Hello hello. Mr. Marty bent uh we are live i appreciate it and i was was telling the i guess the community a little bit earlier today how this even about and honestly i want to start this off by just saying thank you because early this morning. I was getting bombarded with the unfortunate news about voyager chapter.

11. Bankruptcy protection and then it became one of those things where like i'm not a lawyer. I'm not that much of a crypto business expert. I don't know what all this means and i know it's one of those days.

Where there's just going to be an infinite amount of questions and rightfully. So there's a lot of people who are scared about what the hell this all means so the fact that i think i found out at like six in the morning and then you and i were talking by like eight. And you're like yeah. I'll come on today like seriously.

Thank you so so much. So. Everyone who you're seeing right. Now.

This is marty. Ben um. Just if you want to quickly call out your twitter. So people have the time to like kind of see what you're all about yeah uh my handle on twitter is at marty bent uh that's where i hang out a lot and.

Yeah so a little bit about. Myself i wrote a media company tftcio and it's focused on bitcoin and freedom in the digital age. And then i'm also a venture partner at a venture capitalist fund dedicated to investing in the bitcoin space. And i do some bitcoin mining on top of all that as well yeah.

I was just going to say at the end there i think there's a couple of bitcoin mining companies maybe some name changes but overall so bitcoin media company bitcoin investing venture firm and then also just core bitcoin businesses and crypto businesses in the world of bitcoin mining. So i think it's safe to say that you spend quite a few hours of your day. Paying attention to what's going on in the crypto sphere. And for all of us who have been doing that recently hey at first.

It clearly wasn't fun from november till. Recently just when things were coming down. But now it's taking on a whole more painful turn when you're seeing the stories of celsius and babel and vauld and now the newest one is voyager and before that i mean all companies were cutting like cryptocom. Gemini coinbase like clearly the writing was on the wall.

But i think myself included and probably many of the people listening is like we get it it's bad. It's a downtrend once the fed figures out their stuff. We'll kind of bottom and come there come back up from there. But now it's taking on like a really really awful turn.

And i think to a lot of people particularly watching this. It's the people who are experiencing the pain of voyager. So maybe for people who don't know what's going on with voyager could you quickly summarize that yeah so earlier today voyager declared bankruptcy chapter 11 bankruptcy. Which means they're gonna begin restructuring uh their debt and their company and essentially what led to them having to go and file chapter.

11. Bankruptcy was the fact that they issued a 670 million dollar loan to a firm known as three arrows capital. It wasn't only a 670 million dollar loan. It was unsecured so three hours capital didn't have to put up any collateral or assets in return for for the loan.

The loan was broken down. I believe uh 350 million dollars of usdc. Which is a stable coin run and operated by circle and then uh. I believe about 15 000.

Bitcoin or 1500. The rest of the 320 million dollars were paid out in bitcoin and so essentially what happened. There voyager is a firm similar to blockfi or celsius. Which says hey give me your bitcoin uh.

And i'll give you yield back in the way that these firms typically get the yield or try to get the yield. It's becoming glaringly. Obvious that they're not able to get the yield. Uh is what they'll do is they'll take your bitcoin and then they'll lend it out to people who are speculating in markets.

And in this case. It was three arrows capital. Who took 670 million dollars again of usdc and bitcoin from voyager voyager. Didn't ask for any collateral um.

To for that loan. They basically gave it gave it to um. Sorry somebody called me a single gave it to uh three arrows and i said hey we we think you guys are really good at investing. We believe that you're going to go and get a yield on this loan that we're giving you and then we'll be able to give our customers a little bit of yield on their deposits uh that turned out not to be the case.

Riaro's capital. Uh turned out not to really be as reputable and uh savvy as they portrayed themselves as uh they they went and they speculated in highly speculative uh crypto currency schemes like tara luna being uh probably the most speculative and one of the the massive blow ups that happened earlier this year. That has created a cascading contagion um. Throughout the the overall bitcoin and crypto ecosystem.

So essentially what happened to voyager is they they made a bad loan uh. They should have securitized the loan to some degree. They should ask for some collateral. Some assets in case.

Three arrows capital uh went and took that money and lost it. Which is exactly what they did and so what you find is that voyager. And by proxy their their customers are left holding the bag. So three hours capital went took that 670 million dollars and essentially set it on fire.

