The Gen B Podcast
Join two friends as they break down how Bitcoin can be a solution to the money and savings struggles of Millennials and Gen Zs.
The Gen B Podcast
Ep 7: Steak n Shake Accepting Bitcoin and the Rise of Bitcoin Treasury Companies
Summary
In this episode of the Gen B podcast, hosts Evan and David discuss the recent surge in Bitcoin's price, the implications of Steak n Shake accepting Bitcoin as payment, and the evolving landscape of Bitcoin adoption. They explore the concept of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the rise of Bitcoin treasury companies, and the correlation between Bitcoin's price and the M2 money supply. The conversation emphasizes the importance of long-term thinking in Bitcoin investment and the potential shift in consumer behavior as Bitcoin becomes more widely accepted.
What's going on, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Gen B podcast. I'm Evan. This is my good friend, David. Yeah, we were on a little hiatus. We haven't recorded in a couple weeks, just had some life things come up, but we're excited to be recording again. Today is Sunday, May 18th. Last time we recorded, I believe that Bitcoin's price was at about$82,000,$84,000 potentially, somewhere around there. And as we're discussing this today, it is currently sitting at$105,000, if I'm not mistaken,$105,000. We're back, baby. Just like that, we're back. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:it's been like, I looked, we recorded on April 3rd, so it's been like a month and a half, and Price did what Price does, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and before we move forward, I just need to mention, for those that are watching on YouTube, I'm wearing my Bitcoin hat. It looks like the New York Knicks logo. Shout out to my Knicks. Made the Eastern Conference Finals first time in 25 years. So this is paying homage to them as well as, of course, the almighty Bitcoin. How
SPEAKER_01:long till the Knicks start accepting Bitcoin for payment in MSG?
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, when... The question is, who's going to be the first NBA player to take their entire contract in Bitcoin?
SPEAKER_01:You had Russell Okung, who was a football player, do it years ago in 2016. The mayor of New York accepted his first few paychecks in Bitcoin, I'm pretty sure. It's bleeding everywhere. It's bleeding throughout society in a good way.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, and I think Odell Beckham, too, actually accepted Bitcoin as, I don't know if it was his full contract, but yeah, yeah, it's definitely, and that's actually, you know, a good segue into one of the topics we wanted to talk about today, which is the restaurant Steak and Shake. They announced that, I think it was this past Friday, May 16th, they officially started accepting Bitcoin as payment, which is... Pretty massive. I think that's going to be something we look back on as a moment in time where it's like, wow, that was a big step forward for Bitcoin. Because prior to this, I think the story that everyone talks about is when back in 2010, the guy bought two pizzas for like 10,000 Bitcoin. And that's always what's talked about. But this is like the first real establishment of Bitcoin. That's kind of come out and said, yeah, you can come to our business and spend your Bitcoin for our goods and service. You know what's
SPEAKER_01:funny? Sorry to interrupt. That made me look up and this might derail the conversation a little bit, but I want to hear what you were going to say. I just looked up who all accepts Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a merchant. You have Home Depot on here, Ikea. I've never heard news about all of this. A lot of folks listed on here. Airbnb, AMC Theaters, American Eagle. We're just in the A's.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I never... That's interesting. I'd be curious. We may have to do a little bit of further research on that because I use Airbnb when I travel and I've never seen the option to pay in Bitcoin.
SPEAKER_01:Well, part of it is like people don't want to spend their Bitcoin right now. Like you alluded to the 10,000 Bitcoin pizza that whatever at this price is billions of dollars, I think, at least hundreds of millions. I'm not good at doing math off the top, but a lot of money, basically more the most expensive pizzas that have ever been purchased. And I mean, I think we've even seen it in some of our other like TikToks we posted are talking about like well, there is a world where Bitcoin could be a medium of exchange. We're just not there yet. And people are like, oh, why would anybody ever spend their Bitcoin? It's just worth so much. And it is true right now. Price is still growing because of increasing demand. It's still too new for it to be a reliable medium of exchange. You can't spend it, but then anything you buy, it's going to become the most expensive version. It's going to be the most expensive burger you've ever bought at Steak Shack. Or Steak and Shake. I keep mixing them up. We were saying Shake Shack, all of them. I'm in Washington. We don't have Steak and Shake out here. Really? Yeah, I've never even heard of it until this.
