#967 Dylan LeClair On Bitcoin’s Health After Last Weeks Crash

Dylan LeClair is the Senior Market Analyst at UTXO Management, a digital asset fund investing in the analog to digital transformation of money and the emergent financial system. In this conversation, we discuss bitcoin, on-chain metrics, market structure, and what to expect going forward from this bear market. Dylan joins us every Tuesday on "The Best Business Show." To see the video with the corresponding charts that Dylan references throughout the interview, go to "The Best Business Show: LIVE" YouTube Channel ======================= Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web3 crypto browser. No extension required. Store, manage, and grow your portfolio, get NFT & multi-chain support, and more. Download the Brave privacy browser at brave.com/Pomp, and click the wallet icon to get started. ======================= The Pomp Podcast is powered by BetOnline.ag, the world's largest sports betting, casino, poker and horse racing website that accepts cryptocurrency for wagering. BetOnline.ag gives you the ability to use Bitcoin and more than a dozen altcoins to make deposits and withdraw your winnings. There are no crypto transaction fees, and processing is instantaneous and secure. Visit https://promotions.betonline.ag/pomp and use PROMO CODE: POMP100 to receive a 100% matching bonus on any crypto deposit. BetOnline.ag is available in nearly every country around the world, making it the top global gaming destination for crypto users. =======================

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

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Dylan Leclerc is the Senior Market Analyst at UTXO Management. He also writes a newsletter with Bitcoin Magazine. In this conversation, we talk about Bitcoin, on-chain metrics, we talk about Bitcoin's price, the market structure, and what to expect in the coming weeks. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dylan, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by FTX US. FTX.us is the safe, regulated way to buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital assets. You can trade crypto with up to 85% lower fees than

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• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:50Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:04Speaker 01

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

• 3:27Anthony Pompliano?

  We've got Dylan. He's back from Europe. Dylan Leclerc, what's up, man?

• 3:31Speaker 02

  It's been a while. Happy to be back.

• 3:33Anthony Pompliano?

  How are you?

• 3:35Speaker 02

  Doing fantastic. I almost made it the whole Europe trip with just no volatility. I was coasting. It was all good. The last three, four days I was there, just the craziness happened. I was I was in the middle of a Prague airport with like pretty, pretty beat wifi and while Luna was collapsing and I'm, I'm trying to kind of get my head around what's happening and make, make trades and all that. And it was craziness, but I'm happy to be back in the saddle.

• 4:03Anthony Pompliano?

  What was your general takeaway as you watched the Luna U S T thing like what was your general take in terms of watching it in real time?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, I'm not gonna lie like I wasn't too familiar with the Luna mechanics before they they added the Bitcoin reserves. I thought it was an interesting experiment. You know, I called it and people were attacking me for calling it somewhat of a Ponzi nomics stablecoin like I didn't know how it would end. And then I saw that peg drop, you know, from one to 98 cents and it was just limit down on 98 cents on Binance with huge volume. And that was the point where I was saying, you know, I had a kind of a thread where I was just live tweeting my thoughts and what was happening at the time. And that's when I was like, oh, wow, there's, there's some, there's some problems. And then the peg broke and Luna was in collapse. And at the point where, you know, the, the stablecoin U S T

• 4:53Speaker 02

  had a larger market cap than Luna, in my, in my mind, it was clear that a bank run was happening. And I joked about it going to zero. I didn't think it would legitimately go to zero right away. But, you know, a lot of smart people in the know, you know, capitalized and a lot of people unfortunately lost a lot. So it was a tough experience, but you know, it was definitely, definitely something that was quite memorable.

• 5:14Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So when you start to think about that occurring, obviously Bitcoin's price has dropped significantly. It was already down pretty seriously. But talk to me about the entire situation of they dumped 80,000 Bitcoin or so and Bitcoin still, you know, 26,000, 30,000, it's held pretty strong. Like, how do you feel about watching them do that and kind of the price action of Bitcoins from that?

