#1187 Dan Tapiero | Wall Street Insider: Bitcoin To $10 Trillion Market Cap

Dan Tapiero is the co-founder of 1RoundTable Partners & 10T Holdings. In this conversation, we talk about the Fed, problems with the legacy banking system, bitcoin, ethereum, rest of crypto ecosystem, where Dan sees opportunities, themes & trends he is paying attention to in the future, and what is going on in the macro billionaire circles behind closed doors. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 200,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/

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. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. We have no advertisers on this podcast, so it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. Dan Tapiero is the co-founder of One Roundtable Partners and 10T. In this conversation, we talk about the Fed, the legacy banking system, all of the problems that we've seen in that

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

  system, Bitcoin, Ethereum, the rest of the crypto world, what he's doing, where he sees opportunity, what themes and trends he's paying attention to in the future, and what is going on in the macro billionaire circles behind closed doors. I always enjoy talking to Dan, and this conversation is one of my favorites. Here is my conversation with Dan Tapiero.

• 1:10Speaker 01

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• 1:38Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:01Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. Dan is back. Dan, there's a ton to talk about. I thought a great place to start would be on the cracks in the legacy system before we get into Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, digital assets, and the future in that side of the financial world. In the legacy system, we've seen banking crisis, high inflation, interest rates exploding 500-plus percent. How do you evaluate where are we right now in that system? Is it sustainable? Will there be some big crash? What the hell is going on?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Hey, Pomp. Great to be here. What the hell is going on? I would say we've already had that crash. You know, I think that the blow up in the banking system was pretty serious. The Fed, as you know, and the authorities, we'll just call them generally, basically, you know, said to the banks, you can mark to market your treasuries at par and lend against them. And they're all at 70 cents on the dollar. So that's a huge potential injection of liquidity. It hasn't hit the system yet, but it has. And I think that was one of the reasons we had that big bump up in gold.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  And then in Bitcoin, of course, as well, and ETH and some of the other cryptocurrencies. Because liquidity, the market sensing liquidity is going to be plentiful again. And of course, every interest rate cycle has peaked with some sort of, you know, debacle, banking debacle. I mean, in 94, you had Orange County and then Mexico blowing up. That was the, at the time, I remember that was the biggest bond sell-off since 1929. This, this kind of reminds me more of that, that these guys just, you know, they weren't portfolio managers. They're not hedge fund managers. Their job isn't really to, you know, I would say,

• 3:56Speaker 03

  get the markets right. And they made a bad bet. And it was just sort of like Orange County and they blew up. But there was systemic risk there and the regulators weren't on top of it. I mean, I think it was very clear to certainly everyone under 35 and like, you know, more of the crypto crowd that talk about like failed oversight, you know, we always hear about all the regulation that's needed in the crypto space. And yet, you know, the banking space is heavily regulated and basically suffered a run. And so, I mean, it's been my view for a little while that interest rates have peaked, that they were going to peak in sort of Q4, Q1. And I suspect even if the Fed decides to raise again, it's not really going to matter.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  The 10-year is telling you where things are. I mean, 10 years down at 340. I suspect this year, given the backdrop, we're going to have lower growth and lower inflation every quarter for the rest of the year. And I can see the 10-year down at 2.5 or lower. And the Fed may ease, they may not, they may stay stubborn. But I think that's why the market's rallying, right? Nasdaq, gold, Bitcoin, ETH, they're looking out, you know, 12, 18 months. And I think there's a high degree of confidence that this tightening will be reversed.

• 5:17Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you look, when you look at what's occurred, we basically saw rates grow from 0% to 5%. We saw a couple hundred billion dollars come off the Fed's balance sheet. And inflation, according to the headline CPI number, never has fallen below 5%. We've been at, you know, 5% plus percent pretty much since I think it was like June of 21. And so we now are going on nearly two years of above 5% inflation. And if there is some sort of pause, if there is some sort of pivot from the Fed, should we expect higher inflation? Or is that headline CPI number a little bit misleading? And maybe we actually have the real inflation number right now is lower than what headline is telling us?

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Well, I think the forward inflation number is lower. I think that six months from now, so we had CPI headline today at 5, pretty sure six months from now it's going to be significantly lower, potentially even below 4, and maybe below 3. And it's just that the leading indicators, all the leading macro indicators that, you know, macro guys like me have looked at for many, many years are all pointing with a very high degree of confidence, lower. And the Federal Reserve has ignored that. I think they over-tightened. They didn't need to tighten as much as they did. And look, even they say policy works with a lack. And I guess they sort of forgot about that, or, you know, but this is the first time in my career

• 6:43Speaker 03

  that I can remember that the Fed has made policy based on the two most lagging indicators, which is headline CPI and the unemployment rate. So everything else that's leading or coincident is turning down. So I, I think there may be some world in a few years, I guess, where inflation can go back up, but I think it's firmly down for, you know, for a while.

• 7:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, there's folks like Barry Sternlicht and others who believe that we may see negative inflation in those numbers by the summertime. Do you think that we could go as low as to go negative? Or do you think we may bottom out around kind of the 2% Fed mandate? What are you thinking in terms of what is that down kind of?

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Look, I mean, to me, one, zero, minus one are all the same. It's just significantly lower inflation, not an issue. So I don't think, I mean, I think it's a pretty bold call by Barry to make a, you know, a six month call like that. He could be right. I mean, he's looking at the rent data. As you know, they're very plugged into the real estate market. So I wouldn't fade his comments at all. I just, sometimes macro takes a little longer to happen than you think. Things that are really obvious, you know, when doing analysis, don't always play out in a, you know, tightly fitting way. And so he could be right. I think maybe more towards the end of the

• 8:11Speaker 03

  year. Look, I think any headline number print with four or three is going to be surprising to people. There's still a lot of people out there who are expecting higher inflation. I don't know, not sure why, and who are super negative on the market. I don't know if you've seen some of those indicators measuring investor sentiment. The Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey came out with super negative.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  I, and I think that's sort of what's fueling part of this rally too. It's.

• 8:45Anthony Pompliano?

  What's surprising to me, I think, is folks have seen that headline number falling, but I think that there's this looming recession, right, that they think is going to come in Q3, Q4, maybe Q1 of next year. I don't know if it comes, I don't know if it doesn't, but if people think that there's a recession, psychologically, they're prepared for negativity, they're prepared for kind of pain, et cetera. But you can actually have asset prices increasing in value at the same time that you've got the recession, and that may not actually be as aware to the average investor. But one of the data points that I've been paying more attention to is, so the year-over-year CPI number is down, and it continues to fall, we hit 5% recently. But if we look over three- and six-month periods, the inflation

• 9:26Anthony Pompliano?

  number is actually up. And the three-month inflation number thinks up like over 3%. And so when you look at that, is that telling us that there's just a base effect at play with that headline number, and we should maybe actually be paying more attention to an accelerating inflation in the shorter term? Or is that just kind of a whole bunch of noise, and that headline number is the only thing to focus on?