SPEAKER_00:You should franchise it now that they're accepting Bitcoin. You should open the first one in Washington.
SPEAKER_01:Washington doesn't have a lot of stuff. I want to franchise an In-N-Out, a Buc-ee's. We could really step up our game out here.
SPEAKER_00:What I think is so interesting, going back to Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, talking to friends of mine in the past about Bitcoin, it's like on both sides I've heard it where it's like, oh, if I can't I can't even spend my Bitcoin anywhere. What good is it? And then I've also heard the argument of, well, why would I spend my Bitcoin if it's so valuable? Which I think is kind of this... It's hard for people to wrap their heads around. They're looking at it from both... Now it's clear that you can spend your Bitcoin. Obviously, it's one restaurant. But I think that kind of leads into... We've never had a valuable money before. We've had just the fiat money. It hasn't held its value. And so we don't really know what a world looks like where our money holds its value. And maybe that goes into a whole other thing. But I just think this is a really interesting... It's interesting that Steak and Shake has decided to do this because it's just like... a big moment in time that we'll look back on in the history of Bitcoin of, you know, helping. No, you make a,
SPEAKER_01:you make a really interesting point is what does a world look like where we are spending Bitcoin? And I think the general consensus is like the reason Bitcoin has such high, gains year over year and has for the last 15 years is because it's a new technology. People are starting to understand it more. Demand is increasing. So you see these large spikes in price over time, like what we just alluded to earlier. Price went up 25% in the last month. That's not even that high we were saying for Bitcoin, like that you have some 10% swings in single days. So it's super volatile and As we're saying, that's the reason a lot of people aren't comfortable using it as a day-to-day currency. But as this becomes more adopted, which we're already seeing, whether it be looking at this list of all these companies who accept it, Steak and Shake accepting it now being big news, it's becoming more and more adopted in society. So in theory, as... As demand levels out over time, as it becomes more widely accepted, the returns on the investment side of it are going to be smaller and smaller. But even so, and where it differs from fiat in this potential future, is it will still be increasing in value because it has a provably scarce supply. The amount of goods and services in the world will likely continue to increase, especially when you throw AI into the mix. And who knows what that's going to be able to produce as time goes on. the money that you're valuing all of these goods and services against is staying static while everything else is growing. So the value or the purchasing power of that money will be able to increase forever, even if everybody is using this money as a medium of exchange. So I think the way I view it is like it will incentivize savings. It won't stop people from spending because naturally we have to spend. You need to buy groceries and groceries pay your mechanic or whatever else it is but you'll think twice before buying that Mercedes you'll think what is the value of my money going to be if I hold on to it for a little bit longer versus buying the sports car that I maybe don't need and maybe make the decision I want the sports car I don't care about the extra money that can make for me in the future but yeah it'll be interesting as time goes on and obviously we're not there yet and Just to ramble a little bit more, I think the world we're living in today, and I know River, the Bitcoin exchange, has done a really good job of touching on this, is they see a world where people are saving in Bitcoin and spending in dollars or whatever their local currency is for the reasons that we're talking about. You want to save the thing that's going up in value over time, and you want to transact and get rid of the thing that is losing value over time. Cause there's literally no point in holding it. So I think I adhere to that as well, that that's probably like the world that we're going to live in, in the short term, at least is saving Bitcoin, spending dollars with the longterm vision being, we probably are spending Bitcoin eventually.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think short term, we're going to see that, you know, instead of putting your, your money or your, your dollars into a high yield savings account, it's like, all right, I'm just going to put that into Bitcoin, let it grow, and then keep some dollars almost like in my checking account as I need to spend it, pay bills, whatever. So yeah, I think it's really interesting and it'll be interesting to live in a world where, like we've said, because your money is gaining value for you, you might second guess a few purchases that you might have, you know, otherwise made like exactly like, uh, you know, you're starting to think longterm, which is actually a, you know, that'd be a really nice world to live in where, you know,