I think one part of confusion. There could be say say i sign up for a voyager account. And i put a thousand dollars in there unfortunately i put more in there. And i buy a thousand dollars of bitcoin.

So my assumption was okay they go out and they buy a thousand dollars of bitcoin. How is that actually working in reality. Where if if we're giving them some money it feels like they're almost playing with clients money and too much of that went to three ac or other bets that didn't panning out. But when i thought i was purchasing something was i actually purchasing that thing or was it like a percentage.

How did that all pay out yeah. So you basically are uh an unsecured creditor that owes an iou so until you actually take possession of the bitcoin by moving it off of voyager or block fi or celsius. You actually don't own any bic. When you you own a claim to bitcoin that may or may not be there in the future and in the case of celsius uh in voyager specifically.

It's proving not to be there and so this is why in the bitcoin world you'll you'll often see the meme not your keys. Not your coins and so this is a lesson. That's been learned many times throughout the first 13 years bitcoin's history. Most famously with mount gox in 2013.

2014. They lost 750 000. Bitcoin. Um.

And anybody that had bitcoin on that exchange has been locked up in a in a bankruptcy. Proceeding for going on the better part of a decade now um. And so yeah. When you do engage in these third party custodians.

Who whether it be a coin base or a celsius or a voyager you really don't own the bitcoin until you move it off the exchange and so that is the lesson. That is being learned again with the the blow ups of celsius and voyager at the moment. Um. Is you really only have a an iou if if you're holding bitcoin on an exchange and i'm assuming that's exactly why there is that when you try to withdraw they're like oh your withdrawal will be approved in 24 hours.

Because it sounds like they had to go back out to wherever whoever had their money. Which is your money to like actually fulfill that so there's no laws or regulations at all on like the percentage that they have to have because it seems like maybe i need to dive a little bit more into the numbers. But it seems like whatever we thought they were owning. It was a high percentage of that fancy iou and not them actually going out and buying the digital asset well.

They probably did buy the asset at the end of the day and i don't know how fractionally reserved. They are i think a lot of these uh services and exchanges are fractionally reserved um. However at the end of the day three hours capital did get bitcoin. They just went and speculated with it and lost it on those bets.

And so yeah. I bet. There's a combination of fully reserved and fractionally reserved custodial services out there i would run with the assumption that they're all fractionally reserved and going back to your original question is there any laws or regulations against this like no i mean i think and this is for the broader financial system not just bitcoin uh in the crypto ecosystem. I mean the fed in march or april of 2020 completely eliminate the reserve ratio requirements for for banks and i think that reserve ratio um it can be extended to to other services absolutely sorry to interrupt but like us.

Fiat currency ones don't even have that ratio the fed got rid of it am i understanding that right. Oh yes. There's no it was it was uh i believe his 10 percent reserve ratio requirement before the money printer went on after covid and in the midst of all that facility changing that the federal reserve did in april to to allow bank blackrock to help out with their bond purchase facilities and other things. But one of the things that they changed as well was the reserve requirements.

There is no uh reserve requirement for federal reserve member banks at the moment so in those big fancy schmancy banks. If you give them a dollar before they had to at least have 10 cents. There and which already seems clearly low and they're like nah never mind we don't need that anymore. Even yeah.

No it's all it's all ponzi scheme. That's bullshit that's all right that's wild before we go with too far off. I think like one active thing that probably is on their mind is you're saying i like to saying not your keys. Not your coin are there particular.

Whether cold storage or not where you would recommend people getting stores like is there something that you trust in to put your crypto yes. I mean. There's so there's a number of options uh. It's it's a pretty daunting task to a lot of people.

But once you i like to say practice makes perfect as well. So my recommendation is usually to start with a mobile wallet. Something like blue wallet moon wallet or samurai wallet moon while being m u u. N.

Um. These are good ways to practice. They teach you how to create private public key pairs and get you comfortable with securing your seed phrase so writing down 12 or 24 words making sure that you secure those and then what you do is you send 10 20 bucks from the exchange to the mobile wallet you get comfortable with the ux flow of uh bitcoin. Addresses and invoices and stuff like that and then.

If you have a considerable amount of money uh then then you should start exploring hardware wallets like trezor cold card ledger uh all reputable i mean cold card is bitcoin only trezor has bitcoin only options um ledger as a bunch of cryptocurrencies as well but then there are also services uh that allow you to do a collaborative custody model. Where bitcoin via its native properties. Enables you to have what's called a multi signature wallet. Which which um basically mandates that if you want to move your bitcoin.