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Well, I'm not exactly sure what you're looking at. I mean, if you look at three-month, over-three-month annualized rates of change, that's different. I mean, that's how I would look at it. So when you say three-month, is that three-month year-over-year?

• 10:04Anthony Pompliano?

  So here, no, so just like literally over the last three months, right? And if you think about like core as an example?

• 10:10Speaker 03

  You mean the month-over-month changes?

• 10:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes. And so if you think about-

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think that that's that relevant.

• 10:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Month-over-month data, I never look at because it doesn't trend. It's only the annualized data that you, that you should look at. And so, I mean, you look at deflators, you look at the prices component, I was looking at the NFIB, I think, pricing plans have completely collapsed. I can show you a chart of this, you know, later. So a lot of the leading inflation signals, as well as the market signals, look, no one is smarter than the 10-year note, right? I mean, I don't, you know, the markets are telling you, and they're very convinced that inflation is not an issue. To have a 3.4 10-year, right, with headline CPI at 5-

• 11:02Speaker 03

  The market participants are pretty darn sure that this inflation number is going to come down dramatically. So, you know, there are lots of other signs. Housing, I think, is softening and you have this whole issue of people having to roll over their mortgages, their auto loans. I mean, no one is buying a house with a mortgage rate at 8% or 7%. Again, macro works with a lag. And this Fed hike, you know, hiking process was the most dramatic, certainly I've ever seen. It felt more, much more dramatic than 94. That's the only one I can think of that was that rapid and of this size.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  So, the only thing that I would say maybe that prevents the growth and inflation slowdown from happening as quickly as I think is that, you know, there are a lot of other places around the world that are starting to pick up. And I think I put on Twitter the other day, the Chinese M2 numbers, I think, hit 13%, which was a high for, you know, the last few years. So, it is possible that other places around the world don't have the same concerns as the Fed and maybe start easing up sooner. It's very hard now to look at

• 12:27Speaker 03

  sort of global data in the aggregate. I mean, you can look at global PMIs. There are global indicators, but the system is very leaky. You know, the Chinese can do what they want and it's not like there's a global, you know, central bank that is keeping anyone in line. I mean, it's a nice segue into, in a way, into Bitcoin because, you know, Bitcoin is that global currency that's, you know, validated by math, right? You don't need eight guys in a room to get together and each of the countries to agree. You're never going to get US and Europe and South America, Asia to agree on what policy should be. But with Bitcoin, you don't have to worry about that.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  But again, that's maybe that's a cart before the horse. Maybe I'm bringing that up a little too early. But so that's why, if there's any reason that I thought it wouldn't happen as quickly as it is going to happen, that would be it. But I still think we're just on a course. I wouldn't just say like recession. I would just say dramatic slowdown in growth and inflation because recession is two back to back quarters of negative GDP. But people define it differently. The GDP data, you know, can be kind of squirrely sometimes. So I don't ever use the word recession. I just call it, you know.

• 13:52Anthony Pompliano?

  A slowdown. So one of the things that you're mentioning here that I think is pretty interesting is if you take the top 10 global central banks, I remember kind of the start of Q1 of this year, we saw the United States continuing to take assets off of their balance sheet with the Federal Reserve, but specifically Asian countries and China, they were the ones who are pumping tons of liquidity into the market. So there was a net gain of liquidity globally based on those top 10 central banks, even though the United States was kind of working against the trend there. And so when you evaluate kind of asset prices and their future movements, how important is the US compared to that global analysis, right? Like, is it actually better to look at the global net liquidity versus the United States?

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, look, the bottom line is, I mean, the US is still by far the largest economy in the world, has the largest, you know, market cap in total, you know, the most financialized economy. And of course, most transactions around the world are still done in dollars. So I know the Chinese GDP has increased a lot and gotten closer to the US.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Around the edges, the US policy will drive the world. You'd have to have the rest of the world, I think, going whole hog the other way. Right? And we're not really seeing that from Europe. So Europe and the US are approximately the same size. And then you throw in Asia, it's about one third, a third, a third. So even if China is now stimulating, they've got to really do it a huge amount to offset. Look, I think, I think you do have to look at both. I don't think anyone has really figured the answer out there. You know, the US is very inward looking, so I don't generally think it looks at global policy.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  There are some countries that are more sensitive to global policy. Some country like Australia, which is very commodity dependent, but is also still an Anglo country. Maybe is a sign, you know, you can look at that as a, as a sign of, you know, the impact of global liquidity. Inflation numbers have dropped there recently, too. It looks like their central bank might be done. But it's, it's, it's a difficult puzzle to put together. I, I think at the moment, you have to look who's been the most aggressive and what's at the most extreme. And certainly, US policy, US policy has been the most extreme.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  So I think, yeah, I think you need really a lot of offset the other way. Right?

• 16:36Anthony Pompliano?

  What's

• 16:36Speaker 03

  I mean, look, the macro game really, Pomp, is about like deciphering when things are at extremes, do they tell us stuff about the underlying economy or markets? So most of the time, when the macro is plus one or minus one, You know, it's very hard to delineate whether it's having any impact on anything. But when we have extreme movements like we've had in the last two, three years, I think it just becomes a lot easier and more important to decipher the macro.

• 17:10Anthony Pompliano?

  What's going on in the conversations behind closed doors with with all your billionaire friends? You happen to be in this like macro billionaire circle. And there's a ton of folks who are constantly thinking about inflation, interest rates. Now, the banking crisis, I'm sure there's tons of conversation happening when that was all going down. How much of what they are still talking about is like, I'm fearful of this thing happening, or I'm waiting for this other shoe to drop versus now it is, hey, we're getting much more into a position where asset prices are going to recover and I need to understand how to position myself to best benefit. Like, is it a story of optimism?

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Or is it a story of pessimism right now?

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's a little bit about what you said before, which is that when you have growth slowing down, it can be very positive for markets. And so I think on the one hand, a lot of guys are pretty levered up in the two-year note.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  You know, even if you're just a traditional investor, just think about it. You can get 4% in a two-year note with zero, essentially zero risk. So, risk adjusted, that's a pretty chunky return.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  And you can leverage that up significantly. So I would say you have a lot of guys sitting in the two-year, three-year, five-year, expecting the growth slowdown. And then connected to that, you know, we've already had a pretty big correction in the NASDAQ.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  And I think a lot of guys are, you know, seriously risk on and in the tech, because that's looking out to a place where liquidity is more plentiful, you know, 12 months from now. So that's just the macro.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  The macro community and gold also has been very sneaky here. It made a new high in a lot of foreign currencies and Australian dollar. I know you're chuckling a little bit. We had that gold conversation a year or two ago, I remember. But it's about to make new highs. I think it'll probably get up to around 2,300 this year. It's been pretty darn stable. And that's also a great indication that liquidity is going to be more forthcoming, you know, from the Fed in the next six to 12 months. So I wouldn't. I also think the bear, the bear face for the dollar started that that low at around 98 in the euro, that was it.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  And the currency, gold, forward interest rate markets are all sort of saying the same thing. They're looking at all the forward looking indicators that macro guys look at.

