#1504 Anthony Scaramucci | Is Trump REALLY Good For Bitcoin?

Anthony Scaramucci is the Founder & Managing Partner of SkyBridge. This conversation was recorded at Bitcoin Investor Week in New York. In this conversation we talk about bitcoin, the impact it has on SkyBridge, Trump's impact on bitcoin, regulation, and what the democrats should do with crypto.=======================This episode is brought to you by Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR), a global leader in Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing for AI. Led by a seasoned management team, Bitdeer is driving innovation with its proprietary SEALMINER ASICs for Bitcoin mining and has a massive 2.5 GW power portfolio across three continents. Learn more about Bitdeer at ⁠www.bitdeer.com⁠=======================⁠BitcoinIRA⁠: Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Take 3 minutes to open your account & get connected to a team of IRA specialists that will guide you through every step of the process. Go to ⁠https://bitcoinira.com/pomp/⁠ to earn up to $500 in rewards.========================Polkadot is a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Created by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot empowers users to build decentralized applications with ease. Backed by industry leaders, making it a preferred choice for big names, Polkadot stands out as a leading choice for investors seeking a reliable, future-proof solution in the growing world of Web3 technology. Learn more at https://polkadot.com/.=======================Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ 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/=======================View 10k+ open startup jobs:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

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. 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.

• 0:30Speaker 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.

• 0:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Today's episode is brought to you by NASDAQ listed Bitdeer. They trade under their stock ticker BTDR. They're led by a seasoned management team. Bitdeer is a global leader in Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing for artificial intelligence, and they are backed by technological innovation and a massive 2.5 gigawatt global power portfolio. Recently, Bitdeer launched its own Bitcoin mining ASIC named the Seal Miner to target what Wall Street analysts project to be a multi-billion dollar annual market. Their proprietary Seal Miner ASICs are redefining efficiency and performance, and they are backed by the industry's most advanced chip roadmap, with two more groundbreaking models set to launch in 2025. To learn more about Bitdeer's cutting-edge technology and business,

• 1:35Anthony Pompliano?

  visit their website at bitdeer.com. That's B-I-T-D-E-E-R.com. Go check out Bitdeer today. Today's episode is brought to you by Bitcoin IRA. Are you a crypto investor with a retirement account but don't have any crypto in your retirement account? Then listen up, this is for you. Bitcoin IRA is revolutionizing the way Americans save for retirement by helping smart investors diversify their savings with access to over 75 cryptocurrencies. With world-class customer service, military-grade encryption, and a vertically-integrated licensed trust company, it's no wonder more than 200,000 Americans trust. Bitcoin IRA to secure their financial future. Getting started is quick and easy. It takes just three minutes to open an account. Once you're set up, their team of IRA specialists will reach out to guide you through every step of

• 2:20Anthony Pompliano?

  the process. Whether you're transferring an IRA from a legacy bank, rolling over an old 401k, or starting fresh with new contribution, the Bitcoin IRA team is here to help you get access to real crypto in your retirement account. And here's the best part. As a listener to this podcast, you can earn up to $500 in rewards when you add funds to your account. That's right. Search for Bitcoin IRA in the App Store or visit bitcoinira.com/pomp to join 200,000 Americans on their journey to upgrade their retirement. Bitcoinira.com/pomp to upgrade today and you can earn up to $500 in rewards when you add funds to your account. Today's episode is brought to you by Polkadot.

• 3:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Polkadot offers secure, scalable, and decentralized blockchain technology that perfectly aligns with the needs of innovative projects. It was developed by Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the creator of Solidity. Polkadot aims to build an internet where users have full control over their data and their applications. Polkadot offers tons of unique features, a shared security model, along with the new auction model and significant implementations like ASIC banking. Given these characteristics, it's easy to understand why Polkadot is gaining more and more traction in the cryptocurrency world. Some people even are talking about it as the AWS of Web3. Now, companies such as Mythical Games, Aster Network, and over 50 other independent blockchains with hundreds of applications already leverage Polkadot's technology to power their platforms.

• 3:47Anthony Pompliano?

