WBD310 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin’s Wild Start to 2021 with Cory Klippsten
Interview date: Friday 12th February
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Cory Klippsten. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
In this interview, I talk to Cory Klippsten, the founder of SwanBitcoin. We discuss how shitcoiners are invading Clubhouse, r/wallstreetbets, corporations buying Bitcoin, and which nation-states will first disclose a Bitcoin position first.
“Robinhood users realised what everyone in the venture and startup industry knew a long time ago, which is that they are the product and that the customer is Citadel and Knight.”
— Cory Klippsten
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: What's up, Cory, how are you doing?
Cory Klippsten: Hey, Peter, good to see you, man.
Peter McCormack: I am so sorry it's taken so long to do this. We should have done this at least a year ago, and here we are.
Cory Klippsten: I think we talked about it at Stacy's Crypto Springs in fall of 2019 when I was getting ready to launch GiveBitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, man. And then we kept talking about it, and then shit gets in the way. But, maybe this was the universe telling us, because I really want to talk about this WallStreetBets stuff with you.
Cory Klippsten: I want to talk about that; I want to talk about Clubhouse; I want to talk about Adonis Breedlove; I want to talk about all kinds of things.
Peter McCormack: I want to talk about Breedlove. I'm kind of in love with that dude.
Cory Klippsten: Who doesn't want to talk about Breedlove?
Peter McCormack: I want to be Breedlove when I grow up. He's like my new superhero! But, I want to talk about Clubhouse. Can we start with Clubhouse, because I think it's a shorter one?
Cory Klippsten: Sure.
Peter McCormack: Right, so I like Clubhouse, but I also hate Clubhouse, and I've had a few days off it, because it became such a distraction. I didn't do shit for three days; all I was, was going on there. And then I was arguing with shitcoiners and I ended up having an argument with Mashinsky because he came on and he's just a tool. So I was like, "Fuck that guy, fuck this", and then I nearly got kicked out of a room for it; and then I was like, "I need a break".
But, I think it's a great opportunity to teach people about Bitcoin, and therefore it's a great opportunity for shitcoin salesmen to come in and mislead people.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, so that's exactly what I saw when I got on, which was probably the third week of December. I think they opened up a new round of, "Okay, everybody gets five invites", or whatever. Somebody got me on and bitcoiners were outnumbered ten to one by altcoin salesmen, which is usually not the engineers. I don't really fault somebody for trying to code something and not worrying about the finance as much.
It's usually the altcoin founders and in particular, the worst voices are the crypto fund managers, because they're the ones that actually do the most FUD spreading about Bitcoin, the most lying, the most selling, because they can't get paid unless they get their 2 and 20 off of pretending that there's something to manage in this space other than Bitcoin.
So, they're the ones that are most lethal, because they talk slow, they talk serious, sometimes they have accents; and it sounds trippy, to quote Stephen Colbert. And if somebody isn't there with the actual ammunition to come back, as Nick Szabo would say, influential ignorance; they just have the run of the place. And they were using Bitcoin in their titles, their room titles, like you would expect them to, you know, Orange Washing; Bitcoin Affinity Marketing; I Love Bitcoin, Buy My Shitcoin. It was just rampant.
And there are only a few people, like Alex Thorn and Jeet Sidhu and Terrence Yang, trying to hold it down in the Bitcoin club, and they all have jobs and they could only do one show a week. And so, yeah, we basically coordinated a massive invite pledge for all the bitcoiners, and we brought on about 1,000 bitcoiners in the last month and a half. Now, there's no room that says "Bitcoin" that doesn't have bitcoiners in it equipped to squash false narratives.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's good; it's really important. Another interesting thing actually, I was talking to Brekkie about this the other day, a mutual friend of ours, because we were in a room together. It's a real eye-opener and a reminder of how complex Bitcoin is to understand when you first get in, because some of the questions are basic, very basic, and you kind of forget about that. Once you've been in for a few years, you just forget about that.
But, some of the questions are so basic and therefore, it's really easy to understand how someone can be sold on some kind of altcoin. I found myself arguing with somebody the other day about the fundamentals of Dogecoin, and they were telling me why Dogecoin is -- this wasn't in Clubhouse actually; this was on Twitter afterwards. But, I'd been in this Dogecoin room. I was thinking, "What the fuck am I arguing with you about Dogecoin for? If you think that, go ahead. Why am I wasting my time?"
But, you know, it's this unit bias that people have. And then they'll say things like, "Oh, you're an OG, you're already rich. This is our chance". It's like firstly, I'm not rich; but secondly, you're talking shit!
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, it's hard. Honestly, we've had to develop a whole roster of backup material, so we created a short sheet that's kind of a Bitcoin one-pager, "Get started here". And when somebody comes in with super basic questions and clearly has giant misconceptions, and you don't want to derail a good chat about the future of Bitcoin, or Bitcoin versus central banks or regulation or whatever it is, we just point them to swanbitcoin.com/clubhouse and that's kind of, "Get started here". Or, we'll ask them to read Yan Pritzker's book, which we give away, and things like that.
We say, "Glad to have you here. These are important questions to find the answers to, but we have 700 people in the room and 699 of them have done their research. Feel free to come back in a few days; we'd love to hear some of your questions about Yan's book".
Peter McCormack: And you've also got swanxrp.com?
Cory Klippsten: There's swanxrp.com now that somebody from Clubhouse created and it's fantastic and you can check it out.
Peter McCormack: Love it, dude, love it. Okay, so I think, look, I think Clubhouse is a great opportunity. I think we do need to foster it. And the other thing about it that's interesting; I think it's basically an evolution of Twitter.
When you're on Twitter, people are all shouting and arguing with each other and sometimes when I've had that, I'm like, "Let's make a podcast", and you get on really well and you have a great conversation. I think Clubhouse allows that, allows for some really good conversation, so we should foster it, we should push it.
Cory Klippsten: I think it's a tool for podcasters, because what you'll see if you have a popular podcast or a big social media following and you put in a little bit of time on Clubhouse, you'll immediately have a very large following. Then you'll be able to leverage that for anything you want to do.