• 19:48Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about gold specifically, yes, it is up, but obviously something like Bitcoin is, you know, up 2X off of the bottom.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Is the relationship between gold and Bitcoin merely, you know, Bitcoin is gold in the digital form with more asymmetry? Or how do you look at those two assets?

• 20:05Speaker 03

  No, no, Bitcoin is much bigger. It's a much bigger thing. I mean, we've talked about this a little bit before. Gold is a store of value and anti-dollar play, and there's a physical component to it as well, which I think is very important. But Bitcoin and, you know, the Bitcoin code and the Bitcoin network is a completely new invention for the world. And I've talked about it and all the different cryptocurrencies that are basically variations of that code. With different use cases, different functions, you know, it's the potential to change the way we move value around, the way we store value.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  So on a moment to moment basis, gold and Bitcoin both benefit from, you know, positive liquidity environment. And they get hurt in a negative liquidity environment. But, you know, remember it was two, two years ago. Tudor Jones called Bitcoin the fastest horse. Remember that whole thing? And it will definitely be, because there's a lot more going on in what I call broadly this digital asset ecosystem. It's not just about Bitcoin as a store of value, though I do think Bitcoin is the most important, you know, and core part of this whole world. I mean, it is that pure collateral.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  And, you know, thankfully, the proof of work, you know, still is behind it. And I think that's very important, very, the security apparatus, the security function of Bitcoin is truly bulletproof. And so, you know, people in the space who talk about Bitcoin not being relevant or going away, I, I don't think they understand markets or, you know, any, you know, financial things. That being said, there's a lot of building, and you talk about building also quite a lot on some of these other chains and Ethereum. You know, has definitely achieved network effect, certainly in my view. And you have many programmers from the outside world

• 22:12Speaker 03

  flocking to the blockchain space and, you know, they're tweaking these chains and there are, you know, new use cases that they're coming up with. And I, I think some of them are entirely, you know, valid and there'll be other ones that aren't. You know, aside from Bitcoin and Ethereum, I think everything else is really still more of a venture project. We don't really know yet. I mean, Solana, I guess, was, you know, moving to a place where maybe, you know, there was going to be more development there. But at the moment, it's really Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don't know. What's your, what's your sense on that? We haven't talked about this in a while.

• 22:52Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that Bitcoin is probably the only asset in the entire market that, one, has, you know, institutional level liquidity. Two, has institutional safety in the sense of the regulatory environment and kind of there's no gotchas or potential risks of re-characterization or categorization on the horizon. And then the third thing, and actually probably one of the most important things is, It's the only asset where there is a strong held belief both within the community, but also even among critics that the monetary policy will remain unchanged. Right. And so I do think that we spend a lot of time in kind of the Bitcoin or crypto world with the infighting and everyone's throwing mud at each other and you know, the whole thing.

• 23:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Sometimes it's hilarious. Other times it's probably a waste of time and energy. But one of the things that often goes untalked about, or at least not kind of shine a light as much as it should, is that Bitcoin's monetary policy is fixed. And so critics will say, hey, it's fixed. That's a bad thing, right? And proponents will say it's fixed. That's a good thing. But I think there's agreement between both the critics and the proponents that that fixed monetary policy is a thing and it will remain fixed. When you look at Ethereum and most other assets, there is some level of a variable monetary policy. And so again, I think everyone agrees, right? The critics and the proponents like, hey, the monetary policy is fixed. So it's almost like if there's agreement between critics and proponents that one is fixed and one

• 24:18Anthony Pompliano?

  is variable, then you really have to ask yourself like, what do I believe is the more valuable thing over the long run for the specific investment case that I'm trying to make as to which asset to allocate to, et cetera. Now, the dirty secret and you know, one that I think you have done a great job highlighting is like, forget your personal opinion, forget my personal opinion. When institutions show up, like, most of them are not stock pickers, right? They're not like, oh, you know what? Let me go pick this one stock or this one, you know, crypto asset or this one, you know, piece of real estate and that's, I'm going to hang my hat on that. They tend to just buy the market, right? And they try to just get exposure. And so if you're only putting 1% of your assets into an industry, you kind of want some diversified

• 24:59Anthony Pompliano?

  exposure. And so they're going to buy, you know, Bitcoin, Ether and whatever else that they decide to put in that basket. And so I think that there is a dislocation maybe between, you know, the people who are in this every single day and they're very strong held tribal beliefs in a certain asset versus the institutions show up and they're like, all right, well, like, all you guys are fighting with each other. Like, that seems crazy. I just want like crypto exposure, right? And so I think, you know, the Bitcoin Community argues and says, hey, if we educate them further, then they'll kind of see the orange light and they'll just buy Bitcoin and just hold that. I've talked to a lot of these institutions and they're like, look, even if I 100% believe what you're saying and everything with Bitcoin is,

• 25:40Anthony Pompliano?

  you know, what it's kind of promised, there's these other assets that for better or worse, some of them work, some of them don't. And we just want, you know, kind of beta exposure because this whole industry is so asymmetric compared to fixed income or even the stock market that anything that happens in this industry that's positive will be a, you know, kind of outlier performance for us and it'll help our annual returns, which ultimately is, you know, what they're trying to drive towards.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's just about how you split that up, right? I mean, I think for certainly new people, it's just you decide what should be your split between, you know, Bitcoin and ETH. And then I would say, you know, maybe, you know, have a fund that's in the venture space. And then I would say, of course, look for a fund that's in the growth space or, you know, with, you know, invest in some of the more mature companies. But, um, you know, it just depends on your risk reward profile.

• 26:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Why do you think Bitcoin specifically has been, you know, rallying so hard? So it's about 2X up off of the bottom from the kind of FTX fallout, et cetera. This year it's up somewhere in the 80% range to start the year. Is that debt limit crisis and people looking for something that's an alternative to, you know, potential US default? Is that an inflation thing? Is that a trying to front run the Fed thing? Like, why are investors driving?