  If you're looking for a reliable, scalable, and cutting-edge solution, Polkadot seems to be the top choice for industry players. Go check them out today at polkadot.com. You were in the White House for 11 days.

• 4:03Anthony Pompliano?

  This is a fucking hot start, right?

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, thanks for not saying 10 because it does hurt my feelings when people say 10.

• 4:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, well, the unit of measurement, 11 days is now Scaramucci. So I called you like recently and I told you I had this great idea for you. I would love the audience to weigh in. If you think this is a good idea, just clap real loud. I said that Scaramucci should get in touch with Trump and ask him for a one-day contract. Just go back, get a couple headlines, Trump loves headlines, Scaramucci would get a little...

• 4:27Speaker 02

  I see.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  You see, the people clapping, that's because you don't know Trump. That's why you're clapping.

• 4:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  If you knew Trump, you'd be like running for like a bomb shelter somewhere. Okay, go ahead.

• 4:39Anthony Pompliano?

  See how I could get a whole crowd?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  But I am gonna get back, I promise you, I will get back into the White House and I will wash dishes at some point in my life so I can say that I was there for an even dozen days. But go ahead, Anthony, what do you want to talk about?

• 4:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm gonna go as far as to say, your ability to understand the financial markets, understand that Skybridge's business model was like a melting type business because people wanted to go more direct.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  We were in the typewriter business.

• 5:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, people wanted to go direct, the funds were getting better at marketing, all stuff. You saw Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and, to your credit, you said this is gonna be important. You made a big, big bet on it. And not only did that turn Skybridge around, you put in one of the best performances of last year, which historically, fund-to-fund type managers do not beat the actual hedge funds themselves. But I think the publicly reported number's 42% you did last year, which is a killer year. Talk a little bit about how important Bitcoins come to your firm.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, thank you for bringing up the... I'm not allowed to talk about the performance, but I appreciate you mentioning it.

• 5:50Anthony Pompliano?

  See, I help him out every once in a while.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I appreciate it, it's very nice. I guess what I would say to you is...

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Adapt or die, and we were in a typewriter business. Typewriter business being, people don't like fees on top of fees. So we had to figure out a way to go into funds that were lower fee in order to earn our fee. And then we had to figure out if there was something happening in the world from a macro perspective that could benefit our clients and benefit ourselves. And, you know, we've got about $3 billion under management now. About 10% of that is the partner money. And so our money's right in there alongside of the clients. And obviously, we want to make money, and we want our clients to make money. But this was a controversial strategy because we put Bitcoin in our portfolios in October of 2020. Clients were mad at me.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Most of these clients are institutionalists, or they're individuals that are the scale of institutions. I call those individuals, right? They're lots of money, and they make quick decisions. And a lot of these clients were mad at me. And then 2021 happened, and we got calls at the end of 2021, and clients said, okay, you guys are geniuses. You got me into Bitcoin. And then 2022 happened, and then clients called and said, you guys are imbeciles. And so we went from geniuses to imbeciles. And then 2023 and 24 were very good years. But if I'm being brutally honest in this room, we lost a lot of clients at the end of 2022.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  And then I had like a really nasty article written about me, which was like a financial obituary of me and the firm. And that caused a lot of clients to leave. And that was probably the low point, actually, of the business. And so typically, when you get that really negative article written, it's usually a sign that things are bottoming out. And then we went up in our business, probably 3X from that bottom. And so the clients that stayed with us and our own money, we've done very well. But it's been brutal to be an institutional investor, somebody on Wall Street for 36 years, and to make that transition without paying. It looks really neat, top line.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  But we had a lot of turnover on our client base and now we're in a rebuild and we're getting back to a really good three-year track record and we're starting to see what I would call the green shoots of new money coming into the fund. But I would be dishonest if I told you guys, "Oh yeah, we're super smart guys and we saw something before other people." You're a super smart guy. You saw something way before me. You came to my office to talk about Bitcoin when I had absolutely no Bitcoin exposure. You gave me an education on it and we built... It took us two years. I think Mark... Did Mark speak here yet or not yet? He's after you.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Okay, so I would say Mark is another intellectual mentor. Listening to Mark, listening to you. I had the... I don't know if anybody here knows Pete Brigger, but I worked with Peter Goldman. He was partners with Mike Novogratz for many years. He introduced Brett Messing and I to Michael Saylor, who's become a very close personal friend. And so it was an odyssey into Bitcoin and I would tell you that we were very nervous about doing it because we're institutional investors. Jamie Dimon was calling it rap... I think he called it a Ponzi scheme or decentralized...

