Bitcoin Adoption Is Accelerating—Are You In or Out? - Trey Sellers & Jon Gordon
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TAKEAWAYS
- The podcast has undergone a rebranding, transitioning to the name "The Bitcoin Playbook," to enhance memorability and accessibility for listeners.
- In this inaugural episode, the hosts discuss recent developments in the intersection of Bitcoin and business, emphasizing practical applications of Bitcoin strategies.
- The introduction of a strategic Bitcoin reserve by the US government signifies a pivotal shift in the perception and acceptance of Bitcoin at the institutional level.
- The conversation highlights the potential for healthcare businesses to adopt Bitcoin, addressing inefficiencies and waste in the current healthcare payment systems.
- Hosts underscore the importance of understanding Bitcoin's role in enhancing business strategies, particularly for cash flow positive companies.
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Transcript
Welcome to the Bitcoin Playbook, where we discuss proven strategies for using bitcoin in your business.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Josh Friedman, and if you're a regular listener to the show, you will certainly recognize some differences.
Speaker A:We changed the podcast name and updated the podcast music.
Speaker A:The primary reason for this is because even long term listeners to the show and friends of mine were not able to remember the word bitcoinization.
Speaker A:And I knew that if bitcoiners who had listened to the show for a long time were not able to remember the name of the show, then other people who are not yet bitcoiners who might only be interested in understanding and exploring bitcoin for their business would be even less likely to remember it.
Speaker A:So instead of trying to be clever with the name and use business bitcoinization, which of course is a play on hyper bitcoinization, I've decided to go with the Bitcoin Playbook.
Speaker A:Hopefully this will be a lot more approachable for the average person and hopefully more people will listen to the show and see the opportunity for using bitcoin in their business.
Speaker A:Practically speaking, this doesn't change too much for the show.
Speaker A:However, it worked out that this new show branding happened to coincide with a new type of episode that I'm looking to put out every couple of weeks.
Speaker A:What I'll be doing every couple of weeks is bringing on a couple of other people and we'll be discussing some of the developments that have happened in and around the worlds of bitcoin and business.
Speaker A:I'll be interested to hear what you think about this new type of format, but I think it will provide a little bit different perspective and an opportunity to have a little bit more newsworthy or relevant topics discussed on the show.
Speaker A:So today, John Gordon and Trey Sellers, both of whom have been interviewed on this podcast multiple times, are joining me.
Speaker A:They'll introduce themselves a little bit more in the discussion, and we're going to get to that discussion right after this.
Speaker A:All right, guys, welcome to the first episode of what is essentially a roundup episode of things that have been happening connected to the world of bitcoin and business across the last few weeks.
Speaker A:Trey Sellers is here.
Speaker A:John Gordon as well.
Speaker A:Listeners to the podcast will be familiar with them from previous episodes, but in case you happen to be new to the show, I'm going to have them introduce themselves.
Speaker A:So, Trey, if you would.
Speaker A:And then, John, can you share with us a little bit about what you're involved with, what you're doing in the bitcoin space?
Speaker B:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker B:I'm excited for, for this new kind of venture here and and digging more into bitcoin what's going on in the business world.
Speaker B:I'm VP of Sales at Unchained.
Speaker B:We provide Bitcoin native financial services that focuses primarily on collaborative custody as like the bedrock or the foundation of everything that we do and then some other financial services that are built around that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you can buy and sell Bitcoin directly with us.
Speaker B:We do commercial Bitcoin backed loans.
Speaker B:We have IRAs for individuals as well.
Speaker B:We'll be rolling out a whole bunch of other interesting financial services that kind of bridge the dollar versus Bitcoin worlds as we make this progression through through the next decade of bitcoinization.
Speaker C:Yeah, excited to be here.
Speaker C:Thanks for having me Josh.
Speaker C:And thrilled to be joining you as well.
Speaker C:Trey.
Speaker C:I've been a happy on chain customer for years and love handing off some of my clients to you all from a custody perspective.
Speaker C:And my background is in the healthcare industry and am the founder of Satoshi Health Advisors, a consulting business where I've been helping companies integrate a Bitcoin strategy and really focus particularly in the healthcare industry.
Speaker C:Working a lot with doctors, dentists, health e commerce brands and others to understand Bitcoin, integrate payment strategy, treasury and then marketing, growing their bitcoin consumer audience to to build their business and ultimately showing the benefits that Bitcoin can have across multiple different areas from store value now to medium of exchange.
Speaker C:And eventually I think we'll get to the unit of account but for now while we're in that in between period and Bitcoin is being adopted it really introduces a lot of interesting challenges and also greenfield approach to introducing this new technology and money of Bitcoin into businesses.