SPEAKER_01:it changes consumerist behavior. Like we live in such a consumer dominated society, like almost a detriment. I think like it's wasteful. A lot of times if you're into the environment, which I am like, it's, it's bad for the environment. Like it's, There's a lot of bad that comes with consumerism. So I think it shifts that. And our whole economy, the fiat economy, is based on consumerism. If money isn't moving, the economy dies. And that's why people are so anti-Bitcoin and this concept of having a currency that maintains and grows its value over time. It's actually a completely different economic structure than what fiat is currently.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. That's exactly why I think in the short term, I think with 10, 15, 20 years, I think it's, like you said, saving Bitcoin, spending dollars. Because if people aren't spending their money, well, that's not to get too deep into it, but that's why people talk about how Bitcoin is deflationary. Imagine a world where no one really wants to spend on a dinner out because that$100 for the meal and the glass of wine... that$100 by the end of the year could turn into a$50 gain in US dollars,$100 gain. And then all of a sudden, those restaurants or those vendors or wherever you're spending money, they need your business. So that might mean that they say, hey, and it's a concept that I always thought would be interesting. I'm curious if we're going to start seeing companies do this is because Bitcoin is gaining value, they'll say, okay, let's just say this XYZ item on Amazon is$100. But if you pay in Bitcoin, you only have to pay technically$70 worth of Bitcoin. Because we'll
SPEAKER_01:account for the gain in value we'll get over time.
SPEAKER_00:Right, and then that way you're getting a lesser price, but we're paying the we're playing the long game where it's like, like that's always what I've been interested in seeing, but I think we're a ways away from that, but it'll just be a really interesting world to live in. And, you know, snake and shake, I think is sitting on quite the gold mine, depending on how many people, you know, spent their sats.
SPEAKER_01:No, that is. So I didn't even think about that. Just like what that means for steak and shake as a business. Like I was thinking it more from the perspective of like, bitcoin ecosystem and increasing bitcoin adoption but like steak and shake is like gaining the most valuable money in exchange for burgers right they're not steaks i don't know burgers i guess so that's that's a pretty good trade in my book trading burgers for the best money in history maybe i should do that
SPEAKER_00:yeah it's the uh the I wouldn't say it's unfortunate by any means, but Steak and Shake, they've been very edgy when it comes to their social media as of late. You could tell that they've been all in on Beef Tallow. They're
SPEAKER_01:very Bitcoin maximalist forward.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you could just tell it's some young person probably running that account on social media. I am interested to see if there's going to be a big company. I know you mentioned that list before, but I wonder if a company like Amazon or something is all of a sudden going to say, hey, we are now accepting Bitcoin, which
SPEAKER_01:would
SPEAKER_00:be massive.
SPEAKER_01:It's wild, man. It's wild watching it happen. Yeah. Things feel slow moving, but then you take a step back and it's crazy how quickly they're actually progressing. And it's easy to feel. We've talked about this. You can feel late, but we're not. And this is just another example of that. This isn't even widely accepted. Companies are slowly starting to put it on their balance sheet, which I know we want to talk about as well. But this isn't mainstream yet. And I've seen... River in the same report they put out. It was a good one that I'd recommend folks check out. Maybe we can link it in our podcast notes. But they're saying they expect we'll be living in a world where every company and individual saves in Bitcoin. There's so much. You'd have to look at the exact numbers, but there's a lot of wealth out there saved in other vehicles, whether it's real estate, stocks, whatever. Bitcoin's going to start sucking money out of those buckets I think and then what does that do to price and USD pumps it up so
SPEAKER_00:yeah and I think that's a good segue into you know I read somewhere and I'll have to fact check it but the since we last did an episode and it's gained about what 25% or 20-25% in USD up until this point A lot of the buying, it seems to look like it's coming from ETFs, so like BlackRock and these other ETFs. And retail really doesn't seem like they're interested in it. I think they think that it's too expensive. And now you're seeing a lot of companies that are starting to become Bitcoin treasury companies, right? Do you want to explain what that means? A Bitcoin treasury company? Yeah. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but a Bitcoin treasury company is just a company that is putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