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, really interesting. I showed one of the, I think the second chart we have here today was showing just the spot volumes, right? So there's a couple kind of indicators or things that we look at. I mean, more than a couple. But in terms of Bitcoin bottoms, Bitcoin tops, we can see this sometimes in the on-chain data, but specifically when you're looking at like spot exchanges and just how much volume is or just how many coins are changing hands, right? Like, if you look at my four arrows here, right, they're all pretty, pretty significant kind of moments or in the, in the price action in the Bitcoin cycle, you know, doesn't mean it's necessarily A macro bottom or a macro top, but what we can tell here is lots of coins changed hands and it's pretty significant. So, you know, could Bitcoin go lower? Yeah, of course. And we're going to, you know, walk through some of the macro

• 6:25Speaker 02

  uh just developments that have happened. Um, I've been talking about bonds and credit and legacy market volatility for, you know, for much of 2022, and that's obviously still kind of the driver here. Uh, but it's in terms of kind of a capitulation event, um, especially from a crypto native standpoint. Um, you saw Bitcoin down big, but if you look at a lot of the kind of the altcoins, um, which, you know, I don't focus on too much. I don't own, uh, but for much of the 2020, you know, 2021 bull run, uh, the kind of the, the L1 smart contract chain trade was, was really big. Luna, Solana, Avalanche. And if you looked at what happened directly after the Luna crash, all those, all of those kind of markets were down 35, 40%.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Um, and, you know, as well as a lot of people who are seemingly risk off and stable coins got completely wiped out. So there's somewhat of a crypto contagion event. And Bitcoin obviously took a hit, but in terms of everything else, it, it was, it was the crypto safe haven, which is, you know, somewhat crazy to think that despite it being down like 10, 12%.

• 7:24Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So let's start with Bitcoin's, uh, realized value. We've got a couple of charts that we're going to go through, but we've got realized price and, and, uh, kind of market value to realize price with a Z score. What, what is this showing us?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. So talked about this one a lot. Um, you know, pull up the receipts if you'd like, not, not saying I, I've called it because I've certainly been, you know, saying I've been in the market buying this, this entire time and dollar cost averaging, but just in terms of using on-chain, it's a framework. And thinking about, you know, probabilistically, where could this market go? I think back in November, back in December, when seemingly, you know, 25K was far too out of reach, far too low for Bitcoin to ever trade. Uh, this realized price was saying, hey, this, if you're thinking about a bottom, if you're thinking about it, you know, a deep value buy, this is where it is. This realized price, it's the average cost basis of everybody on the network. This is historically during bear markets, the place where you see a lot of capitulation. You see, you know, these deep, deep value buys and

• 8:19Speaker 02

  people are giving me a little bit of shit for, uh, for saying it was a generational bottom because how How can a generational bottom happen, you know, three, four, five times in a decade? But I guess if you want to think of it as a cycle bottom dips below this realized price level are, are, you know, where it's at. And so we didn't dip below it technically. I think Coinbase hit 25.3, but that I think it's around 24K as a realized price. And we're just near that kind of cyclical bear market, huge smash buy opportunities. So I'm certainly a buyer here at 30K. But just in terms of an on-chain framework, 25K has kind of been my line in the sand for, you know, about six months now.

• 8:54Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then when you look at this next chart we have here, we just have the BTC USD price itself, but you're pointing out a lot of volume changes there. What, what, what is this showing us?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, just to kind of repeat myself a little bit earlier, this is just a lot of coins changing hands, right? You saw a lot of weak hands finally capitulate, dump, certainly in stronger hands now. And that's kind of what you want to see at bottoms, right? That's what you, that's what you want to see. This wasn't really a derivative market liquidation, more so in terms of just a, just a spot market dump, right? 80,000 coins. I think certainly there was some OTC deals happening. But a lot of these kind of the macro guys, the people that understand this, this, this long-term debt cycle, really at 25K Bitcoins down, you know, 60% from the highs. They're certainly interested, right? And they're gonna, they're gonna happily scoop up some coins from, from the weak hands that are becoming forced sellers.