I had this conversation with Nathaniel on Twitter yesterday, and then he joined a room and we talked about it some more on Clubhouse last night. And, the podcast experience is something that you can put on Clubhouse. The other things you can do on Clubhouse, you can't put on a podcast. Clubhouse enables 100 different ways, or 1,000 different ways to engage with audio; whereas a podcast is, you know, a limited set of things.
So, I think you'll see, when they make it a little bit easier to pipe in really good audio to Clubhouse; right now, we're using a Bluetooth speaker and holding it up to a second iPhone and stuff like that; but, you'll basically see most podcasts, I think, will broadcast a show, whether live or taped, they'll have an airing of the show on Clubhouse. It will aggregate thousands of people on the audience and then you'll have a Q&A with either the host or the guests or both, and be able to have an interactive overtime on Clubhouse after the show.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I agree.
Cory Klippsten: So, when I said that to Nathaniel, he was like, "Oh, yeah, of course I would do that".
Peter McCormack: Well it's like, I mean, it's a hybrid; I don't think you're going to get away from wanting these intimate one-on-one chats?
Cory Klippsten: No, absolutely not. But of course, you can have that on Clubhouse too. If you don't have a podcast that you've built up across all the different channels and you don't have the money for production and everything, you can monologue and be the only person on stage; you can have one person on stage. You see Balaji and Nerval having one-on-one chats with nobody on stage except for them. That's very doable.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I've thought about it. It's like, do I need a Clubhouse strategy alongside my Twitter strategy and my Instagram and my LinkedIn and I was like, "Oh, fuck". So, I think I'm going to just dip in and out and keep doing my thing with the podcast, but I do like it. I do like it, but I've had to turn the alerts off on my phone because it's like, you look up and there's Cory and Brekkie and American HODL in a room and I'm like, "Oh, there are my friends; I want to go talk to them, but shit, I've got work to do!"
Cory Klippsten: It draws you in, it really does. It's a sticky platform. If people are curious about where I think it's going, they just announced they raised over $100 million on a $1 billion valuation on 24 January and they have about 2 million people after having 1 million six weeks ago. They could be already 50 million plus; they're just scaling their servers and stuff. I think they'll be in the hundreds of millions by the end of this year and I think by the end of 2022, it will be a $100 million company.
Peter McCormack: How do you think it makes its money?
Cory Klippsten: They've already said what they're going to start with; kind of Patreon model. They're just going to enable tipping. So, one of the things I'm trying to do, I just got connected to Chris Lyons, who's the Andreessen partner that sits on the board; got connected with him yesterday and traded notes. And I'm going to try really, really hard for them to enable tipping in sats.
I'm going to try to marshall you and Marty and Stephan and Saife and everybody to try to make that push to the Clubhouse founders. The problem with Andreessen being involved is obviously, they're one of the biggest altcoin-promoting forces in the world with their $800 million for blockchain funds; so, it may be very, very difficult for them to agree to have just Bitcoin, and I don't really want to open up that platform to a bunch of Litecoin and Polkadots and whatever else is in their portfolio.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, fuck that, you don't want that. I think, you know what, if they did a Patreon thing where you can actually create your own rooms and people can subscribe to come into them, that's actually kind of interesting. You could hold private events in there and that itself is kind of cool. And they have, in some ways, I think they've benefitted from this COVID thing in that, I kind of described it…
I did a show, because we're going to move onto WallStreetBets; I did a Defiance show about it and I'm pretty sure I described Clubhouse in there as kind of like a conference. It's kind of a 24/7/365 conference where you can just run panels whenever you want. And I think, if they allowed room subscriptions, that might be interesting. I'd be interested in that.
Cory Klippsten: You're right. It's a bit of radio, it's a bit of Twitter, it's a bit of in-person conversation, whether at conferences or just with friends, and it's a bit of podcasting, because it's just people talking and it's the product choices that you make to enable or not enable different ways of engaging. And what I will say is really obvious in the early going is that this is not Meerkat with Periscope coming around the corner and Meerkat's gone.
This experience needs to be so finely tuned by a team that really cares about it and makes good choices, and it already does have a very strong network effect. Twitter Spaces will not work; Facebook Rooms, did you even know about Facebook Rooms?
Peter McCormack: No.
Cory Klippsten: They've had audio and video chat for Facebook groups for a long time; nobody cares, it's the wrong graph. I would be horrified to start an audio chat with the Swan Signal or the Swan Bitcoin Telegram room. I don't know who's in there and they're all using anonymous names and there are no norms for behaviour. It would just be a disaster.
Peter McCormack: I mean, look, you're going to get copycats. Once someone sees something successful, you will get a copycat. But I think this is a winner-takes-all kind of experience, right?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, I agree.
Peter McCormack: You'll get these niche little ones that maybe a handful of people use, but I think also, Cory, I think the timing's interesting, because over the last eight weeks, Twitter's almost become unusable. I'll tell you what page is unusable; my notification page is unusable, because it's Chamath, Winklevoss, Elon Musk Promotions, you know, the scam promotions, which then each one is followed by 20 replies going, "Yeah, thanks, I can't believe it worked. Wow, I just received 8.14 Bitcoin", which is frustrating. I've got the pump and dump groups pushing and then I've got all the shitcoin promoters. So, my notifications are fucked, so that's become unusable, which is a shame.
Cory Klippsten: So, you have the problem, I think, of getting tagged a lot because you're a big name. My feed is still okay. It's getting worse as the market kind of pumps a bit, it's getting a bit worse, but I do see why people will create a second profile and basically create lists for themselves and only sort of browse their list feed. You're probably at that point where you have to create lists or just grab Yan's list or grab somebody else's list of bitcoiners and macro people. I think Preston has one, and just kind of browse that or use that as the seat for your own Twitter experience.