SPEAKER_01:I would take it a step further that that's like why they exist is to accumulate Bitcoin. Like, it's not just like they're in Amazon. They're like, yeah, we'll hold this asset. Like, their full business model is like, we want to get as much Bitcoin as humanly possible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I'm actually really curious to see how all of that pans out because it's just like totally rethinking how you would think about a company. It's like, okay, you own a very valuable asset, but you're not really producing anything. Like people are so used to, you know, what is it? Earnings per share or whatever. Certain metrics that they judge companies on, to judge whether it's a healthy company or not, where a company that just holds Bitcoin, that doesn't apply to it. It's not
SPEAKER_01:productive,
SPEAKER_00:really. Right. I've seen all the... Because of strategy and just how foot on the gas they've been about their... Bitcoin acquisition and just all the different avenues that they've created to buy Bitcoin. There's all these different metrics that they've created, Bitcoin per share, Bitcoin torque is one that people are talking about. I think we're still really early in this whole thing where people are trying to figure out how do you value these companies? especially a company like Strategy. Do you want to talk about a couple of the companies that just got announced that they're Bitcoin treasury companies? I know I have a few that I have listed.
SPEAKER_01:We talked about this before. I think it's called 21 Capital. That's a combination of Jack Mallers, who is the CEO of Strike, and Oh my gosh, what's the other investment company that they're combined
SPEAKER_00:with? SoftBank. SoftBank and Tether. Yeah, Tether's involved. And Cantor
SPEAKER_01:Fitzgerald. That's who I'm thinking of, Cantor Fitzgerald. And I don't know, I'm fumbling on names. The guy, Howard Lutnick, who's in Trump's administration, he was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which I believe was a hedge fund or is a hedge fund. We're not traditional finance people, so we're piecing it out in real time with you guys. Yeah, there's a group of folks who got together to do what we were saying, just like, we're going to use basically financial instruments and large capital pools that only these really wealthy, massive companies have access to to acquire Bitcoin. I don't understand it, and I'm not going to pretend to. And one of the points I was going to make when you were talking about it is, for me personally... I'm probably going to avoid most of these. And sure, maybe I may miss out on some dollar-denominated gains. I just don't understand it. And I'm not comfortable putting my money into these things that I don't understand when I can buy Bitcoin. And something that's always stood out to me with these companies is they're not buying their own stock. They're going and buying Bitcoin. So why would I buy their stock instead of buying the same thing that they're valuing so highly to literally create a new form of business that is just acquiring this asset. So that's been a sticking point for me. I think part of the perspective is because they have such access to capital, they can do unique things with Bitcoin that you can't do as just a day-to-day person. Again, I don't understand that. I'm kind of taking people's word for it that that's the case, but For me personally, I understand Bitcoin. I understand the value proposition. That's a big part of what we're trying to explain in the podcast and our TikTok and everything. So just simpler. And that's one of the things that's really attracted me to Bitcoin is how easy this is to understand. Once you get up to speed, how easy it is to understand. And we've talked about this where we currently live in a world where you're a doctor full time, but you also have to be financial analyst for yourself in order to determine like which stock do i want to buy like just our financial system is very complicated and i think bitcoin makes things really simple just point blank that it's um totally scarce it's decentralized we've talked about those a lot as the two major value propositions like you can explain it that easily whereas like what makes Amazon stock valuable, what's its price-to-earning ratio. I think you have to do those same sort of mental gymnastics with these other Bitcoin treasury companies that we're talking about. So that would just be my advice. I think ultimately Bitcoin's simpler. I think historically returns have been great, obviously. So that's something an individual has to weigh for themselves is... Am I okay with the nice returns that I think Bitcoin will get me over time? Or do I want to dive in and basically take bigger risks in order