• 9:48Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then you've got the inverse VIX. What, uh, what is this showing?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So let's, let's dig into a little, you know, a little bit of the macro here, right? We've been talking about credit all year. We've been talking about bonds and the VIX, right? This is the S and P market volatility. And it's basically, it's implied through just kind of options positioning. The technicalities aren't too important, but this is just quantifying legacy market volatility. And if you look at the inverse chart of the BIX and Bitcoin, or if you want to do inverse Bitcoin and the VIX, it looks kind of like the same chart, right? So there's certainly a really high correlation to legacy markets. The decoupling hasn't happened yet. But in terms of what do you want to see for a meaningful decoupling to eventually happen? It's these kind of capitulation moments, these forced selling moments. And, you know, really just coins changing hands en masse. This is what leads to the eventual decoupling.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  So while certainly it hasn't emerged yet, you know, this, these two charts are top of mind for me going forward.

• 10:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And then when you look at kind of more macro stuff, the high yield corporate credit spread is exploding upwards. It's not quite as high as it was, obviously, in the beginning of 2020, but still the highest it's been since 2020. What is this telling you?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So what's a corporate credit spread, right? You have corporate bonds, right? So those have a coupon, those have a yield. A corporate credit spread is just what are those bonds, what's the yield on those bonds above the treasury, the 10-year treasury, or whatever maturity on the treasury curve, right? And that treasury is the risk-free rate for the entire world. And even though in real terms, the treasury market, even the corporate bond market is negative nominally, right? It's lower than the current inflation. This is a pretty high signal, right? Because when there's cracks in the credit market, this is what kind of, this is why equity markets are trading how they are. So never mind the fact that treasury yields have risen significantly. We can see that corporate credit is deteriorating. And so, you know, this is for the Fed, right? You know, obviously,

• 11:42Speaker 02

  that Fed put is maybe removed from the market for the time being, but the cracks are kind of showing underneath the surface. And for, you know, corporations that have binged on buybacks and just kind of a historic debt binge over the last, you know, 10 years, 12 years or so, this is where the stress kind of emerges. And so this is, you know, something that everybody should be watching going forward. I'll certainly be covering it. Corporate credit spreads, if this explodes higher, it is no way out for equities.

• 12:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then when you start to look at things like the high yield corporate credit spread, obviously, we're talking about the same exact thing happening, but people really are pushing further and further out on the risk curve. They're trying to drive returns. And so high yield corporate credit becomes really attractive. Is your expectation that this will only continue to get worse and worse as we see this market downturn occur and interest rates go up?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, some of the framework that I'm operating on is that, you know, the Fed's going to end this height cycle until something breaks. And I think really what they're trying to go for is demand destruction. But what we see here with this corporate credit spreads and the VIX, which we were talking about earlier, is, you know, while there's a little bit more kind of day-to-day volatility in the VIX, which is tracking equity markets, it's really, you know, credit is kind of the That wags the equity market or that, you know, it's the dog that wags a tail. Right. And so as we kind of expect, I kind of expect corporate credit spread to continue to trade upwards. Until something breaks, until there's, you know, the liquidity risks are quickly turning into solvency risks. And for a while in early 2022, people weren't really paying attention to this.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  And now I think more and more people are aware that, you know, under the surface, things are fracturing. And I think quicker than most people expect, a lot of the mainstream economists, a lot of the Wall Street guys. I think, I think that, you know, the crack, the eventual, you know, credit market, you know, malfunctioning or, you know, e-liquidity spreading rapidly, I think, I think that comes sooner than most expect and the Fed will have to hit it pretty hard. We're not there yet, but this is how these things develop. This is how it all goes down.