Peter McCormack: That's a good point. I did create a list a long time ago. I basically went on Hive and created a list of the bitcoiners on there; I probably need to do that. It's becoming unusable. It was like this in the last bull run though. Bull runs bring out the scammers and fuckers.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. I have an announcement, by the way, that I'm going to break on your show later, just when you want to.
Peter McCormack: I can't wait; you've got to tell me now!
Cory Klippsten: It totally hijacks this conversation.
Peter McCormack: I don't give a fuck.
Cory Klippsten: No, we're going to wait. It hijacks this conversation.
Peter McCormack: But that's like, "I've got a secret".
Cory Klippsten: Let's finish off the Clubhouse thing.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's done, we're finished.
Cory Klippsten: Okay, we're done with the Clubhouse thing.
Peter McCormack: I'll tell you why I can't do it. I'm that bad. When I first dated my ex-wife, right, and first Christmas together at her parents'; and we got up on Christmas morning and we had breakfast and I was like, "Cool, we're going to do the presents", and they were like, "No, we don't do presents until after lunch". I was like, "What?!" And they're like, "Yeah, we don't do presents until after lunch". I was like, "No, this is bullshit; I want my presents now!"
I know that sounds childish, but now I have a thing with my kids. Every Christmas, they can open a present on Christmas Eve; they can go under the tree and pick one. So, when you say to me, "I've got an announcement", I can't wait, dude.
Cory Klippsten: All right, well I'm going to finish with one last thought on Clubhouse and something that I see that it enables that I don't see in media very often today; definitely not in the Bitcoin space, or let's call it Bitcoin and the crypto space; debates. When you get a debate on neutral ground, where a podcaster says, "Okay, fine, I'm going to bring in these two people with these opposing views", they're super polite, they follow very kind rules of engagement and you basically miss out on what they actually think a lot of times.
So, there's decorum and it's polite and it's going out on a podcast and it's recorded for posterity, and so you understand why incredible minds like Nic Carter or Dan Held would be polite when they're debating a shitcoiner, or whatever; I totally get why they take it that way. The shackles are off on Clubhouse. You will see what people actually think. And, if you're listening, you can listen to multiple smart people offering different points about a topic, then you can also ask your question or chime in if you have something smart to say.
Peter McCormack: That's true.
Cory Klippsten: So, the compounding of the intelligence that is sort of promulgated very, very quickly about a topic is just absolutely incredible. I often, as you know, have had the criticism of multiple podcasters that, if they're tackling a subject with a guest and they don't actually have the time to really do the research to provide the counterarguments, then it's probably a good idea to bring a guest on to ride along to provide the counterpoints and ask those hard questions of, you know, a Brad Garlinghouse or a Zac from BlockFi, or whatever else, whoever else is promoting their thing, PlanB; it's nice to have --
Peter McCormack: Let me just interrupt you, just for a reason.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, sure.
Peter McCormack: I reckon this of myself of my own podcast, right. I recognise I started doing -- I'm good at asking questions, but when I got somebody on who's not a bitcoiner, somebody like a Gary Vee, and they start asking questions, I'm not actually a great person for answering those. And that's why with Gary Vee, I brought on Breedlove; that's why with Frances Coppola, I brought on Nic Carter. I recognised what you were saying.
Cory Klippsten: You did and I love that you've been doing that; I think it's absolutely huge. I mean, our whole model for Swan Signal was really just that, that whether it was me hosting or Brady hosting or whatever, if we had two really smart people arguing in front of us, then we'd be more likely to get to the truth faster. The whole model for that for me was when Tim Ferriss decided to have Nick Szabo on back in 2016/2017, or whatever; my favourite two hour --
Peter McCormack: With Nerval.
Cory Klippsten: -- with Nerval, and he was like, "I'm going to bring Nerval on so that I can ask everyman questions, but Nerval can dig deep and really ask the right questions and test things that don't make sense to an advanced audience".
Anyway, this is not about honestly you and Pomp and some of the people that started podcasting two years ago. Your knowledge of Bitcoin at this point and your ability to make the counterpoints, in particular about Bitcoin, is off the charts, 99 percentile; so, that's not the issue. The issue much more comes if somebody comes on to talk about Ethereum or Ripple or whatever, and that's where you need to ride along.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I agree, dude. Look, you're totally right. I recognised it with my own show. I've started doing it. By the way, I think you guys are doing a great job with Swan as well. You bring really interesting people together, so I commend you on that as well, dude.
Cory Klippsten: I appreciate that. Yeah, we definitely spend most of the time on guest selection and thinking about the pairings. That's probably the most active channel in the team is thinking about who to bring together and whether that dynamic would be good, and things like that. I really like throwing parties with the right people.
Peter McCormack: All right, man. Give me your announcement.
Cory Klippsten: Announcement time?
Peter McCormack: The announcement; I want to hear it. That's all I'm thinking about.
Cory Klippsten: All right, okay. So, I think a lot of people know that Max and Stacy invested in Swan and helped us out in advising; we do a lot of stuff with their show, Orange Pill podcast. So, this fall, it will be either the last week in September or the first week in October, in Palm Springs, Orange Pill in the desert, cosponsored by Orange Pill and Swan.
Peter McCormack: Pow!
Cory Klippsten: Boom, yeah! So, it will probably be like 225 people, it will be 150 bitcoiners that know their shit, and it will be about 75 influencers, so it will be actors, rappers, writers, things like that.
Peter McCormack: Do I count as knowing my shit; do I get an invite?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, you will be there.
Peter McCormack: Of course, dude. When is it, sorry?
Cory Klippsten: I mean basically, obviously, COVID allowing and SoCal blowing up, but we think it will be clear by the end of September.
Peter McCormack: Sweet, so if I've got my vaccine, I'll literally take all the vaccines; just let me get on a plane. I'll come out; I'll be there, dude. I love it. Anything I can do to help, you give me a shout, man, but you know I'll be there.
Cory Klippsten: It's going to be really content-focussed, so we're going to have a bunch of different sets and tables, and we're getting separate WiFi for media to broadcast, and I think you'll be able to shoot like 30 interviews or something over a couple of days.