You need m of n. Signatures. So two of three signatures to actually move the bitcoin. So their services.

Like unchained capital. Um and casa. Which allow you to basically set up a multi sig account uh. Where you'll hold two keys and unchained will hold one key and when you need to move your bitcoin uh you can move it yourself.

If you have your two keys or if you want somebody to hold your hand. Unchained is there to help you and to sign uh the transaction as well so yeah. It's uh bitcoin is an alien technology. It's only 13 years old it really demands extreme ownership and that people get comfortable with the concept of private public key pairs and holding their own assets.

That's the key innovation of bitcoin and the digital age is the first ever truly scarce digital bearer asset. So that's why they called digital cash cash is a bearer. A bearer instrument meaning you bear. It you hold it physically with bitcoin.

It's a digital bearer instrument. Meaning that when you hold your private keys. You actually owe in your bitcoin. And you you bear that instrument in your hand.

And you control. It and that's why uh. Many people don't recommend that you hold your bitcoin on exchanges like coinbase or services. Like celsius or blockfi or voyager.

Because at the end of the day. There's only 21 million bitcoin and if those services go and take undue risk. Which they have been doing uh and they get caught on that they're you're gonna think that you have a thousand dollars for the bitcoin in your account. But really yeah you don't have anything and you're gonna um.

You're gonna get locked up in this bankruptcy. Proceeding for probably years and at the end of the day get um. You get a get a massive haircut on anything that you did hold on the exchange man. I think you're bringing up some good points.

If you're watching this i'll make sure to get some of those links to what he was referring to in the description below um talking about this haircut. I think right now for the main question. The golden question is how bad is it going to get what's going on will i ever get anything back. And i obviously let's make it clear that right now.

This is conjecture it just came out this morning. We know about chapter 11. And i was reading some of the filings and like well we'll try to get you some of your crypto. Some equity in the new company that'll come from the reconstruction of it and then maybe some voyager coins.

Something like that how do you see this going maybe. If you want to give us the good the bad the ugly that type of a scenario. But like if you had a bet on how this will end up playing out you just alluded to it taking potentially years. So.

Let's say we get to the end of that time frame when the dust settles where do you think we're going to be yeah. It really depends on a number of factors. So again going back to mount gox that is one of the most famous blow ups in bitcoin's history. They've been in bankruptcy proceedings uh in japan since 2014.

And it's still up in the air as to when the creditors of mount cox are going to get any of their money back with mount gox specifically the the fund that is handling the bankruptcy. Actually did some active management. Uh and traded some bitcoin and they've actually i think um actually made customers some money in us dollar terms uh over the course of customers will get paid back. I believe in dollars at the end of the day malcox and they may be made whole dollar terms.

But not in bitcoin terms back when uh mount cox blew up bitcoin was trading around 1100 and obviously now. It's uh 20. Almost 20x that so um your dollars. You'll get all those back.

But you're not gonna get as many bitcoin as you held on the exchange. Another example of customers being made whole is bitfenix in november of 2016. They got hacked and lost 115 000. Bitcoin um around when the price was 600.

They did some token scheme. Where they spun up like a bitfinex token and their customers got access to that and then eventually via that token offering and the company surviving and still providing services profitably was able to make their customers. Whole um. So that's an example of a company actually uh losing a considerable amount of bitcoin and being being able to make all their customers.

Whole even though a lot of their customers wound up selling that token that they spun up at a loss. So really the people were made whole were the speculators who were taking on that token risk. And so unless you're confident that if voyager does something similar. Unless you're confident in their ability to run a profitable business and actually attain enough profit to not only make people whole.

But continue to operate um successfully into the future uh. They it's probably not going to be as successful as bitfenix. Because that's the one thing bitfenix was just running like a pure bitcoin exchange. Where the business model is very straightforward and it's relatively de risked.

Where when it comes like a voyager celsius. The as we've described what they're doing on the back end with their customers. Bitcoin is extremely risky and so i think for voyager specifically moving forward. It's going to be really hard to um to maintain a reputation or even get their reputation back.