Speaker C:Particularly in an industry like healthcare that tends to be slow to move yet has significant spend and waste every year.
Speaker B:I'm going to like immediately derail the conversation here because John just said something that I've been thinking about over the last like week or so which is that I wonder how much unit of account actually precedes meeting medium of exchange.
Speaker B:It's almost like this, this feedback loop that needs to happen where people start to recognize that they there's some opportunity cost to not holding Bitcoin.
Speaker B:Whether you're an individual or you're a business, there's some opportunity cost for not actually hold Bitcoin and we all recognize that.
Speaker B:We all see that which is why we are would would love to be receiving Bitcoin in payment for goods and services that we provide.
Speaker B:And so I think like as business owners start to see this opportunity cost in their own lives, they will start to think in terms of a unit of account which is Bitcoin and how much they would be able to stack or how much they would be foregoing if they're not actually holding as much bitcoin as possible.
Speaker B:And that can lead to asking their, their clients or their customers to pay them in Bitcoin, which you know, is a friction, more frictionless way of acquiring Bitcoin and then being able to hold on a balance sheet.
Speaker B:And now once you start thinking about that opportunity cost, that really is a unit of account type calculation which is a forcing function for that medium of exchange.
Speaker B:So I don't know if you guys have any thoughts around that but sorry, sorry to derail the conversation.
Speaker A:Three minutes in, right?
Speaker A:No, so I think, I think that there comes a time when people say what am I missing out on?
Speaker A:And they start to take things really seriously when it comes to bitcoin.
Speaker A:All three of us have had that experience at some point.
Speaker A:I'm probably the last one to come around of the three of us.
Speaker A:But you know, I think there are a couple of things.
Speaker A:And John, if you want to insert some thoughts into this along the way as well, that would be great.
Speaker A:But a couple of things that I think could really promote bitcoin and help people to see that they may really be missing the boat if they don't go ahead and make a move is the recent strategic bitcoin reserve.
Speaker A:I don't know if you guys have any additional thoughts on that.
Speaker A:I feel like it's been kind of talked to death.
Speaker A:But I think it'd be important to at least kind of share a couple thoughts, maybe some reflections on what you think about it as well as what you might recommend for the United States.
Speaker A:You may or may not want them to hold bitcoin.
Speaker A:Different bitcoiners had different opinions on that.
Speaker A:But I think talking, you know, maybe at least briefly talking about the strategic bitcoin reserve would be valuable as well as the recent proposal for bit bonds that was shared at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
Speaker A:So I'm just going to open that up and see what your guys thoughts are.
Speaker A:Just real quick for the bit bonds in case either you or people listening haven't had a chance to listen.
Speaker A:The idea is that there would be, I think it was 2, 2 trillion dollars maybe of bonds would be issued and 10% of that would go to purchase bitcoin.
Speaker A:And I think it would be a 4.5% compounded return plus 50% of the remaining upside of whatever bitcoin was left over.
Speaker A:And this would be something that I think would really be promoted hopefully to US citizens.
Speaker A:It would give them some bitcoin exposure, albeit not nearly to the same degree as if people simply bought bitcoin, which might lead people to think, why am I doing this if I can just buy bitcoin and get a ton of upside?
Speaker A:So those are a couple of things that I think would be really interesting to talk about just to kind of kick off this conversation.
Speaker C:Yeah, I can jump in.
Speaker C:I think is incredibly exciting to see a strategic bitcoin reserve executive order in the United States and really is a wake up call for a lot of businesses and individuals, I think, to think about their own bitcoin strategy.
Speaker C:Now we thought that and for years some major fud around bitcoin was that governments were going to ban bitcoin.
Speaker C:And clearly now the pendulum is swung the other way and the governments are potentially going to be in on bitcoin pretty soon.
Speaker C:And we know there's only going to be 21 million Bitcoin.
Speaker C:We know the US right now is still the superpower of the world, but has a waning control over the reserve currency.
Speaker C:And so as a way to address the 36/trillion in debt, I think the bitbonds is a great idea.
Speaker C:And buying bitcoin as a nation, you know, there's some questions around moving seized bitcoin right into the reserve.
Speaker C:And I think some of the exact number that moves into the reserve remains to be seen.
Speaker C:But I think the movements in the Congress to really set this in stone and have a lot of Bitcoin OGs help them understand how can we hold bitcoin in a sovereign way?
Speaker C:What does multisig look like?
Speaker C:I mean, this introduces a whole host of challenges from a governmental perspective.