• 27:04Speaker 03

  I don't think it's a default thing. I think that, um, first of all, the only reason that it was down, I think as much was, you know, on the FTX fraud, um, you know, it got hit and then there were concerns about Genesis and that are unfounded.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  So I think the market got sold out and this is one of the things I told my investors.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Was that in Q, you know, Q4 on the, on the announcement of that fraud, Ethereum couldn't make a new low in price. And Bitcoin popped down and then popped right back up. You know, I put my trading hat on from years ago, just for a second. Uh, that's a, that's a, it's a, what's called a bullish divergence and tells you that the market is sold out. And so we've had a bear phase for, you know, for all of 22, basically. And we had the most negative news that we could possibly think of, which is someone like SBF who was considered, you know, the wonder kid in the space, you know, go from 20 billion to a fraud in the matter of, you know, a few weeks.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  And so I think that that, that piece of negative news, we are not going to see anything more negative than that. And the fact that the markets could hold in after that just told you it was sold out. And so you had a, you know, a bunch of different things happen since that moment. Um, you know, you had the ETH upgrade. Uh, also ETH is also up about, it's probably up even more than 80%. I don't know. Um, you know, I guess at the low it was around, yeah, it's probably up, they're up about the same. Um, but, but look, the reality is the Fed tightening was overdone. And you've had 10 years drop 100 basis points. So that's positive for liquidity.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Um, the banking crisis, it's very clear. Um, and I think someone on Twitter said, the money in your bank, it's, it's, it's not your money, right? Like you think it's your money, but not only is it not there, it's not even yours. And I just think anyone under 35, uh, who's just, you know, more comfortable in moving around the digital space, they don't really think of banks as part of their life. I mean, I'll give you a very perfect, I'll give you a perfect example. My, my daughter's, uh, 18 years old. She's at NYU. And, um, she was out there renting her first apartment.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  And you know, it's a bit of a complicated thing to rent your apartment in New York, etc. And they they said to her, she needs to get a bank certified check for her first month of rent. And she said something very funny. She says, you know, um, I mean, I don't think she's been to a bank. Maybe ever, maybe in Greenwich where she where we are maybe once. But she said something very funny. She says, you know, Daddy, I don't notice that there are any banks in New York City. And I I said, what do you mean? There's one right across the place away from where you do yoga.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  And so it's a silly point in a way, but people who are younger, they don't really think of banks as part of their lives. They they Venmo, they have, you know, they, you know, they they may use the online banking platform, but they don't actually go to banks. It's not, you know, when we were kids, you know, at least certainly me, you know, you had your passbook, your savings account, you went to your bank, you got it stamped or whatever it is. So I think the move to Bitcoin is very natural. And I do think there is this generational aspect to it.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Where as time goes by and the, you know, and the younger generation starts to build more wealth, I think they naturally will go to alternative places. And for them, it's completely natural. It's, you know, there are 2 billion video game people out there, people who who are gamers. That's a huge number. Those people live, you know, online or in the metaverse or however you want to describe it.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  So what I'm saying is, is that any time that the banking system has a problem, I think people fly to Bitcoin and we're seeing it. I mean, Bitcoin was built for exactly this, right?

• 31:52Speaker 03

  When I, yeah, so I, you know, it, yeah, go ahead.

• 31:55Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about this, you know, phenomenon, how international is it versus US? Like, obviously, in the United States, I've always said, I think Alex Gladstein probably has the best way to describe it. He's like the financial privilege, right? I go to the ATM, they're giving me my money. I go to the bank, they're giving me my money. If I want to send a payment, they're sending them a payment. And I don't worry about, you know, hey, I didn't exercise enough today, so they're not going to let me process my stuff. And I don't worry about the government showing up and confiscate my assets, out of my bank account or any of that type of stuff. There's a lot of countries where people do worry about that stuff. And I saw a recent, I saw a recent article, I think it was, I don't want to be misquoted here, but I think it was Lebanon?

• 32:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Maybe it was Turkey, but there was a guy who was doing about 200 million, oh, I'm sorry, I think he was doing $20 million worth of USDC transaction volume. Like, he was like a, basically like a, like a tether and USDC dealer. And he was doing some, I'm certain it was 20 million, 200 million, whatever it was, every single month. And in that country where this was happening, they want Bitcoin or they want, you know, some digital dollar equivalent. And so is it the international markets that you think will end up driving more of this adoption in the US? Or do you think the US is still?

• 33:09Speaker 03

  I think that's happened. I mean, I don't know what you think the number is, but I've heard sort of 85% of total volume is done outside the US. So, I mean, I already think, and certainly in the emerging countries, I mean, adoption is greatest. There are plenty of statistics out there, but you mentioned Lebanon, but, you know, Turkey, Brazil, all of these places where monetary policy is questionable and, you know, certainly fiscal policy as well. I think there's a larger natural group of holders of Bitcoin and ETH too. And, you know, maybe a few other ones, but it's mostly, I think Bitcoin. So, I mean, I, you know, I, I don't know, I think.

• 33:58Speaker 01

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• 34:26Speaker 03

  Right now, I think that's not commonly accepted view, really. And you know, you're seeing other places take the lead on, you know, developing regulatory frameworks. I mean, I'm hearing something out of Europe. Of course, there's Dubai and Singapore that are sort of, you know, leading ahead. Hong Kong has now come out and said, after China banning it, they've now said it's okay to own some of the top cryptocurrencies. I guess that just means, you know, I don't know how they're defining it. Obviously, it's Bitcoin and ETH.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  So I think that the regulatory frameworks are going to develop independently. And the U.S. in this area, we know, is lagging behind. It's unfortunate because the Western press, but I think especially like the Journal, the New York Times, the FT, they don't really see what's going on in this, in the bigger ecosystem here, that it's not, in fact, Bitcoin is extremely important and has an important, you know, emerging market use case and store of value, et cetera. But there are many new things developing in the, what I call broadly, the digital asset ecosystem that we didn't have three, four years ago.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  And so for me, the bear phase ended in Q4. And I think people starting to realize that, plus the, you know, the, the sign of banking distress is just clear. Clear that if you were on the sidelines, waiting to buy your Bitcoin at 12,000 and you're itching at 16, but you didn't do it, starts drifting up to 18, 20, 22, and then you have a banking meltdown, you know, that's easily enough to take us back to, you know, where we are today, 30.

• 36:20Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about that digital asset ecosystem, we've got this DAE map that you all have created. And with this map specifically, I think there's a couple of kind of key components that you guys have outlined. There's store of value, financial services, smart contracts, blockchain security, blockchain infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs. How do you evaluate which parts of those areas you are more excited about, less excited about? Or areas where you feel like it's the right time to lean in versus maybe, hey, six, 12 months from now, it'll be the right time to lean into that area? Like, what's your evaluation framework for each one of these sectors?