And i think people are just going to avoid these type of servers or they're going to be more likely to avoid these types of services moving forward as the market becomes more aware of the risk. That exists on the back end. So i'm under the impression that it's going to be very hard for voyager to recover its reputation and therefore you know run a profitable business that would allow them to make their customers full man. I mean i guess.

It's one of those things. That's it's painful to say it's painful to hear uh. But i wholeheartedly believe when it comes to the world of finance and money it's one of those things where try to put your emotion. Aside like you just we need truths like that so you're under the impression that it's not necessarily going to zero.

But a pretty serious haircut will most likely be involved and on top of that the dust nut isn't going to most likely settle for a couple of years and once again this is conjecture you're not saying like legally this is how it has to go. But you're thinking. That's the odds of the situation. Yeah yeah.

I'm i'm not a lawyer. None of this is investment advice. But just having seen uh these types of blow ups. Throughout bitcoin's history and understanding the nature of voyager's business.

And i mean just look at the fact that they issued a 670 million dollar loan to an obscure fund out of singapore with no collateral in the loan. I mean that that alone should uh should really highlights the incompetence of the voyager management team that like i i do have a background in fund management and putting that much value at risk with no collateral put up by the counterparty is extremely extremely uh uh. That's what i'm looking for irresponsible where it's uh. The due diligence that went into a 670 million dollar transaction seems to have been extremely subpar in this case.

I like i mean obviously myself. I'm sure a lot of people listening right now like it's just painful because you're coming to the reckoning that like maybe all but at least a decent chunk of our money that was invested with this is going to the wayside and it's just frustrating. And i think it's natural you're angry you're upset a lot of people had like a lot of their money in here. And my heart truly goes out to them it it's that it's painful this sucks like i'm right there.

If you guys are listening to this and you're like dude. I'm out money. I'm sitting in that like that shit train right there with you then it comes to that point of anger of like i don't know is this somehow maybe not fraud. But is this like against a fiduciary responsibility like like i feel like with that money in between and you're saying.

It was obscure and like i i guess. It's a two part question is there somehow a breaking of the law with not following the reduce fiduciary responsibility for not doing the dd and then on top of that the onus on us as the person using voyager was there was this public information that we just didn't want to look into or didn't have enough time to look into it was it out there like should we have been like dude. This is awful like look at what they just did or was this not even public well that's a good question. Because voyager is a publicly traded company.

I believe so i would imagine at least their balance sheet income statement. They'd have to file quarterly. Reports and updates on the state of of their balance sheet. And they may not have to be too specific with issuing a 670 million dollar loan to three hours capital specifically.

But you should be able to sns out you know via the financials that they were um issuing these types of loans. I would imagine again. I'm not an expert in terms like fiduciary responsibility. I guess that is a bit of a gray area.

Considering the regulatory uncertainty that exists in the world bitcoin and the overarching crypto space uh. It's a bit opaque. There's the cftc thinks they can regulate the sec. Thinks they can regulate the treasury things they can regulate it and so there's this the regulatory gray area where there's unfortunately not really any cut and clear rules they would have to apply rules from other sectors of the economy to voyager.

I would imagine and again not an expert. So not exactly sure how that would apply to voyager um. Yeah. At the end of the day.

Uh. Just having seen a bunch of these blow ups like uh. I don't i i would be highly skeptical that uh anybody from voyager will be going to jail. Where there'll be any fines.

I think it'll just be explained away like hey you know voyager and its customers took an undue risk. And i would imagine again going back to the point that any customer a voyager that believes that they have bitcoin at the end of the day if you read the fine print you're defined as an unsecured creditor um. So if you read the fine print. I think that would be able to make them get out of the scot free from a legal perspective.

Because in the in the legal print. It's like hey if you read the terms of service. You would understand that you're unsecured creditor uh that that has the risk of losing his or her money that's it's just ridiculous uh correct. Me.

If i'm wrong the last thing really about voyager here. Did ftx just get horribly burned on this deal. I saw something about the filing. And there was an unsecured loan from alameda so not fdx excuse me from alameda.

Which is related to ftx alameda. Two voyager 75 million did that just like thanos snap and disappear uh. I don't know for sure. But i would imagine uh.

But i would imagine it did if they're filing for bankruptcy. I believe that i'll meet us so yeah almeda is in the ftx umbrella. I believe it's the the venture capital arm of of the ftx family and if i understand correctly ftx has attempted to step in throughout all this contagion going on throughout the the bitcoin markets and and be the lender of last resort. They issued a 450 million dollar.