• 9:24Anthony Pompliano?

  He said he was gonna fire anyone who...

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Decentralized pet rock. And then Warren Buffett called it a rat poison and the late and very great Charlie Munger called it rat poison squared. And so when we were going like this, I was like the poster boy for rat poison squared. It's not fun. But, you know, here's the thing I would say. The people in this room are not the converts. We don't have to convert these people. They're here. They love you, Anthony, and they love the ideas of what's going on in the digital space. I guess what I would ask the people in this room to think about is what do you see that other people don't see? And I've asked you this, I've asked myself this. I was at a meeting, I was at Goldman Sachs.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  It was my 35th anniversary Goldman Sachs training class. Started at Goldman in 1989 and I said to the people in the room that were there, ages 58 to 63, "How many of you own Bitcoin?"

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Nobody. Okay. How many of your kids own Bitcoin? And maybe five of the 60 people in the room said that they own Bitcoin. And so, this room owns it, or most of the people own it, or they're doing a lot of homework on it. But to really explain to people how early we are. So, you know, when you hear that Bitcoin has now crashed from 100 to 84,000, or 108 to 78,000. You know, when it was 12,000, I would have gotten on my knees and prayed, "Please let Bitcoin crash from 108 to 80,000." Right? But people from a distance, they don't understand it. But they will. And there is a rate of change going on right now,

• 11:06Speaker 02

  where there are skeptics that are being converted into adopters, which are going to be converted into believers.

• 11:13Anthony Pompliano?

  So, one of the paradoxes of your life, you're not the biggest fan of Trump, as we all know.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:20Anthony Pompliano?

  But, he's good for the portfolio in terms of Bitcoin-specific. Right? He's been pro-Bitcoin. Bitcoin went up a lot when he got elected. How do you kind of think through his impact on Bitcoin in particular? And do you see the regulatory environment changing, or clients calling you and excited now?

• 11:39Speaker 02

  I'm gonna, you know, most of these people in the room probably voted for Trump, so I'm gonna piss off everybody. So, so let me, let me just say this to everybody in the room. I want you to think about this for a second, because some of us started with very little. Let's say that you grew up in a blue-collar family, and it was either you, or your brother, or sister, became very, very wealthy. You lived the American dream. But you've got a lot of blue-collar people around you, you know? Maybe it's your parents even, or your cousins. And you make a decision that you're gonna pay for some college tuitions, and you're gonna buy a few cars, and maybe help somebody with emergency medical expenses. And you do that for your family. Let's take another family. One of the kids in the family becomes very, very wealthy. And they have a beautiful house with a mansion, and they have this beautiful swimming pool.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  And then they want to charge their family members to come and swim in the swimming pool. Which family is going to do better? The one where the people are thinking about it holistically? Or the one where we're now going to charge the other family members for the swimming pool? And don't forget this conversation, by the way, because there's a lot of people here that like Donald Trump, and I get it. And I can give you the objective reasons why you should like him as it relates to this industry, because the Democrats are really out to lunch with Bitcoin, crypto, and the blockchain. And I told you this, you know, Mark Cuban, Michael Novogratz and I, last summer descended

• 13:05Speaker 02

  into the White House, descended into meetings in Washington, senators, policymakers, assistant secretaries to the Treasury. What are you guys doing? You've got to get off the anti-crypto brigade. And Donald Trump has amazing political instincts. You can like or dislike him, he's the most prejudiced political figure of our time. And I would define that time over the last 50 years. And just think about it for a second, there was an interregnum period between his two terms, and so he's really been sitting out there in our airspace for, will end up being at least 12 years. And he's having a very, very big impact, but I tell you the parable of those two families