Speaker C: and I was there at the end of: Speaker C:And while we've seen that to some extent, I think now with this move by the US it just shows the US is going to take the lead and others are going to have to follow.
Speaker C:This is really the game, the theory of it.
Speaker C:And so I think individuals and businesses can still be very nimble and move even quicker than what the US is going to do.
Speaker C:But the fact of the simple, as well as the executive order and other really innovative models such as the bit bonds, presents a unique opportunity for policymakers at this point to include Bitcoin and then make it a much more welcoming environment for businesses to adopt.
Speaker C:And I think we've swung from, oh, maybe it feels risky to adopt bitcoin as a business to the point that if you adopt bitcoin, you're going to be left behind.
Speaker C:And we have the big boys doing it, clearly.
Speaker C:And now, you know, each business owner gets to make that choice for themselves.
Speaker B:Yeah, clearly.
Speaker B:I think the strategic Bitcoin reserve is a good idea for the government.
Speaker B:I actually don't really care, personally speaking, whether or not the government holds Bitcoin and benefits from Bitcoin, but just from a game theory perspective, as we all know, like you need to be holding Bitcoin.
Speaker B:And so for, if we realize that other people are going to realize that that is not limited to just private individuals, it's also going to bleed into governments and sovereign states and that kind of thing.
Speaker B:So it makes sense that they want to play in this, I think, like something like the bit bonds.
Speaker B:I think there's not really a need to get too caught up in the details of what was being proposed at the Bitcoin policy summit there.
Speaker B:The idea is though, that you would raise money, which the government always needs to raise money because it's a debtor nation, and take some portion of that, maybe it's 10% to buy Bitcoin and thereby provide upside to the growing adoption of Bitcoin and the price appreciation that we all know is coming to the holders of these treasury bonds, thereby allowing for a mechanism that can lower the interest rate on a 10 year treasury issuance there.
Speaker B:And by doing so it allows for that lower interest rate, allows us to slow the bleed essentially when it comes to the amount of debt that's being added, the payments in terms of interest, that is kind of sucking up all of the inbound flows that are coming from tax revenue and that kind of thing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:The budget is just kind of blowing out with interest payments as rates have risen over the past few years.
Speaker B:And so somehow that needs to be addressed before it gets too out of control.
Speaker B:And so this is a way to really blend a lot of the ongoing trends for what needs to be adopted on the bitcoin standpoint and give us a mechanism to lower interest rates that will feed into the private economy by the way.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like a lower.
Speaker B:So many things in the private economy are tethered to 10 year treasury yields.
Speaker B:And so if you're able to lower those by any kind of meaningful amount, it's going to allow for cheaper borrowing for businesses around the country, it's going to allow for cheaper refinancing for all kinds of debt that's out there and provide a little bit of a tailwind to the global economy, especially in the U.S.
Speaker B:right.
Speaker B:So there's all kinds of interesting things that you can dig into there.
Speaker B:We don't need to go into the details of oh, is it going to pay 1% or are they going to buy 10% versus 5%?
Speaker B:That doesn't really matter.
Speaker B:I feel like that'll all be hashed out, you know, as these bonds come to market.
Speaker B:And then the last thing to say is, is that on the bit bonds thing is this is the time to do it.
Speaker B:All the tailwinds are behind it.
Speaker B:This administration is very much in a position to implement something like that.
Speaker B:I don't think you're going to see something like Bitbonds anytime soon if it's not from this administration.
Speaker B:So if not now, it's going to be much later, I think.
Speaker A:Well, the last time I saw both of you guys was at the bitcoin conference in Nashville.
Speaker A:Trey, one of the things you said on stage there was that you were looking forward to lending developments in the next year or two and you had a couple of things you wanted to talk about.
Speaker A:So maybe if you could bring up a couple of those and we can discuss those a little bit today as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, the first, I think big thing is just the repeal of SAB121 allows for banks to custody bitcoin and digital assets more broadly.
Speaker B:The banks will be coming over time to the bitcoin lending world.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So Unchained has for a very long time been a bitcoin backed lender.
Speaker B:We focus on commercial bitcoin backed loans at this point in time.
Speaker B:And so, you know, we're providing liquidity to businesses who have that bitcoin on their balance sheet in order to make investments or other business related purchases.
Speaker B:But there's a much broader demand for people getting access to liquidity across the spectrum, whether they're individuals or businesses or larger institutions there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so as the banks who have the legal right to print money as part of this whole process come to bear on this, on this market, it's going to force down interest rates, it's going to provide a lot more interesting Access to credit that is tied to Bitcoin.
Speaker B:And when you have credit that's tied to Bitcoin, it kind of creates a flywheel effect in terms of the valuation of that bitcoin as collateral.
