BITCOIN SAVES WESTERN CIVILIZATION | Alex Leishman - THE Bitcoin Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I see Bitcoin as a life raft for the United States.

(00:03):
I've talked to some senators and such who go,
well, isn't Bitcoin attacking the dollar?
And isn't the dollar what makes America powerful in the world?
And my response to that is always, well, no.
The U.S. government is destroying the dollar.
Bitcoin is going to be the life raft for Americans
so that we don't get totally wrecked
once the math of the fiscal situation of the U.S.
just inevitably plays out.

(00:24):
You might look at this and go,
well, America is the richest country in the world.
Isn't it unfair that Bitcoin just making America richer?
And maybe my hot take is fairness doesn't matter.
I care about my country.
I want America to disproportionately benefit from Bitcoin.
I actually don't agree that Bitcoin is going to like save the poor masses of the world.
That doesn't make any sense.
The economic problems in the third world are not due to money.

(00:46):
They're due to culture and other deeper issues that Bitcoin can't fix.
And so I actually view Bitcoin as a way to keep the crown jewels of our civilization,
the West, you know, like shining.
and that's the most important thing.
If that goes out, then the whole world goes dark.
And so that's what I think is the most important thing.
I think Bitcoin is going to help save Western civilization.

(01:09):
Our mission is to build the world's most trusted financial institution.
And I think the world's most trusted financial institution is going to be built on Bitcoin.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast.
Bitcoin continues to make new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

(01:34):
If you are listening to this right now, remember, you're still early.
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or just go directly to bitcoinpodcast.net.

(02:19):
You'll find it all there.
And kind reminder that you can support this show by becoming a paid subscriber on Fountain.
Or don't, Bitcoin doesn't care, but I sure do appreciate it.
Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.
Well, dude, it's good to have you on here.

(02:41):
I think we met at the Bitcoin Policy Summit.
You had just given a really awesome presentation to lawmakers and staffers and everything else.
And I was like, man, I really it's about time to get you on the show here.
So I'm glad we made this happen. I'm stoked to have you here, man.
Thanks. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I think my highlight of that event was it was great to meet you.

(03:03):
But I think I really enjoyed meeting Jim Justice's dog, baby dog.
That was probably my the highlight of my of my BPI conference.
that when that was happening and baby dog came up on stage it was like just like a what what is
going on moment like this kind of like beautiful thing like you've got the you know you've got a

(03:25):
political leader sitting up there with his just big old big old dog called baby dog putting on
bitcoin hats like it was it was quite surreal uh but honestly very cool it's it's cool to see the
bitcoinization of washington like we're we're trojan horsing them not the other way around you
Yeah, exactly. It was fun. It was fun.

(03:48):
Great. It's great to be on.
I've got to say, illuminating to – maybe you probably do this a lot more than I do, but talking to lawmakers and staffers was kind of an eye-opening experience for me.
Just in that I sort of realized I was like, oh, wow, most of our lawmakers are like very on the older side, to put it kindly.
but like all of their staffers seem to just be like fresh out of college and you've got this

(04:14):
just kind of giant like multiple generational gap between the people who are actually kind of doing
the behind the scenes work and then the people who are out there talking about that work and it just
it struck me as as very odd i guess i shouldn't be surprised that that's the way it is but
something about it was just very like so this is how the sausage is made kind of moment i don't know

(04:34):
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the interesting things about politics, and I've had my share of interactions in the mix of things, but unlike the business world where there's a lot of young business leaders, because you can be successful at business and then stop and you keep your money.
whereas in politics

(04:55):
if you're successful and you stop
you lose all your power
and so there's an interesting
dynamic in politics especially
where it's like
people just stay forever
because if they leave then
they lose everything they built
yeah
that's honestly quite
an interesting observation

(05:17):
then you've got the folks like Nancy Pelosi
where it's like boy
she's also built up quite a lot of money
So at least she's leaving politics with like an obscene amount of money.
I guess, you know, she really played the game, uh, the game well, so to speak.
But man, yeah, for the most part, it's like your, your position is your power.
Like you don't necessarily have the monetary or financial power that a business leader would

(05:40):
have.
But then in some of those rare cases, it's like, you just happen to be a really shockingly
great stock trader, not an insider information, of course, not an insider information, but
you just have to be really good at it.
So then you get to leave and, you know, retire with a couple hundred million dollars.
Like that's really, you know.
Well, I think with Pelosi, it was the combination of her political power and her husband's hedge fund.

(06:03):
Yeah.
You know, the sum is the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in that in that combo.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I mean, really, it is like the ultimate the ultimate kind of, I guess, political economic coupling there.
You just marry someone with a hedge fund and then get in political office.
And that is like, that is your ticket to infinite vacation homes, I guess.

(06:26):
Yeah, exactly.
But, but I digress.
Stoked to have you here.
Got a bunch of things I want to talk with you about for, as a full disclaimer, you guys in no way sponsor the show.
I'm just a really happy customer of river have been for a while, have used multiple different exchanges before river, like a bunch of different ones.
and now river is the only one that i recommend to people to like friends and family because it's the

(06:52):
only one that has proof of reserves maybe i don't know if some others have started now you can correct
me there but i think you guys were like the first to really publicly do it and make that a cornerstone
but then also like it's it's bitcoin only and uh you guys seem extremely mission and vision aligned
with what I believe, you know, the Bitcoin ethos can have many components, but there are some core

(07:14):
things, I think. And I feel like you guys really embody that. So yeah, just want to, again, clarify,
nobody's paying me to say this. I just really like your product and I'm super grateful that
you guys have built it. I know a shitload of work went into it. Well, I really appreciate hearing
that. It feels good. It's been, you know, yeah, almost seven years of hard work now.
And the proof of reserves thing was definitely big. There have been other exchanges that have had

(07:38):
proof of reserves in some capacity. Kraken has had it for a while and they've done it sort of
directionally on an annual basis. Bitnex has done it for a while and other exchanges do it to some
degree, but it's, they're all kind of like, there's varying levels of how good it is. We really just
said, okay, how do we make this super, super easy to understand and validate? And I do, I think we're

(08:04):
the only Bitcoin-only company that has proof of reserves as well.
So that's an interesting thing.
I want to get into kind of some of the history of River as well.
But from the perspective of Bitcoin-only,
maybe this is a silly question for people who are Bitcoin-only themselves.
But just for anybody who stumbles across this, who perhaps is not Bitcoin-only,

(08:27):
Can you explain why you guys only offer Bitcoin and you don't offer every, you know, fart coin under the sun?
Like, why do that when you can probably make more money if you also sell shit coins?
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It's a great question.
And really, there's two answers.
One is economics. I think like there is just room in the market for a product that focuses on bringing Bitcoin to the world as money and not just an asset to trade more of.

(11:14):
And so, you know, when you look at what River is able to build and compare it to like a Coinbase, well, there's just a fundamental challenge you have once you add multiple assets where your product now has this degree of freedom and this level of complexity that prevents you from building a super streamlined, simple, elegant app to focus on doing one thing and doing it really, really well.

(11:39):
And so sort of like the grug brain is like Bitcoin is the most important.
Build the best Bitcoin app, only do Bitcoin.
If we focus on that, it will just be better than everyone else.
And so we can eat, you know, Coinbase's lunch eventually when people realize that, well, really, they just want Bitcoin.
They don't want all these long tails of speculative assets.
And to the extent they do, that's a very different customer base.