to see if these earn me more? Because they may or may not. I don't know what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah. And I think it's really just... We're not obviously sitting here saying you should look into investing in these companies, do your own research, but it's more of just to show this is just another... chapter in Bitcoin's history. We're going to look back at these are companies that started adopting it. These Bitcoin treasury companies and it's just more demand. These companies are buying millions if not billions of US dollars worth of Bitcoin, which again is a finite asset. And if more of these companies are popping up, I think everyone's kind of, you know, people that are in Bitcoin, they're making memes where like, we're just, everyone's sitting here saying, you got strategy, you have all these holding companies, you have all these, the ETFs, you got all these people buying Bitcoin with a limited supply. Why is price not absolutely just going bonkers right now? Well,
SPEAKER_01:I mean, and it has ripped pretty hard in the last month, right? Like, I think, because we were at what, 91 a few episodes ago. That must have been like March sometime. And we were like, there's so much bullish news. Like we had dropped from 108 to 91K. And we were like, why? Like everything is so bullish. And it was like the tariffs and everything. Like there were a lot of macro factors affecting that. And then it just kept going down. It got all the way down to 75 at one point. And I think we still were like, there's literally nothing but like good news for Bitcoin specifically. Yeah. And obviously Bitcoin is influenced by the macro environment. So at least for now, we have to keep that in mind. But there hasn't been anything really negative that you can pinpoint specific to Bitcoin. It's like, oh, that's why Bitcoin's price went down because this happened specifically for Bitcoin. And now we're seeing the catch-up effect of that, right? Where, okay, things are calming down macro-wise. All of this bullish news is coming out left and right. There's always something new coming up recently that's good for Bitcoin. Price is going up. And then to your point, I'm sure demand has a huge part to play in that too, and will continue to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I just hope that, you know, that's why we're doing this podcast. Hopefully retail people, meaning, you know, retail, meaning everyday people like you and I, start buying because, yeah, I mean, listen, will Bitcoin hit 90 again at some point? I'm sure it will. Could it hit 80 again? I'm sure it will. But, you know, it's... But it also might not, right? Yeah, exactly. It might not. But more importantly, it's just there's everything macro going on in the world just is kind of pointing towards Bitcoin taking off. We're just kind of waiting, sitting here saying, when will it happen? Do you mind actually, something I've been seeing, do you mind looking up if you could find Bitcoin M2 supply chart or Bitcoin M2 chart where...
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was thinking that too. I'll look on X. It's all over X. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And essentially, while he's looking that up, I guess you can call it theory, but kind of data is starting to back it up that Bitcoin follows the... M2 money supply chart. And M2 is just, would you say the best way to put it is just the amount of money that's being printed more or less? It's
SPEAKER_01:a measurement of money supply in an economy. They're talking about global M2 supply in this tweet here that I'll bring up. Yeah, there's M1, there's M2, M3, M4. They just measure more and more parts of global money supply. So just think of it as global money supply at the end of the day. And yeah, what this graph is showing, the green line is that money supply. And they shifted it three months. And by doing that, it's basically accounting for a lag effect where the blue line, Bitcoin's price, is pretty strongly correlated, as you can see here, with that M2 line. And what they have circled in the corner there is where M2 has gone if we're looking three months ahead. And if this correlation continues, Bitcoin's price probably follows. And yeah, I was asking ChatGPT about this as well. And it's like the M2 supply is the strongest thing that Bitcoin's price is correlated to. it's stronger than stock indices correlation wise and like a lot stronger than gold's price so i think people are realizing that to your point and based like basically saying okay if m2 goes up historically we've seen bitcoin follow
SPEAKER_00:yeah well yeah if that's any indicator the next couple months of bitcoin are going to be uh i think that price increase is going
SPEAKER_01:to
SPEAKER_00:going to happen if this follows. Based on that chart, there was one or two times where money supply just looked like it might have been higher than what Bitcoin... But for the most part, it was pretty... Like you said, it followed it pretty closely.