Uh revolving line of credit to block fi and have essentially uh have the right to acquire that business um and i think they essentially bought blockfy to backstop losses. There and prevent it from going under i think they tried to do something similarly with voyager uh via a 75 million dollar line of credit. However that's 75 million dollars was um uh. It was like trying to put a band aid on like a bullet wound the amount of money that voyager lost was simply too much to overcome and 75 million dollars wasn't really going to help the situation again when you compare voyager.

Which has gone under filed bankruptcy to something like block. Five which has gotten very close. But didn't blockfi did lend to three hours capital as well um. But they were wise enough to to ensure that three hours put up some collateral for that loan.

Whereas. Um voyager was running naked with that loan. This is not an endorsement of block fire or what they do as well. I do not recommend any of these services to individuals at the end of the day because again the you can't quantify the risks.

That's being taken on the back end uh as they're lending this bitcoin out and um. As we're finding uh a lot of these obscure. D5. Crypto product protocols are what many in traditional finance.

Would define as far out on the risk curve uh and so when you have the fed tightening monetary policy and raising rates what you're going to see is a liquidation of the highest risk assets. Which in this world is the terra lunas of the world and i think that's the driving force behind all this which is really showing who's who's running around naked. Is the fact that the fed raised rates earlier this year. And then you had a de risking throughout the markets as people tried to unwind um.

Some trades they had further out in the risk curve. Again terra being probably the furthest out there. And that crumbled and that led to a contagion event. Where um people who had their bitcoin up and levered in these obscure products or were getting called and having to sell their bitcoin to pay back their loans.

And um sell potentially in this case. Voyager customer customer bitcoin um. To pay back their loans at the end of the day. It's just wild.

I i just don't understand who is the marketing mastermind at 3ac to get all these other ones to invest in you're saying. It was a little bit more obscure a little bit more unproven and yet we're talking about voyager block fine. I'm sure the list goes on of other ones that are going to get caught up in the particular 3ac like debacle contagion blow up whatever you want to call it and i i don't know that it's literally some guy. I don't know if it's sociopathic or just amazingly good at spinning words.

But whoever got the 3ac guy that guy. He talked a lot of people into this that's nuts. It's crazy yeah. It was two gentlemen two classmates uh suzu and kyle davies.

I believe they're from connecticut originally. But yeah i mean they were i mean i've been familiar with those two for years now they're vaunted as thought leaders in the space of cryptocurrency. And i think um everybody thought three hours capital was like a triple a rated uh highest caliber fund in the space. And i think really what happened is again going back to fed policy and the exuberance of the last decade or the decade leading up um or a decade plus after 2008 is i think that everybody.

Including suzu and kyle. I bet they believed that they were smarter than everybody else. But i think they were just benefiting from the gravy train of the money printer and as soon as that money printer got turned off uh. It really realized what um has value at the end of the day a lot of these speculative.

D5. Protocols and lending protocols turned out to be highly speculative um. They did make some people a lot of money for a short period of time. But again.

I think that was being induced by the fed and central banks around the world flooding markets. With overall liquidity and was just looking for somewhere to go. I think you've bring up some really good points of like all right. There's lending protocols.

They didn't work out obviously own your own crypto. It's not worth whatever api is allegedly being pitched to us um those are all awesome. But if we were to bring this conversation to the bigger level. I'm sure there's now people who are like okay i maybe you did dodge the voyager.

The celsius one maybe you got hit. I don't know i hope you dodged it but i'm sure there's people who are like well hang on should i be in crypto at all i'm sure the the media. The headlines between tara luna celsius voyager. Now like all this stuff going on and also the pain in the equities markets.

I'm sure people are questioning should i just cut it cut my losses lock in my gains just end this situation get off this roller coaster so on the general level where are your thoughts on like krypton. If you want to be specific with bitcoin feel free. But like how are you viewing. This situation especially because you were alluding to the fed and the interest rates.

And all that good stuff. Yeah um. So i am a bitcoin. Only guy.

I don't recommend anything outside of bitcoin in the crypto space. I think it's highly speculative. I think everything outside of bitcoin is an affinity scam a lot of people would consider that to be somewhat of an extreme view. But having been around the space since 2013.