Peter McCormack: Sweet. Well, maybe; I'll probably just get wasted, to be honest!
Cory Klippsten: Well, there's that too.
Peter McCormack: I'll do a couple.
Cory Klippsten: Why not both? Go mad, Marty-style, and do both!
Peter McCormack: Drunk podcasting. I struggle enough sober, dude.
Cory Klippsten: Exactly.
Peter McCormack: Right, so listen, I want to talk to you about WallStreetBets. I just made a show about it, had some guests on that really helped. I understand a little bit more, but I came out of it with a couple of things. So, I was very much on the, "Fuck Robinhood, you bastards" train, but some people gave me a very, very honest and accurate reason as to why Robinhood did have to stop the buying of GameStop.
I had a very good conversation with Bill Barhite and explained structurally why that happened. I also spoke to Hester Peirce at the SEC and she explained some things to me. So, there are a few things to go through. We've got to talk about what happened; we've got to talk about culturally what it means; and then we need to talk about, you forwarded me a tweet, but essentially the plumbing, which is the problem. So, let's kick off with, from your eyes, what went on with GameStop?
Cory Klippsten: Well, I think the headline take away is that Robinhood users realised what everyone in the venture and startup industry knew a long time ago, which is they're the product, and that the customer is Citadel and Knight and a couple of others that they sell to. I think that was kind of the main takeaway; that Robinhood does not actually work for their users, they work for their customers and their users are what they sell to their customers.
Peter McCormack: Do you think that, in itself, is slightly unethical in that it is giving Citadel a head start?
Cory Klippsten: Not if you disclose it.
Peter McCormack: But they didn't originally. I don't know if you know this, but I looked it up; they got fined.
Cory Klippsten: It's in Terms of Service, isn't it? Okay, they got fined initially for letting Citadel front run every single trade with their black box algorithms.
Peter McCormack: Well, I think it was actually more because they didn't disclose to their customers how they made their money accurately. They got a $65 million fine from the SEC and a bit of a slap on a wrist.
Cory Klippsten: Well, if you know me at all, which you do, because we talk and you've seen me on Twitter, I just think it's morally reprehensible to use shady marketing and false marketing and promote yourself as something that you're not. And, it happens to be a really good business strategy and people can get ahead with that.
In a free market, people are totally welcome to set up that business model and market themselves with "rob from the rich and give to the poor" and everything else that they've done to democratise trading, or whatever. And, it's not that they don't offer a product that even if you knew exactly what it was, a lot of people would still use it, because it's free stock trades; that's enough.
But, this free market also means a free marketplace of ideas. So, it's totally also within the rights of anyone that wants to point out that, "Hey, users, by the way, you're the product and you're getting front run on every single trade; and if you ever get stuck in a situation, they're not going to have your back because they can't", due to the things you discovered talking to Hester and Bill.
They're not going to continue to enable the trades that you want to put on, because they are just an agent for Citadel; they're just a market maker. They're the car salesman out front that has to go in the back and ask the manager, and the manager's saying no.
Peter McCormack: So, the interesting side of that is that, even if you're like, "Well, fuck Robinhood; I'm going to go and use something else", I'm happy to pay for my trades. I don't want fee-free trading. It's not really changed anything, because it requires everyone, as long as there's enough critical mass in Robinhood, Citadel still give them the data.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, so Citadel is, in my understanding, they do actually take a little sliver by being the market maker and there is some spread in there on every single trade; it's not just data, I think. But, I could totally be wrong; I don't care.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's a funny scenario, dude. I was like, most of my energy on it was just sitting by; I wasn't going to go in and long it. Even at $130, I was like, "No, I'm not going to do this. I don't trade stocks. I don't understand this". But, I was cheering on from the sidelines. I was like, "These are our heroes". Take down a hedge fund. And I don't even know the implications.
I don't know the implications of something like Melvin Capital going bust; I don't know what that means. I don't know what that money means; I don't know if that's somebody's pension; I just don't know; I don't know the consequences. But at the same time, I was just sat there going, "Fuck you, this is brilliant; take them down".
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, the playbook -- was this last weekend or the weekend before; I'm losing track of time? I think it was just last weekend. So, I was telling people Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that basically the way to break the line, assuming that they're like union strike workers at WallStreetBetts; the way to break the line is just to scare them. And I figured that the PR war room teams on Saturday and Sunday were just basically trying to get people to stop buying and to start selling, and that's all you had to do.
The idea that all of these individual people wouldn't be scared by enough media reports in online and on TV saying that the SEC was going to come for you guys for colluding, or whatever, which is complete BS, by the way. That's literally what the financial information industry does. There's an entire social network called StockTwits run by Howard Lindzon, where literally it's people online recruiting other people to their ideas.
Every time you see Kyle Bass, or any other short fund manager, attacking a ticker or a currency or whatever, they're literally putting out media, often biased, often outright false, trying to recruit other people into their capital to their side of the trade. So, it completely destroys the entire, or like two-thirds of the hedge fund model, if you're not allowed to recruit other people to your trade anymore.
So, they would never actually pass a rule, in any way, that would very selectively attack one Subreddit.
Peter McCormack: Well the hedge funds themselves all know each other, I'm sure they talk, I'm sure they have their conversations in The Hamptons. They've got a lot of accumulative capital. I'm sure that shit goes on with them. And the big difference is, that side's quite opaque. The thing I like, the thing I really liked about the WallStreetBets thing is that it was transparent; it was out there; it was like, "This is what we're going to do and we're doing this", and they just told everyone. There were no secrets; it was transparent. Anyone who's into free markets, anyone who's anti-regulation should like this, because this was just out there and transparent.
I still feel like they got screwed over, dude. Even with the explanation to me of the prime broker stuff and the capital, but -- am I right in thinking, what it essentially came down to is Robinhood didn't have enough capital parked with the prime brokers and the prime brokers felt there was too much risk?