SPEAKER_01:When we've done full episodes on this, money supply... goes up forever, pretty much. That's the way fiat money works. Money has to keep being printed in order to finance the governments that it's supporting. So even if there is a multi-year dip, like post-COVID there was, when you hear quantitative tightening, that's the Federal Reserve, at least on the US's end, restricting the amount of money supply and even decreasing the amount of money supply that's in the economy. but they can't do that forever. And eventually it has to go up and we're seeing it go up again. And like we're saying, I mean, Bitcoin's price probably will follow. So that's where the question of, will it go to 80K for some reason? Maybe, but do you really wanna, I guess the question everyday people have to ask themselves, would you be more upset if you bought it today 105 and price went to 80K or more upset if you didn't buy today at 105 and it goes to 200. And that's for each person to determine themselves, right? And I guess it's a good reminder too, like you can buy little increments, like there's dollar cost averaging where maybe you're putting 50 bucks a day or 10 bucks a day, 10 bucks a week. Like you can determine like how much you're comfortable buying. I think we just think not financial advice, like it's, a good idea for most people to start to look into this and determine, to understand it and decide from there, is this something I want to own?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And that's what I just started. I opened an account with River. And they offer where you can do, you can pick how often you want a dollar cost average into there, where I think I selected every two weeks, I wanted just to buy, no matter what the price is, it'll just automatically buy. A little amount. And yeah, I just think that that's the easiest way to do it. Instead of being like, should I lump sum and put five grand in? If you're unsure, honestly, just buy a little bit or start dollar cost averaging. And as you learn more and as you get more confident, just deploy more.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I'd have to verify this, but I've had the same questions. Do I want to put X amount in, just put it in today and be done with it? Do I want to dollar cost average and do a little bit every day or whatever? And I think the data, and again, would have to verify this, what it shows is lump summing actually performs better over time because you guarantee that you're in the market when these spikes happen. If you were dollar cost averaging... whatever the amount is, when we were at 75K, you potentially missed out on a lot of gains had you just put whatever amount of money you were comfortable putting into there and have it going up 25%. And we've talked about this too. Even if you're buying at the all-time high, historically, four years later, price has always been higher. So it's all about thinking long-term. It's such a shift. Bitcoin is such a shift in money. and how you need to approach it.
SPEAKER_00:Going off that real quick, just think about if in your bank account right now, in your savings account, if you had$100,000 in your savings account and then you looked a couple weeks later and there was only$80,000 because of the fluctuation and then you're like, oh my God. And then two weeks later, you have$105,000. You're like, oh wow, okay. That's kind of what Bitcoin is right now. It's long-term. Don't look at it day-to-day, week-to-week. Obviously, keep an eye on price if you want, but if you're going to buy, make sure that you have a long time horizon because, like you said, historically, it's panned out pretty well for the people that are patient.
SPEAKER_01:That brings us full circle just to the beginning of the episode again, where Right. Yeah. I can't really save for the future because the value is going down. This, I think, and I think we both think, creates a healthier society by having better money at the end of the day. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Well, I think we're coming up on about a 30-minute episode here. That's really all I have. Was there anything you wanted to end the episode with?
SPEAKER_01:No, I think just, again, a sense of urgency is important to share. Like, we're probably not going to a million a month from now, but the sooner you learn this, the sooner I think financially you'll be in a better position. You've said it already. That's why we're doing this podcast. All of these companies, we didn't even list the rest of them. There's four or five other ones who are going after Bitcoin. You have BlackRock going after Bitcoin, the US government going after Bitcoin. That's a lot of money demand-wise coming into this ecosystem and this market. So I just want everyday people to have their fair shot at this as well. And obviously we've had a 15-year head start, but so many people, like I got into this in 2021. I think you were 2023 and we're still early. So yeah, I just like want people to have their fair shot at what could be like the monetary system of the future for the world.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. And you know, with that being said, you don't know where to start, want to start buying Bitcoin, but a little nervous, just feel free to reach out to us. We're happy to, we're happy to help point you in the right direction. Um, so yeah, just DM us on really any social platform. Um, if you can like, we're Gen B
SPEAKER_01:pod on everything.
SPEAKER_00:Gen B pod. If you could like subscribe, follow on all platforms that always helps a ton. But, um, Yeah. You know, we appreciate you listening to this episode and we'll talk to you soon. All
SPEAKER_01:right. See y'all.
