070 - From Wall Street to Bitcoin: Andy Edstrom on Revolutionizing Money

In this episode, the hosts talk with Andy Edstrom, a prominent figure in the Bitcoin investment space, exploring Andy's journey from traditional finance to Bitcoin, discussing the characteristics that make Bitcoin a compelling form of moneyThe conversation delves into the implications of the fiat system, the benefits of Bitcoin for both public and private companies, and the evolving landscape of Bitcoin treasury strategies. Andy shares insights on the risks associated with Bitcoin, the importance of understanding its characteristics, and the future potential of Bitcoin as a monetary asset. The episode concludes with a hopeful outlook on Bitcoin's role in the financial ecosystem and the ongoing efforts to educate and bridge the gap between traditional finance and Bitcoin. 

Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP, is the author of the book, Why Buy Bitcoin: Investing Today in the Money of Tomorrow. Additionally, his opinions on Bitcoin have been published in The Wall Street Journal, and his opinions on the regulation of  Internet monopolies have been published in The Economist. 

Andy has spent his career in wealth management, private equity, and public markets investing. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, he caught a glimpse into the making of “financial sausage” while working at Goldman Sachs. 

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⚡  Get personalized onboarding at River for Bitcoin-only financial services: https://partner.river.com/buildwithbitcoin
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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Bitcoin Perspectives
04:11 Andy Edstrom's Journey in Finance and Bitcoin
09:22 Relearning Money: Insights from Traditional Finance
13:13 Understanding the Fiat System and Its Implications
21:47 Bitcoin's Characteristics as Money
26:46 Resonating with Financial Advisors
30:32 Current Risks and Future Outlook for Bitcoin
39:37 The Future of Stablecoins and the Dollar
41:07 Bitcoin's Role in the Global Economy
47:31 Bitcoin Treasury Strategies for Companies
59:39 Private Companies and Bitcoin Treasuries

References

https://www.andyedstrom.com/

https://www.buildwithbitcoin.xyz/
https://x.com/BuildwBitcoin

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❗ DISCLAIMER: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions consult a professional.

Transcript

Andy: 0:00

It's much more about the potential to unlock entrepreneurial efforts in a way that couldn't be done in a world without Bitcoin, and also, by the way, it can be both. I mean, one of the magical things about Bitcoin itself is it's so multifaceted. It's useful for different people and different entities for different reasons, and I don't think that's going to go away. I think the usefulness of Bitcoin is increasing with time not decreasing. And so yeah, still lots of ways to win with Bitcoin. Still lots of ways to try and wrap your head around it, lots of ways to help people learn about it. It's early days, and we still have plenty of work to do, but I do think the future is bright. The future is bright orange, and I'm looking forward to living in it.

Israel: 0:56

In today's episode, we dive into Bitcoin with Andy Edstrom, author of the book, Why buy bitcoin investing today in the money of tomorrow, from his roots in traditional finance to championing Bitcoin, and he unpacks its unique traits, the flaws of the fiat system and why companies are eyeing Bitcoin for their treasuries stick around for a deep dive into the risks, rewards and The future of Bitcoin as a game changing monetary asset. As a reminder, this podcast is for educational purposes only. If you enjoy your content, please remember to LIKE SUBSCRIBE And leave us a comment, as This all helps us grow organically. Thank you. Lynne and I are partners at baystone advisors, where we use our network of Venture Capital Partners and startup founders to connect investors with unique opportunities within the Bitcoin innovation space. Alongside this, we help startup founders with their growth and fundraising. Visit our website's advisory section to learn more. Welcome to build with Bitcoin. I'm co host. Irene Munoz joined with co host Lynne Bairstow. Today, we welcome Andy Edstrom. Andy, welcome.

Andy: 2:01

Hey, Israel, Lynne, it's great to be with you. Always a pleasure to see you. It's been, I feel like we've gotten to know each other a bit over the years, and I'm happy to be talking with you.

Lynne Bairstow: 2:11

We're so happy to have you. I think we've talked about this even a year ago at the at last year's Portland conference, where you and I connected. And I don't know why it's taken so long, but then we saw you in Vegas, and so it's great to have you share your perspectives. I mean, we're considering this like a deep dive episode, because while you're not a founder of a company, you do invest in Bitcoin companies, and you're just considered one of the most influential people when it comes to helping registered investment advisors, wealth managers, family offices, become familiar and comfortable enough with Bitcoin, including writing your book. Why buy Bitcoin that helps people bridge that mentality shift from traditional finance into Bitcoin and why it's a good investment, and you've certainly been in this space for a long time, so we're just just so thrilled to be able to get your thoughts and your wisdom and where you're seeing the entire Bitcoin ecosystem right now, especially as we're recording this in August of 2025 this year has really been a year for kind of the financialization of Bitcoin or the bitcoinization of finance. Yeah, we'd love to, we'd love to dive in. I

Andy: 3:23

look forward to the conversation. You know, I'm a fan of what you've been doing. There's very few intelligent, experienced, rational players, I think, in the Bitcoin investing space, and I count you on that very short list. So I look forward to our chat here. We

Israel: 3:40

do as well. Andy, I mean, as Lynne was touching on, well, a lot of our content tends to focus on the infrastructure builders of this new Bitcoin economy. But I mean, as a starting point for anyone in this in this industry, is truly understanding and rethinking what is money and why is Bitcoin such an important role in the future generations, quite frankly. So let's start with your your a little bit of context, on your background Andy, because I think that that would be just a really great starting point. You come from traditional finance. You're, of course, a CFA, CFP, Financial Advisor. What? What got you to 2017 and 19, I believe are some pivotal points in your career with Bitcoin. What were the sticking points with Bitcoin? I mean, that made you kind of rewire money and how you think about wealth preservation? Yeah,