Speaker B:As banks value it more highly, they will kind of open the spigots to allow for higher loan to value ratios, maybe more lenient, you know, margin call type situations.
Speaker B:It's just going to be generally treated much better.
Speaker B:I mean even now, like you can't very, very few and far between banks.
Speaker B:Could you go in, walk in the door and say, hey, I, I'm 100% Bitcoin allocated and I need to get a mortgage for this house that I want to buy.
Speaker B:And they're like, okay, show me your assets.
Speaker B:Well, it's 100% Bitcoin.
Speaker B:We value that as zero.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like that's been the historical trend of a bitcoiner who's got a large amount of money in this asset.
Speaker B:They go and try to get like traditional financing and they don't recognize that asset.
Speaker B:Well, that is definitely changing.
Speaker B:And so we're going to start to see that trickle down effect of interest rates in terms of bitcoin backed lending.
Speaker B:But also just like the flavor of credit related products and services that are out there coming from banks, coming from other financial institutions, maybe coming from like the paypals of the world as well.
Speaker B:There's so many businesses out there that provide some type of credit as part of their flows.
Speaker B:And if bitcoin is able to seep into that infrastructure, it's going to solidify it as this collateral asset that's embedded more deeply into the financial system and thereby making it indispensable from the point of view of those major institutions that have so much power and so much money and so much ability to influence the outcomes of not only the environment but also the political front and that kind of thing.
Speaker A:Is it in any way intimidating to know that the big banks are coming from an unchained perspective or do you feel like you've kind of built that, that niche in the market where you know where you'll be and where you can continue to provide value?
Speaker B:I think we're pretty safe for now.
Speaker B:I think it's going to take a while for the banks to come.
Speaker B:They're very slow.
Speaker B:I used to work for a bank for multiple banks actually and like, so I know how they operate.
Speaker B:I'm not worried about them being quick on the draw there.
Speaker B:I'm also not really worried about them allowing for their customers to access these bitcoin financial services at the native layer that Unchained really focuses on.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like we're providing liquidity for our clients borrowing against their bitcoin and allowing them to hold a key in a collaborative custody vault so that they can verify for themselves that the bitcoin is there purely as collateral for the loan, that it hasn't been commingled or moved or anything like that.
Speaker B:Like, we don't rehypothecate.
Speaker B:We, you know, the banks don't operate that way.
Speaker B:They're not going to let you hold a key to the bitcoin.
Speaker B:And so some people don't care about that, but there's a large contingent of people and the further and further that you get down the bitcoin rabbit hole, the more and more you start to care about that.
Speaker B:So I think like the ocean there is plenty big for us to continue to grow and thrive in that market, even with this other quote unquote competition coming in for lending.
Speaker B:And that extra capital allocation is going to allow us to bring down the interest rates that we are putting on these loans, which is going to attract even more demand from the bitcoin people who already have a large stack and are looking to get some liquidity.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, at one time on a previous podcast, interviewed the co founder of Square, who's not Jack, and he wrote a book called the Innovation Stack and he talked about how Square was able to beat Amazon at their own game, which is basically you go in there, you copy someone's product, you undercut them and then you basically destroy them.
Speaker A:And he said each time you add a new layer of innovation or new unique thing you bring to the market, it makes it that much harder for competition to beat you out.
Speaker A:And Unchained and so many other great bitcoin businesses have been in the space and have really started to kind of, you know, stake out their territory.
Speaker A:And I'm glad to see that because I feel much better with a bitcoin first or bitcoin only company than handing my bitcoin over or buying my bitcoin through a big bank.
Speaker B:Yeah, look, there's going to be a wide spectrum of players in the bitcoin world and people who are coming in to get a piece of this growing asset, like you can't get away from that.
Speaker B:But my view is rising tide lifts all boats we are, are very competitive and have a really good moat around the way that we approach collaborative custody, which underpins everything else that we do.
Speaker C:Yeah, I definitely echo that sentiment.
Speaker C:I mean bitcoin is pristine collateral.
Speaker C:So as much as it's being used in the economy.
Speaker C:And that fact is being recognized that it's perfectly verifiable, it's perfectly scarce.
Speaker C:We can hold it in different ways that traditional banks won't let us do, but is technically possible.
Speaker C:That's the first mover advantage.
Speaker C:And that's what Unchained has really established from collaborative custody perspective and I think certainly bringing down that cost of borrowing for businesses and then eventually individuals who have new ideas, who want to move and be entrepreneurs, but also want to go and buy a home, you know, we're in that bucket as well.
Speaker C:And as millennials, it's not recognized when your bitcoin, if anything, is perfect for that role of lending against and not having that home as a starter home.