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, you know, we, we sort of look at things in a traditional way. This is 10T slash 1RT, the firm that we're actually doing a raise for now and will launch in July. And, you know, I, I think that when I say traditionally, I mean, we're looking for revenue. And so, and we're looking for a business to sort of achieve, I would say, you know, about to achieve escape velocity. I mean, we focus on, on growth equities, you know? I mean, as far as I know, we're still the only active fund in the world out there that exclusively focuses on

• 37:42Speaker 03

  growth equity in the crypto blockchain space. I, that, that's one thing we should talk about because I, I marvel that there aren't more people doing it. Yeah, we've invested 1.2 billion into 26 different businesses. But we've got a pretty rigorous process and it does revolve around, you know, the business as a business. I mean, I, I'm not like the venture guys who are trying to make 100X and trying to find the next best, greatest technology.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  You know, we're, our, you know, return expectations are, I would say, more modest, at least for the space, you know, five to 10X over the next 10 years. You're probably thinking like, why even bother with a five to 10X in the space over 10 years? That'll, that'll Obviously happened, but for a lot of our traditional investors, it's a way for them to dip their toe in and learn about the space. And, you know, again, we only invest in the businesses. We're not investing in cryptocurrency. And I, it's not that I'm against it. It's just that many of our LPs basically legally aren't allowed to own crypto yet.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  So they can own private equity. And of course, many of these companies, you know, have tokens and crypto and Bitcoin on the balance sheet. But again, we're purchasing stakes in the equity, but it's based on more traditional metrics. You know, we're looking at, you know, things that any growth equity firm would would look for, that they've achieved product market fit, that the leadership, you know, has a vision that, you know, we can be a part of the board potentially and and help, you know, shepherd the company towards realizations.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  You know, so it's not that I'm making a bet that let's say NFTs are going to consume the whole space and that's going to be the only focal area. We're building a portfolio that's diversified broadly. You know, between we have three different buckets and between those three buckets, you we're going to get access to the growth in the overall digital asset ecosystem. And one thing I would say is that we also look to the leaderships to be able to pivot. That's a very important thing is, you know, the space is growing so quickly. Even, you know, two, three years ago, there were no NFTs. There was no DeFi. There were no stable coins. I mean, it just didn't exist.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  And so the leadership team, it's very important. It's not just that they're doing innovative stuff. It's that can they pivot when they see an opportunity in their area? And that's, you know, just as an example, Gemini a few years ago bought Nifty Gateway, right? And, you know, that was a, you know, a pivot for them. And, you know, you, Yat from Anamoka. Is probably the master pivoter. You know, he's, you know, built himself a very large portfolio, a venture portfolio. I I'd also say in some of our businesses, there's quite an embedded venture bet because they are, you know, looking to make acquisitions and looking to do bolt-ons, et cetera.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  So, um, you know, I, I, I would just say that we're not really betting on a chain to be successful or a specific technology. It's more, do we believe this business can go up 10 times in value over the next 10 years? And so we have like, you know, seven or eight different valuation metrics. We write these 50-page investors' MOs, et cetera, et cetera, just like any traditional private equity firm would do.

• 41:29Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you think about cash flow? Obviously, most of the tech sector has been unprofitable. There's plenty of companies that are trading in the public markets from the non kind of crypto blockchain, digital asset industry that still have never returned a single dollar of profit. Is it something where in this industry, the companies are going to have to get to cash flow positive and eventually go public? Or do you think that we'll see a lot of these companies end up getting out into the public markets or getting bought before they ever turn a dollar profit?

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, look, today,

• 42:01Speaker 03

  there's only one crypto blockchain business in the world, really, that's public, and that's Coinbase and Galaxy to some extent too. But I'm saying very large one is Coinbase. It is impossible, and you can hold me to this, that five years from now, there will only be one public crypto blockchain business. It's impossible. Now, I don't know that they're all going to be on NASDAQ. I think there are going to be jurisdictions that are opening up that are super friendly to crypto blockchain businesses. So you might start seeing companies go public in other jurisdictions. I mean, you know, obviously NASDAQ is the best place, the most liquid, et cetera. So.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  I, you know, that being said, I mean, just think about this for a second. In 2019, when I had the idea for the fund, there were only about 25 companies in the world in the crypto blockchain space that had a value of, let's say, over 400 million. All right. And I remember doing a lot of early meetings and people telling me, Dan, there aren't enough companies for you to invest in. You know, half of my meetings were just, you know, telling people, look, the space is going to grow and it's going to grow and it's going to be big enough. And today, there are probably, you know, I would say about 150 companies that have over a value of around 300, 400 million.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  And that's down probably from over 200 from the peak. So it's an enormous sector in the, you know, in the private area. And I just don't see how, you know, within the next two, three, four years, the more established ones aren't public. I mean, you know, Ledger, for instance, I think could probably be a public company, you know, in the next 18, 24 months, certainly has the, you know, is, I would say it looks more like a traditional company, but they do very cool stuff. Ledger Live, they're coming out with stacks. You know, their core of the ecosystem, they have a virtual monopoly on hardware devices.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  You know, the Ledger Live platform is really doing super well this year. They've got to cut institutional custody. You know, so Anamoka used to be a public company. They certainly within, you know, 12 to 24 months could be public. I just think that the outside world has yet to, you know, sign off on this, right? The Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys aren't rushing to bring these companies public. I think that my fund is going to have to get much more involved in helping shepherd some of the companies to the public arena and to realizations.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  And so I'm bringing on a few partners now who have that skill set. And I think are going to help, you know, help drive, help drive that process. So.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  You know, look, you know, Deribit is another company that's doing quite a, I mean, quite a large amount of net profit. I mean, it's not just cash flow. You know, they're entertaining, setting up in Dubai now. They've got 90% of the total world Bitcoin and Ethereum options business. I mean, you don't find businesses like this, you know, in the traditional world. They did 120 million in net profit last year and almost 200 the year before. So there are some large businesses. They don't necessarily look exactly like large businesses from the

• 45:51Speaker 03

  traditional world, but they're getting there. And I'm just surprised there aren't more, as I said to you, more players from the traditional world getting involved. But I just think it's just a matter of time.

• 46:05Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you start to think through kind of where this whole space is going, what is, you know, maybe your two-year vision here? Is it Bitcoin, ETH, other digital assets that are liquid? Those are higher prices. You think there will be more private companies that have gone public and are out kind of sustainable businesses there? And most institutions have exposure to the industry? Or, you know, where do we stray from maybe, you know, those three data points?