(12:01):
That's more of just a gam, you know, it's more of a casino.
So and then there's the spiritual component.
Like, I don't want to run a casino.
You know, I want to run a business where I can say the vast majority, you know, 99 plus percent of the clients that have ever used my service are wealthier because of it.
And I don't think that the multi-coin exchanges can say the same.

(12:26):
That is definitely and very sadly true.
I mean, I really, I do applaud that because I think that it's one of the hard things about getting people like friends and family, especially into Bitcoin is like often, you know, in the past, if I would send somebody to Coinbase, let's say, they would, okay, they finally decide I'm going to go on Coinbase and maybe I'll listen to Walker and I'll finally get a little bit of Bitcoin.

(12:50):
But they get on there and then they see literally hundreds of other shiny coins.
Unit bias is very real.
I myself suffered from it when I first got into, well, I didn't even get into Bitcoin at this point.
It was after ignoring Bitcoin for several years in 2017 when things were, you know, right at the blow off top, basically.
I bought it the worst possible time.

(13:11):
But I didn't buy Bitcoin.
I bought Litecoin because I thought I don't have enough, like I'm not wealthy enough to buy Bitcoin right now.
Didn't know I could buy Satoshi's worth.
I didn't know I could buy a fraction.
bought a couple of Litecoins. Those, I mean, never even, I sold them in a loss years later
when I remembered I had them and then started buying Bitcoin again or buying Bitcoin for the
first time. But like, that's a real challenge when you're trying to onboard people to Bitcoin

(13:33):
and they're bombarded then with all of this gambling, all of these tokens.
And then you need to go like, it's like, dang, I already got them to kind of put my foot in the
door there to get them to try Bitcoin. And now I've got to go in and explain to them, no, listen,
And here's why all of these are scams, which is a good conversation to have.
But it's just like it's another layer of friction that prevents people from just going into Bitcoin, saving in Bitcoin and preserving their wealth through that.

(13:59):
So it's like, I mean, I get why these other guys do it, you know, but I'm glad that there are folks like you out there who are, I think, who are pursuing a more clear cut path.
And I think that's ultimately going to serve you guys better. Right.
I mean, that's part of your thesis is, look, this is a better business decision for us.
Yes. You know, there's two ways to think about running a business, right? One is how much can you extract from your customers, right? That's how you frame your thinking. How much can I get out of these customers? And that will make you money, right?

(14:35):
But then there's the other way of thinking about it and which I think Henry Ford does a really good job of describing in his autobiography, which is actually you should be obsessing about how much value can I deliver to my clients.
And the company that obsesses about that will make the most money in the long term.
And so you can only wring your clients dry and get them gambling in the casino for so long.

(14:59):
And so that I do think has an expiration date.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it definitely doesn't. I think you will, you'll end up putting so many more people off of crypto, of Bitcoin specifically, like so many people get wrecked by shit coins, and then say, well, this whole thing is a scam, Bitcoin included, because they lump it all in.

(15:22):
And I think that's actually been incredibly detrimental to Bitcoin adoption more broadly.
This is why we tell people, you know, Bitcoin only, like don't shit coin, it's bad for you.
Because ultimately people just get hurt, people get burned.
Maybe they're up for a few weeks or a couple of months or even a year and they feel like a genius.
But then inevitably, like it all trends to zero versus Bitcoin.

(15:44):
You should have just stacked in Bitcoin.
You're probably not a good trader, like unless you're one of like a very small percentage of people.
And so like just focus on Bitcoin.
But shit coins aside, I'd love to know – OK, you said you started River seven years ago.
You are both the CEO and the CTO, correct?
Yeah.
I just run – I'm sort of the dictator.

(16:09):
About six and a half, seven years, February 2019 is when we started.
And yeah, I wear both hats.
And the reason for that is, you know, River is, first and foremost, a technology business.
And, you know, by having strong opinions about the technical direction and the business strategy in one brain, you know, those things can be much more seamlessly merged and executed on.

(16:35):
And in the modern era, like, you know, most businesses are technology businesses.
And so this concept of like CTO and CEO, I think is, you know, it will still exist, but it's not as like distinct as it used to be.
No, I think that makes perfect sense.
And like it's like every business is an Internet business ultimately, right?

(16:56):
You know, like every business is a technology business when it comes down to it.
How did you actually start?
Like was it just you?
Did you have co-founders?
Because you've done actually a lot of the actual building, developing of it from the software side, correct?
Yeah, I wrote a good amount of the early code.
But, you know, when building a business, right, you can only do that job so much.

(17:19):
I've leaned very heavily on my engineering team who's done the vast majority of the actual implementation work from the early days.
I wrote more code much more in the first year than I have since.
So really kind of the back story is I built my career in the Bitcoin industry. I started going back to 2013. I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue a career in Bitcoin. I really loved Bitcoin and came into Bitcoin because I was really interested in alternate money and building a currency and a money that the federal government couldn't print more of and control.

(17:59):
I heard stories growing up of my great grandfather, you know, having his gold confiscated under, you know, by Franklin Roosevelt and things like this.
And so, you know, I had and I, you know, I was always a very sort of like liberty minded.
And so I kind of had like the sort of the pieces in my head to make me interested in this kind of thing.
But I was an engineer as well. I studied aerospace engineering in college.

(18:20):
And so anyways, I sort of fell in love with this a year after I graduated and decided to move to the Bay Area to pursue a career as a software engineer and work on Bitcoin.
So I have mostly been doing that ever since.
Went back to grad school out there.
I helped teach the first Bitcoin class at Stanford in the computer science department as a teaching assistant.
And then eventually was working at an investment fund, a crypto investment fund called Polychain.

(18:45):
And I was mostly focused on the Bitcoin side of things And it was fun I had a good time saw it met a lot of different people a lot of different companies and investors And that gave me a lot of exposure to the investor world
And I had always wanted to start this kind of Bitcoin bank sort of company. And I finally
realized, okay, I finally had what I needed to get this thing off the ground. And so I left

(19:07):
Polychain and they led the fundraising round for River. Early on, my cousin Andrew was a co-founder
of the business. He handled the operations side of things for the first two years. But
we've come a long way since then. We're about 70 people now. We have about $2.5 billion of

(19:30):
assets under custody. And our mission is to build the world's most trusted financial institution.
And I think the world's most trusted financial institution is going to be built on Bitcoin.
And our vision for the world is that people and businesses will increasingly save in Bitcoin.

(19:51):
But for the foreseeable future, they'll keep spending and earning in dollars largely.
I don't think the dollar is going away tomorrow.
And so we're really leaning into the kind of the pragmatic reality too and to build what is best for consumers that fits into their life.
So I'll stop there.
Hopefully that answers the question.

(20:11):
No, I love it.
I mean, one of the interesting things that – I forget exactly when you guys introduced it, but you started offering like very attractive interest rates on any cash like USD that was kept in River.
It's very attractive by itself, but it's really attractive compared to what you can get at basically any normal bank.

(20:33):
Like this is just far and away.
Like I mean interest rates on a savings account in a bank have honestly just become a joke.
Like you're not getting anything.
I mean, it's been like fractions of a percent at most banks, certain banks, you know, you can get a little bit more.
But it's, again, jokingly small, like not even coming close to keeping up with stated inflation, let alone real inflation.