• 13:49Speaker 02

  for a reason, because this is the United States. This is a country that has 4% of the world's population, 26% of the world's GDP, $30 trillion of GDP. And I can tell people here in the United States, we see the country one way, as Americans, but the world sees us a very, very different way. In Eastern Europe, the world sees us as a guardian of freedom. You know, when Reagan landed in Moscow... He was told by the State Department, when he was going to visit Gorbachev, not to visit the Jewish dissidents that were in Moscow protesting the Soviet Union. And what did Reagan do?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  The first stop that he made was to the Jewish dissidents. And Nate and Czeransky wrote about this in his book. They were tapping Morse code to each other in these Siberian prisons, that there was a leader of the free world that was championing their cause for freedom and wanted to help them as a liberator of the ideas of Western liberalism and Western freedom. And I get that there are good things about Donald Trump, but remember something about Donald Trump, and don't forget this: You get the entire buffet table with Donald Trump. So you go there with your tray, and maybe you're a low-carb person, or a keto, and you want certain things from the buffet table.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  You know, maybe you want pro-crypto regulation. Maybe you want some Operation Choke Point 2.0 to end. Maybe you want some deregulation, or some relief on your state and local income tax deduction. But you get that. But then you also get the meme coin that gets launched 48 hours before the person becomes the leader of the free world, and he takes $500 million out of it for himself and his cronies. And you get the tweets about Canada becoming the 51st state, and now you got the Canadians booing our national anthem. And then you get the discussion about Greenland being part of the United States, and we're now going to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  And then you get the rebuking of our Western allies. And then we've got Volodymyr Zelensky today, who they tried to humiliate, him and Vance tried to humiliate him today in the Oval Office. And maybe there are people in this room think that really reflects well on the United States. And those are good things for the United States to do. But I'm telling you, in the last 80 years... You lived in a country that supported the rest of the world. Not perfectly, we're an imperfect country. But you've lived in a country that said, you know what? We got to create rising living standards around the world. And maybe we're going to accept some asymmetric activity in trade to support free democracies elsewhere.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  We're not going to reciprocal everything in the trade community because that could be very damaging to the free world. And I'll leave you with this one thought before Anthony asks me another question. You have 5.7 billion people in this world living under some type of authoritarian regime. And you have the United States and this unbelievable country, this multi-ethnic, unbelievably diverse nation that was founded on some ideals, not perfect, but trying to get more perfect, is now going to retrace and retract itself from the world. And if you don't think that's going to be bad for the United States and bad for our future, and it's going to cause a realignment in the world

• 17:26Speaker 02

  that's not going to help American businesses, you're not studying history. You're not studying the forces of history. So yeah, he's good for crypto. He's got some very smart people in the administration that are being very, very good for crypto. But I just want you to think of that macro parable that I told you and about the danger that that represents to your families and to free people around the world.

• 17:52Anthony Pompliano?

  When you see that world happening, which my guess is probably the room is 50/50. Some people agree with you, some people disagree with you. Does Bitcoin-

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Not in this room, it's probably 80/20. Listen, you know-

• 18:05Anthony Pompliano?

  I was giving you the best-

• 18:05Speaker 02

  How many people in this room voted for Trump? Raise your hands. Well, it's got to be more than that.

• 18:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, people are lying.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  How many people voted for Harris in the room? Raise your hands. All right, there's like four Harris family members in the back or something. But we know, we know. People are reluctant to say it, but you, you, you know. I mean, look, listen, he's good for my wallet. You know, I probably owe Trump a Christmas card. My Bitcoin went from 69,000. Where is it trading now, pump? 85 or something?

• 18:33Anthony Pompliano?

  85 something, yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, look, look, what the Democrats have done, I mean, the best thing- That Trump has going for him are the Democrats. I mean, they imploded on his watch, and they still only lost by like 1.5% of the vote.

• 18:48Anthony Pompliano?

  So here's a good question. If you're the Democrat Party, what do you do with Bitcoin and crypto so that two years from now, you don't get the floor wiped clean again?

