IRA. It's called self-dealing. So whether it's a, to answer your question, whether it's like a liquid security or a liquid, something liquid like Bitcoin, which isn't a security yet, or isn't, should be ever, that doesn't really matter. What the IRS does is they actually tell you what you can't do. And then there's rules around the reporting around that. So that's been the boom of our

• 39:09Speaker 02

  industry is Bitcoin penetrating the multi-trillion dollar IRA market and retirement market. So it's more structured in that way of what you can't do and those few things. Whether it's liquid or not, doesn't matter as much.

• 39:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's fascinating, the idea of liquidity, right? Obviously during market dry down, it's like, I'm so glad that I have liquidity. Obviously, we know that liquidity can be a feature or a bug, depending on how you react in certain situations. But one of the things is when you put money into the retirement account, obviously you quote unquote, can't get it out. Now, that's not exactly true. So what happens if somebody puts money to a retirement? Emergency scenario, you know, break glass type situation. What is the penalty in terms of actually pulling that stuff out?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Usually it's 10% plus you pay your income tax. That's it. So, so you've got, you've got a usually, all right. So you've got a, that's it. And, and, you know, again, if, if a lot of our accounts are looking at several hundred percent gains, and it's been one of those things where they've got that if they have to have it, they can pull it out. If, if not, then what the IRS has built that structure for you to long term and save without paying the taxes. So it's not the end of the world, especially when you've been a long-term choice hodler. But it is, it's, it's, it's approachable. It isn't ideal, right? So you want to think of your IRA as like the last pool of capital that you need to pull from. It's not your emergency funds. Again, this is your long-term thinking. And quite frankly, that's also why there's a crisis because it's, you know, people like myself,

• 40:34Speaker 02

  I, you know, was lazy through my twenties and didn't do it enough. And I wish I had done it more. I'm catching up now. And part of the reason is because A, it's stale and crusty is the old, the old guard. And B, there was that kind of thought of, well, I need this money and, you know, I need it today. Potentially could need it tomorrow. And so there's a balance there. I think that you want to have a couple of different stacks of your Bitcoin. You want to have your multi-sig, what I call libertarian stack. And not everyone calls it that. You want to have some in, in the market where you're liquid and ready to trade if you want. And then you want to have some that's sitting in your third stack that you're thinking about 30, 40, 50 years in a tax qualified capacity where those short-term taxes aren't, aren't applicable.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  And by the way, Pomp, as you know, taxes structurally on a macro basis, they look like they're going up.

• 41:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  So, so this, this, this topic is going to get more and more popular in our generation with Bitcoiners over the next 10 to 15 years.

• 41:28Anthony Pompliano?

  So I got a couple of questions from the audience and then we'll, we'll wrap up. But you don't know this, but our audience is so incredibly smart that somebody asked Brendan, Brendan Bowling said, how did taxes work on the SATs you win through the Blinko game? Since they were gifted to your account and you didn't purchase them with your own post-tax USD. So how about that?

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Hey, so what's going on? Two things. So, so those are contributions, right? So it's like you put, so we're actually. What we're doing is we're contributing dollars that we're then buying the Bitcoin for you inside your IRA, right? So, so that's our way of getting SATS into your IRA. It has to go in through dollars. So those are just contributions. And what we've enabled now in the app is you can either, if you're winning every day for the next like 20, 30, 40 days, or the next few months, you can choose to contribute them this year, or you can hold and contribute them next year. They're still yours. So that's the beauty of it. If you've already maxed out your IRA, like done the annual contribution limits, and you're winning SATS in Blinko every day, you can hold that and say, you know what, Choice, I'm gonna contribute

• 42:28Speaker 02

  that Jan 1st, or April, May 1st of next year, so that it doesn't mess up my contribution limits this year. So think of it as just new contribution dollars. It's us, where your employer is matching for your 401k, Choice is matching for you every day in a game for your IRA. So you can choose whether you do it this year or next year.

• 42:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then what about minimums? Do I have to have a certain amount of money to open a retirement account?

• 42:51Speaker 02

  No, zero. You have zero. You can get started. That's, that's the big deal here, is that you can start playing Blinko with no savings every day and start building. And you don't have to have any dollars in your Choice account to start, start earning Bitcoin and winning Bitcoin every day. That's why, that's why this is important, because especially under 30 years old, where you've got zero in an IRA, I'm tired of that. Let's solve that. If we can build and give you 10, 20, 30 bucks of Bitcoin by playing Blinko over the next three years, and then once you get a job that you're happy with, you can put more in, that's what I want. Because in 20 to 30 years, that's what's gonna solve this savings crisis. It's not sitting there like the old guard is done, and said, you have to have a $1,500, $2,000 minimum to even, you know, pay to play. What we're doing is

• 43:36Speaker 02

  the opposite. Because of Bitcoin, and Lightning, and everything else, we can now deposit pennies or SATS into your IRA just to get started, right? And that's a big deal. You can't do that in the legacy system.