(20:57):
So, I mean, when I saw that, like my first thought was, oh, like this is like a Bitcoin bank.
But it's, you know, like it's better at being a normal bank than a regular bank is to.
Like, is that kind of where you guys see this going? Like Bitcoin enabling you as a business to not only do the Bitcoin side of things, yes, but like to do the, let's say the fiat side of things better than the fiat institutions currently are?

(21:20):
Well, you know, we want to be the financial app for your life, for your savings. Right. And today that means Bitcoin and dollars. Right.
And so in order to do the dollar side of things, we do have to partner with an actual real bank. We're not actually a chartered bank. Like we don't have an account at the Federal Reserve.
So we partner with a bank who does and we work very closely with them, a bank called Lead Bank. And our client's cash is FDIC insured through that partnership with Lead. And the cash there is managed very conservatively, right? They don't lend out crypto deposits is the policy.

(21:59):
And so basically our client's cash is just kept at the Fed. And we just pass through as much as we can because our business model isn't lending cash to earn interest and taking a cut. Our business model is Bitcoin brokerage. So we can really just give all that back to our clients, whereas banks are just keeping it. And so that's kind of the behind the scenes of that, the cash side of things for River.

(22:25):
So that's where the yield comes from, for anyone wondering.
That's where the yield comes from.
Basically, the Fed overnight rate is where the yield's coming from.
And now, you know, one of the insights was, well, one, pretty much all exchanges are just keeping the interest from cash deposits.

(22:48):
two so I was thinking well it'd be really cool if we paid back any interest for on cash people had
and this is back to that that mindset of how to run a business how do you provide as much value
to your clients as you can right if that's your mindset you come up with ideas like this
and and then really well it'd be even cooler if the interest was paid in bitcoin and so that's

(23:10):
that's where how this idea came up and so that's so now you know the product we call bitcoin interest
on cash. Your cash at River just earns interest and it's paid in Bitcoin and you accrue Bitcoin
every day. And so let's say you say, you know, I always want to have $10,000 in cash savings,
right? You can have that $10,000 FDIC insured. You're not, you're not putting it, you're not

(23:33):
investing in Bitcoin or anything or risking it and just earns you Bitcoin every day. And that's
kind of cool. And yeah, so it's been a popular product. We have over $200 million of deposits
for that. Wow. I mean, was that pretty, I mean, did you see that ramp up to where you're at right
now with 200 million? Did you see that happen pretty, pretty quickly? Like was, was the response

(23:56):
generally just like, yes? Well, yeah. I mean, it, it, it started growing very quickly. Um,
I mean, before people really had no major reason to keep dollars on river unless they had like a
target price order or, you know, just needed it there temporarily. But, um, well, once,
once we started paying this interest, yeah, it grew very quickly and it's, I mean, it continues
to grow. So it's really just, you know, just been an upward, upward trajectory. And, and we launched

(24:23):
today, we just launched direct deposit to make it even easier to get cash to river, you can auto
convert it for zero fees to Bitcoin to that was my MacBook magic. And then, and then we'll, you
know, we're, we're, like, we're moving towards is we want to be able to just be a full, you know,
like a fully a full bank replacement for you uh we want you to be able to get paid to river

(24:46):
pay your bills from river do everything you need for your with your savings your bitcoin and your
dollars on river i think it's a it's a really nice goal because again this idea of like the dollar
isn't going away tomorrow right like i'm it's it's just it's it's not going to happen tomorrow
i don't know like eventually i think that it will i also think that if the dollar if and when the

(25:11):
dollar falls and eventually like every fiat currency is doomed right but when the dollar
falls that will probably mean most other fiat currencies in the world have already fallen
maybe fallen multiple times like like the dollar is the prettiest horse at the glue factory it's
the skinniest kid at fat camp like like it or not this is the reality like it's going to be
around longer than most other fiats and who knows how long that is but like until then sadly we do

(25:35):
need to interact in many times in dollars and so it's like you know the idea of meeting people where
they are, right? But at least giving them something that's a little bit of a better tool
than the current joke of like keeping your money in, you know, JPMorgan Chase checking accounts
and savings accounts, which is just like, you're just not getting anything.
0.01 is what Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America pay. We pay 3.5. Our interest rate is 3.5 instead

(26:02):
of 0.01. So even if you don't care about Bitcoin, it's actually way better. And
And yeah, and to your point about the dollars are prettiest horse in the glue factory or whatever, really one of the insights I've had is I've spent a lot of time in Argentina over the last few years.

(26:24):
I just really love it down there.
And the inflation has ebbed and flowed.
It's chilling out recently with Millay, but it was really picked up a lot five years ago or so.
But the one thing I noticed was even when the inflation was crazy, inflation beyond anything Americans have ever experienced, people still transacted in pesos.

(26:49):
They didn't hold on to the pesos, but they still transacted in them because the network effect for the payment system is just so insanely sticky that your currency can be trash and everyone knows it's trash.
and so they're saving in dollars or saving in something you know harder but they're still
transacting in the in the fiat you know even though it's really crappy and so that's one of

(27:12):
those things that goes you know what that made me realize like the dollar is not going away anytime
soon uh for for transactions and so we should we can't run away from that i mean yeah like network
effects are are very real uh and and again like it's it's true i spent a decent amount of time
in Turkey. And it's a similar thing over there where inflation has been absolutely brutal,

(27:34):
not quite on the level of Argentina, but really, really horribly bad. And people still like they,
they certainly don't keep any money in, you know, in the Turkish lira, but they still,
you know, use it because it's like, that's what most people accept as a medium machine.
They will happily take dollars. If you go to the bazaar, they will happily take dollars, euros,

(27:57):
Bitcoin, you know, anything, you see a lot more of those signs, you know, we accept Bitcoin starting
to pop up because they are really happy to take it and hold on to it because it actually, you know,
will preserve the value of their wealth. And people in Argentina and Turkey and any other
country experiencing inflation, severe inflation or hyperinflation, like they end up adopting
Bitcoin, you know, out of that necessity versus like, well, this is nice. This is a good investment

(28:21):
for me. It's like, no, this is a lifeline for me to actually be able to save something for my future
that just can't be inflated away.
And like in the U.S., we're very, you know,
Gladstein said you have like check your financial privilege.
Like it's very true.
A lot of people view this still as Bitcoin.
It's like, well, it's a speculative investment.
It's, you know, that hyperinflation won't happen here.
We don't need to think about that.
But it's like it happens everywhere eventually.

(28:44):
And, you know, hyperinflation is here.
It's just not evenly distributed yet, I guess,
would be another way to say that.
But yeah.
Yeah.
True.
Well, so another thing I wanted to kind of talk to you about
is just generally like you guys see a lot of the behind the scenes of people's behaviors
when it comes to times like this.
We were just talking before we got on about, let's see,

(29:05):
what's current Bitcoin fiat exchange rate is just above $100,000.
It's like $100,800.
The meme of Bitcoin crashes to $100,000 is officially real.
But there's a lot of fear right now.
There's a lot of, I think, anxiety.
people wondering like, is this, you know, is this bull run already over before it began?