Andy: 4:37

I'm definitely one of those characters who didn't understand money at all, despite having built a pretty decent career in traditional finance, and Bitcoin was the forcing function for understanding money. So yeah, first decade for me, career wise, was essentially Wall Street Goldman. Tax investment banking, then working for a private equity fund that spun out of the Carlisle group, and then I spent almost six years at a multi billion dollar hedge fund, investing for that team across the capital structure. So I was kind of decade number one, heavy, heavy tradfi. And then I actually ended up joining the family business, which is in wealth management. And I started that in 2012 and then, yes, first exposure to Bitcoin. Missed it completely. It was an economist article that I was listening on audio while on vacation in Central and Eastern Europe with my small family at the time. I totally missed it. Then second exposure, I think, was the Ethereum hard fork, some Wall Street Journal article. I didn't understand that. And then, yeah, third exposure was 2017 my extremely smart friend Arun Rao, who's now on the pretty senior in the Facebook meta AI team. You know, he put some information in front of me, and I started doing some research. Why did I do the research? Because number was going up, because the because the price was rising in 2017 and yes, I went hard into crypto, and probably another year went by, including a savage bear market. So if I bought my first Bitcoin and a bunch of other crypto assets in probably late summer 2017 then I got to ride the the peak, including the blow off top, and feel really smart and rich, and then watch it all go away. And then some on the downturn. And it was $3,000 Bitcoin in January 2019, that with, with some discomfort, comfort in my abdominal region, I was asking myself, Oh, man, did I get this wrong? Is the thesis incorrect? You know, I'm pretty deep underwater on my very substantial purchase, because I've essentially risked my net worth on this thing at this point. And so that was essentially the genesis of why buy bitcoin and putting pen to paper on the thesis. And so far, the thesis is playing out. You know, I think, I think I wasn't wrong, or at least so far I've been not wrong. Who knows what the future holds. But, but, yeah, those were, those were kind of some of the key dates. And then through the years, since publishing the book in 2019 I've, I built a product for one bitcoin company. I've advised another on a financial advisor product. Those two are Swan and on ramp. I wrote a bunch of articles for or published a bunch of articles on coin desk over the years, all about Bitcoin, trying, trying to focus the do my tiny part, to focus the conversation on Bitcoin amongst all the other noise in crypto land. And so that kind of, you know, that kind of takes us to today. I'm not helping any companies at the moment, but, but, yeah, those were some of the stops along the way, or moments of development, basically, in my bitcoin story,

Lynne Bairstow: 8:31

well, I'm fascinated that that you actually wrote your book as a way of helping you clarify and confirm your thesis about Bitcoin. And when you when you started the book, were there? It went down the proverbial rabbit hole. Were there any parts of it that that surprised you, that kind of had you relearn what you had thought you knew from traditional finance? I mean, I also have a background in traditional finance and and being a Keynesian educated economist, I really today, can't even believe that I held that those understandings as long as I did. But what about your journey? Andy, what did you find that just kind of made you rethink you know what you what you knew before? Well,

Andy: 9:15

Lynne, first of all, good on you for re educating yourself early on Keynesianism, because I also took an undergrad, you know, degree in economics, and learned all that stuff and and definitely had to rewire my brain. I think the, I think the hard money and the digital gold part of the thesis were really important. I think that the recognition that the existing system is all somewhat of a historical aberration. I mean, yes, there have been significant periods where fiat money has reigned in history, although this has been one of the longest ones, arguably the longest, you know, in West. In history. And so that's that. That was an interesting fact that I noticed along the way. And then, of course, I also noticed that usually the periods of Fiat and badly and revert to hard money standards for reasons that become obvious, which is that, yeah, when there's too much debt, things tend to go badly. Certainly the global financial crisis, the GFC was a was a major signpost for me, as it is for I think lots of people in in the current era, and the realization that the debt levels in the system were so eye watering, and then later realization that, oh yeah, that's sort of by design, and that's part and parcel of a fiat monetary system. It is turtles all the way down. And it turns out the turtles are dead instruments. So yeah, you know all these things. I mean, I went through the usual list of Austrians. You know, I quite a bit of Rothbard, Mises, obviously, you know, Hayek, several titles, and none of that, that stuff was essentially all new to me. I mean, I had heard of Hayek. I had not heard of Mises prior to finding Bitcoin, I had not heard of Rothbard, and so, you know, some of those pieces were a lot of fun to read. Others were more of a slug. You know, human action is, is pretty dense. I don't expect, I don't expect the rest of the world to come around to us to as Bitcoiners and get through human action, cover to cover. But that's okay. You know, there's various various levels of depth of understanding, I think about about hard money and and what money can and should be in an economy, and different people are going to get to different levels of depth in terms of their knowledge. That's been one of the key learnings for me was was trying to bridge just enough depth on what is money and what is the state of the world in terms of debt, and what are the what are the technical characteristics of Bitcoin and the monetary characteristics of Bitcoin. And, you know, I took that shot with respect to Why buy bitcoin, and it's resonated with some people, and other people, you know, create content in various forms, written or audio or video, and we're slowly, we're slowly helping educate the masses, and it's a process that's taken years. I have to say that I am. There have been times of frustration and surprise with respect to how long it's taken the financial advisory world, the wealth management world, to figure this stuff out and adopt it. And I think we're still so early, you know, I'll share an anecdote, which was, I went to the CFA Society of Los Angeles Christmas party, or holiday party, last December. And I've been to various CFA events over time, including that one over the years, right since 2017 or 2019 and, you know, so I'm always working the room, you know, I start, I don't start every conversation exactly with Bitcoin, but I make sure I get to Bitcoin pretty quickly. And I probably talked to, I think it was around a dozen people that night. And of that dozen people, I would say nine out of 12 were substantially nowhere on Bitcoin. I mean, like, Yes, they've heard of it, you know, yes, it's they know that the price has gone up, but no significant technical understanding. I would say that probably two of the remaining dozen recognized it as a number on a screen, sort of like a trading sardine, a financial instrument that can be bought and can be sold, and sometimes profitably. And then I had one conversation with a guy who had significant understanding of it. And he was both long Bitcoin, I think he owned the ETF, and long term, skeptical of its, you know, of its viability in the long run. So he's like, basically, you know, I'm on the train now, but I kind of don't really believe that it's gonna survive long term. So, yeah. So dozen conversations, you know, zero long term believers, if we want to call it that, and three quarters of people had basically no significant knowledge of it. And so, you know, not all those people were in wealth management. Obviously, you know there's CFA. Holders straddle lots of areas of finance, but it's just kind of one indicator, I think, of of where we are with this stuff. And I mix it up a little bit with financial advisors and wealth managers from time to time. And I still think it's very, very early now, equally, I've gotten to know, had had the pleasure and privilege of getting to know some financial advisors who are leading with Bitcoin. They're building practices around Bitcoin, and they tend to find each other, surprise, surprise, because it's lonely out there. And and yet, I think I probably only met maybe a couple dozen, you know, maybe 30 of those. And of course, there are more of them every day. But when you think, when you imagine how many financial advisors there must be in this country, and I don't know the stat, it's got to be six figures, or at least five figures, you know, less than 100 who are focused on Bitcoin, sounds like it's still pretty early days. So that's kind of my read of the situation and where we are today. Yeah, you

Israel: 16:08

know, the, I guess, the learning curve and pace at which it's moving is, it is fascinating. You know, I want to click on a couple of things you mentioned there, Andy, because in in my early Bitcoin journey, what I would find in specifically, what you mentioned is that some of the these debt levels are by design. And what what I found in a lot of conversations with people from traditional finance was a lot of people, I think maybe failed to understand that point. I want to get your perspective on this, that this, this system is, is being debased by design. I mean, what I would encounter a lot when I would bring up what you mentioned, the 2008 financial crisis and all the money printing, a common response with that, I think, to a certain point still exists today, would be well, but we there was no other choice, right? We'd be, we'd be worse off. You know, the Fed had to do this. The government had to intervene. You know, we had to inject this stimulus into the economy. And they kind of justified it to a certain extent, with, with some of these points. And it's to me, it strikes me like they, they don't understand necessarily, that this debt and debasing will continue by design. Can, can you explain why that is Yeah?