• 43:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. It feels like, once you understand what the incentives are, from a taxation standpoint, and kind of the long-term devaluation of a currency, something like Bitcoin in a retirement account becomes pretty obvious. Doesn't mean you gotta put 100% of your retirement account in there, doesn't mean that you have to only do that, but it definitely feels like, people just, okay, once I understand the problem, this becomes a pretty obvious solution.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  What you're doing, what's so fascinating is like, you know, I'm partial, obviously, as a CEO of choice, but I think that Bitcoin's the greatest saving technology of all time. And I think that retirement accounts are the greatest savings accounts of all time. You combine those two and add a game to it, and that's, that's right up my alley. Nothing gets me more excited than that. So Bitcoin's built, in my opinion, for long-term savings accounts, especially our users and the Bitcoiners that aren't just here in and out day to day.

• 44:35Anthony Pompliano?

  So in part of my retirement account, I have GBTC.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:39Anthony Pompliano?

  And I've been taking an absolute bath on it.

• 44:43Anthony Pompliano?

  But my, my message is like, I'm, you know, I'm only 33. I got like another 30 years to go. Like, I can definitely outlast the fucking discount.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 44:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? They gotta at some point close that, close that gap. Like, let's go, baby. You want to see who can hold on longer, the discount or me? Like, I like my odds, given the, the tax treatment.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Agreed. And, you know, personal, personal view on that is, I don't think, I, I think the SEC is going to convert that thing. I, I don't.

• 45:09Anthony Pompliano?

  At some point, I think.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  At some point. And when it does, they're going to create some ETF that is credible redeemable. And that NAV, the discount, again, not financial advice, again, but that NAV is going to, is going to close in. You can't, if you're the SEC, it does take some coordination with the IRS right now, because you've got some situation where you're converting a security and a prospectus into an ETF structure as opposed to that trust structure that they've got. I, I own GBTC in my choice account, too. I know that my, my guys might not be excited that I say that. I have for years. I think it's going to close in.

• 45:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, and I think also part of it is, for the longest time, that was the only way that you're going to get Bitcoin exposure. Now, obviously, with what you guys have, now I can actually buy Bitcoin, hold my private keys, or pay with a custodian, etc. So I think there's a whole bunch of people who, just from a legacy standpoint, they just had it, right? And it was, you felt like a genius when you figured out that you could even get exposure. And then obviously, it was in a vehicle that, you know, and again, it's nothing that the grayscale team did. I actually think the grayscale team is, if they could wave a magic wand, they'd convert it today, right?

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 46:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, they, they absolutely want to get that back to NAV, and they're, for a whole bunch of reasons. But now there's an option, obviously, to also just go ahead and buy, buy the Bitcoin.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  And that's one of our biggest drivers are people convert rotating out of GBTC into the physical, you know.

• 46:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, really?

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because they're tired of it and, and, you know, we don't know how long that premiums or the discount rather is going to last. So, you know, the opportunity to get into physical now is, is one of the biggest drivers, especially as they're staring down that in bear markets that, that, that discount seems to deepen. But I agree, the grayscale guys and, and gals there have done a great job. It's not, it's, they aren't responsible for that. It's quite frankly, in my opinion, it's the regulators. That is on their hands, that they can approve this anytime they want and structure that into an ETF and this problem goes away and you have a bunch of US citizens that are in a great spot. They're allowing this, this, this discrepancy and this discount to exist right now. And quite frankly, it's shameful. It pisses me off.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  You know, there's a lot of people that want Bitcoin exposure in a regulated capacity and the SEC is looking at this and saying, no, not right now. We want you to continue going down this discount road when it's completely in their power to coordinate with the IRS and fix this today.

• 47:24Anthony Pompliano?

  The GBTC discount right now is at like 36% discount.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Stop it. That's probably down today. I've noticed it typically.

• 47:33Anthony Pompliano?

  It was like 20% or so.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Like Friday?

• 47:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, something like that.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Well, again, like this is, there's no excuses.

• 47:40Anthony Pompliano?

  It's down significantly.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  You've got, Barry and gang and Michael, they're running as high a quality shop that exists, fully, you know, fully buttoned up, like, let's go. We can solve this right now and help American consumers. Like, if, like, this, there's millions of people that own that thing.

• 47:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, they, they've been doing it, what, for seven years, eight years now, right? They obviously have spent a ton of time, energy, money, resources on making sure they were regulated, making sure that they were doing everything right, making sure that there was a clear vehicle, making sure that people could get the best exposure possible. Every time the regulator said, oh, there's manipulation in the market, there's price issues, there's data issues, whatever, they've gone and they've tried to fix those issues and come back and say, hey, look, we fixed it. Here's how we did it. You know, what do you think? They've tried to have an open collaborative conversation and yet here we are with literally an asset that, you know, has got a double digit discount to NAV and it's a structured issue more so than anything else.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  You know, one of the things, though, when I talked to like, I heard Novogratte say this one time. The closed, even though GBTC is not not structured legally as a closed ended. Closing in markets do of closing a trust do trade at a discount. So it's not what I think in defense of the SEC may be, or the or the regulators, rather, without calling out any one particular group. Is that there it is standard for a structural deficiency doesn't have a creation or redemption clause in it to trade at a discount. And that's very technical ETF words, but you know, I do think we're going to see a change to this at some point. And it's going to be positive. It's going to be positive for US citizens and it's going to be positive for Bitcoin.