(29:29):
I'd love if you can talk a little bit about like, what are you guys seeing behind the scenes in
terms of your customers' behavior? What is that showing you and what do you think that says about
the larger state of the market? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, we do a lot of
aggregate analysis internally to see high level trends, like what's happening. And what we've

(29:50):
seen is that one throughout this whole price crash down to 100k we haven't had a single day
where there wasn't net buying on river right so every day there's been net buying the lowest it
got was like 60 percent sort of buy sell ratio um but river clients for every day for the past

(30:12):
month have been net buyers additionally um we did some analysis of like how many people
you know like we did like a paper hands analysis.
We said okay how many people just totally
were like freaked out and sold everything
because what we want to know is
well we don't want our clients
that to happen to our clients right.

(30:34):
We don't want anyone to have used River
and then like at the end of the day
they just like quit and like lost wealth
and it was a very small number.
Very small number.
Like handful of people
kind of ran away and sold everything.
So what we're seeing is anecdotally as well,

(30:55):
people buying a dip.
People are like, I actually do believe in this long term.
I've seen, they've been on the sidelines
and seen, and maybe last cycle were the ones who said,
oh, look at these dumb Bitcoin people.
They're just going to lose everything.
And I think that has kind of played out.
No one says that anymore, right?

(31:15):
And I think we're now at sort of like this critical mass of like actually people are just buying the dip now.
They're seeing this as an opportunity.
And then the question is, OK, well, if that's happening, then why is it dipping?
Right. Why is the price going down?
And no one knows for sure.
These are complex market dynamics with lots of information that people don't have access to.
But I think it's a combination of one whales who have been holding Bitcoin for like 15 years going, you know what?

(31:41):
I kind of want to like just start allocating some of this wealth to other things.
using it, who knows, starting new businesses, buying estates, buying private jets, things like
this. And then there's also just sort of the macro uncertainty. But I do think a lot of it is just

(32:03):
big whales selling. And then, you know, some people will say, well, there's paper Bitcoin,
You know, there's a lot of funny business happening.
Like the challenge with that claim is there's no proof.
It's hard to prove it's not happening.
But, you know, we try to at least prove it can't happen on River because we do proof of reserves.

(32:26):
So we can prove to you we're not selling paper Bitcoin.
Other people can't prove that.
And so maybe, but it's not the simplest explanation.
I would agree with you on the OG whales thing.
I think that's, I mean, there's been a couple of very public cases of this, right, where it was like the galaxy processing like 80,000 Bitcoin for that one whale.

(32:47):
I mean like an unfathomable amount of Bitcoin for the average person.
Like, I mean, heck, for the average country, you know, that's a shocking amount of Bitcoin.
But like that was like one whale moving that, right?
There was the other one with I think 20,000 Bitcoin.
There's certainly many others of those.
There are people that have been around for a very long time.
they have held Bitcoin through the ups and the downs and multiple cycles like and maybe they

(33:12):
mined it on their laptop and now they're like yeah okay a hundred thousand you know fiat cuck bucks
for one of these coins that I essentially got for just the power that it took to you know power my
CPU yeah I'll take that I'll you know I'll get myself a Jeff Bezos mega yacht now I deserve it
and like more power to him do whatever you want with your money but it is interesting I feel the

(33:32):
the narratives around paper Bitcoin,
they never really creep in when the price is going up.
It's typically, you know, when the price is going down
that a lot of these narratives, it seems, creep in there.
And it just feels like probably the simpler explanation is
there are a ton of OGs with a ton of Bitcoin
and they've held since effectively zero.

(33:54):
And now they're selling.
And maybe it is just that simple,
But like people love to like hindsight 2020, you know, reverse attribute things to I feel like various narratives.
But it's amazing that you're seeing.
So, I mean, do you think you guys are unique in that regard, though, because you are a Bitcoin only exchange?

(34:15):
Because people that are coming to you are perhaps more laser focused on Bitcoins?
There's less paper handedness.
Like I know you don't have any necessarily data from these other exchanges, but like do you have a gut feeling about that?
Yeah, I mean, I think that maybe it's more just that retail is actually less paper handed than the big money is really what's moving things right now. And so, you know, arguably what we're seeing is actually and so, you know, for context, we serve sort of that that middle, right, sort of retail, you know, got folks with a good job and and and up to, you know, wealthy individuals.

(34:53):
But we're not serving like the very – we're not serving the hedge funds.
We're not serving the like super sophisticated.
You know, you have $10 billion of Bitcoin and you're trying to like do advanced trading things to sell it super optimally.
Like we don't serve like that tier of the market.
And so I think our user base is just buying and that the sell pressure is coming from this like this bigger money.

(35:20):
And so arguably we're seeing like a redistribution of coins and that's probably a great thing for the long-term health of Bitcoin.
I was going to say like it's a better thing to have a more – like to have the market be more spread out, right?
You want that.
You want those coins to cycle from the whales, from the people who took the biggest risks to people who are now – yeah, they're buying Bitcoin at 100K.

(35:46):
maybe they're going to sell it at a million but like that's that just and so it goes right like
we're still at just very early levels of adoption it feels like yes extremely early you know yes
exactly i'm curious too because i know you guys you do service like you put out a report as well
just on like business adoption of bitcoin and because a lot of the i feel like a lot of the

(36:07):
focus this um in these you know this past year has been on the etfs understandably um it was
historically good, great ETF launch, you know, and then also on the Bitcoin treasury companies.
But there's this kind of other cohort of just businesses who are buying Bitcoin. Can you speak
to that a little bit? Because when I saw the report, it was actually a larger than I thought

(36:29):
it was going to be, like shockingly so. Yeah. And I think this is the most exciting trend we've seen.
We've seen a major growth in the amount of just normal main street businesses buying Bitcoin. And
And I kind of joke, these are the real Bitcoin treasury companies, right?
These are, you know, it's a profitable business run by an entrepreneur who themselves believes in Bitcoin.

(36:52):
And typically, you know, they realize they're buying Bitcoin for themselves.
Like, well, the next logical thing is to do it for my business.
And so we're seeing, and so we don't serve, you know, the ETFs and stuff like that.
That's Coinbase.
You know, they're doing very sophisticated, you know, things.
Um, we're serving, uh, we're serving people running restaurants, running plumbing businesses,

(37:14):
running, uh, one of my favorite ones is a hot dog stand, uh, um, up, up to large businesses,
large food services companies, um, large IT firms.
Uh, but the, the, the sort of core underlying underpinning theme here is these are real
businesses with real profits that they're allocating into Bitcoin.
and we serve thousands of them

(37:35):
and that's grown a lot this year.
And so it's a really, really cool development.
But what I was going to maybe pull up on the screen here is just to share that piece from that report just this chart which I thought was really cool So basically showing these buyers here and this is kind of wild when you look at it
Like the conventional businesses were, again, this high as it relates to funds and ETFs, Bitcoin treasury companies.