• 13:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And then lastly, from a chart standpoint, we've got the dollar currency index, which is just exploding upwards. Goes to kind of this idea of the milkshake theory or many others where the dollar is strengthening against weaker currencies. How are you viewing this in light of what's going on with Bitcoin, but also kind of the macro environment?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I mean, first off, I gotta give it a shout out to Brett Johnson. He's gotten a lot of, he's gotten a lot of flak for his theory. He's stuck by it. And, you know, despite all the printing, despite all this stimulus monetary fiscal in 2020, 2021. The dollar's at a 20, you know, two decade high. So, so against other fiat, you know, obviously not against real, real goods and services. But really this is important because the USD is the world reserve currency. So we're setting monetary policy for our own domestic political interests, right? The Fed is obviously having to act because of political pressure. But it has a huge impact on, on all of the other kind of governments and corporations around the world that are operating on a dollar standard that have dollar denominated liabilities.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  And so when the dollar screams higher, all these other currencies, all these other foreign economies, they get squeezed pretty hard. And I think that's what's happening. That's kind of the milkshake theory is that, you know, all these other currencies are collapsing against the dollar, which, you know, even if the dollar is collapsing against, you know, real goods and services. This is You know, this is how risk assets basically are being forced to sell off. This is what a global margin call looks like. We're not there yet, but there's a reason that equity markets are 20%, 30% up the highs. There's a reason why bonds are getting killed. And it's because we're kind of in this, in this crazy environment of, you know, historic CPI inflation at the same time where the dollar is screaming higher. And so obviously this has a pretty big impact on the Bitcoin price.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Any market that is denominated in USD is certainly, is certainly kind of on the hook for, for that margin call as the dollar appreciates and, and everybody has dollar-denominated liabilities, right? And the Fed is the only one that can print them. So this is kind of the dynamic going forward. And I think this is, you know, probably the story of 2022.

• 15:44Anthony Pompliano?

  When you start to think about kind of this macro environment, and obviously we're getting the interest rate increases, do you think we can get to the end of the year where they keep raising interest rates? Or do you think they'll have to stop or potentially even cut before the end of the year? Like, how are you viewing the macro environment in which Bitcoin will exist?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think what they're really going for is, you know, a destruction of demand. Obviously, the treasury market, I mean, the treasury market really did the Fed's bidding for them, or not bidding, but rather selling off in the sense that you saw the Fed's fund rate still at zero or 50 bips while the treasury market screamed higher, right? The 10 years around 300 basis points, 3%, right? So the treasury market, the bond market already really did most of the Fed's work for them. And I think what the Fed's really doing is kind of getting back a little bit of that ammo that they used for the last decade and really, you know, post 2020, when they did, you know, unlimited QE and, and all of the, you know, the rate hikes or the rate cuts down to zero. They're getting a little bit of ammunition back for when the next time that, you know,

• 16:44Speaker 02

  they need to spur demand because, I mean, let's be real, we're still in the same spot where, you know, over 100% federal debt to GDP, global debt to GDP, the estimate is around 400%. Like, we're still in a debt trap. It's not like, nothing has fundamentally changed from that perspective. And to keep this credit system glued together, there will need to be more monetary stimulus. Like, that is the end game. It's, it's more credit expansion in, in the face of credit contraction, what we're seeing today. Like, the end game hasn't changed at all, which is why I'm still... You know ridiculously bullish on Bitcoin despite the price action despite all these macro variables. It's why I buy Bitcoin every single day because you know we're in this endgame and the endgame is still binary. It's either deflationary collapse and total collapse utter

• 17:26Speaker 02

  collapse or more credit expansion, more monetary stimulus, more currency debasement. That's the endgame. It's pretty clear, but we're going to have these kind of massive fits of volatility and contractions and expansions, you know, while while it all plays out.