And seen everything under the sun in terms of the next bitcoin and innovation. It's pretty clear to me that bitcoin is the only uh cryptocurrency that's worth paying attention to again this is an investment advice. But if you're going to invest in quote. Unquote crypto.

I would stick to bitcoin and bitcoin only um and that is because when bringing it back to the fed. And the overarching macro environment. We something i say on my podcast and in my newsletter. A lot is fix the money fix the world we live in a society.

Where money is completely broken. We've we've broken the money via the central banking system and the only way that we're going to correct um. The exuberance and the misallocation of capital that exists in our world. Today is if we fix the money money is the most important tool that we use as humans uh.

It is the pricing mechanism that basically dictates how uh people coordinate throughout an economy and when you break that tool that most important tool. What you have is a serious disconnection between reality. And what you see in the markets. And that's the world we live in today we um.

It was the energy uh. The misallocation in the energy sector that's leading us to an energy crisis. A misallocation in the food sector uh that's leading us to a food crisis. The misallocation in the financial sector.

That's driving the gap between the rich and the poor due to the canteen effect. This is all stemming from the fact that we've broken the money and so when you look at the overarching space. Uh or the macro landscape uh. The fed is backed into the fed is fucked excuse.

My language. You could have they have they're they're out of bullets in terms of what they can do from a monetary policy perspective. They they are in a very they're right now particularly between a rock and a hard place with stagflation looming over them. Because essentially what they're finding is and jerome powell's starting to admit.

This is you can't print uh you can't print money or you can't you can't print money to fix um to fix an inflation problem and more importantly right now you can't tighten monetary policy to fix uh an attempt to stop inflation when the the problem that's driving inflation right now supply chains. So the fed thinks that by reducing uh. The amount of base money in the system and raising rates on the cost of capital that they're going to somehow induce deflation. Bring inflation back towards their two percent target.

But that's not going to work because supply chains are broken raising rates does not produce oil refineries. It does not produce pipelines it does not produce nuclear facilities and so what we're what we're seeing now is the feds raising rates with the expectation that inflation is going to come down significantly. But really what they're doing is just exacerbating the problem because they're raising the cost of capital on the necessary infrastructure projects. That would actually prevent or provide the market with supply that would bring down prices.

And this has been an ongoing problem has been playing out over the last 50 years since we officially went off the gold standard um. So the fed is going to find itself in a situation. I believe at the end of the summer. Where food prices are still going up gas prices are still going up.

Even. Though. We have a temporary lull with oil prices going below 100 here today. But i i don't think we've seen the last of energy price rises.

So we're going to be at a point at the end of the summer. Where inflation's still relatively elevated and the raising of rates has not materially affected inflation and they're going to have to revert course and start printing money again. Which gets us right back to where we started. Where inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon like you can't print your way out of the problem uh of money printing and so long winded answer.

But bitcoin. I believe is the solution to this where you have a distributed peer to peer cash system uh that has a hard supply of 21 million. And there is no central planner that can really perturb that system. So uh that long winded answer can be more succinctly distilled into the fact that monetary systems economies.

They're complex systems you just use the heuristic that you can't centrally control a complex system now you can't have a few individuals try to basically manufacture a complex system. It doesn't work it's not how nature works. It's not how humans work. It's not how coordination works and so when it comes to money that's that's why it's broken that's why we're seeing the disparities throughout the global economy and the the supply chain disruptions you have central planners and government and central banking trying to manipulate and granularly control these complex systems.

I think the answer to the central planners trying to centrally control these complex systems is to allow a grassroots. Truly emergent system to to take its place. And that's exactly what bitcoin is bitcoin is an emergent peer to peer system. It is controlled by tens of thousands of individuals downloading the code and running the rules and checking the rules and validating transactions and individual actors buying asic computers and plugging them in to contribute to the ordering of transactions and the dispersion of the bitcoin supply um.

So yes i believe that bitcoin uh is the solution to the money problem. We have when it comes to anybody who's looking like investing in crypto. I highly uh recommend that you stay away from all the altcoins and the the d5 shit. That's out there.

I think they're siren calls that are attempting to pull ulysses into the water and eat them alive. It's just i mean these these yield. Schemes are a perfect example of it it's like you're a lot of people who are locked up in celsius and block fine voyager. It really doesn't make any sense you're you're risking the scarcest asset in the world bitcoin for six percent yield.