Cory Klippsten: I mean, yeah. It's not even just too much risk; they literally didn't have the cash posted for those positions, essentially, that their users were taking. So, if everybody's long, then the net position that's posted at their prime broker leaves them very exposed. Usually, when Robinhood has trades going, like long-short, they net out and basically, the net long is all that is required to be posted at the prime broker.
It's not too dissimilar from Swan or Coinbase or somebody like that, and I think Cash App does this as well, where you front your users the money for instant ACH; so, that magic thing when you smash buy. But you know your bank in the legacy fiat system didn't actually magically make that money appear in your Swan account in a split second; we're actually lending the customer the money and fronting them the money until the cash actually arrives via ACH bank transfer at Swan. So, it's kind of like that.
If we run out of liquidity -- so, we keep a lot of money in that account; we borrowed a ton of money to keep in that account, so we can front people during market pumps or market dumps when everybody smashes buy. But, if we run out of that liquidity, then we would not be able to sell more Bitcoin and so, in the future, we'll do things like reduce the limits, which is what you see with Robinhood. They reduced the number of shares and the number of options that you could buy in that particular ticker.
If we have a crazy pump day and people want to smash buy $20 million on that day, we'll probably start reducing the amount that people can buy in that day, just like you see with Cash App. When they run out of Bitcoin, what they're really running out of is their fiat reserve to front people that money. There's plenty of Bitcoin for sale; we don't have the fiat.
Peter McCormack: Right, interesting. Because, what I wanted to know is, they raised $1 billion, then they raised another $2.4 billion in four days; in my head I was thinking, right, so there was a phone call between the prime broker and Robinhood at some point. Did they wait until they ran out of liquidity; did they warn them; did they say, "Look, we've got a feeling you need to have some more liquidity on the books"?
I mean, they turned around the fundraise in four days; could it be a case that they said, "Okay, you've got 24 hours, we need a cheque from you"? Could Robinhood have phoned up Andreessen and said, "Look, we need $1 billion dollars; we're running out"? I'm wondering, could this have been fixed on the fly?
Cory Klippsten: This is what we can never know, but you know cui bono; you know who benefitted in the appearance of it. And the likelihood is that Robinhood dragged their feet to serve their masters, right, because they could tell that they ought to draw on that line of credit. So, they already had a line of credit of, let's say, $1 billion from Goldman and JP Morgan that they did draw hundreds of millions of dollars from, but they did it very late, after shutting down trading.
They could have forecast, "Oh, wow, it looks like we're out of balance, it's never been like this before; it's very likely we're going to get this 3.30 am call asking us to post a lot more before market opens", and they didn't do anything about it, and then they drew on it later that afternoon after essentially diffusing the whole rally by not letting people go long on the Friday, or whatever.
Peter McCormack: They killed it, because if you look at the chart, I put a thing on Twitter, I was like, "This is where they fucked you", because at the time I was very suspicious. And it was $40 from the spike; it was 9.00 in the morning Eastern, I might be wrong about that; and then, it killed the long, it killed the whole movement. I mean, who knows where it would have gone, but it killed it. And I was just like, "Hmm…"
If it would have been beneficial, if there was something going on where it would have been beneficial for Citadel or Melvin to have been able to be trading, and they needed to post more capital, would they have found that money? I just think I bet they probably could.
Cory Klippsten: Oh, of course they would, because that's the client.
Peter McCormack: And that's the thing that's bullshit to me, Cory.
Cory Klippsten: Well, it's just you understand which system you are a part of, and that the system does not work for you, the retail guy, with the free trades, where you're the product just like you are on Facebook.
Peter McCormack: Well, yeah, but this is the point where I think culturally, what's going on is important now, because every one of these situations is like a crack in the system, every time something like this happens. Look, we all know; we know we get fucked; we know that essentially, Wall Street has an office within the White House; everyone knows what happened in 2008; we know, I think, it was one banker who went to jail, but pretty much no one went to jail; we know millions of people lost their homes. We know that; they were foreclosed upon.
We know the FDIC paid out for the banks; we know Mnuchin, the fucker Munchin, started OneWest.
Cory Klippsten: Well, you know that Mnuchin is the one that bought IndyMac, turned it into OneWest. The office is this sparkling building on Wilshire Avenue and Fourth Street in Santa Monica, and they foreclosed. Steve signed off on false pretence foreclosures on hundreds of thousands of people.
Peter McCormack: Robo-signed; we know that. We know they flipped the bank and made a cool, whatever it was, $1 billion, $2 billion on it. We know Kamala Harris had the opportunity to prosecute and she chose not to. We know Mnuchin donated and we know Soros donated to her campaigns. Look, there are all these different connections; we fucking know.
Cory Klippsten: I think it's actually Munchkin!
Peter McCormack: Munchkin?
Cory Klippsten: Munchkin, yeah, he's a small, small man; Munchkin!
Peter McCormack: Fuck him. Anyway, we know he's a prick, right; but we do, and we know all of these people. But look, they get away with it. But now, this one was so blatant, it was right in front of our faces. It's just they did it; they just fucked people in front of our faces. And I was just like, "Okay, I'm glad I own Bitcoin", as part of the revolution now.
I feel it's almost like people have started to realise, "Actually, we don't have to take this shit anymore; we don't have to. We can get together on Reddit and we can take down these hedge funds, and we can get together and we can buy Bitcoin. Fuck them". That's why I was saying to you the cultural thing's important here.
Cory Klippsten: This really helps a lot of people at least see the matrix. And, you know we always start with, "What is money?"; this is helping people see, what are markets? And so, the same way that a lot of people have started to understand classical economics and realise that Keynesian economics is bullshit and just serves the fiat masters, I think this is letting people go click deeper on the structure of markets.
Even just seeing a number go up that fast, in fiat terms, which we've seen with Bitcoin, right? It is a shiny object that sits there on the ticker; it will always be there for people to look at; there's enough video and audio and written content now to go back and for people to look at what happened, and the fact that that was possible, and also see how they saved their arses. Michael Jordan's partners donate, Melvin Capital and Ken Griffin, with his $200 million penthouse in New York, or whatever. They were able to save their asses rather easily and laughing about it.