• 17:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Behind you, you have two books, The Big Debt Crisis and The Changing World Order, both from Ray Dalio. And one of the things he talks about is there's these cycles and it feels like we definitely are moving or transitioning between cycles at the moment. Is your expectation that Bitcoin will continue to kind of be durable and succeed regardless of the macro environment and kind of which cycle we're transitioning between? Or do you think that Bitcoin now is much more susceptible to those macro forces and and people should spend time not only learning about Bitcoin, Lightning Network, and and some of the more technical aspects, but also understanding kind of the macro environment in which which you're playing in?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, I would say I'm definitely a student of history. I love Ray Dalio's work. In particular, his work on the long-term debt cycle has really shaped my thinking and kind of, you know, helped me build a framework around this. So I mean, I focus on the Bitcoin native kind of, you know, cycle, bull bear cycle. There's obviously the monetization phase, and that's why I love looking at the on-chain analytics. But in particular, with my focus on macro, it's really about kind of understanding the, you know, the interplay between these short cycles, which are, you know, a few years, maybe five years, you know, these credit cycles, but really this long-term debt cycle, right? That that happens once every 80 years, 100 years, and most people never really live through one. Dalio said it himself. And so people don't really understand how to navigate these cycles. And it's really

• 19:05Speaker 02

  where, you know, the in currency terms and nominal currency terms, you have you have debt holders and and holders of cash that that lose out, right? They're programmed, almost politically programmed, to lose their purchasing power over time. And so how do you insulate yourself from that? And some people will say, you know, and traditionally Terms, it's own gold, right? It's it's own something that you can hold. Uh, that's not, you know, that's not someone else's liability that has a production cost. That's scarce. Um, and so kind of applying that framework uh to Bitcoin to current day. I believe that ultimately amount of a monetary asset that is absolutely scarce with uh inelastic supply relative to demand. With a production cost that's pretty much programmed to increase forever.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Uh, it's something that you want to own regardless of if it's down 50% from all time highs or i- is going parabolic. I'm a buyer and I want to buy more and I want to hold this thing, uh, something that's liquid in every jurisdiction in the world. And so I think that that's still very misunderstood. And all the pundits and skeptics are out because it's off 50% from the highs, but. In Bitcoin terms, this is nothing but a thing. We we've seen it happen, you know. Eight times throughout its history. Uh, it's really nothing new. I I haven't been around for all eight of those times or whatever it is. Uh, but you want to be a buyer of this thing because ultimately the end game is pretty clear. Uh, and if you study history, I think, you know, you'll come to the same conclusion.

• 20:20Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about uh Bitcoin, obviously all these asset prices are down in dollar terms right now. And I think that's what everyone's kind of paying attention to and freaking out. But over the last decade or so, most assets have been down significantly in Bitcoin denominated terms. How do you think about uh that difference? And are more and more people going to start to denominate assets in Bitcoin in terms of uh performance and and kind of uh their evaluation? Or do you think we're still a ways away from that?

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's obviously, it's obviously a little bit challenging to conduct economic calculation in something that's so volatile. Uh, but if you have, you know, a longer time horizon than a couple of weeks, a couple of months, right? Even if you just look back to the start of 2020, right? Bitcoin almost kind of front ran all of this inflation uh and and the monetary uh stimulus that we saw, right? Bitcoin is trading at $8,000 at the beginning of 2020, uh, beginning of 2020, right? So it's at 30,000 and everyone's calling it dead. It's it's it's somewhat ironic, but I think, you know, if you have a long time horizon and can afford to withstand some of its volatility. Right? You know, you're not, you you don't have to become a forced seller of this thing if you simply hold it in spot or cold storage. Uh, then conducting economic calculation in this and using it as a kind of a barometer for your savings.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Uh, or investing as a hurdle rate is something that's that's pretty optimal to do. And obviously, you know, saying that down 50%, you'll get a lot of hate. Uh, but ultimately, uh, anyone that, you know, has operated on this framework for for say four years. Has done historically extremely well, and I believe that to be true in the future.

• 21:45Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about kind of the market moving forward, are you doing anything differently in your portfolio or are you kind of considering other things to do than just simply stack sats?