Andy: 17:34

Explain why that's the world we live in, or explain why people don't understand that, why that's the world we live in. That's that, yeah, one, yeah, I'll agree with that. I mean, I guess you have to arguably trace the history. And if you say, you know, the the archetypal setup is you have, usually war and everything reverts to hard money, because nobody trusts anyone else's credit, right? So, so you end up on a gold standard. The last gold standard, or derivation thereof, of course, was Bretton Woods, post World War Two. But of course, cleverly, the leadership in the US government realized, Oh, we won the war. We had the remaining industrial base because Europe's mostly destroyed. So we can kind of dictate terms. And so, yeah, we'll, we'll make it a hard money standard, except for, it's a soft version of it, because we hold most of the gold. We'll issue paper claims against that gold, and we promise we won't issue too many of them, and but it'll be stable. So that worked for a while, and then, of course, the demands of both politicians who want to spend money on their constituents to get elected, as well as the costs of war, I'm thinking primarily of Vietnam, resulted in a situation in which the government couldn't help itself. It printed too many paper claims against the gold reserves, and foreign governments like France started to demand their gold back, because they had the right to tender their paper dollars for the gold back, and that worked for a little while, until Nixon and his brain trust realized that they couldn't maintain it, so they closed the gold window, and thus, arguably began the current fiat system that we're in. And once we're in the fiat system, there's sort of two elements that are reinforcing one being, well as constructed, you know, the the keeper of the of the of the gold based system of Bretton Woods, you know, was incurring too much debt, which resulted in the in the loss of convertibility. And once you've lost the convertibility, well, you're still, you're still creating more more debt. You. By virtue of running government deficits, when, by the way, you know now you have a central bank which is untethered from major restrictions in terms of monetary policy, so it can lower rates, because that's convenient in the short run, because it stimulates the economy and everything works great as long as the debt bubble is inflating and there's more and more issuance. And, you know, that's I would, that's I would. That's essentially how, how I would frame it. I mean, I think fast forward to today, we're in a world where banks are still hugely levered, where there's all this leverage in the system that sits with collateral, being us, treasuries. So I look at, you know, people scratch their heads about the world today, and they say, you know, how can stocks be at record levels? You know, how can asset prices be at record levels? You know, given that interest rates are actually significantly higher than when they were at zero, and they might be in restrictive territory, and it seems that liquidity these days has a lot to do with not just short term interest rates, not even just average long term interest rates, but The ability of players in the system to leverage that sweet Treasury collateral, which is primarily T bills, and yes, the banks are only 10 times levered. Now, although that's still pretty levered, but hedge funds and other you know, participants in in financial markets can pile very sizable multiples of leverage on treasuries, and this essentially all creates more money and more liquidity in the system. Of course, we could talk a little bit about stable coins and how that's going to create further demand for treasuries, which could allow further leveraging. But you know, maybe I'll maybe I'll pause right there in terms of addressing your question,

Israel: 22:02

build with Bitcoin. Is a proud affiliate partner of river, a Bitcoin only financial services company that I've personally been using for years. I really enjoy the strong folks they have on security and reliability, which ultimately leads to peace of mind I know you. You're a big fan as well.

Lynne Bairstow: 22:18

Lynne, I am, I am. I feel so confident referring people to river, in addition to what you mentioned, also, they get us based phone support, which I think for somebody who's less familiar with the space or used to personal service, is really helpful. In addition, they have a private client services division, so if you're looking to invest 100,000 or more, they have a special suite of services designed for you, whether you're a high net worth, individual, a family, office or trust. I also really appreciate the continued improvements they make in the back end, so that that reliability and security continues to be really apparent.

Israel: 22:50

They additionally also have US dollar cash deposits paid out in Bitcoin. They have a yield product for that, which is an interesting alternative way of accumulating Bitcoin overall, fantastic suite of services if you're interested in onboarding and opening up an account at River use partner.river.com/build, with Bitcoin for personalized onboarding. Yeah, no. Well, thanks, Andy, because, I mean, I think it is so important for people to understand why this system is designed in a way that credit and debt just continues and continues to grow. Because, I mean, if, if you just kind of jump into Bitcoin and trying to learn about Bitcoin without that context, you'll, I don't think you'll see the full picture, right. So now, of course, enter Bitcoin. What I mean, what were some of the, what were some of the main sticking points as far as bitcoins characteristics as money that got you that just kind of, you know, lit the light bulb for you.

Andy: 23:50

Yeah, I mean, obviously, so I, I was a little bit frustrated with the what is money framework, um, when I started writing why by Bitcoin, and it had mostly to do with the fact that most people only talked about five or six or seven characteristics of money. And I reached the unfortunate conclusion that no, there's maybe more of them. In fact, I came up with 14. And so in my view, no form of money scores highly on all 14 characteristics, but different forms of money score differently on the various characteristics, and some score better than others. Now Bitcoin clearly scores well in a few categories. One is transferability or transmissibility, right? You can literally send value across the world to anyone with an Internet connection, you know, in a matter of depending on your view. One confirmation, that's 10 minutes. Six confirmations, it's an hour. Or if you're willing to take risk on confirmation, it's essentially instantaneous. If you're using something like light. Saying, So that's huge. The scarcity value, obviously, is massive. It's hard to overstate how valuable gold is, because the issuance rate is only about 2% a year, or said in the inverse the stock to flow ratio is, I don't know, 50 or 60 or something, but Bitcoin has already reached a stock to flow ratio that's higher than that, or an issuance rate that is lower, you know, under under 1% and so and so. You know, Bitcoin is scarcer, let's say, than gold, in terms of its of its issuance rate. So that, I would say, is the other major category where Bitcoin really, really shines, really rises above the pack. I think another, I guess I would also add the, you know, the censorship resistance. So it's very, very difficult to prevent one party from paying another party using Bitcoin extremely difficult, far more difficult than it is to censor dollar transactions for the most part. And arguably, you know, even you could say the same with gold. I mean, if you're peer to peer, obviously in physical form. Then, you know, then, then you can transfer value using cash, dollars or using physical gold. But that does present a security risk, and that's one of the phenomenal characteristics of Bitcoin, is if you handle it properly, you can, you can secure yourself, I'm talking about against physical attack, essentially, and the receiver can do the same in a way that in person, peer to peer, cash type transactions, you know, just just don't offer. So those are the characteristics that stand it. Stand out in my mind with respect to Bitcoin and how it significantly outscores or outperforms a couple other forms of common forms of money. Andy, when