I shared on Clubhouse a few times, I actually lived in Chicago for years and I was friends with a lot of the prop traders and stuff like that, and one of my buddies back there is still friends with Ken Griffin. My old roommate worked for him high up in the finance department; I've been to weddings with Ken.
Anyway, one of them was texting me an exchange that he had with Ken on text and he sent me screen shots of it, from Wednesday or Thursday last week, and Ken's just laughing about it, because, "I don't know what they think is going on here. This is funny. I guess I'm a Twitter celebrity now". And he saw the same thing with Steven A Cohen. He jumped on Twitter for a couple of days and he was just laughing, and it's just not a thing for them.
Citadel knows everybody. They've given Janet Yellen $800,000 for speeches in the last 18 months; Ben Bernanke is on their board as an adviser to the firm. He's on the compensation roles. Even if there were something illegal, which there isn't, they actually did everything legally; it was in the Terms of Service that people signed when they signed up for Robinhood. Even if there was something illegal, they wouldn't have been punished.
Peter McCormack: The cracks are showing, dude. I feel like it was an important moment. I don't want the steam to run out of it though. I feel like there's momentum against this; I just don't know how to -- I mean, all I can do is like you, just bring people into Bitcoin; try and say --
Cory Klippsten: Well, I would say a really good angle, and maybe this is a show, because we've had a lot of shows about, what is money; I think we need a lot more shows for bitcoiners and Bitcoin-adjacent communities about, what are markets. I think that we all need to level up big time, like how does the stock market actually work; how does the bond market actually work.
There are only a handful of people who really explain the Eurodollar system well, and it's probably incumbent for now, while some of us in the Bitcoin media space are currently levelling up, to really point people towards the really good episodes from Macro Voices, or from Preston, where they've actually had people explain these specific topics, like the promulgation of dollars globally through the Eurodollar system, which just means international banks outside the US lending dollar-denominated debt to anybody that creates more dollars in the system, right; offshore dollars. So, that topic; how exactly does the stock market actually function; and then, how does the bond market actually function, and we all kind of need to level up in those areas.
Peter McCormack: That sounds like a Raoul Pal plus Lyn Alden show for me?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, I mean that would be a really good use of Raoul's brain and experience.
Peter McCormack: Well then, shitcoins; I know what you're saying there! Look, he's my friend; I'm working on that with him. I'm not going to call him out; I do like him.
Cory Klippsten: I talked to Ash for an hour and a half last night on Clubhouse in front of 1,000 people, the RV Crypto Editor.
Peter McCormack: I'm working on Raoul. Look, some of us have to go through it. I went through it; I shitcoined for a long time; I get it.
Cory Klippsten: He's going to come around when all his picks that he's shoved into portfolios go down 98%, 99% in 2023; then he'll come around.
Peter McCormack: There is a realistic prospect -- look, I'm not a fan of Ethereum, but I think Ethereum's here to stay, for a while anyway. I think it survives another cycle no problem; I think it appreciates in value; I think there's just a lot of activity on there. It's the Vegas of crypto for me. You go in and you try and get out alive with as much money as you can, but I don't think it's going anywhere.
I think there's a significant difference between Ethereum and then something like Polkadot or Cardano that's just not being used, or little to no usage.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. In the long term, there's no difference; in the short term, there is.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, exactly. But look, that's exactly what it is. I'd rather talk to you about Bitcoin, man. All right, listen, dude, it's been a big year, man. We're like one month in!
Cory Klippsten: It's bananas, isn't it? Yeah, I can't believe the flood of news that's come on. I'm thrilled, by the way, with the MicroStrategy Conference; it was great, some really good content. In particular, that first hour that you did with Ross Stevens at NYDIG was fantastic.
Peter McCormack: Oh, man, that blew my mind, dude.
Cory Klippsten: I'm so glad that Ross decided to go. You've probably talked to Ross. I've had a few conversations with him. I know Breedlove talks to him a lot, but I don't think people knew what a hardcore bitcoiner this dude is, and he's been that way since like 2014/2015, just quiet about it.
Peter McCormack: Right, no, I've never spoken to the guy; I don't know him.
Cory Klippsten: Oh, really?
Peter McCormack: He's not on Twitter, right?
Cory Klippsten: No, he's not on Twitter, but I'm happy to connect those guys if you like.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, do.
Cory Klippsten: I'm sure he'd do a show now that he's out there.
Peter McCormack: So, I mean, I thought it was awesome. I mean, his conversation was one of those "woah" moments. It was like every line that came out of his mouth was a banger; you could quote tweet that.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, well it's because they're well-practiced and he's tried a hundred more that you never heard that didn't make it off the cutting room floor, and all these meetings to build up his $25 billion pipeline. I think that's what people sometimes miss about Saylor as well. The dude is literally one of the best salesmen on the planet. And, the definition of a really good salesman is someone who impresses you, but leaves you still liking them, without being jealous. And you're rooting for them, but you're also impressed by them.
The guy has been doing international enterprise sales to governments and large corporations for 30 years. He knows what a good line is and he knows how to deliver it, and Ross is the same way. He's been selling to large portfolio managers and capital allocators for many, many years, including at Goldman and other places, and he's spectacular at choosing the right analogy, the right turn of phrase, the right delivery. I mean, they're just both incredible showmen and we're lucky to have them on Team Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: So, the thing on my mind, literally right now on my mind is, you might not have seen what I tweeted out, but have you read Balaji's article about why India should buy Bitcoin?
Cory Klippsten: Why who?
Peter McCormack: Why India.
Cory Klippsten: India yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, as in, the government.
Cory Klippsten: Okay.
Peter McCormack: So, you know right now the government is banning, let's say, private crypto, which might lead to Bitcoin. So, Balaji's written this article; it's a long article; it's fucking brilliant, about why India should buy Bitcoin, and I tweeted out. Because, the interesting thing about MicroStrategy is, they went big when Bitcoin was like average by about $11,000? Was it $11,110, or something?