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I've stacked a good amount this past couple of weeks. I've had limit orders that were filled that I felt like kind of dumb holding for a long time, just sitting in cash, waiting for them to be filled. Wasn't sure if they were. It was kind of my hedge around that, you know, 30 K level, 25 K level. Eventually, I think I will, you know, use Bitcoin as collateral, not the whole, not my whole stack, but optimally, you know, to go short dollar and invest in other investable assets, maybe Bitcoin itself. Certainly, you've seen, you know, big players like Michael Saylor do that. On a retail level, you can do the same, but you know, risk management is key. You never ever want to become a forced seller. So, you know, it's obviously, there's so many

• 22:37Speaker 02

  variables with using leverage. But ultimately, I'm kind of waiting for, I think, more volatility in the legacy system to play out and an eventual Fed pivot, which, you know, could happen 18 months from now, it could happen six months from now. No one really knows. But my kind of thinking leads me to believe that it will come. And so I think at that point, I will, you know, use a little bit of leverage and I guess go out on the risk curve, if you will.

• 23:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then when you start to think about Bitcoin as part of this narrative, one of the things that's fascinating to me is there's lots and lots of people saying Bitcoin, it didn't serve as an inflation hedge. Inflation's 8.3, 8.5 percent and, you know, it's a 40-year high and Bitcoin's down. My thought process has always been like, no, Bitcoin went up, you know, 400%, 500% before the inflation got here because people were moving their capital in anticipation of the inflation. But how do you view it? Is my view directionally kind of in line with yours? Or do you have some other way to kind of think about Bitcoin as an inflation hedge at the same time that the price is down?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you nailed it, right? Everyone said that, you know, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, when it went to, you know, 3,800 in March of 2020, people said it failed. And then it went up and went up to 6,000 and, you know, went an order of magnitude higher and people called it a bubble. And now it's down to 30 K, you know, 400% above where it was and people said it's failed, right? So the narrative continues to change Bitcoin continues next, you know, next block is mined. It continues to operate exactly as designed. And anybody that's, you know, just allocated to this asset over, you know, a few years and just, and you know, over, you know, an investable period, right? If you're holding this for less than a year, two years, you're more of a trader or speculator, right?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  And so everybody wants to buy blood until it comes and, you know, we're buying blood here and I'm perfectly happy to do it. So yeah, nothing has changed from that perspective and I agree with you and your framework of thinking about it that way.

• 24:27Anthony Pompliano?

  The last question I have for you is around this idea of the number of Bitcoin wallet addresses with point oh one Bitcoin. Just crossed over 10 million for the first time and that's about $300 worth of Bitcoin. How do you think about that metric? Is that an important metric? Is that something that we just should expect to continuously go up as more people come into the market? And so like, maybe it doesn't have as much signal as we should think, or just walk me through kind of your thought process with a metric like that. That just seems to only be on a one-way trip up into the right.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's certainly very interesting. There's obviously a ton of, sorry, phone's going off.

• 25:03Anthony Pompliano?

  No, you're good.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, certainly there's some signal there, right? The network continues to be adopted, you know, more people are using this, more people are being on boarded. But at the same time, there's a little bit of kind of, you know, like I can have multiple UTXOs, right? I don't need to put it into one address. So there's certainly maybe some, some, not error in that thinking, but I think also if you're thinking about kind of entrance over the last two years, most people, or not most people, but certainly a lot of adopters are just kind of, you know, using a centralized exchange, right? Maybe they're being on boarded directly to Lightning where that's not showing up and that's, you know, multiple, multiple people are holding kind of a centralized claim on Bitcoin. And certainly, you know, maybe that's not optimal for that kind of self-sovereignty,

• 25:49Speaker 02

  but people are free to kind of adopt this asset as they choose. And so I think it's a pretty cool stat, but it's, you know, it's not certainly reflective of, you know, say, hey, there's, you know, there's 10 million people that have, have $300 of Bitcoin, you know, there's that, that stat is kind of up, up for interpretation, but it's certainly pretty cool to see.