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Well, I, you know, listen, it's very hard because Will Rogers once said something that I think is very true about the world right now. He says, you know, "I belong to six disorganized parties. I'm a Democrat." And they are very disorganized, and they are very siloed. And so what they should do, they will not do. But they need radical moderation, radical moderates in that party. There used to be something when I was growing up, some of the older people here will remember, the Blue Dog Democrats. They were sort of conservative in certain ways and liberal in others. And if they were smart, they would team up with the former Republicans.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Donald Trump decapitated that party. He took a third-party insurgency and installed it in that party. And I can provide evidence of that. Tulsi Gabbard is that former Democrat. Bobby's that former Democrat. And he created a new party. And if they were smart, they would align themselves with former Republicans. And they would increase the scale of their party to beat the Republican, the current party now known as the Republicans. And this happened in the 1850s. People may remember their history from 10th grade. But the Whig Party was in existence against the Democrats. And there was a fight over the abolition of slavery.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  And a new party was formed in 1856 called the Republicans. And what did the Republicans do? They launched a marketing campaign. They went after Whigs that believed in the abolition. And they went after Democrats that believed in the abolition. And they elected the first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. And they killed the Whig Party. So if you want the MAGA party to live, then stay with the MAGA party and go with them. But if you're a Democrat and you see the potential danger of this, this sort of nationalism and this pervasive anti-globalism, and you think it's a danger, which I do, then you would reform the party and bring more people into it.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  They're not capable of doing that, though, because they have an ideological anchor to certain things. You know, there are people, I won't mention their names, but they're high-profile, former elected officials for Republicans that wanted to get on the campaign plane with Harris or wanted to get on the campaign with senators or governors, whatever it may be, and the Democrats rejected them because of their former affiliations with Donald Trump. And so you have to make a decision, just like you do in a business. My narrative is not working. Do I adapt my narrative? Do I bring other ideas into my political narrative to increase the bandwidth of potential

• 21:57Speaker 02

  demand for my product? And I would tell you right now that Democrats are not ready to do that, and so I think they're going to have a lot of problems if they don't do that. But if I were them, I would be at least neutral on Bitcoin. Anthony, you know this, I know this, most people know this. I applaud Scott Bessent for saying this. He said it on, you can ask Charles Payne, who's outside, he said it on Fox Business. He said that the jihad that Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren perpetrated on this industry was born from the Sam Bankman-Fried FDX debacle. They were very close to Sam's parents.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  They met with him countless times off the grid, in restaurants or people's residences, and they were close to giving Sam margin approval on that business. He flamed out. And in order to protect themselves, they rampaged indiscriminately and wantonly went after this industry. And guess what? There are no, when Elizabeth Warren says they're gonna have an anti-crypto army, they couldn't find any anti-crypto voters. But there are pro-crypto voters, and there are pro people. And give Donald Trump credit. Donald Trump said, "Okay, well, let me get this right. You'll hit me and my party with $250 million, and you've got, how many wallets? 40 million, 50 million, 60 million?

• 23:22Speaker 02

  And so some of those wallets are single-issue voters? And some of those people might be in swing states? Okay, I'm with you guys. What do I gotta say to those guys in Nashville? Give me the speech." And so you gotta give him credit for that. The fact that the Democrats didn't see that, and didn't see the power of this industry, is a sign that they are derelict in their duties right now of really understanding what's going on in the marketplace.

• 23:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Before I let Anthony get offstage, you guys wanna have some fun? Yeah. Yeah? All right. Earlier today, our opening speaker was Vivek Ramaswamy, and he talked about he's running for Ohio governor.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  I like him.

• 24:02Anthony Pompliano?

  And he talked about how he's gonna bring back manufacturing, he's gonna make Ohio one of the leading states in the country, he's very pro Bitcoin. I think that every governor eventually is gonna be pro Bitcoin. If we cheer loud enough, will you run for governor of New York?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Dude, man, I'm...

• 24:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Look at him squirm. Look at him squirm.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  I'm running for reelection in my marriage, man. I saw him do it. I'm just trying to stay married, okay?

• 24:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Anthony's scary.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  By the way, my wife has a castration policy, Anthony, you know? Just trying to stay married, guys.

• 24:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Anthony's scary, everyone.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Appreciate it. Great to be here. Thank you.