Lynne Bairstow: 27:09

you were talking, I mean, obviously with the book, and I just want to highlight the fact that your book is actually following this conversation, where in the book you outline what is money, and you go through that explanation first, and then you go including the 14 different characteristics of it, and then, and then you explain Bitcoin. But was when you were, you know, walking through this with different financial advisors or wealth managers, were there any aspects of it in particular that really stood out, that you found resonated with, with a majority the way traditional financial systems think, or people in tradfi are viewing this?

Andy: 27:50

Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think my unfortunate answer is no, but, and I'll explain why the hard money thesis, I think makes a lot more sense to people, and so the approach that I take talking to clients in particular has much more to do with yes, we're in a Fiat based system where debt is the base of it, and there's so much debt compared to historical standards, compared to GDP, kind of, any way you slice it, any way you measure the debt levels, they're really at extraordinary rates. And so that's one. And then I start to talk about geopolitics. And I talk about, you know, does a fragmenting geopolitical world support credit and trust and counterparties accepting debt instruments as payment, especially in a world where, you know, the Russian government was cut off from its dollar reserve assets. And then people start to, you know, start to understand, oh yes, order in the world is decreasing, not increasing. That's good for gold historically. And oh yes, when I think about the characteristics of money, the 14 characteristics of money, Bitcoin actually already slightly outscores gold. And by the way, just you know, I made the comment earlier, different forms of money, no form of money scores perfectly on all these characteristics. But there are precious few forms of hard money that score very well, and it's also okay to own more than one form of of that hard monetary asset. Oh, and by the way, there are historical periods where holding hard money really saved your bacon. Obviously, you know the the World War Two era, but also the 1970s and. And so and in those periods, almost nothing else saved your investment portfolio. Because again, we're we're looking, we're talking about financial advisory clients, right? Or we're talking about financial advisors who are investing on behalf of their clients. They're focused on investment return. They're also focused on outpacing inflation. They're focused on, yeah, on increasing their clients wealth, not letting it bleed away, either to inflation or loss when invested in other assets. And so this, I would say, has been the framework that lately has resonated with my clients. I think it's resonated with clients of of other advisors. By the way, it's, it's really a fear framework, if we're honest about it, you know, it's a lot less less rosy and hopeful, probably than the thesis for a lot of your VC early stage investments, right? You may be looking at the world in a lot of cases with respect to, you know, empowerment of people who don't have access to to monetary systems, don't have good access to payment systems, don't have good ways of just storing their value. You know, in the face of depreciation of fiat currencies, and also, yes, so it's, it's different way of viewing the world. But you asked the question. So, you know, basically, I've the, the thesis that's selling well with my clients is fear, you know, rather than than optimism. But maybe in the future, we'll be having more optimistic conversations.

Israel: 31:46

Yeah. I mean, I sure hope so. Because, because I think once you dedicate enough hours to Bitcoin, you you inevitably do become quite, quite a bit more more hopeful. Into the future then, you know, we, it's, it's interesting you, you were mentioning right now the different characteristics of Bitcoin when you were learning about this and writing your book and the end, you know, I think it resonates almost like more more strongly as time goes by. For me, I've, I think for anyone who's gone through more than one or at least one full cycle in Bitcoin, as far as price action, can identify with that feeling you were explaining that you felt in 2019 of challenging yourself, right? I mean, geez, wow. Was I maybe wrong about this, and did I risk too much? You know? What am I missing? And you know, for me in every one of those cycle bottoms, what has what has held my conviction so strong is that when I really kind of took emotions out of it and took a bare bones analysis of the state of Bitcoin and the network, it was all only improving, right? All those characteristics, and Lynne and I also see it right now with the work we do with build with Bitcoin, because we're talking to a lot of these new infrastructure providers. And, I mean, the usability is improving. You know, you have more ways to access and easier ways to access nodes, the hash rate and miners are improving the adoption. I mean, when you look at all these metrics underneath, in every one of these cycle bottoms, I mean, I just, I just couldn't help but stay extremely convicted, because I challenged myself, like, what am I missing? But ultimately, you get back to it and you're like, I mean this if and talking about system design as we were talking about the fiat system earlier. It's almost like this bitcoin system and network is designed to just continue growing sounder and stronger. So all that to say, and what I want to what I want to get to is, you know, maybe risks you still see on the horizon. For me, as of recent, it was still a little bit on the geopolitics and regulatory side, or concentration of custodians. But I do also see that just getting healthier. Of course, we'll still have some some cycles, and there will be some things we need to grind through in the future. But are there, are there any things that still kind of, I don't know, keep you up at night a little bit in to frame it that way, Andy, or any