• 46:35Speaker 03

  So one thing that's happened recently that I think has taken many people by surprise is the interest from the traditional world in incorporating some, you know, aspect of the blockchain into their business models. And, you know, different companies have done different things, but there's literally, there's, there's news almost every day. You know, car parts and insurance, Alfa Romeo has car parts and insurance secured on a blockchain. The McLaren, I'm looking at this auto section we have here, McLaren has NFT collections for fan engagement. You've got

• 47:14Speaker 03

  the luxury, you know, area as well. You've got sports incorporating NFTs. I think that's the one surprising thing that adoption has come from the traditional world via

• 47:27Speaker 03

  The growth in the NFT space. So, you know, the funny one that I always mention when I'm speaking to investors is this, I don't know if you saw this California, the Department of Motor Vehicles, did you see this thing? That they're going to give everybody in California a digital wallet. They're going to have their license and the deed to their car put on the Tzos blockchain.

• 47:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Is that real? Are they really gonna do that?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  That is real. Yeah, that's real. We actually dug into that. And, you know, it's funny, even guys like us are like, is that real? Is that possible? And so I, you know, I, I think that, look, if you've got a non-economic agent like that, thinking in those terms. I know, I think it was ANZ Bank in Australia just this week has put carbon credits on a blockchain and I think they were actually traded. So this digitization, you know, of value, asset tokenization, you know, incorporation by the traditional, by the big companies of somehow blockchain.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  You read about Polygon and Starbucks, obviously, you know, just think back three years ago, at the end of the last bear phase, we didn't have any of this. There was, none of this existed. DeFi, the, the amount of dollars settled in on stable coins last year was eight trillion dollars. Eight trillion dollars settled on, on, on, on stable coins. You've got Layer Ones now, you know, popping up as well. We didn't have any of this before. And so like when I, when I talk about the digital asset ecosystem, it's really just sort of the broadest term that I can think of that.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  You know, encompasses all of these activities. Because yes, there's Bitcoin store of value, impenetrable collateral, great. But there's a zillion other things going on and that are leveraged off the, you know, the initial invention, as I call it. I mean, yeah, here I'm seeing, look at this, monthly active addresses for ETH, Polygon, Solana, Binance, and Avalanche just hit a record high. So like, where is the bear feet? Right? I mean, and actually, they increased pretty much throughout 22. Stablecoin business, you yourself just mentioned, some guy in Lebanon is settling, is trading

• 50:09Speaker 03

  $20 million a month. These things aren't going away, and there are many interesting businesses that are growing up with all this value that's now trading in the digital sphere. And so, the value of the DAE, as I call it, is $1.7 trillion. That's the value of all the cryptocurrencies and the value of all the equity in the space. That was 300 billion in the middle of 19, right? It was 3.5 trillion a year ago, but 1.7 trillion dollars. Like, that's the, you know, the startling thing. That's the amazing thing. It's all happening. It's just happening in all these different sectors that I've included in this map.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  And our job really, and what we do is just try to get exposure to all the growth that's happening there, and then all the potential growth that might happen in the future that we're not, you know, even aware of just yet. So.

• 51:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Every kind of mini timeline in this industry. So you get kind of these bull markets, you get the peaks, you then get the drawdowns, you kind of repeat the cycle over and over again. They're all driven by narratives. They're all driven by some sort of theme. What are the narratives or themes that you are looking for, you know, kind of over 2023 into 2024? There specific things that you guys have identified that you either think will be areas of interest or kind of themes that you really want to get behind?

• 51:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, one thing is just, you know, tokenization of of real assets. And I think that that's sort of a dream. You know, everyone has talked about that one day. You know, that's going to happen. And there we have a little bucket there in our in our map. That, you know, we mentioned there are only three or four companies now in the world that are attempting it. Figure is one. You know a lot about figure in my CAGNY. You know, I think he's sort of a master at being able to pivot. But he's now in a pretty good position to, you know, execute on that vision. And there are a few other companies, you know, Securency, Securitize.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  I mean, there, there are a few companies, but it's still really small. And there isn't enough revenue really for us to, you know, to invest there. But I think over the next 12 to 24 months, it's certainly possible. I mean, do you do you have any thoughts about that yourself? I know you were an early investor in Figure. And you've talked about, you know, tokenization of real world assets.

• 52:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I think that my, you know, kind of view of the world is very different than most of the people who have talked about the tokenization. Like, I've always thought that there's this macro kind of generational trend, right? And that trend is automation. Automation, you know, I think I've been talking about this since maybe 2017, 2018, where automation is maybe the least controversial thing when you walk into a room of investors.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:10Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, you can be like.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  The least controversial.

• 53:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, you're like, hey, do you think Bitcoin is going to be higher or lower? A bunch of people yell and scream and argue with each other, right? Do you think that this stock or, you know, this piece of real estate, higher or lower? Like, they'll yell and scream at each other. If you walk in a room and you're like, do you think the world's going to be more automated or less automated 10 years from now? Every single person agrees more automated. Now, maybe that's the counter signal. Maybe actually, we should be scared and say like, hey, that's not actually going to happen. But I do think that people have this consensus view of it.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  Well, more digital or less digital.

• 53:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Correct.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  Right? That's another way to phrase it. I think you get everyone thinking more digital.

• 53:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, and I think that. I've always looked at the automation as just a repeat of history. And so if you think about a physical US dollar, right? You could not actually use your computer to move physical dollars. You couldn't put the dollar into the computer. And there was no ability to do this with the internet. And so you had to electronically create dollars. And so you went from physical analog dollars to electronic Qsips. Now, those electronic Qsips didn't just represent dollars. They also represented stocks and bonds and commodities and like all these other things. Once you had the assets in electronic QSIP format, now you could have electronic transactions. And so that's where you get kind of these one and two day settlement times, et cetera.

• 54:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, we want to move to this like real time, instantaneous, you know, kind of automated world. Well, the electronic QSIP based assets can't actually operate in that world. There's a technology kind of mismatch. Same thing as trying to put the physical dollar into the computer. Putting the electronic QSIP into an automated transaction system doesn't work. And so you have to digitize them. Now, I think one of the areas that ends up, maybe I've changed my mind on, or I'm less convinced of is, is it tokenized or is it digitized? And maybe those two things are the same, or maybe they end up being different. I'm not really sure. But what I do know is that they can't be electronic Qsips. There has to be some iteration of that technology so that we can get that automated transactions.

• 55:09Anthony Pompliano?

  And so what this looks like is if you look at Bitcoin, right, it is a digital currency. That digital currency allows for all sorts of kind of automatic transactions. The best example being like streaming payments, right? If I can send you a penny every half second, that's pretty cool. You can't do that with electronic QSIP dollars, right? But it also begs the question of like, what else could you do with a currency that is digital? And so there's like the example everyone always talks about where you're going to drive your car down the road and your car is going to pay the toll automatically. Now, it's a little bit of a grand promise and maybe we're already closer than we think because in Florida, if you drive your car, your sun pass, which sits on your windshield,

• 55:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Technically is paying. Now it's accruing for the month. You kind of pay it off at the end of the month or whatever. But is there a world where there is these automatic transactions? So the big question, and kind of I think what gets at what you're talking about here is what other assets will get into that digital kind of form factor that then can be used for automatic transactions? And I think if you go on the extreme end of the bowls, every asset, right? Like they're literally like every single thing will be digitized and everything will be

• 56:19Speaker 03

  A value.