When if bitcoin continues to do what it has done in the past which i think it will because it has in turn inherent utility and fundamental value and its peer to peer nature and the fact. That it allows you to make transactions that despotic governments. Don't want you to make i think people are only going to recognize that that fundamental utility and therefore demand will rise and the concept of locking your bitcoin up on a centralized custodian is going to take risk with it to get six percent yield back. When uh bitcoin has a compound annual gross rate over the last decade of 200 percent.

Just as it's too too much risk that you're you're picking up pennies to get. Steamrolled um in front of a steamroller. So um. Yeah.

I'm sort of rambling. Right now. But you're all good story. Long story short the money's broken.

I think bitcoin fixes. It bitcoin. Often gets lumped in with uh. The crypto uh yield.

Seeking uh blow ups that happen. But i i think it's very important for your audience anybody listening to this to understand that there is a clear delineation between bitcoin and the the griff that is crypto. I uh so for me i do own a myriad of different coins and tokens. But one thing.

I want to point out and this is uh. So my covenants was much more through the ape community. But in terms of like gamestop and amc and in between those happening. Particularly the gme event in january.

The amc event in june. That was actually doge and like you were kind of saying with the siren call. It was just ripping ripping ripping. And it was fun like it was part of the community and there i think there were some valid parts there but because of that i think people became hyper focused on the sec.

And what is the sec doing or not doing and one thing that we came out maybe a month ago. Gary gensler was really doubling down on most likely everything. But bitcoin is a security like he said that he like he went out of his state to say bitcoin is a commodity. So with me and like my other investments.

It does make me nervous that they're going to crush them. And say nope they're all security. So i think that's something we'll see how the sec decides to play it out i mean obviously. The sec moves very very slowly.

I mean a lot of the people listening to this they still want to know clarity on what's going on with citadel and virtue and market making which i'm sure you're familiar with citadel. Because they're trying to become market makers now with crypto um. But in terms of just like if we're asking like okay. A safe thing to store your money.

There is a chance that the sec crushes everything else besides bitcoin that's the only one that they're like you know what it's actually good and i know the ripple case is ongoing and their legal team has some victories here and there and we'll see how it ends up playing out. But just in terms of risk like these are things that just at least have to be considered obviously. Neither of us are financial advisors. Do what you want with your money.

But it's on us. At least point. These things out to you yeah. Um.

Gary gensler. The sec could definitely come down. I mean. It's and there's a very i mean we can use ethereum as the the base case for that too i mean ethereum it pretty clearly was an illegal securities offering when you consider the pre mine.

How they were pitching it to investors the language that vitalik buter and jude lubin were using in terms of uh returns that would be provided on on top of the east hook and uh. However a couple things here. I don't think you should depend like the sec certainly could turn a blind eye. There's been some comments.

They've made in the past. But they you know they said azirim's okay. But again at the end of the day that doesn't really matter uh to me at least uh again. We need to fix the money and think that that's that's the really like you mentioned.

Gamestop board. Apes uh doge. All these things people trying to make a yield uh to that is above inflation. So that they can just either stay.

Afloat or get ahead in the game. And this is indicative again that the money is broken like this is people need to realize and take a step back read some history books in the long scheme of history. We live in a historical anomaly of the way we run our monetary systems and like historically throughout you know humanity's history. Like there have been saving vehicles.

Where people can just work and actually save money in a monetary. Good and not have to worry about going to buy doge or buy board of hips or get into some d5 scheme to to make a crazy yield on their savings like that is how broken the money is is that it is normal for people to think that this is how they need to either develop a nest egg or just keep a nest egg and that's what bitcoin aims to fix is like hey we're gonna provide you you don't have to worry about all these d5 schemes and all these yield chasing mechanisms you can just save your money in bitcoin and over the long term uh your purchasing power is going to at least remain stable and if not increase significantly. So that you can save money and just focus on what you do best. Which would be productive throughout the economy um and that's where i think we're still learning this lesson as as we still live in the reality of the fiat monetary system that really incentivizes this mad dash for yield because people simply want to be able to maintain purchasing power over time.

As the fed is printing money and inflating prices of everything that that we touch whether it be education healthcare food energy. Is not the way the world. Should. Work.