Andy: 34:27

Sure, of course, yes. Are there ways that, are there things that could, that could harm or kill Bitcoin? I believe there are. I don't believe we're at 100% chance or probability of Bitcoin reaching its potential just yet. Just to underscore, by the way, I like how you framed, you know, you're, you're, you're testing the thesis and looking at the under underlying metrics of the network in a in a bull market. And I forget the word you used. The word I would use is. Is a Yeah, is vomit like, you know, in the first bear market, I wanted to vomit, but that might be because I had too much exposure, personally, financially, to Bitcoin, and so yes, stripping out the emotions is the right way to invest. And as a reminder to to all those investors out there. If watching the price go down 70% or more is going to make you feel uncomfortable, then you should size your position appropriately, right? There is a reason that people diversify their their portfolios, but you know, to each their own. So, yeah, I think that your question was about, you know, remaining significant risk. You highlighted custodians, and on the panel I did at the bitcoin is for everyone conference last week, you know, we were talking about leverage in the system. And my compatriot Matt dines pointed out that leverage always gets rinsed every cycle. You know, every cycle the tide goes out. There's never a cycle, you know, that I shouldn't even say that a cycle, but there's never a time, never in the history of the world so far. Maybe this time is different. You know, have you not had a a reversal of leverage, you know, with with, with markers on the way, obviously. So there's that, there's that consideration. But in terms of, you know, I like to say, I like Jeff Booth's framing of Bitcoin will reach its potential as long as it stays decentralized and secure. So how could it fail to be decentralized and secure? I like your notion that it is getting more and more decentralized with time. I think and hope that will continue. But you know, I still worry a little bit about the fact that there's substantially one manufacturer of ASIC chips who, by the way, controls a lot of the mining pools, you know, and that's a major centralization point. So that's a concern for me. I do think that adopting a quantum resistant signature scheme is going to be important. I don't know when that will be, but it does. It does strike me that that is a hurdle that Bitcoin must surmount on the way to its reaching its potential. You know, one of the I sort of invert it sometimes, one of the questions I ask myself is for Bitcoin to outclass gold. If gold's a $20 trillion asset, or it's a $20 trillion monetary network, if you want to call it that, you know, can Bitcoin be a$20 trillion network? You know, without solving the that risk problem associated with quantum I'm not sure. I think a lot of financial advisors will take the view that know that that problem needs solving before, before it reaches that level capitalization. Um, you know, I think that one of the major uh factors I think about is keeping America safe for Bitcoin and Bitcoiners, not that that's much of a threat to Bitcoin in the long run. Maybe this is just self motivated, self interested. I mean, I see a sea change, obviously, under the current administration with respect to, you know, just reasonable policy in terms of how Bitcoin is treated, but there's a fantastic opportunity for the current administration to either get that wrong or go too far, or, you know, get voted, voted out of office in a few years time, and and see a see a strong reaction in terms of the Democratic Party and policy in America if we want to talk about a novel idea. So at the conference, at least novel to me. Well, not exactly novel, but I'll get to it. So the keynote, sort of fireside chat, or, I don't know, conversation, was American hodl with Pete Rizzo. Pete Rizzo being the Bitcoin historian who has in depth, studied all the eras, you know, all the characters. He's lived a lot of it, you know, with a front row seat himself. And he was talking about the possibility, he was talking to me about, hey, if this stable coin is really if the new construct is really effective, is really widely adopted, let's suppose that, having brought it into the regulatory tent, so to speak, that stable coins just grow gangbusters and really eat away a lot of market share in. Of foreign fiat currencies and get widely adopted as payment methods. You know, what does that mean for for Bitcoin in dollar terms? I'm talking about price. And his idea is, well, it might be negative, right? Like, you know, Bitcoin has, in some sense, from a monetary perspective, perspective had pretty weak competition, or maybe from a payments perspective, you know, there's been all these limitations on the payment system for dollars, you know, whether because of KYC or because of different treatment in different jurisdictions, if this stable coin thing really takes off, you know, the dollar could have, could have a, I don't want to say a second golden age, but let's just say it could significantly extend the life of the US Dollar as we know it. So I think that's a factor to consider and think about. And it's also a it should be a motivator for builders, like the ones that you support, to continue building out the payments infrastructure in particular that's based on Bitcoin, you know, relatively quickly, because the dollar was a strong competitor that became a weak competitor, and yet the stablecoin situation may have strengthened the dollar's competitive abilities, at least with respect to payments. And so that's another sort of scenario that I'm watching carefully and thinking carefully about. By the way, I'm still very bullish Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin has characteristics that still outscore the dollar, even now that stable coins are mainstreaming. But I do think it is incumbent upon builders and Bitcoin to continue building out this, these infrastructure layers like you described, or like you mentioned, in order to make sure that bitcoin does reach its potential and sooner rather than later.

Lynne Bairstow: 42:10

Andy on that topic, which is we spent a lot of time thinking about because we, I guess our lens is a little bit differently, because we do look at like what the rest of the world is looking at in terms of what's important to them to adopt Bitcoin and why they're using Bitcoin, and not just a US or Western focused mindset of financial technology. And are you thinking that Bitcoin needs to replace the dollar, or can they coexist or and also the, you know, like tether, the number one stable coin globally, which has, I think it's like 157 billion in transactions now, and and they're, they're powered primarily, they're powering primarily the financial interactions in the rest of the world, and not in the US, which has been wanting to participate in a US dollar ecosystem and profiting from that, but they're moving to the Bitcoin Blockchain for processing their transactions. They've been on other blockchains. They were originally on Bitcoin, moved to other blockchains for reduction transaction fees, and now they're moving back on lightning, and it'll be a process. But how do you how do you view that? Do you feel it has to be Bitcoin or dollar or or can it coexist with stable coins in some form?

Andy: 43:29

Yeah, no, I definitely in the long run, I think the time frame matters. So yeah, I think the the dollar probably will be with us for for a while, yet, for better and for worse, I think that Bitcoin can absolutely thrive in a world where the dollar is still widely used. I think that at minimum, at minimum, Bitcoin should take a lot of market share from gold, right? That's like, that's like, for me, the strongest component of the investment thesis for the foreseeable future, and Bitcoin reaching its potential, especially with respect to payments, is, you know, another level of success. And I think if you'd asked me some years ago, you know, are the dollar and Bitcoin enemies, I probably would have said yes. Now I I don't really think so. Or at least, I think the timescale is likely to be long enough that it almost doesn't matter, at least for how we invest or how we live our lives day to day right now. It's a little bit I don't want. It's not quite like asking, you know, will the United States survive forever? You know, no nation state in history has survived. Survived forever up to this point. But also, do I think it's likely to survive a good while yet, you know, long enough that, long enough that I'm not making any any plans for its demise? Yes. So I think the time scale matters a lot. And I think also that one of the beauties of Bitcoins, adoption and growth so far, is one of my favorite things, is when people say it's not money, you know, I think, I think central bankers do this routinely, right? You know, it's, it's too volatile, or, you know, XYZ reason why it's why it's not money. And I say, Great, yep, it's not money. Don't worry about us Bitcoiners, you know, build, building stuff and helping Bitcoin reach its long term potential as money. If you want to call it not money today, you know that's fine. Don't worry about all those, I don't even know how many millions you know, folks outside the US and outside the West that actually do use it to transact, or the ones that I know personally that trans with, you know the trends act with it routinely at at Bitcoin conferences, and otherwise, don't worry about those guys. So, yeah, I think that, I think that there's so much potential for Bitcoin still to realize. I think it's very, very early days. And I think that, yeah, I think that the fact that the dollar may have been given a new lease on life due to stablecoin adoption actually makes it more likely that Bitcoin can stay inside the friendly part of the regulatory tent, and sort of coexist and give long give builders who have a long view with respect to bitcoins potential. I think it gives those builders actually more time to build from a policy perspective, because those in power don't view Bitcoin as a competitor to the dollar, or at least, at least no no time soon, I actually prefer, I sort of prefer, that Bitcoin doesn't have a giant run, you know, go to a million dollars. You know, lots of people transacting it because they can't trust the dollar for whatever reason, you know, and then we have the political fight sooner rather than later. I think it's better for builders to go ahead and build out the infrastructure that will help Bitcoin reaches potential in future years, and do so, do so in peace, while the rest of the folks with their dollar goggles on, you know, just kind of continue on their on their merry way. Yeah,

Israel: 47:50

you know, the Bitcoin being confusing is perhaps a competitive advantage. I hadn't, I hadn't thought about that, but, you know, in a way, it's, it's very true.