(38:02):
Conventional businesses are fully holding their own.
Like that's a pretty incredible thing.
Yes.
it's been a great trend
you're talking about
are you talking about them just sort of like
buying for their own treasury or
self custody or what
well yeah I mean just

(38:23):
generally it's like
I feel like people discount
perhaps the fact that there are
while there may be not a ton
of Bitcoiners out there relative to the total population
the people out there that
our Bitcoiners tend to be a lot like a high concentration of entrepreneurs. I would say,
again, this is anecdotal, but just like from personal experience, a lot of entrepreneurs,

(38:45):
a lot of people who are, you know, maybe they have a family business, something else.
But as you said earlier, like there is that natural tendency to say, okay, I'm buying Bitcoin
for myself. Why wouldn't I also buy it for my business? Like if I actually believe that this
thing is, is, is what it is, I would be silly not to. Right. And I feel like we're going to
see that accelerate because again, we're just, we're so darn early in this cycle. Like I think,

(39:09):
or not just in the cycle, but overall, like if you look at it, I mean, I don't know if you guys
have better data on this, but I'm guessing like total ownership of Bitcoin, like as part of the,
you know, worldwide population, it's like, it's less than a percent. Like it's still a tiny,
tiny fraction, right? So it's, we have a lot of room to go. And I think seeing businesses do this

(39:30):
is a super heartening sign.
Seeing individuals do it is also heartening.
But like for a business, like this makes sense.
It's just kind of like that thesis
that eventually every business is a Bitcoin business.
Every business is a technology business.
Like you're going to hold Bitcoin
if you don't want to keep getting debased, right?
Yes, exactly.
And we did some analysis of like,

(39:50):
what if Apple had put one or 2% of their treasury in Bitcoin?
I don't know if that's on, maybe that's on page three.
I can't remember which chart it was.
Ownership distribution there.
Oh, no, that's a different one.
But, you know, if you go through the report, you'll find some interesting things.
We show sort of like what's the impact of Bitcoin in a treasury and protecting against inflation.

(40:14):
We did the analysis.
The applet allocated like one or two percent of Bitcoin to their treasury.
Five years ago, they would have not lost any.
They would have maintained their purchasing power as opposed to having lost purchasing power.
We also show the breakdown of the different industries buying Bitcoin on River.

(40:37):
And so –
I think I got this one somewhere.
I'll find it here.
Yeah.
This is –
Here we go.
Oh, yeah.
There we go.
Real estate up at the top, huh?
Yeah, because it's interesting.
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because real estate people really like hard assets.

(41:03):
They like something that's scarce.
But they also know that real estate is really annoying.
And they look at Bitcoin's performance and go, wait, hold on a second.
You're telling me I can beat my returns from real estate and not have to deal with tenants and plumbing and all of this nonsense?
like why wouldn't I do that?

(41:28):
It is super interesting.
Construction is another one.
Construction, you know,
but it's really across the board.
We also see a lot of non-profits.
We see a lot of churches.
We see a lot of software firms
like IT consulting firms

(41:50):
or things like this.
It's like, you know, industries where people would know sort of know about Bitcoin.
And yeah, healthcare is also another one.
Lots of doctor's offices, dentists.
It's not actually like super obvious why some of these are so popular.

(42:11):
Maybe we're just plugged into certain networks and we get a lot of referrals.
But I think there's something else.
like i don't know why there's so many more doctors than sort of agriculture you know buying bitcoin
um maybe it's the doctors just have more wealth to allocate somewhere else not sure
no it's i mean it's it's really interesting the real estate one honestly like makes that makes a

(42:32):
ton of sense and i think you you've seen that like i've seen this from some like bigger name
people in real estate like start to start to really talk about this as like now we're going
of structure deals with Bitcoin incorporated into them because this just makes sense going
forward.
And I mean, honestly, the other side from the if you're renting out, you know, you got a

(42:52):
bunch of tenants like, man, Bitcoin is a lot easier to manage than tenants and a rental
property.
So I can definitely see the need for diversification there.
It's also very heartening to see, I guess, that a lot of, you know, the second highest
one there is just, I assume Bitcoin
services is just other Bitcoin
like Bitcoin companies, right, who are taking
a portion of their proceeds and

(43:14):
putting them into their own treasury, correct?
Yeah, and you know, there's a lot
of different kinds, right? There's
miners,
there's like mining
repair firms, there's
software businesses,
there's a lot of different types of things
in Bitcoin services.
Yeah.
I love to see

(43:36):
the other chart here that is just kind of like, uh, kind of mind blowing.
Whereas it was just like total, uh, total, uh, corporate treasury adoption.
I think, uh, where was this somewhere along here?
I just skipped over it earlier.
I'll find it again, but just, oh, here it is.
The like number of Bitcoin treasury companies, uh, with at least 10 Bitcoin like that.
I mean, talk about going parabolic.

(43:57):
Like that's just kind of wild.
And it's like, it starts with one, right?
It starts with strategy.
And I mean, I guess you could, you know, there were Bitcoin companies with more than 10 Bitcoin, but like we're talking, this is specifically about like explicit Bitcoin treasury companies, correct?
Yes, this is like, because if you look at the y-axis is, you know, hitting about 50.

(44:18):
So this is, you know, these Bitcoin treasury companies that are trying to go public and financialize.
And, you know, we're not taking a stance on whether that's good or bad.
I am personally skeptical that the vast majority of these make sense.
But that's just that's not that maybe that's a different conversation.
Yeah.
No, I feel I share the skepticism there.

(44:40):
I think there are there will emerge a couple of key players.
And I think it's getting fairly clear who those are.
I also think that a lot of this, it's like skepticism aside, like this was kind of an inevitable inevitable results of Bitcoin being successful.
Right.
Of course you were going to see this. Of course you're going to see nation states jumping into this as well.

(45:02):
Like it just makes sense. If Bitcoin was winning, if Bitcoin is winning, everyone is going to want it.
Like that's just kind of the reality of the situation. It doesn't have to be good or bad.
You don't have to like it or not like it. It's just like that's just the way it works.
Like people want harder money. They want a better way to save the value of their time and energy.
And they're going to find it. And they happen to find a really good one in Bitcoin.

(45:26):
Yep, exactly.
Another thing I wanted to talk to you about, and oh, I did actually just find maybe it's worthwhile for me to pop this one up on screen since you mentioned it, just to show folks the Apple side of things, which is pretty interesting.
So pulling this up here, yeah, big tech treasury performances since 2020.

(45:48):
So that's pretty remarkable when you see basically this is kind of like real terms would actually happen and what would have happened with just a 1% allocation.
Is that correct?
Okay.
I mean that's wild.
So you end up losing tens of billions in purchasing power if you're just holding dollars and gaining tens of billions in purchasing power if you just do a 1% allocation to Bitcoin.

(46:11):
That's just kind of crazy that with that small of an allocation it has such an outsized impact.
Yep. Yep.
That is, yeah, that is just wild.
Okay. So another thing I wanted to talk to you about was, and this was the topic of your presentation at the Bitcoin Policy Summit, was sort of Bitcoin in America.

(46:32):
And you guys did another great report on this. I can maybe pull some charts up from that as well in a little bit.
But can you talk about this like more broadly?
Because it's a pretty cool thing for you to be able to go and speak in front of these lawmakers and talk about this American Bitcoin advantage.
But, you know, you guys are obviously like you're based in America, American company.

(46:53):
I don't know if you service any other jurisdictions besides America currently or is it just USA?
It's pretty much the U.S.
We serve some select international individuals.
And that's something we'll probably scale up a bit next year.
But we're not entering like the consumer, you know, like we're not like entering Europe, you know, supporting the euro or like the pound or anything like that.
So we're pretty much an American company.

(47:13):
We operate here to the extent that anyone in other countries is using us.
They're like, we're still operating here.
They're just like opening accounts here and using dollars and Bitcoin.
So, yes.
And I think like sort of my own, you know, I think for anyone who follows me, they know like I'm deeply American.
My, you know, my family goes back to the 1630s in the United States.