Cory Klippsten: The first one, yeah. The first $425 million came in around $11,110. $11,111 is what he said.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and I imagine some people looked at that and said, "That's a massive buy, but it's a shame he didn't get in at $3,000", right? And then he did it again at, I can't remember, was it $23,000 or $22,000, by that time, because everyone front ran him! And again, it seemed like a lot of money. Now, they seem like good buys.
But, a lot of the other companies are thinking, "Shit, I wish we'd done it then". Now, what's in my mind, what I tweeted out is, every company wishes they were as early as MicroStrategy. Whichever country goes first will be the envy of the others. So, which nation is going to be the MicroStrategy of Bitcoin?
Cory Klippsten: Absolutely, and that's the truth. Every category, like which endowment was first, which mayor was first? We're watching Suarez down in Miami about to draw down; hopefully he does. Which county, you know? Orange County blew up in the savings and loan crisis, so whenever they went bankrupt, maybe it was 1991 or 1992, and that one, I think, whatever they were doing was shady. What if Orange County, one of the richest counties in the world, as far as tax base, even though they mismanage it; what if they decide to save themselves and their pension fund by drawing down 2% in Bitcoin?
Peter McCormack: I'll tell you something else. Look, I'm jumping all over the place; I want to come back to this nation state thing. But, do you know what I think the most interesting thing that Michael Saylor's done is, and you don't have to answer it? I think the most interesting thing he's done is these two, what is it, like $10 million purchases he's done?
Cory Klippsten: He keeps putting on, "We just bought 275 Bitcoins according to our treasury strategy. We just bought 311 Bitcoins". I love it, dude; it's so cool!
Peter McCormack: Oh, man, I'll tell you why I love that; probably for the same reason that you do, right? It's given a message, it's not about how much you've bought, it's the fact that you keep any excess cash to put in as Bitcoin. Look, I do it, you probably do it. Mine's more like 0.3 Bitcoin, if I'm even lucky, right, if it's a good month! But, what I'm saying is it's the same mentality. I don't want to hold onto these pounds, you don't want to hold onto these dollars, and he's giving that message of, "We're still buying; we don't care what the fucking price is". I think that is so important.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. You basically keep your working capital and some emerging expenses in fiat, and everything else in Bitcoin, because you're either on a personal Bitcoin standard or a company Bitcoin standard.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, back to the nation state thing, I mean I don't know about you, but it must be looking at it. Let's forget Iran and North Korea and Venezuela, the obvious ones. I think there's an obvious reason why those countries are looking at it; free power, cheap mining, etc. I'm really interested if we get like a Sweden or a Denmark or a Norway or a Belgium.
Cory Klippsten: I don't see it being a European country as the first to go. I mean, outside of the rogue states, which are already stacking, and I think some of the "Stans" are natural, so the West Asian countries, but it's a pittance, right. As far as a major economy, like a top-20 economy, that would do it, honestly I think the one with the most incentive to do it, and who has the culture and has already spent the most time on it, and I may have selective perception here because of the amount of time that I spend there, but I think it's Turkey.
Peter McCormack: That's a really, really interesting call. That's the last country I went to, dude, before the lockdowns, a year ago.
Cory Klippsten: We talked about it.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I was in Istanbul.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, look where you went.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I was in Istanbul; I loved it. They've got an inflation problem.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. So, I spend a lot of time there. So, they have a mild inflation problem, but everybody there understands inflation, because they've had either three or four hyperinflations in total, like redoing of their fiat money, in the last 40 years, so they're kind of Argentina-like when it comes to that. And, they never have the 100% inflation, but they always have the 12% to 18%, like always repricing; super annoying.
If you're not stacking sats in Turkey, you stack flats. Everybody just buys apartments and rents them out.
Peter McCormack: Right, okay.
Cory Klippsten: So, that's what people don't understand. Hyperinflation doesn't mean shit to rich people in Argentina and Turkey, because they don't keep any of their money in fiat anyway. They have land, they have flats, they have businesses and they can just reprice everything with whatever the new denomination is.
But, what Turkey does have is, outside of India, it has the most per capita -- well, I'm sure their per capita gold ownership is probably higher than India, because there are way fewer people and they're richer. But, they also have the most percentage of the population that owns some Bitcoin. There are Bitcoin ATMs and Bitcoin stores all over Istanbul. As you're just driving down a main boulevard, you see the Bitcoin logo and the word "Bitcoin" all over the place.
They've had people in there, with Erdoğan, and politics aside, they've had people in there talking about Bitcoin since 2014. BTCTurk is a very strong exchange with tight spreads and really good management that's politically connected. They're definitely going to do a CBDC and that's just really close to getting over the hump and having some Bitcoin.
They also have no problem whatsoever hiding purchases by the government. It's not like they have the same kind of transparency there that we do here. So, you don't actually know what the government owns with a high degree of certainty there; so, they could already have quite a bit.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well I think a lot of these rogue states -- and Turkey's like the lubrication between Russia, Iran and Syria, I do wonder if these states are actually having these backdoor conversations about Bitcoin. I've got no idea what they do, but I wonder.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I mean, the first one to do it and announce it is a game-changer.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, it really is. I think the calculus is basically, you're shining a light on the relative worthlessness of your own fiat currency. So, as long as your own fiat currency retains some usefulness as a tool of policy, or enriching yourself or positioning your country.
Basically, like China, as long as people are dumb enough to accept yuan in payment for things, what's their incentive to switch off of yuan, because they lie about their growth rates and that props up the yuan, and they've printed 30 times more than they had since 2008 and people keep accepting it. They keep being able to buy up land and pipelines and all kinds of shit with their fake money, just like we do. What's their incentive to move off of it?
Peter McCormack: Look, dude, if you could print $1 billion tomorrow and buy Bitcoin with it, you would. I mean, they can do that. That's the thing. They can do that; we can't.
Cory Klippsten: That's that speculative attack and Saylor's showing the play to the nation states as you point out; you're right. And, somebody's going to do it; I don't know who.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it will be interesting. So, what else is on your mind, dude?