Andy: 48:03

Maybe there's so many, there's so few people that have any significant understanding, yeah, of bitcoins potential as transactional money, that, yeah, it's, it's gonna take a very, very long time for that understanding to percolate. And in the meantime, as long as Bitcoin builders are are left alone, I think they're gonna build great stuff, especially with, yeah, with support from from clever funders like you.

Israel: 48:34

Well, you know, shifting a little bit the conversation Andy to a topic that's right now very, very prevalent and in lots of media outlets, and has you know kind of that that buzz going around is this whole conversation around Bitcoin Treasury companies, we were talking a little Bit offline before starting the recording that it's done correctly. I again, you were mentioning this, and I fully agree. Um, if you're just using it as a smart Treasury asset, of course it's going to, you know, power your business or as as a person, your individual finances. But there's a lot of different flavors of Bitcoin Treasury companies, especially in the public company space. Let's be clear. Let's start there. So publicly traded companies have recently been going on a spree. We see every week, there's new announcements, and it'd be useful to frame this conversation. So maybe let's just start there. What are the different types of ways that public companies can adopt Bitcoin as a treasury strategy, and when do those methods begin to get into the, you know, maybe risky side of

Andy: 49:54

things? Yeah, so maybe I'll just frame my personal history. Uh, with respect to this topic, in case it's instructive. Okay, so in mid 2020, uh, MicroStrategy began the adoption of its treasury policy, okay? And I started, you know, tweeting about it, whatever, explaining it to the traditional Bitcoin community. And Michael Saylor started following me at that time, and he told me it was, you know, for that reason, because I was, you know, useful. He felt that I was communicating things given. He felt that that I was helping to bridge, you know, understanding between tradfi and Bitcoin, let's say, and then I think it was in maybe October of 2020, I used to do this regular pod with Swan, and it would be quarterly me and Preston pish, and we'd kind of do a, you know, quarterly review. And on that particular episode, i i opined that I had taken a quick look at the MicroStrategy balance sheet, and it looked like maybe this balance sheet could actually bear some debt. It's, it's a little bit under levered. And I had no idea, you know, how far he would take that, but I think, yeah, the first convert deal was announced soon after that. You know, after he had already put the half a billion dollars of cash into Bitcoin, he had implemented the tender offer right to take out investors who were interested in a business intelligence, software services investment, but we're not interested in a Bitcoin company investment at the time. This feels like a lot, a long time ago right now. I guess it's five years ago, and thus began, you know, this, this odyssey that is, that is mushrooming and developing as we speak. Okay, so we've gotten to another level, of course, which is numerous new participants. There's all these new entities. You know, meta planet happened. I'm just not even going to continue to name names, because there's so many of them now, and everything, it's a little bit like everything that can be tried will be tried, right? So the door was was blown open by MicroStrategy. I think that door would have stayed open, if not for Sam bankman, fried and Tara Luna and Celsius and all the blow ups, right? That happened in 2020 or post 2021, or into, yeah, in 20 was it 21 or 22 my,

Israel: 52:46

I have something was 22 that the FTX below, right?

Andy: 52:49

21 was the peak. 22 is the blog. And so, you know, I think that, I think the boards of directors were probably looking at the options, because sailor had published the playbook. It was all in the public domain. And I think then the blow ups happened. Price went down and and the clock had to be restarted. So to so to speak, had to wait for another bull market. So another bull market happened. I think it's ongoing, and now these things are just, are just popping off everywhere and yeah, everything under the sun, various equity strategies, various debt strategies, various jurisdictions. The premise that I like, at least as an investor, is that where there are still regulatory barriers or jurisdictional barriers, or some reason that investors cannot access actual Bitcoin, then they should want a corporate wrapper on it. That's a strong thesis. Another thesis is, let's lever Bitcoin. I'm less keen on that thesis personally, but, but that's definitely, it's definitely something that's going on here. A more conservative thesis is many companies should have Bitcoin as part of their corporate treasury, because that has a lot of advantages to it, not least being the one that Michael Saylor identified originally, which was, it doesn't you know you're not losing purchasing power in the long run on your Bitcoin holdings like you were losing purchasing power on your Fiat Treasury holdings. And, by the way, Fiat treasury. Now, now the even the nomenclature gets confusing, I'm talking about Treasury as in the assets that the company owns, not US Treasuries, although, as a matter of fact, US Treasuries are the primary Treasury assets of corporate treasuries. So, you know, I love i. Love businesses owning some bitcoin. I, as an investor, like the idea that probably there will be a major Bitcoin Treasury strategy in each jurisdiction, at least for a while, and that seems like an opportunity. And then, as far as levering bitcoin is concerned, that does seem like a bull market phenomenon to me, more than it seems like a strategy that's going to create lots of value for shareholders in the long run. I think that remains to be seen. How that will go. Yeah, today it feels more bubbly. I'm sure we'll get more of it. Basically the yeah, basically the party's gonna, gonna keep going, as long as the wheels don't fall off or as long as the train doesn't fall off the tracks. I can't say that I'm participating myself very actively in this whole levered Bitcoin entity trend and but I'm definitely watching with interest, because it's source of demand for Bitcoin, so obviously it affects price, except for it's also a transference of demand from, you know, outright coins, potentially to, you know, to levered entities. I mean, I could tell you, I definitely know plenty of Bitcoiners who are bored with Bitcoin, but entertained, let's say, by levered Bitcoin opportunities, entertained and or interested in profiting from them. You know, how long will that maintain, or how will that go? I think is anyone's guess. I think some of these will ultimately blow up. I think others will have, will have various problems. I think we still don't have a valuation framework that's quantifiable at all. You know, I think there are certain metrics you can use as a stock investor. Well, let's put it this way, anyone who owns well, many people who own stocks want to do it on the basis of those stocks being undervalued or offering a better return than alternatives. I think it's really early days with respect to valuation frameworks for these things. I certainly haven't figured out you know how to how to value a levered Bitcoin entity. You know what multiple of the balance sheet Bitcoin one should put on it, and also, one of the major characteristics there, I think, is what, what is future supply of capital for levered Bitcoin entities, overall, in aggregate, and then within each jurisdiction, and what is the rate at which They can, you know at which they can accumulate what? Yeah, What? What? What are supply and demand characteristics around these, these equities and the capital provided to them. So you know, will there be more leverage provided? Will the cost come down? Will it go up like, what is the size of the convertible bond market, you know, for not just us Bitcoin companies, but also, I don't know, Japanese Bitcoin companies, you know, UK Bitcoin companies. I think all of this remains to be seen. I think some people are extrapolating the past, you know, like, how how quickly will how quickly have some of these companies been able to lever up and accumulate Bitcoin? Well, we have, we know history. We know about things that have already happened. What does that tell us about the future rate that they'll be capitalized and be able to accumulate? I would suggest, not much. So basically, quantifying the rate of possible Bitcoin accumulation for these companies is probably impossible. I don't know how one would quantify it. And so it has more to do with, I guess, feelings, so to speak about, how this market could develop over time. And so, yeah, look, it's kind of it's kind of frothy. I'm sure it'll get significantly frothier. And if nothing else, it's going to be entertaining to watch. I. Do think it helps, I think it helps Bitcoin penetrate the mainstream, at least, at least with respect to more and more people having price exposure to Bitcoin. Although equally, I feel like you know the ETF solved that in a lot of jurisdictions, or, sorry for a lot of investors, already, it's definitely not solved in some or it wasn't solved in some jurisdictions. And therefore, you know, stocks, you know companies provided a solution that the ETF didn't, or corporate entities provided the solution. But, yeah, those are some, those are some high level thoughts I have on the on the whole trend overall,