That's not the way money should work and humanity is still learning that lesson today man. I i really like i think you're the first person to put it that way uh because we are talking about things like you alluded to board a doge sheba they all went crazy why was tara attractive why was amc gme and you're really the first person that i've heard articulate it that way like let's take the question. Even earlier. Why are people feeling the pressure to take even interest in those types of things.

And it kind of shows you like you alluded to between our food our energy of just our schooling. Our healthcare. How messed up things have been and people get the pressure to take that risk where they're potentially taking the risk and not even knowing the risk involved they're signing up for voyager or celsius not understanding the true risk profile. They think it's relatively safe because that's the verbiage that's a copy right but in reality.

It's the complete other end of the spectrum. Where it's a high risk. And i'm sure people like you would actually argue you're probably surprised that it even lasted as long as it did. But it quickly came undone as soon as the fed switched its tune uh.

No. I've never thought of it that way and i do appreciate you sharing that as one final question right now obviously you love bitcoin you're invested in bitcoin. You're i'm assuming a. Very long term like probably along the lines of trying to pass it down to your family.

You also alluded to the end of the summer and fed and all that stuff so i get it you're invested in bitcoin. You love it. But are you dollar cost averaging at this level or do you think there's still a little bit more pain in btc and you're waiting to dollar cost average a bit lower than the current price of roughly ish 20ish k. Um.

Again. I don't try to predict price. I've tried to do that in the past it could certainly go lower certainly could not uh that's on our show. Rabbit hole recap one of the podcasts.

I do my co host matt o'dell has been saying for years just stay humble and stacks at so a lot of my company revenues and bitcoin. So i'm still invoicing in bitcoin month in a month out um. I have excess cash. I dump it into bitcoin as well um.

I'm in always in a accumulate as many sats as possible mode. The satoshi assat is the smallest denomination of a bitcoin um and yeah. So i mean i'll continue to be invoicing a bitcoin and buying bitcoin throughout the summer regardless if the price goes lower or higher. If it goes lower and i'm able to stack more sats um.

I'll be happy um. I won't depend on that. But yeah. I mean in the context of fed policy and bitcoins existence in regards to that policy.

I mean the dollar system is is when you when you count like credit exposure. Hundreds of trillions of dollars of an ocean and bitcoin right now is a 350 billion dollar market cap. I believe for around 400 billion um. So in the context of bitcoin compared to the dollar system bitcoins and that on the elephant's ass where the elephant uh moves a lot and then that could be affected um.

But again. I think this is just a product of the nations of of bitcoin and where it is in its overall history. Which i think will be a very long one so yeah. I see it as an opportunity uh if it does go lower just add more sats um.

But yeah. I think the fed continues to raise rates. And you have these contagion events. Continue where you have a people delevering um to to get more dollars as interest rate goes up a lot if if there's a lot of leverage in the bitcoin system.

Still there could be more sell offs. But i do think with celsius tara three arrows and uh voyager now a lot of these blow ups happening. And we're seeing a lot of miners sell bitcoin and mass in the last couple weeks. I'm actually relatively surprised that the the prices held up this well uh considering all of that and so i do think that bitcoin uh.

The bitcoin ecosystem is significantly delevered um compared to where it was earlier this year uh again i don't make any price predictions. It could certainly go lower uh could stay even it could go higher um. Maybe the goal should always be just to stack as many stats as possible in my mind. I love it well thank you for your insights and i truly appreciate your time.

We put this together at the last second and honestly this was a wealth of information uh. What is your twitter. What's the best way for people to reach out to you what's the name of your podcast. I'm sure you've prompted other people to be more interested in your thoughts and opinions.

So i just want to send them to the right place. Yeah so at marty bent is my twitter tftcio is my website you can find uh my newsletter and my podcast there and i highly recommend if you want to get a more a better well rounded understanding of the situation with celsius and three arrows capital and we've recorded this before voyager. But um you could apply to the voyager situation. I recorded an episode with the gentleman.

But by the name of parker lewis uh last week that i highly recommend you go check out uh. It's about an hour and a half discussion. But we we dive deep into the nature of this contagion event. And how um a a lot of these services.

Uh ended up in the spot that they did i'll make sure to put all the links to all that what he just said in the description below. So folks just scroll down and it'll be right there uh once again thank you so much i appreciate your time and we'll be talking soon hopefully when bitcoin's a little bit higher. Thanks matt. It was a pleasure have a good one bye you too bye.