(47:34):
Like this is my country.
I feel very deeply in protecting the United States and ensuring it can continue to thrive and prosper.
I think Bitcoin plays an important role there. And so, you know, we did an analysis, we did a whole report on, you know, what is Bitcoin done for the United States? What, you know, how does the US compare to other countries in the world in terms of Bitcoin holdings, businesses, things like that?

(48:01):
I mean, really what we saw was America's, unsurprisingly, like the Bitcoin country, you know, about 40% of Bitcoin is held by American people or businesses.
And it's by far sort of the biggest market.
It's also very culturally aligned, right?
Bitcoin is this idea of freedom, distrust of government, and economic independence.

(48:30):
And that's something that is, you know, downstream of the ideals of the American Revolution and the culture that sort of built that.
So it makes sense that it's very popular here.
No, it doesn't. I mean, seeing some of the data in this report is kind of wild because, again, I mean, this isn't just about who has the most in their Bitcoin strategic reserve.

(48:59):
if they even have a Bitcoin strategic reserve in terms of the other countries.
Basically, the countries that own Bitcoin, by and large,
own it because they have confiscated it through law enforcement action.
And so far, the U.S., that's what they have it from, too.
Notable exceptions, El Salvador, Kingdom of Bhutan,
I think a couple others who are actively mining Bitcoin or buying Bitcoin.

(49:19):
But mostly it's these confiscation efforts.
But even the other part of that is just what do the citizens themselves own?
And at a time where there's like, you know, central banks are stockpiling gold, allegedly, who knows if it's just, you know, tungsten wrapped in gold leafing. We don't really know. I haven't said it personally. But it's really interesting to see just what individuals are doing across the world and how actually dominant America is in that regard.

(49:46):
Like you look at some of these numbers and it's just like it's I mean, it's it's kind of shocking.
Like just what a huge percentage of this is held by Americans, American businesses like it's it's very much dominant.
Yes. And, you know, maybe I can say a few spicy things that will, you know, that maybe my hot takes.

(50:12):
I think Bitcoin is, I see Bitcoin as a life raft for the United States.
I think, you know, I've talked to some senators and such who go, well, is Bitcoin, you know, isn't Bitcoin attacking the dollar?
And isn't the dollar what makes, you know, America powerful in the world?
And my response to that is always, well, no, the U.S. government is destroying the dollar.

(50:37):
Bitcoin is going to be the life raft for Americans so that we don't get totally wrecked once the math of the fiscal situation of the U.S. just inevitably plays out.
And then, sure, there's this other thing.
Well, you might look at this and go, well, America is the richest country in the world.
Isn't it unfair that Bitcoin is just making America richer?

(50:58):
And maybe my hot take is fairness doesn't matter.
I care about my country.
I want America to disproportionately benefit from Bitcoin.
I actually don't agree that Bitcoin is going to save the poor masses of the world.
That doesn't make any sense.
I don't think – or save the unbanked.
People don't have banks because they're poor.

(51:21):
Giving someone a bank doesn't make someone rich.
The economic problems in the third world are not due to money.
They're due to culture and other deeper issues that Bitcoin can't fix.
And so I actually view Bitcoin as a way to keep the crown jewels of our civilization, the West, you know, like shining.

(51:45):
And that's the most important thing.
If that goes out, then the whole world goes dark.
And so that's what I think is the most important thing.
Bitcoin isn't going to help Uganda.
I just don't believe that.
I think Bitcoin is going to help save Western civilization.
That is indeed spicy.
because let's unpack that a little bit more

(52:06):
because you've got the store of value side of this, right?
And then you also obviously have the medium of exchange side.
And it is, I think, probably pretty demonstrably true
that from a medium of exchange standpoint,
if you don't have access to banks and you have to use cash
or you have to use gold,

(52:28):
those both suck in terms of being able to transact
in any meaningful way outside of just a very small local,
circle, right? Like you can't send physical cash around the world. I mean, you could use
Western Union as a go-between, but that's just terrible. Gold, even worse. Like, so Bitcoin is
useful there. But I absolutely see what you're saying in terms of like, there are other underlying

(52:50):
problems that need to be addressed. Why wasn't there a bank? Why isn't there a bank?
Yeah.
Right? Like, that's asking a question like halfway into a story. Well, it's like, well,
You know, and I kind of came to these opinions a long time ago in life when I did some development work in various countries and was like, well, hold on a second.

(53:12):
Like, why am I building this water tank?
Why aren't they building the water tank?
And, you know, I kind of came to the conclusion that it's a lot more complicated than like the West can just give technology to these countries and they'll just, you know, thrive.
Like, I fundamentally don't believe that.
well yeah that's uh the whole concept of like foreign aid right and whether or not that is

(53:37):
actually an effective means of lifting up countries like it kind of it gets back to that
like if if foreign aid was effective foreign aid would have been effective but it's so many times
like you know where i would be able to bring it back to the money is like so much of the foreign
aid that comes is first of all just through these you know rampantly corrupt uh shell companies and

(53:57):
NGOs that are actually just completely full of shit and don't actually, you know, like
whatever, 5% of it actually gets to its intended destination.
The rest is just grift by people, you know, operating at higher levels.
And then you've got the whole IMF, right?
And the World Bank and those very fiat epitomizing organizations that are just very obviously

(54:19):
harmful.
Like they haven't left any country better than they have found it and they didn't find
them in good spaces, you know, in a good place to begin with. And so it's like, yeah, I mean,
I guess my point of hope here is that, you know, I'm of the same opinion that like, I'm an American.
I love America. I want America to continue to be the greatest country in the world. And I believe

(54:42):
that it is. And I believe that it still can continue to be. I got to say, spending a little
bit of time in Switzerland, I am like, boy, some, we feel like a third world country sometimes
compared to Switzerland, but that's a different story. That's a very small, incredibly, yeah,
Different story there, a whole other rabbit hole to unpack about why that's so successful.
But like I want America to continue to be the greatest country in the world because the American ideas are infectious in the best possible way, right?

(55:10):
And American pseudo-capitalism, I think we've gotten about as close as anyone.
I don't think real capitalism has ever been tried.
They say that communism hasn't been tried, but like it's been tried.
It's been tried a lot, and it resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths.
But I think we've gotten pretty close to capitalism here.
We can still do better.

(55:31):
And I think that Bitcoin does help us fix that.
And capitalism is what lifts the world out of poverty, right?
It's not us throwing more money at problems.
It's fixing that money at the base level.
Dare I say, fix the money, fix the world.
But, you know, fix the money, fix capitalism first.
And then I think a lot of that is just downstream from fixing those incentives.

(55:54):
Yeah, I think that's mostly true.
I think there's a layer above that though
I think like capitalism works
Because of
The type of people
In the capitalist system
And their values and their virtues
And so I actually don't think
Like capitalism just like blindly works
For like all cultures
Like in the same way it works for the US

(56:15):
Sure, communism doesn't work
But
Anyways, I generally
Directionally agree
I do think it's a bit more coupled to culture too.
I do not disagree with that.
And I'm being slightly reductionist with my portrayal.

(56:35):
Like I am in agreement because like obviously not all cultures are the same And I know it not like a popular thing to say that but it like they not the same
And, like, that's okay, too.
They're not going to be the same.
Like, not all people are the same.
People don't have the same values.
People don't have the same cultural and religious beliefs.
This is not to pass judgment on whether one should hold said beliefs.