• 49:10Anthony Pompliano?

  So it looks like we just got word that the thing that you can earn in Blinko, the reward, I guess it is. Just got drastically increased. Where did this?

• 49:20Speaker 02

  What is it now?

• 49:20Speaker 03

  10x.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  I haven't played.

• 49:21Speaker 03

  10x. They 10x'd it.

• 49:22Anthony Pompliano?

  10x.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Right, because you lost. 10x'd it. I won 500 sats on that.

• 49:29Anthony Pompliano?

  You just got 500 sats?

• 49:32Speaker 02

  I already played this morning as well, so that's I'm gonna.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I'm gonna see if I can get them to keep it 10x through like the next like tomorrow, actually.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  People in the chat were saying Blinko made me rich.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Well, that's the look, that's I'm sick of hearing about a savings crisis. I'm tired of it. I'm also tired of hearing that you can't own Bitcoin in a long term savings account. Blinko is a game on a mission. It sounds silly. There's legacy guys that are pissed at us for putting a game in a retirement account. But this game is here to solve the like, I'm not kidding. Watch over the next five years. I want to give away billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin through Blinko. And they're going to have to remove me as CEO and get me out of there. They put a Bitcoin or as CEO of this company. They're gonna have to figure out a way to fix that, or I'm gonna keep going as hard as I can.

• 50:19Anthony Pompliano?

  The the part that cracks me up is they've been playing a game the whole time. It's just that they were winning the game.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 50:25Anthony Pompliano?

  There was no dollars. I've never won. I've never won on the game with the old guys.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  No.

• 50:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? All the legacy players, the game is that the money flows in their pockets. Now, all of a sudden, the money flows the other way, which is

• 50:35Speaker 02

  100%.

• 50:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Ends up being a little bit better off for everyone else. You think that's funny, John?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  I think that's very, there's never a mistake in your favor.

• 50:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, no, there's never a mistake in your favor ever. All right, Joe, what else you got for us? Anything else?

• 50:47Speaker 04

  No, I gotta go download the game and get some sats myself.

• 50:53Anthony Pompliano?

  If you had to kind of sum everything up in like a 30 second pitch for people, why should they use Choice in terms of putting Bitcoin in their retirement account?

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Well, Choice is an app that pays you Bitcoin every day to help save for retirement. That's it. I mean, it's less than 30 seconds. This is, we're here, we believe that Bitcoin is the best long-term savings technology in the world. And we've, we've coupled that with the best long-term savings account. I'm not here for you to day trade your, your, your wealth away. I want you to build. I want you to build over the next 10, 20 years with us and we're going to solve this savings crisis. That's it. That's all I got.

• 51:24Anthony Pompliano?

  That's perfect. And where can we send people to actually go and, and get the, the app?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Well, go, go to the, the Apple, we're on Apple today. We'll be in Android probably by February or somewhere in February-ish. And just look at Choice App or Stack Sats.

• 51:40Anthony Pompliano?

  You can literally search, you can literally search in the App Store for Stack Sat.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 51:47Anthony Pompliano?

  The other thing is that the, I'm dropping the link right now for anyone who, who is interested. You can just go, but click the link that I'm putting in there because then they think that we're smart and that, that we actually sent you. Which I don't know if you get anything for that, but that just sounds cool. But go ahead and, and you can just click right on the link and then you can go get the app. You can put Bitcoin in your retirement account. You cannot be one of the statistics. Well, John, what did you say on Friday? Didn't you hit us with something about statistics? What'd you say?

• 52:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I forget the capacity, but it was essentially like, it was like, I want to be the statistic in that category.

• 52:22Anthony Pompliano?

  I remember, I remember we were talking about leverage and getting blown up with leverage. And John was basically like, we were walking out of this, out of here and John hit us with something. He goes, "Yeah, man, you get blown up with leverage. Like, nobody cares about you. You're just a statistic on the chart, bro."

• 52:37Anthony Pompliano?

  He was like, hey, nobody's gonna come and send you like a get well, wish your well card. Like if you get blown up with leverage, you're just like, you're just a statistic. Don't be a statistic. That's right. It's the same thing here. Don't be a statistic. Make sure that you don't end up just paying all of your retirement money to the old guy. Charging you obscene fees. It is literally egregious. Like when you start to look at some of the, the fee structures, you start to look at how hard it is to get out. I joke all the time that like, you know, you got a shitty product when you literally won't let your customers out. Right? That you, you got a good product. If you say, hey, listen, it's one click and you're done and nobody leaves, then you're good to go. But if you gotta put up so many walls and so much friction to keep your customers locked in, like, you know, he can't say it, but I'll say like, hey, maybe you should go revisit how you go to sleep every night. Cause that's probably not the best way to do people with their money.