Speaker C:And now we have more individuals who are buying second, third, fourth homes, you know, and impacting the market initially.
Speaker C:I think that yeah, more rising tide lifts all boats.
Speaker C:We know the more individuals and companies participating in the bitcoin network benefits all of us and everybody's labor eventually should bring down costs, including those borrowing costs.
Speaker C:So as you mentioned, both from the individual perspective, not having that bitcoin recognized when going to get a mortgage.
Speaker C:Businesses also until those recent FASB changes from an accounting perspective, weren't able to mark to market their bitcoin holdings only to the downside instead of to the upside.
Speaker C:So I think a lot of those changes that we've seen are taking time to impact, but are going to continue to lead to more players offering more unique offerings.
Speaker C:And I think as Andrew Hones brought in with Bitbonds, we also see with battery finance and the corporate real estate side, we know what holding bitcoin for the long term can do.
Speaker C:And rather than having that idiosyncratic risk of one property, okay, now we introduce bitcoin into this arrangement.
Speaker C:So I definitely agree that the banks are going to be a bit slower, but they're coming.
Speaker C:And so really being able to explain the difference to the customer and the value of also holding your own key, getting there along your journey, I mean, that's something that onchain just does so well and something that other banks aren't going to provide.
Speaker C:And of course the banks and those that have prevented fully reserved like a custodia bank from coming into the market, you know, it would be, it would be great to see more fully reserved banks as we see fully reserved bitcoin entities and businesses that are not rehypothecating Bitcoin that we can have really sound money at the bedrock of a lot of our business decisions instead of the ever expanding fiat credit.
Speaker C:And it's going to be interesting as those intermingle as bitcoin continues to be a bigger player with larger corporations taking it on board.
Speaker C:But that's where I think again more nimble smaller organizations can, can still take the lead and utilize new structures and offerings that Unchain's had on the market for years.
Speaker C:So it would be great to see being able to use that capital and put that bitcoin to work in a way of jump starting the business through a loan.
Speaker B:Well, the banks are, I mean they're fully reserved banks kind of is an oxymoron at this point in like the way modern banking works.
Speaker B:That kind of like, like kills the, kills the golden goose there.
Speaker B:So I don't know that we'll see that all that much.
Speaker B:But like maybe they can shore up their balance sheets a little bit more by integrating bitcoin, you know, onto the way that they do things and maybe putting some on their balance sheet.
Speaker B:We'll have to see like what the regulatory infrastructure looks like because that's really what banks respond to.
Speaker B:Although you know we see like Kent and Fitzgerald is, has finally brought live their $2 billion facility, lending facility against Bitcoin.
Speaker B:I imagine that their first customers there are going to be larger institutions, maybe the bitcoin miners and that kind of thing, the public bitcoin miners.
Speaker B:But you know, they are obviously very well respected in the traditional finance world, in the banking world.
Speaker B:And so them kind of going out in that foray of of bitcoin backed lending helps to open the door to some of these other more traditional institutions.
Speaker B:Not to mention the fact that Howard Lutnick, who is a co founder at Kenner Fitzgerald, is sitting in very high regard with the Trump administration at this point, right.
Speaker B:As part of the cabinet.
Speaker B:So that's really interesting.
Speaker B:Another interesting point on the bitcoin and credit side is with Fold, right.
Speaker B:They have been talking and I think this has been very widely anticipated with Fold customers like myself to have a credit card as opposed to being reliant on a debit type, you know, purchase model there when you are trying to spend your funds.
Speaker B:I think this is going to be really interesting and I'm really excited to get my hands on that and see how it works and play around with it a little bit.
Speaker B:And Fold recently went public and was included in a new ETF that is focused on holding companies that are public companies that have bitcoin on their balance sheet.
Speaker B:So we start to see all of these different Threads coming together as the bitcoin and traditional financial worlds continue to merge together.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:And I'm interested to see how Fold operates their credit card because bold bitcoin is another one and I think they may still be in beta, but you basically have to put up some bitcoin to borrow against.
Speaker A:And I'm not sure if Fold has shared what they're planning to do yet.
Speaker A:Have either of you heard that?
Speaker C:I believe it's a similar model, I mean, to what Gemini has on the market now.
Speaker C:Like kind of 2% SATs back on all your spend.
Speaker C:Pretty much.
Speaker C:Maybe there will be some different deals on different categories like we see in traditional credit cards, but I believe that's kind of the.
Speaker C:The essence of it.
Speaker B:Yeah, I need to dig into the details of like is it collateralized or uncollateralized?
Speaker B:I can't remember.