Lynne Bairstow: 1:00:43

I want to kind of continue the concept of Treasury, but take it in a slightly different direction with you. Andy. I mean, you've been an investor in Bitcoin companies and have been involved in Bitcoin companies yourself, and so there's a difference between this whole concept of public treasuries operating on a public company, public companies having Bitcoin treasuries in a leveraged position, versus a startup or a private company adding Bitcoin to their treasury. Probably easier to kind of think about that when you are a Bitcoin company, if you're earning in Bitcoin and just because your propensity is that. But Israel and I've had some conversations with companies that are private companies, not in the Bitcoin space, that have really seen tremendous benefits to their longevity or their their ability to even increase their, you know, their asset base by having Bitcoin on it. But can you share some of your thoughts about non public companies, private companies adding Bitcoin to your treasury? What you might think about that, whether you're a Bitcoin company or not?

Andy: 1:01:53

Yeah, I love that idea. I probably like that idea a lot more than I like, you know, levering corporate public entities to the hilt, okay, so and beyond. So, a couple things for privately held company. What benefits does Bitcoin bring? At least two come immediately top of mind. One is one I mentioned earlier, which is Fiat, which is the usual store of liquid value for a company loses purchasing power over time. We know this. You know the dollar is well in the US. You know consumer price inflation, let's say, is at least several percentage points a year, maybe significantly higher. Now think about going abroad, or, you know, any jurisdiction where the local Fiat asset is significantly weaker. Okay, you're probably debasing losing purchasing power for your company if you're holding that local asset. So that's one major issue. Second major issue is payments. Notwithstanding that Bitcoin is not that widely adopted yet for payments, it is pretty awesome that you can pay anyone in the world Bitcoin, and nobody can stop you. And that includes, you know, the correspondent banking system. That includes whatever you know government happens to either have local jurisdiction for you as a founder or for the party that you're trying to pay. I mean, if you're a global business, if you have employees that are located outside the country you're operating in, or if you have revenue from outside the company or the country you're operating in. Bitcoin offers this amazing tool that allows you to pay your vendors anywhere you know, or collect revenue from customers anywhere. This is pretty cool. This is pretty powerful. And suffice to say that on either side of that equation, you're going to want to probably have some bitcoin in your treasury. You're going to if you're receiving it as payments, then you're going to have it automatically. And if you're paying vendors with it, you know you're going to want to have some to make those payments. Especially, by the way, when even if you're using normal Fiat payment rails for 90 plus percent of your normal course business, occasionally, you may want to be able to pay someone who doesn't have access to those Fiat rails, and having Bitcoin to accomplish that is very powerful. So yeah, any I would say every individual and every entity in the world probably is likely to have some use for Bitcoin. Um, for payment purposes, some point in the future, even if they don't have that need right now, it's not too bad to hold some Not least because the purchasing power tends to go up over time rather than down, and so if you have a long enough view on that component of your treasury, then, yeah, you get, you get two benefits. You get. It's sort of like a free option on a hard payment. In the future, you're getting paid to hold that option. It's better than free. You're getting compensated with it, by the way, at a pretty high rate, historically, the price of Bitcoin, the purchasing power, let's just say Bitcoin has gone up at a pretty, pretty attractive average, compound growth rate, compound annual growth rate. And so that, I would say, is, to my mind, the Yeah, the pitch for for founders, for management teams, for treasurers, privately held companies. A lot of benefits to holding some bitcoin. Yeah.

Israel: 1:06:08

I mean, we're, we're certainly seeing some fascinating use cases in this, in the startup world, and reducing the reliance on fundraising, which directly translates to more founder equity as well, and ownership and control. So there's, yeah, there's, there's many powerful ripple effects from from using Bitcoin in it, of course, in a smart and responsible way within your company. So

Andy: 1:06:35

let me ask you, I mean, you having faced the the trade offs and obviously advising the companies in which you invest. Things that come to mind, obviously are, one is, you know, it reduces, it can reduce the frequency of required fundings, although, you know, depending on market conditions and in terms of the purchasing power of Bitcoin, like if you're in a bear market, I guess it could make it more likely that you have to raise more capital in that in those circumstances. But if you know, if things go well, obviously, you know, the Treasury lives longer, and so there's fewer funding funding rounds, you know, I imagine that businesses, I imagine that CEOs founders, gets had some stress about, you know, how volatile is the purchasing power of my of my treasury going to be? You know, how are you advising that they think about these trade offs and sizing? I mean, in terms of, you know, what percent of the Treasury to hold in Bitcoin versus Fiat or something else,

Lynne Bairstow: 1:07:36

Israel, I'll let you take this, but also, but I think, we're Israel and are spending a lot of time thinking about this. And I think there are two different aspects. One is, how much should you put in a in a treasury? But the other that we're really seeing are you can you? Can you if we actually it's like Michael Saylor is our mentor on this, using AI to just think about how different you can structure a startup funding. So instead of a typical safe or or, you know, VC investment, can you use different instruments, or can you use different ways of structuring an initial finance to give an investor comfort, possibly even more comfort than they've had before in a typical Safe Investing? I mean, most early stage startups will fail. I mean, it's a statistic, but if you can guarantee that, or give them some certainty by, you know, by tying that Bitcoin treasury to their investment and then providing some upside, or an ability for that to for the startup to pay back in Bitcoin the investment team. So there are a lot of different variations of this that could change, not only funding rounds in the future based on the fact that the Bitcoin Treasury has done well, but also just how they even think about raising capital in the very beginning. Add on to that, yeah.