• 56:20Anthony Pompliano?

  transactions. Correct.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, on the other side, the critics are like, why would you ever digitize anything, right? Other than, you know, the currency. And so as with most extremes in the world, like the truth probably somewhere in between, where there's more than just a currency that will end up being digital so that it can be used in these economic automated transactions. But it won't necessarily be every single thing. And I always go back to, I forget the exact numbers of the stat now, but some like portion, I think it's like close to like 60 to 80% of all bond transactions in the United States still happens over like Bloomberg chat or telephone. Right? Like I remember reading some article, maybe like two or three years ago where they're like, look, even though there are these like all these digital systems, like they're still kind of chat based or phone call based for a very large portion

• 57:07Anthony Pompliano?

  of the transactions. And so if you think about that, even if the technology is available, it doesn't mean people are going to use it. And so I think that we love to just point this like, okay, here's the black and white world of the future. Let's tie a bow on it. This is exactly what it's going to look like. It's really pretty and it's amazing. The world don't, doesn't act like that, right? Like it is way messier. It's way more volatile. And so it's very obvious to me Bitcoin will be kind of an important part of that future. And it is the first mainstream.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  You didn't mention Lightning. I thought you were going to mention Lightning.

• 57:39Speaker 01

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• 58:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I think that's part of the streaming payments and everything, right?

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 58:09Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like, it's like basically, um, you know, when you're able to send things instantaneously and nearly for free, like it's kind of the idea of a capital flows to where it's treated best, right? I actually think that capital is kind of like water as well, and you maybe you expand it like all economic value. It takes the path of least resistance. And so if something is instantaneous and free, that is likely to get much more volume, right? That is something that is super high friction. And so Lightning obviously is doing that for Bitcoin, but like if other assets become digitized, where will that happen and how will it happen? And I think, you know, one of the things I'd love to hear your opinion on is, um, you know, the Bitcoin community has yelled and screamed for a long time about non-Bitcoin digital assets.

• 58:53Anthony Pompliano?

  But now we see things like, um, you know, are we going to try to bring stable coins to Bitcoin? Are we going to try to bring NFTs to Bitcoin? Does that change the receptivity? Yeah. Does that change the receptivity of the community? If like, if it's a digital asset, but it's built on top of Bitcoin, does that make it okay versus not? I don't have those answers, but I think these are some of the questions now that are starting to come up and people are trying to figure out. And there's a lot of controversy, there's a lot of debate, but five years, 10 years from now, I think we'll have some answers, right? And there'll be more clarity in the market. So what, what do you think about some of that stuff in terms of the digital assets, but being built on Bitcoin versus being built elsewhere?

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, but yeah, let me, let me, before I get into that, let me just ask you one thing, because you said, you know, um, that, uh, you didn't, um, you don't know whether all assets get, you know, placed on a blockchain or whatever it is. Just let me ask you, how many NFTs, it's a trivia question, how many NFTs exist in the world today? Number.

• 59:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, uh, total NFTs or like how many collections?

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Total NFTs.

• 59:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh. People are going wild in 2021, so I gotta go with, uh, 1 billion.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Okay. So my analyst who focuses on this all day, every day, 1 trillion NFTs exist today.

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  One trillion is the number as of like last week. Now, most of them are zero.

• 1:00:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, man.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  Okay, so I'm just saying it's possible that, you know, you could have some of those things holding value. I mean, not meaning as opposed to just holding like a drawing, you know, or something, or whatever it is, you know, something

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  I'm just like anything of that, you know, that's completely irrelevant, people just minting them for fun kind of thing. So, you know, that's what's kind of interesting to me that you go from zero three years ago to a trillion. Like a trillion is a big number.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  So it just shows you that the framework is flexible. Right? That's what I think is incredible. Like, what can go, what else goes to a trillion in, you know, two to three years? So there is a framework, there is a place potentially for a lot of things, you know, that aren't worthless. So anyway, I, when I heard that number, that shocked me and we're supposed to know these kinds of things.

• 1:01:26Anthony Pompliano?

  That's shocking to me right now.

• 1:01:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I know, but that is the number. Um, you know, ordinals and other things on Bitcoin, to me, like, I don't know, I guess I'm a little bit with Adam Back on this, whereas Bitcoin is, you know, pure collateral and, you know, it'd be nice to just leave it alone and not infect it in any way. But the reality is, is, you know, human beings, they like to create, they like to do new things, they like choices, you know, the, the problem I had with the, the, the Bitcoin, like super duper only Bitcoin

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  people is that it just, it, it doesn't reflect a human pattern of behavior, you know, it's like saying you can only have one burger at McDonald's and there's only going to be one burger. Well, no, there isn't. There are going to be lots of burgers, lots of From places and maybe McDonald's is the best burger. But you know what? I like a competitive landscape. One of the things I like about. You know, this space is that it is free of government intervention. It's free of. Of all really outside intervention. We haven't talked about how incredibly the space has held up despite. You know, all the debacles that we saw last year. And so, you know, I like a competitive environment. I want Bitcoin to.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  Continue to have to prove itself as the best store value. Why the hell not? Right? Like it is. And you know what? Uh, it needs to continue to prove. I mean, it doesn't to me, but um, so. I I'm not a programmer and um. I don't like, you know, obviously each of these different chains have different strengths. And I don't see why Bitcoin has to have, you know, it should focus on security. Right? It should be the one thing in the world out there that will never ever be hacked, can't be hacked. Is bulletproof, is pure collateral. I I don't see why that's not enough.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  Um, again, I am, I'm a gold guy a little bit, coming from a little bit of a, you know, my macro background. But um, if people want to do funkier stuff on it, I. And it's flexible. I don't see what the issue is. Um, and I think that's the same view I have for other chains, like why can't other chains. Carve out some very specific use case that works best for them. Um, there's no reason why that should be illegitimate. It's just that don't think that that's Bitcoin. Understand that that's something else. But that's something else, you know, could be, you know, valuable and um. I think the NFT space, especially as it pertains to blockchain gaming.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Um, you know, is very important. Um, you know, there are other, you know, DeFi has its, you know, use case. Um. You know, I I don't think that's going away. Uh, blockchain infrastructure, I, you know, I think that. That has, you know, an important place. There are rails that need to be built for, you know, proof of state currencies. So I, I, again, I, I've thought for a while that this digital asset ecosystem is much bigger than people know, that it's fascinating, it's complex, and that

• 1:04:59Speaker 03

  the adoption that is happening is happening in all these different sectors. And that's really what's so important. It's not happening in one place. It's happening in so many different places, it's impossible for a guy like me to keep track of it. And I've got six analysts and I've got, you know, 15 people and this whole deep team. And, you know, I, I've got zero bandwidth, just trying to keep up with developments in the space. So that's what, you know, that the great innovation, of course, is the Bitcoin code, right? That's, that's the genius. And we all agree

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  on that. But humans are going to create and adapt new things. And I think that the space,

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  you know, that's why I called the fund in 19. My original thought was the space was going to go to 10 trillion in value. That's from 300 billion. It was a 30x in 10 years. I think that's going to be wrong now. I think the space is probably, you know, going to go much higher than 10 trillion because it's starting to encompass everything, right? It's not just money, store of value, programmable contracts, DeFi, NFTs, stable coins, it's everything, right? Tokenizing assets.