Speaker B:I feel like I read their initial announcement of it a month or two ago, but to be honest, I can't remember.
Speaker B:I'll have to dig into that.
Speaker B:We can talk about the next time.
Speaker A:Now, Trey, you may have some insight into this.
Speaker A:You just mentioned The Canter Fitzgerald.
Speaker A:$2 billion connected to financing.
Speaker A:I don't know exactly what their plans are.
Speaker A:I'm guessing that's for institutions.
Speaker A:It seems like $2 billion.
Speaker A:It sounds ridiculous to say this, but it feels like a drop in the bucket.
Speaker A:But do you know exactly or at least approximately what their plans are for that 2 billion?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't have inside information.
Speaker B:But my guess is just being around a while and coming from the traditional finance world that that is going to be towards some of the larger players out there who like the riots and the marathons and you know, some of these other like larger public companies that have bitcoin on their, on their balance sheet that are looking to borrow against it maybe are.
Speaker B:I don't know if they're going to be like extending beyond that role of just like bitcoin back lending and doing some type of borrowing of bitcoin for any other purposes.
Speaker B: caused a lot of angst back in: Speaker B:But you know, I feel like when the banks come and they start integrating bitcoin more into their normal business model, they're probably going to be playing around with some of that stuff that got a lot of people into trouble.
Speaker B:Now they have much deeper balance sheets and, you know, implicit or explicit government backing.
Speaker B:So maybe that changes the game to some degree.
Speaker B:But in terms of Cantor's, you know, their allocation of that 2 billion, I don't have any inside information but I imagine it's going to be towards some of the larger players, you know, who, who need some capital sitting on, on Bitcoin on the balance sheet and they're trying to like make, make the most use of that, that asset that's sitting there.
Speaker A:So John, in our pre recording discussion you mentioned Similar Scientific and of course Eric Similar is one of the people who has just gone you know, all in to the Saylor strategy and a lot of people in the bitcoin realm, so to speak now own Similar Scientific.
Speaker A:I'm curious if you knew about similar in the healthcare space before they started buying bitcoin, were they a company that, that people in the healthcare industry would have been aware of and then maybe also connected to that.
Speaker A:From your work with individuals and companies in the healthcare space, why do you feel like there's been much an interest or connection to Bitcoin?
Speaker C:Yeah, starting with Semler.
Speaker C:I hadn't heard of them.
Speaker C:They were working in the healthcare industry for about a decade.
Speaker C:But it's a very, there's many, many players in the 5 trillion dollar market that is healthcare, you know, coming.
Speaker C:I did work at a medical device and supply company called Medline which can be some interesting stories for, for a future day.
Speaker C:But you know Semler I think and Eric Semler taking the lead here, really showing the playbook that Michael Saylo and along these lines of making a splash in as put to put Bitcoin on your balance sheet buy from a corporate treasury perspective I think you're going to see more companies as you mentioned Trey, with OWNB bitwise launching a way to kind of own a collection of these companies.
Speaker C:And then from the cancer perspective knowing hey I could probably get, I could get a loan down the road.
Speaker C:So there's going to be multiple benefits and add ons from holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
Speaker C:So similar holding 31 over 3,000, you know, Bitcoin 3,192 Bitcoin and over almost $300 million there in assets as of early February in the last recording, really making a splash and showing that if you are cash flow positive and whatever your business model is, if it's selling medical devices, if it's B2B SaaS and you have that positive cash flow just as Microstrategy had from its business intelligence business, being able to take some of that cash flow, put it into bitcoin as well as finding other creative ways to buy bitcoin and taking advantage of different credit and equity as well as debt markets to buy more.
Speaker C:I think that they're really leading the way from a healthcare perspective.
Speaker C:You know, I've been really beating the drum to say healthcare is ripe for bitcoin to enter as an industry that has, it takes up 20% of the economy, a quarter of the spend is administrative and half of that's waste.
Speaker C:The whole industry, whether you look in different sectors and big insurance or big pharma or the health systems, have many, many middlemen along different lines.
Speaker C:Certainly from a payment processing perspective, from an electronic medical record perspective, and who holds the data and where the money flows, it tends to be this third party system.
Speaker C:And so where I've started and where I think we'll see more adoption first is going to be companies like Semler that have a leader that understand bitcoin and can take these actions publicly.
Speaker C:But even more so from a private perspective, business owners who understand bitcoin and want to be first movers and have business models that align very closely with bitcoin.
Speaker C:So for example, direct primary care is one where I've worked with a few clients.
Speaker C:A couple of them have been on your show, Josh, and we can dive into this a little bit further.