Israel: 1:08:58

I mean, ultimately it just gives the, I think, the founder, more optionality, which I mean to your point, Lynne, it can form, come in the form of even just restructuring the traditional VC, you know, say, for our contract itself, to provide maybe earlier liquidity of to the investor, the convertible debenture contractor example that you gave her earlier. Lynne, oh, maybe that was offline, but, but it provides optionality in in restructuring the the investor founder relationship itself, I think because the backdrop to this is the founder understanding, okay, I have a new tool, which is a phenomenal savings technology. So I'm not fully reliant on this VC world, right? And then the the other side of it, when you were asking about the volatility Andy, I think you know, in the in the startup space, it's maybe, in a way, in advantage, in. Because I think startup founders, by nature, are just they're entering into into their journey. I mean as risk takers, right? So I don't know if you agree, Lynne, but I think I observe less less worry about the volatility, the short term volatility, at least of Bitcoin, the asset and the price action, with startup founders, they understand, I think, for the most part, that it kind of bounced around, just like they understand that their startup journey will be, you know, full of ups and downs. So I mean, I think it really comes down to sizing, which is something we're still kind of discovering what and of course, there are some companies and industries that are more capital intensive than others, right? So if they have an extremely high burn rate, then, you know, maybe sizing it closer to, I don't know, just to give an example, you know, 20% is wiser than a company that's already profitable has a lower burn rate, and can maybe, you know, allocate 50 or 60% I don't know, you know, we're just kind of discovering a lot of these points. But it is a, it is an extremely powerful tool. I mean, I think I would just summarize it in that it provides a lot of option, optionality to the founder that didn't exist before. And

Lynne Bairstow: 1:11:22

the third aspect of that is that, you know, some of the founders that we've talked to are specifically providing services to to borrow against either the appreciation, if you want to sell it for a profit. I mean, maybe you've had appreciation, but if the company needs cash flow or needs some liquidity there without executing a tax event, possibly or also, if there is volatility on the downside, there's still ways to access some of that Bitcoin without necessarily having to sell it. And so we're also as conservative as you are. Andy, when it comes to leverage, we take, I think, the same, the same viewpoint, but the tools like debify, letting that we've been speaking with very conservative, very protective against helping the lender, the person who's using Bitcoin as collateral, to not lose it. So I think just on a conservative basis, there are ways of accessing either either the value of the Bitcoin or the appreciation of the Bitcoin, without necessarily having to sell the asset, the underlying asset.

Andy: 1:12:23

Yeah, this is a really good point, and I was having a conversation with the Bitcoin holder recently, extremely smart guy and PhD physicist, and his perspective was he's happy to borrow some modest amount against his Bitcoin, partly on the basis that this leverage market will develop. You know, interest rates will probably go down. Knock wood. I'm talking about against Bitcoin collateral, number one. Number two, the structures, including the term and potential maturity, you know, should get better over time, not worse. So if it's still the relative infancy of Bitcoin as a monetary asset, then everything that touches a monetary asset, including credit structures, should evolve over time. And so it's a little bit like the LLM, you know, the AI you're using right now is the worst it's ever going to be. Likewise, the borrowing structures against Bitcoin probably are the worst they're ever going to be. So and so, yeah, it's, it's early days, and borrowing with the sub optimal structure today is partly okay, because you're likely to get better terms in the future.

Israel: 1:13:47

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's all, it's all evolving quickly. I mean, I know sometimes we feel like things are moving at a slow pace to to the earth, bringing you back to the earlier part of the conversation. Because once you get it, you just see, you know, the massive opportunity, and you're like, how come other people aren't seeing this, but, but, yeah. I mean, when it all comes down to it, the market's evolving extremely rapidly. So, yeah, fascinating.

Andy: 1:14:10

William Gibson was right. The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed. We're just waiting for it to distribute evenly. We're we're each doing our own tiny part to help, help distribute the future evenly.

Israel: 1:14:24

Yeah, that's spot on. And, you know, I guess maybe a good point to to wrap up the conversation. Andy, I mean, thank you so much for the time and all the effort that you do in helping put such a solid framework on on this complex issue. We want to make sure to kind of give you the last word here, and not sure if there's anything you want to leave the listeners with advice comments and, of course, where people can can find you as well.

Andy: 1:14:53

Yeah, I might. I might just close with you, know, underscoring the point that I made earlier, which is, like. The fear, you know, the fear and wanting to hold hard money is what's been resonating with my clients and advisors lately. But I look forward to a world in which, you know, it's much more positive. It's much more about the potential to unlock. Yeah, unlock entrepreneurial efforts in a way that couldn't be done in a world without Bitcoin. And also, by the way, it can be both. I mean, one of the magical things about Bitcoin itself is it's so multifaceted. It's useful for different people and different entities for different reasons, and I don't think that's going to go away. I think the usefulness of Bitcoin is increasing with time, not decreasing. And so, yeah, still, lots of ways to win with Bitcoin. Still lots of ways to try and wrap your head around it. You know lots of ways to help people learn about it. It's early days, and we still have plenty of work to do, but I do think the future is bright. The future is bright orange, and I'm looking forward to living in it. Thank

Lynne Bairstow: 1:16:15

you so much. Andy, I can't let you go without encouraging our listeners to get a copy of your book. Why buy bitcoin? So it's available on Amazon. We'll put some links in the show notes about this, but it's just a fantastic book. I think you were one of the first to really clarify what bitcoins a value proposition is, and define it for money. So not just for wealth, wealth advisors or financial advisors, but to for anybody who's curious about how it fits into the system, Andy just wrote a spectacular book that that helps, help do, clarify your thinking. It also does. And since we only got through about, I don't know, half of our questions that we wanted to cover with you, we'll have to have you back again. And just echoing what Israel said, we really, really deeply appreciate your time and sharing your thoughts with our audience. So thank you. Andy,

Andy: 1:17:03

thank you. Lynne, thank you Israel. Right back at you and look forward to our next Convo.

Unknown: 1:17:15

You.