(56:57):
It's just to state a fact that, like, those societal structures, those cultural institutions are different.
and they result in different outcomes and different desires amongst the people who inhabit those territories.
And it is primarily territorially based, at least it started that way.
But then that spreads out and you've got different microcosms of those same cultures throughout the world now.

(57:20):
But like there are Western values and people that self-select by coming to America
and that have self-selected by coming to America.
you're naturally self-selecting for risk-taking entrepreneurs and people who are,
want, believe in a meritocracy and believe in the ability of you to work hard.
And as long as you get a, you know, reasonably fair shake to get ahead.

(57:43):
And like, that's why America is what it is, right?
Because we are a nation of people who wanted something a little bit better
than what the current status quo offered them.
I mean, that's why we overthrew our, you know,
tyrannical British overlords at the end of the day, right?
yeah i mean i think that all that cultural thing is true before we had a welfare state and then
after that yes it did not filter for risk takers yes that's for economic opportunity you know i can

(58:09):
get more free stuff yeah no that's that's we you know as we're gonna have to do a we're gonna have
to do a whole nother podcast where we just go deep down this rabbit hole because like this this is
one that i i think is so important to discuss because it's uncomfortable for people i think
to talk about this.
And especially now, like we just, I mean, we just saw like a
literal like self-proclaimed socialist

(58:31):
who's actually just kind of like a dumb
communist, elected
mayor of New York City, the financial
capital, allegedly, of the world.
That's just kind of insane
to me. Like genuinely
insane. I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit
hole. We can go back to talking
more river because I've got more questions there too.
But I don't know. That was nuts

(58:51):
to me. Yeah, but it's
unsurprising to me. Of course.
That's unsurprising. And frankly, you know, we don't have to dwell on this topic, but like really, really, it's just a demographics question.
If you look at the if you look at sort of the breakdown, it's like in a multi-ethnic society, politics is just an ethnic like is mostly an ethnic thing.

(59:14):
Now, that's not really the case in this election. It's like that's half explanatory.
The other half is sort of just like new transplants to New York also voting for him, which is like a little odd.
But it's mostly like Gen Z women and recent immigrants voting for Mandami, which is – there's a lot to unpack there.

(59:41):
But maybe we should just move on.
Yeah, we're going to need to – okay, we're going to have to do a whole different show on that because it is quite a lot to unpack.
Okay, so – but I – obviously this shows this very safe space for rants and tangents and digressions, so I'm glad that we got to go on one here.
So, okay, something I would like to talk about, we'll bring this back to more, let's say, easily palatable conversations for the vast majority of people.

(01:00:07):
But I'd love to hear about what you envision for the future.
You talked about building this idea of being a bank, of being a Bitcoin bank, of being the most trusted financial institution because of Bitcoin.
Can we talk about that a little bit more?
How do you see this?
In terms of all of these legacy players, you're playing in a very big arena filled with very big players.

(01:00:37):
like that have been around for a long time, hold all the power, do all the lobbying.
Like, how do you see this playing out?
I mean, is this something where it's like, does Bitcoin and do Bitcoin incentives and
Bitcoin companies like yours?
Are you guys able to affect meaningful change amongst the rest of these institutions?
Or is it just about completely like just beating them, just being better?

(01:01:02):
They don't have to change.
Just like let them die off.
You'll just do it better.
And that's how the change will happen.
Yeah, it's a good question.
You know, I think our competitive advantage is that they just don't believe we're right.
Right.
So that's actually like the biggest competitive advantage we have is they think we're just not right.
If they believed we were right, they would be changing how they act.

(01:01:27):
So given that, let's say we are.
I mean, I'm not arrogant to the sense like we could always be wrong.
Right.
That's possible, in which case none of this works. Okay, fine. Back up, do something else. Go back to, I don't know, go back to aerospace engineering or something. But if we're right, then River will hit like a trajectory of growth and momentum that they won't be able to react to, I don't think.

(01:01:53):
um and now the thing is there's a lot of money made on things that river doesn't do like we're
focusing on the consumer small medium-sized business you know like savings these banks they
do all sorts of stuff so it's not like it's not like we're eating their lunch completely like

(01:02:14):
it's not like um real estate loans are disappearing or uh big corporate m&a deals and stuff like that
It's not like we're going to eat that lunch anytime soon.
Maybe never, right?
Like what happened – like a lot of – there's a lot of money made in finance and banking that isn't, you know, retail focused.
And so I don't really know exactly how this all plays out because finance is a huge industry.

(01:02:40):
And I don't think they're going to like – I don't think JP Morgan is going to, you know, like die because River is successful in the next 10 years.
I think they'll figure something out.
So, you know, I don't know how it plays out is basically what I'm saying because it's all very complicated.
it it is interesting just on the jp morgan thing to see jamie diamond's kind of uh arc as it really

(01:03:07):
like he still really won't say anything positive about bitcoin but now at least he's in his his
phase of like blockchain technology and uh you know like we have our own you know we have our
own jpm coin and jpm blockchain like it's it's interesting for him to go from like all of this
is garbage and smoke and mirrors to like hey well the stuff that we're doing with it is good like
do you obviously they think that we're wrong still these these types maybe jamie diamond

(01:03:32):
doesn't maybe this is actually like i always wonder this like do you think those types of
guys the jamie diamonds they're actually just full of shit and they're like they're personally
buying bitcoin and they are just like they're specifically just not wanting this to rattle
their cage too much and that or do you think they just really just don't get it still
i mean i think he doesn't get it i also think he doesn't care and i also think and maybe this is

(01:03:56):
another hot take he's not wrong to not care right if you actually put yourself in jamie diamond's
shoes um sure like like if you really really really really care about the long term you know
You should – he should probably like see this. But J.P. Morgan controls and has controlled like the – is the most powerful financial institution in the United States and has been since World War I, right?

(01:04:26):
And so – and it still is.
And frankly, that's not going to change in the next 10 years because there's a – here's the thing, right?
And like is that maybe the world – like there's maybe even a world where like everything just transitions to Bitcoin and then JPMorgan just starts using it because they have already the network effect of like all of these relationships.

(01:04:51):
The government trusts them to do financing.
All of the money is there.
Like once it's big enough and it's just not big enough for JP Morgan to carry it.
Like it's not.
And then you could argue once it is, they'll do like they'll start serving the big money and do things with it that the market demands.
And they won't be any worse off.
Maybe the retail banking will take a hit.

(01:05:12):
Maybe that will take a hit.
And we'll eat some of that lunch.
But maybe the big money actually is just going to convert to Bitcoin over time.
And they start doing finance with that.
I think that, I mean, that's kind of fair.
It's like to the question of like, are we still early to Bitcoin?
It's like, and you're saying to Jamie Dimon, like Bitcoin is still just like not relevant to him.

(01:05:37):
Like it's a $2 trillion asset, which is a lot.
But then it's like a thousand trillion of global assets.
Like, you know, yeah, Bitcoin is growing, but it's like.
Well, and also being an asset, being a big asset doesn't mean it's like that useful for them.
Right.
But there's a lot of gold.
Like J.P. Morgan doesn't really care because they can't really make a lot of money holding gold in vaults, right?

(01:06:03):
And so really they care about finance.
They care about like things moving.
They care about loans.
They care about like the dynamic part of all of this, not just like something sitting there.
And so the question is like will that part of – like that's what makes money.
And so will that actually take a hit?
And I think maybe like the argument against that this is going to be harmful to them is if Bitcoin does actually continue to definancialize things, right?