Speaker C:But both Dr.
Speaker C:Roger Mosemba in San Antonio, Texas and recently a client of mine, Dr.
Speaker C:Levitan in Illinois, they're accepting bitcoin as part of their, their concierge model.
Speaker C:And they're not to some extent, they may or may not be taking insurance or that's a very small amount of their business as an add on.
Speaker C:But for the most part it's those direct connections with patients that are getting, they're paying them directly in bitcoin and they can say, hey, I can spend more time with you now than if the part payment comes from a third party.
Speaker C:And then now I accept that Bitcoin, let's hold it on the balance sheet and it can strengthen my business more into the long term and ultimately send a signal to consumers out there to say I may be practicing in a different way and taking your lifestyle and your health and understanding and not taking the top down cookie cutter approach and really working with that individual.
Speaker C:So I think there's a lot of ways that bitcoin can really strengthen healthcare businesses.
Speaker C:But we're not going to see, you know, where there's really a lot of cash sitting on balance sheets for some of the big players out there like the HCAs of the world and other for profit health systems publicly traded that are sitting on a lot of cash and have pretty complex balance sheets.
Speaker C:They could start with just buying some bitcoin and holding it.
Speaker C:You know, that's the first step versus trying to integrate it into their full payment stack.
Speaker C:But it's going to take time.
Speaker C:And you'll also see more players, I think on the E commerce side and health brands and products, such as John Andrew from Tropical Oasis, who you had on recently as well.
Speaker C:And really diving into how businesses that can now accept bitcoin directly lower their own transaction fees.
Speaker C:So there's a reason for them to do it right now from a business perspective, let alone the ethos and philosophy of it.
Speaker C:But they can also go out and offer bitcoin rewards, be creative and hold their bitcoin themselves as solo business owners.
Speaker C:Or eventually for maybe you have a partner, you can hold it in a collaborative custody model like Unchained.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And you can really split that risk and not have to rely on a single custodian.
Speaker C:But you now have a way to each hold the key as a business owner.
Speaker C:So I think we'll where I've seen success in starting with smaller businesses and then from a public standpoint, you certainly have the sellers of the world.
Speaker C:There are so many more publicly traded health companies and you see some going in the wrong direction.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Walgreens is now going back private because they've been struggling for years on the public market.
Speaker C:Maybe someone like Walgreens should buy some bitcoin and strengthen that shift back as they get some capital and kind of go back and get bought, but come into the private company again.
Speaker C:Again.
Speaker C:So as we see these shifts back and forth where maybe the public markets haven't been kind to some healthcare businesses, we know what bitcoin can do and I understand why.
Speaker C:Bitcoin and the conferences and everything we've been at the last few years has focused so much on traditional finance and mining and energy.
Speaker C:These are of course, the places that bitcoin addresses first.
Speaker C:Health was always coming from my background, having a double master's in health economics and policy, really studying these business models, an area that I think bitcoin can impact.
Speaker C:And so we're really just at the tipping point, really very starting out.
Speaker C:And so it's always great to connect with other entrepreneurs who are looking at introducing new business models.
Speaker C:With bitcoin and health, I think for.
Speaker B:Businesses to begin to have a larger shift to putting bitcoin on the balance sheet, there needs to be a shift in mindset not only within the like Business community or the like, you know, treasurer, CFO type community, but also within Wall Street, I think, like traditionally speaking, or at least over the last 50 years, let's say the balance sheet has not really been viewed as something that should be producing any volatility at all.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It should be there as a mechanism to generate revenue from business, but it should not be generating any kind of P and L on its own.
Speaker B:And, and that's been kind of hardwired into the way that business school teaches, you know, how a company should be run.
Speaker B:It certainly is how Wall street analysts are looking at public companies and their balance sheet versus income statements and cash flows and all that stuff.
Speaker B:It kind of throws their models for a loop if you start adding this extra variable of a volatile balance sheet, even if it's accretive to shareholders and going to add a lot of enterprise value to the business.
Speaker B:And so my personal view is that it's going to take some time for people to start to wrap their heads around this change in approach to viewing the balance sheet as an asset that can actually help the, the business grow directly as opposed to just being a facilitation mechanism so that the direct revenue generating part of the business can allow for growth or generate that growth.
Speaker B:We almost like until that time or in order to make that happen, we need these kind of visionary people who really understand Bitcoin to find themselves in these places, in these bespoke or unique scenarios, like a similar scientific strategy, to actually be a forcing function on this new approach and prove to the market that this can actually be accretive over a long period of time.
Speaker B:We just haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker B:I think we're still a few years off from making really meaningful progress into Bitcoin, being viewed as a way that can juice the returns of, of a stock or a business from the balance sheet side.