• 1:06:23Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what is your view on how big Bitcoin can get? Not like a price prediction, right? Because I, I tend to think that that's played out and frankly.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  I've been saying the same thing for a while.

• 1:06:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  And I think it's 300, 500,000 is a good, solid place, you know, given the value of other assets sort of in the world. And I think that puts it around, around. What five trillion or something like that, five to six trillion, something like that?

• 1:06:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I think five hundred K would put it around ten trillion, if I remember the.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I don't know, somewhere between five to eight trillion. Do I think it could go to ten? Sure, absolutely. It absolutely can go to ten.

• 1:07:02Anthony Pompliano?

  In that world, in that world, in that world, do you think that it will surpass gold and that like gold's market cap contracts and Bitcoin expands? Do you think that they both, you know, kind of store value assets become uh much more uh sought after and so actually gold and Bitcoin market caps expand together? Like, how do you kind of see see that playing?

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, look, I think eventually,

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  you know, gold has a physical component and you know, I, you know, founded this company with my partner, GBI Gold Bullion International, we sell and store physical gold and I've always um felt that that was an important aspect of gold and people say you can't take it with you, you can't transfer it. You can, you can do all, you can do all kinds of things uh with gold. Gold is even being tokenized now. I think there's one token that has over a billion dollars of of gold um that it's tokenized, but that aside,

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  I I think that in a completely, and I think I said this on your last, I remember saying this on your last, last time we chatted, was that in a world that is, you know, one hundred trillion digital, let's just say everything is digitized, there will be value um for having a physical store of value, right? And and I I think, and it is portable, unlike real estate and other things that that hold um that hold their value. But uh I don't really, you know, Pop, I think what's changed a lot in the last two, three years is that. I don't think the discussion really is about Bitcoin and/or gold anymore. Gold is gonna do its thing, it's gonna bump along.

• 1:08:45Speaker 03

  It's not about what Bitcoin is worth versus gold. It's what this entire world that's predicated on the Bitcoin code, what is that gonna be worth? And I think that, you know, you have Bitcoin at the core, but then all these other things being built on top. I mean, it could be, why not 30, 50 trillion? I mean, I, you know, you can make up a number. But what I see is, we've gone through a major bear phase, and we have companies that made more money in 22 than 21. Throughout a bear phase, like, that's pretty incredible. Why? Because they're building stuff that is needed, that there's demand for it.

• 1:09:30Speaker 03

  There are whole worlds out there that are unaffected by the Federal Reserve. Do you think guys are gonna stop playing video games because the Fed raised rates? Do you think they're not gonna want, you know, to, you know, port their in-game items with them? You don't, I mean, it just, you know, did the development of blockchain games slow? I mean, no, they didn't. And so, we don't know necessarily, you know, where, you know, which area is going to, you know, run with the ball and gonna be the largest grower. I don't even think that's so important. I think it's just important to have exposure to this space generally.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  And so here we are, at the end of the bear phase, 1.7 trillion dollars in value is captured in this world. It's not going to zero, it's not going away. There's no one regulating it away. If the, we saw what happened two years ago. Remember when the Chinese banned Bitcoin and they throw out their Bitcoin miners? Nothing happened. You know, the, it's, it's a decentralized network of value. It can't be banned, right? People ask me, oh, like, and is it gonna be banned? No, there's, there's no banning. It's a thing, you can't ban the internet, you can't ban air, or, you know, the sun, or whatever it is. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  And I think it's just because the barrier to understanding this is high. Right, like that map I sent you, have you ever seen anything like that before?

• 1:11:09Anthony Pompliano?

  I haven't. I've seen market maps of like specific segments, but I haven't seen kind of the the full thing.

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  Right, and that's and this is, you know, we do this all day, every day, and I've never seen another map like this. So it's just clearly, um, like people's focal points, I think, just need to be adjusted. And um,

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  and the the nature of the conversation, I think, has to change. It's not just about let's prevent people from using Bitcoin. Or, you know, let's prevent, let's, you know, let's rail against every other currency that isn't Bitcoin. Or people rail against Bitcoin that it isn't more than a store of value, or whatever it is. This whole world is growing up and it's seeping into everything. And I think that's the story.

• 1:12:00Anthony Pompliano?

  I I think that is a great story to continue telling. If people want to find you on the Internet somewhere, where can we send them?

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  Well, the Internet, well, I'm at Twitter, D-TAP-CAP.

• 1:12:14Speaker 03

  You know, we also have a website, there's the 10T website, but also the One Roundtable Partners website. That's sort of in the making, but you know, Twitter is easy, right? I mean, you and I like DM through Twitter.

• 1:12:30Speaker 03

  Strangely, my follower count hasn't moved in like four months. I don't know whether the algorithm has completely locked me out or, you know, who knows what? I don't know what you found there, but um, I still use Twitter quite a lot. I find it very useful, so.

• 1:12:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm right there with you. I I tend to think that Twitter's algorithm, a whole bunch of stuff are getting played around with. Maybe they're doing some tests or whatever, but still an amazing place.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  And LinkedIn, I actually think LinkedIn has improved a lot. It's a little more business-y and people sort of don't fly off the handle there. Um, but I think LinkedIn is is very good. I I have to say it's become, you know, more of a social platform as well. So I'm on LinkedIn too.

• 1:13:19Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. All right, Dan, I could talk to you literally for hours. I appreciate everything you've been doing. You are one of the major bridges between, I think, kind of the macro world and this new world that we're building. So I wish that we had more people like you, but keep up the great work. Anyone who has not followed you on Twitter, I highly suggest that maybe we can move your follower number up there for you.

• 1:13:39Speaker 03

  No, it's fine. It's all right. I'm shocked that it is where it is. There've got to be a lot of Chinese bots there still that they're weeding out, right?

• 1:13:53Anthony Pompliano?

  No, I think you're doing a great job. All right, we'll definitely do it again in the future.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  All right. Thanks, Tom.