(01:06:28):
There's just less they can take cuts of.
And that might be what like shrinks their business.
Not that the business they have moves somewhere else.
It's more like it just goes away because all of this funny – these financial shenanigans just aren't as popular.
that's fair on the gold piece i think to be play devil's advocate i think jp morgan does have like

(01:06:53):
between their new york and their like london and maybe singapore
vaults they do have like they do hold a lot of gold i mean again allegedly because they don't
actually disclose this stuff like so who knows and like how much return they're actually making
on holding that and for whom like what percent yeah but what percentage of their business is it
right probably it's like super like they do it to just keep probably some rich customers happy

(01:07:15):
Yeah. And so it's like, you know, they're making money on credit cards a lot. Right. And so like that, like that's, you know, and like our industry is not eating that lunch anytime soon.
Yeah. No, that's fair. I am curious too. What are you guys, I mean, you've been rolling out a lot of new features recently between the, I was saying this before, I don't know if we've actually touched on it on air, but the supercharged buys for the DCAs, like when Bitcoin dips, you DCA more. Like I thought that was brilliant. I'm currently using it. Again, nobody's paying me to say this. I'm just saying what features I like here. And I think it's a genius feature because then I just automatically am stacking more when Bitcoin dips. It's perfect.

(01:07:56):
You got that, the direct deposit buys.
What else are you guys kind of like looking at?
Like what's next on the horizon for you?
What do you think is the next kind of set of tools that you need to build out?
Or are you feeling pretty comfortable with your tool set as it is?
And it's just about kind of refining it, making sure, you know, you guys have solid uptime,
that you don't go down like Coinbase every time Bitcoin rips, those sorts of things.

(01:08:19):
I mean, it's all of the above.
There's so much left to build.
In fact, if you're an engineer and you're looking for a job and you're good, apply river.com slash careers.
Our biggest bottleneck right now is getting the smart people in to help us move faster.
We have a long list of things we know everyone wants, and some of them are obvious.
Like, for example, we launched direct deposit today.

(01:08:39):
Okay, people want to be able to also pay their bills from River, right?
So we're like, we're building that.
So there's this whole category of things that makes River a much better place to have your savings.
and a long list of just kind of relatively maybe obvious things there.
So that's one bucket.
Then there's a bucket of like perfection and polish

(01:09:00):
and making sure it is just like the best designed,
highest quality experience we can possibly deliver
and maintain that as we scale, right?
And so a lot of the investment is behind the scenes
and automation, things that help our service team serve you like faster
and can provide you a really high quality service experience

(01:09:21):
as we continue to grow the client base.
And then the other category, which is always my favorite,
is the cool new stuff, like the stuff no one's really done before.
And so we don't leak those ideas.
And so we're already like plotting some of the next things,
like the supercharged, that people go, wow,

(01:09:43):
like I've never seen that before, but I really want that.
and so yeah, those are like the kinds of buckets of stuff we have in the works.
The supercharged thing was seriously like very cool.
Like as soon as I saw that, I was like, yep, turning that on immediately.
That's a no-brainer way.

(01:10:04):
And I'm glad because then Bitcoin started dipping more.
So like been able to take advantage of the future right off the bat.
It's like, bam, that's perfect.
Go ahead.
No, I was going to say it was kind of funny because when we launched it, like for the next like two days, the price just went up.
And so we were like, oh, you know, like, you're welcome, I guess.
You know, we launched this thing and nothing supercharges.

(01:10:25):
But now it's in the last week.
It's been great.
Yeah, it's certainly sitting just above 100,000 U.S., infinitely printable U.S. dollars per Bitcoin.
Like it's perfect to be able to buy some more down here.
I think I snagged some just under $100,000, which I was like, yes.
That feels good.

(01:10:45):
It's crazy that that feels good, but it feels good.
I want to be conscious of your time because we're running up onto it a little bit.
I do want to ask you kind of before we close out, and then I'll just give you a chance to send people wherever you want to.
But as it relates to Bitcoin four-year cycles, overall adoption, where do you stand on this?

(01:11:07):
Like, do you think that we're at this place where four-year cycles are like kind of, kind of dead?
Like, is this, are we, you know, or are you of like, you know, yeah, maybe we've already topped in this particular cycle or is it something completely different?
How are you looking at this?
How are you thinking about it?
I mean, honestly, the short answer is I have no idea.
I've never really, like, I've never really, um, I have no insight, um, that I can give somebody as to, like, what Bitcoin will do in the next four years.

(01:11:40):
Like, the macro analysis, I kind of generally believe most of that is just, like, tarot cards.
It's an extremely complex system.
Like, none of that stuff can predict the whale that no one knows who he is woke up one day and was like, you know what?
I'm like kind of ready to just like, I just got married and now I want to like build a
castle.

(01:12:01):
Like no macro analysis can like predict that, like in the chain reaction of that.
Right.
So like, I don't know.
I really don't.
I just know like the first principles make sense long term and that hasn't changed and
I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Amen to that.
What is it?
Technical analysis is just astrology for men, right?

(01:12:21):
Yeah.
As they say.
Well, I really enjoyed this, man.
Anything you want to leave people with or wherever you want to send people, anything they should be on the lookout for coming out from you guys, feel free to go in any way you want with that.
I mean, we have some cool things coming out.
Maybe in the next month we will have a big update.
So stay tuned for that.

(01:12:42):
And then, no, I mean, just, you know, the advice I like to give people is just keep focusing on leveling up your life, right?
Bitcoin is a tool.
the vast majority of people whose lives are improved by Bitcoin are just getting really
good at something in their life and they're focusing on their career they're focusing on

(01:13:03):
their family and they're saving in Bitcoin they don't need to all always work in Bitcoin right
go be a really good doctor go be a really good carpenter go be a really good
you know farmer that and and save save save in Bitcoin right and and you use that proof of work
to stack sats. And so I think some people like kind of find Bitcoin and they kind of get like,

(01:13:26):
oh, should I, should I do this? And maybe the answer is yes, but like the ROI of just investing
in yourself and getting really, really good at something you care about is, is very high. And so
that's the thing to focus on. So it's a great piece of advice to end with. Well, yeah, again,
And I highly recommend people check out River if you're sick of Coinbase or wherever else.

(01:13:52):
It's awesome.
Really grateful that you guys built it.
Really happy about the proof of reserves because it makes it a lot easier when I send it to friends or family and say,
look, you can literally see that they've got you.
You're not going to get rugged by them.
So glad that you guys have built that out.
Hope we see more people adopting that.
And yeah, cheers to, I guess, the Bitcoin banks of the future, right?

(01:14:14):
Yeah.
we have a bright future ahead. We're just getting started. So stay tuned.
I love it. Alex, thanks so much, man. It's been a pleasure. Looking forward to going down
a couple of different rabbit holes again another time.
Thanks, Walker. Me too.

(01:14:46):
family and strangers on the internet. Find me on Noster at primal.net slash Walker and this podcast
at primal.net slash titcoin. On X, YouTube and Rumble, just search at Walker America and find
this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoin podcast. Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links,

(01:15:06):
head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you and head to
Bitcoin podcast.net for everything else.
Bitcoin is scarce,
but podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast.
Until next time,

(01:15:26):
stay free.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}BITCOIN SAVES WESTERN CIVILIZATION | Alex Leishman