Speaker B:We'll see.
Speaker C:Maybe I'm wrong on that.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:What do you guys think?
Speaker A:If people are paying attention, they can already see that it does juice a stock, it does juice returns.
Speaker A:But it will take a while, I think, for the public to catch onto it.
Speaker A:Fortunately, it doesn't have to be a matter of theory.
Speaker A:We have strategy out there.
Speaker A:We have so many others who are out there actually doing this in the market.
Speaker A:And I think it'll be undeniable in the next five or ten years that adding Bitcoin to your balance sheet, whether it's personal or as a business, is beneficial, beneficial to your life.
Speaker A:As expected, we've hardly scratched the surface on the topics we wanted to discuss.
Speaker A:But let's go ahead and maybe finish it up here for this first iteration of this series.
Speaker A:Trey, if you would share with people where they can go to keep up with you and Unchained.
Speaker A:And then John, if you would follow up after Trey's done.
Speaker B:Yeah, probably the easiest way to find me is on XS HODL.
Speaker B:Go check out Unchained Unchained.com it's pretty easy to remember there.
Speaker B:And if you're interested in learning how to hold your bitcoin in a more fault tolerant way, we do free consultations for prospective clients to really understand what we do and how we approach it and all of that.
Speaker B:One thing that I forgot to mention, which is a little bit tangential to my other work, is that I am an advisor to a company called Cantilever that does some investments in the bitcoin ecosystem.
Speaker B:They got a good focus on like a fund of funds approach, but also are starting to foray into like the credit side of things.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So I've been helping them think through exactly what that process looks like.
Speaker B:And I also do a newsletter on bitcoin and financial independence.
Speaker B:So if you're interested in checking that out, it's firebtc substack.com so go check that out as well.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:And yeah, you can follow me on X or Noster at the Bitcoin yogi or go to my website satoshi health.com happy to connect and share more.
Speaker C:Really working at the intersection of bitcoin and Noster and healthcare.
Speaker C:So happy to connect.
Speaker C:And you know, I think to your last point, Trey, and maybe we leave it here, is that it's definitely going to take both conviction and people in the right places.
Speaker C:And I think it's just some courage from individuals and businesses to make the leap.
Speaker C:And a lot of that comes from understanding bitcoin really at a foundational level and how it can impact you personally, taking sovereignty over your own life and for your business.
Speaker C:As you said, kind of recognizing the old school way of teaching.
Speaker C:We have to unlearn a lot of what we were taught maybe in undergraduate or in grad school in the way that the fiat system was educating around finance and understand bitcoin as money from really a first principles perspective.
Speaker C:So really excited to be joining you guys on the bitcoin playbook and we can dive deeper into more of these topics and hopefully help more business owners and individuals understand and apply bitcoin to their own day to day life.
Speaker A:Well guys, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker A:And your thoughts.
Speaker A:It's been great.
Speaker C:Love it.
Speaker B:Thanks Josh.
Speaker B:Thanks John.
Speaker C:Take care guys.
Speaker A:Well friends, it's a wrap.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Bitcoin Playbook.
Speaker A:If you want to reach out to either me or John or Trey, you can find those links down in the show notes and I'd love to hear your feedback on this particular episode format.
Speaker A:We're going to get back to our interviews starting next week.
Speaker A:As always, keep building, keep growing.
Speaker A:Until next time, Keep living and leading.
Speaker A:Well, thanks to those who've been supporting the show on Fountain in the last few weeks.
Speaker A:It's been a minute, so I want to make sure I include everyone.
Speaker A:Thanks to Ezekiel no waste, BTC signs, JPCBTC, Bowtied Groundhog, and AZA underscore 21M for streaming sats to the show, as well as the Bitcoin yogi for sending a boost.
Speaker A:That's John Gordon that you just heard on today's episode.
Speaker A:He was responding to the episode a few weeks ago with John Ramsey from Tropical Oasis.
Speaker A:He said Great episode gents.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed working with John to integrate a bitcoin strategy at Tropical Oasis.
Speaker A:A lot of insights packed here on E commerce, early bitcoin adopters and the benefits of liquid vitamins.
Speaker A:Get 15% sats back on your purchase by using the nostr npub, which I won't list here, but he included a link and that's Oshi link 7 capital U6 lowercase SWK.
Speaker A:Once again, that's Oshi link 7 capital u6 lowercase SWK.
Speaker A:If you would like to support the show on Fountain, you can either stream sats as you listen or send a boost.
Speaker A:And if you include a note with that boost, I'll be sure to read it on the show.