• 26:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The other thing that I always look at is like, how many people actually hold Bitcoin? And estimations I've seen range from, you know, 100 million to 300 million. I think it's probably the largest estimation that I've seen. And my take is always like, it's probably somewhere in between, right? Like, I don't know, 150, you know, maybe on the lower end of those estimations. But even if it was only 100 million, or even 50 million, like, to do that in, you know, 14 years or so is absolutely incredible. And to then see the fact that, you know, these individuals, at least in a generalized way, who have gone ahead and accumulated 0.01 Bitcoin, say that's worth $300. If all of a sudden, you continue to have this kind of play out, as I think you and I believe it will, that starts to become like, pretty material over time.

• 26:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And then your expectation would be that those wallet addresses will continue to stack SATs as well. And so that 0.01 will become obviously more than that over time. And so anytime that Bitcoin's price is down, people are able to accumulate more SATs, you know, on sale, right, or kind of at a cheaper price than they were able to a couple of months ago. And you gotta be careful, because if it's an asset that's gonna go to zero, then obviously you don't want to be buying it, right? If you look at some of the other assets that have gone down 99% or whatever. But if it's an asset that's a great asset, it kind of follows all the timeless investing principles. You get Warren Buffett, you know, saying, "Listen, we love to buy great assets and hold them forever." And then what does he do? He sits on cash, sits on cash, wastes a lot of blood in the streets, and he starts deploying, which he's doing right now in the stock market. And so I think that Bitcoiners in some way, even though maybe Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger,

• 27:35Anthony Pompliano?

  and that whole crowd isn't the biggest fan of Bitcoin, Bitcoin embodies a lot of the kind of timeless investing principles that, you know, those folks follow, right?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's also, should be said, you know, there can't be 100 million people, or, you know, globally, that they can't own Apple stock, right? Someone in Africa can't buy Amazon. They, you know, they, you can't, you know, if you're living in a developing nation, you don't want to be carrying around a bar of gold. But you can have a $50 smartphone and hold some Bitcoin, and memorize it in your head and walk across the border, right? So, so from the Western point of view, everyone's like, "Why would I own Bitcoin when I can just hold index funds?" Or, you know, and it's kind of a very, you know, check your financial privilege. Shout out to Alex Gladstein, you know... There's kind of this Western privileged point of view of, you know, why would I, why would I want self custody? Right. But there's, you know, billions of people don't have property rights. They're living in, they're living in hyperinflation. So to say, you know, why would you need Bitcoin?

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Or, you know, what's the point of self custody is a pretty ignorant kind of point of view to come from. And so in that, in that perspective, Bitcoin's pretty empowering.

• 28:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's awesome to kind of think through some of this stuff. Um, I appreciate you, uh, you joining us. I'm glad that you enjoyed your trip to, uh, to Europe. Uh, I saw many of the photos. Uh, it seemed like it was a, a great time, but, uh, uh, you came back and joined us right at the perfect moment where, uh, we, we need your help. So I, uh, I'm glad to have you back. Where can we send people to find you on the internet? Or, or sign up for any of the work that you're, uh, publishing?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, you know, as always, you can just find me on Twitter. Uh, I spend a lot of time there, interacting with people. Uh, publish more of the kind of advanced research with Bitcoin Magazine Pro. It's our, uh, free and paid newsletter, uh, sponsored by BitMEX, uh, new sponsor. Uh, we just kind of publish stuff four or five times a week. We put out really, you know, in-depth stuff. Uh, that covers more of the kind of the granular data, uh, that, that, you know, you wouldn't really see, uh, service level content. So you can, you can find me there.

• 29:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Well, listen, I appreciate you, uh, you take the time to join us. I know people were, uh, were very excited when, uh, we told them that you were coming back. Uh, and we'll, uh, we'll talk next Tuesday.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Appreciate it, Pomp.

• 29:36Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, later, buddy. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to pompscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period. Go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.