Cory Klippsten: Well, while you think of something to really dive into, I'll at least just announce that we launched Swan Private Client Services, which is really exciting because a lot of people in the US have had access to Swan.
Peter McCormack: You've had massive growth, haven't you?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. We'll probably start sharing numbers a bit in Q2, but it's a much, much bigger business than people realise, and it's been profitable for quite a while. So, we've never taken venture money and we will never have to, so no one will ever force us to have to have a tough conversation about lending out our Bitcoin or selling shitcoins, or anything like that; we will never have to.
Peter McCormack: Well, I've got something interesting we can talk about. You hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet?
Cory Klippsten: Let's get to that. I did want to just announce that we launched Swan Private and the aforementioned Robert Breedlove is a full-time member of Swan now and is the Managing Director of Swan Private; and that that is now available globally to everyone around the world. It's only for purchases by wire transfer of $50,000 and up, so anything from $50,000 to $100 million, we can handle those buys.
Peter McCormack: Is that your OTC desk basically?
Cory Klippsten: It's our OTC desk, yeah. It's basically like Swan OTC, Swan Private; that's pretty much what it is. It's onboarding calls, phone numbers, white gloves service, the whole deal; pricing right there the same as a Coinbase Prime or a NYDIG or something like that, you know, getting Bitcoin from the source, the whole deal.
Peter McCormack: He's such a fucking hero of mine, Breedlove.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. But, this was funny. Did you watch the Michael Saylor, Ross Stevens, because he's still involved; I think he's travelling today, coming back to the States. And he was like, "Well, I'm going too, but I helped Michael prepare for the interview and then I helped Ross prepare for the interview, so I kind of know what they said".
Peter McCormack: It doesn't surprise me. The dude is on another level, man. If I'm going to read something he's written, I have to put my phone away, I have to get into a safe, calm space and focus. His shit is legit!
Cory Klippsten: He deserves candlelight, to be honest. You should actually print it out and read it by candlelight.
Peter McCormack: I told him, it's like the acid of Bitcoin. I read his shit and I feel like I'm going on a trip. And he's so tall and handsome as well, the fucker! He's got it all!
Cory Klippsten: I'm not going to argue! So, yes; happy to have him on board. We also just are launching a Spanish language show, which is going to be pretty cool. I don't know what we're going to call it yet, but it's going to be for all of LatAm and all the Spanish speakers in the US, so that should be really fun. That's going to be CryptoBastardo, Pablo who you see on Twitter all the time, is one of our engineers now out of Spain; Camilla Campton, who's CamillaBitcoin, or BitcoinCamilla.
Peter McCormack: I know Camilla.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, so she actually is full time at Swan now. She's our social media manager, so the three of them are going to kind of host a Spanish language show for us.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So I've been asked a couple of times. I've been asked to do a Spanish show and then, I think it was like Mandarin. I was like, I'm not even going to think about that. But the Spanish one, it's like how do I do this; how do I get the show translated; it will sound weird, it won't sound like a natural conversation. It didn't even cross my mind just to get Spanish people talking, but you know, it is what it is!
Cory Klippsten: It turns out they can talk about Bitcoin too! I interviewed with, I forget what the name of the show is, but it was one of the Venezuela shows; maybe it was CryptoBastardo. And I went on the show and it kind of works. He asks you a question in English and then you answer and then he translates your answer, but it's slow-going.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. I've been to Venezuela where he records.
Cory Klippsten: Nice.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's cool. He's a good dude; I like him a lot, man. Anyway, I want to talk to you this last thing before we shoot out. So, you hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet, right?
Cory Klippsten: We do, yeah; actually all of it, except for what we need to pay out next month. It's slightly irresponsible.
Peter McCormack: Well, look, I've done that since June of last year and I don't think I will do it -- I might not do that as much in 2022. It might be like, buy some dips if it comes back down, if it's the end of a bull market. But, I've done it as well. But what it's done, which is really interesting, is essentially doubled the amount of capital I kind of have, and I've mentioned this in a couple of interviews.
I did an interview with Jaime from Hut 8 the other day, and we were talking about the really cool thing about this is all you have to do if you have cash flow issues is leverage your Bitcoin; that's all you have to do now. And actually, holding this hard asset puts you in a much better position. I mean, I haven't raised money; you haven't raised money; I don't want to raise money; I want to keep building my media company and own it 100%. Is that kind of your similar strategy, you knowing you've got this asset that you can leverage?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah. I mean, we could. What I'd like to see is I'd like to see those rates come down. When you have perfect, pristine collateral that can be traded, you know, you can do a margin call instantly at any time into a 24/7 super liquid market, the rates on that should be more like 2% or 3% a year, as it's the best collateral that's ever existed. So, the market right now being at 10% or 11% or whatever makes it less attractive. I would only take that out if I knew I was going to pay it back pretty quickly.
So, we might do it short term and cover a month's expenses if we were a little short on fiat and didn't want to sell Bitcoin, or whatever, but I'd pay that loan back as soon as I possibly could, because I just think that interest rate is too high. But, when that starts to come down a little bit --
Peter McCormack: Why do you think it's high?
Cory Klippsten: Because the people that are actually lending to essentially the agents, the bundlers, the Unchaineds and the BlockFis of the world that are doing these Bitcoin back loans, the people that they supply don't understand Bitcoin's quality as collateral, so they're treating it as a kind of risky loan. Because Unchained isn't taking the 10% or 11%; they're borrowing money at whatever percent and then taking a sliver on top of it. That's what BlockFi does, that's what they all do, right.
So, they have lenders that come in and give them big piles of capital; those rates are too high. As more people attempt Ross, Michael conversations, they will drive that price down, because they understand the quality of the collateral and how easy it is to margin call it, and we'll have lower and lower rates for borrowing against Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: You could end up with one of the biggest Bitcoin companies that has not borrowed any money.
Cory Klippsten: That has what?
Peter McCormack: That has not taken on capital.
Cory Klippsten: Well, we took capital, but we had a very strict rule.
Peter McCormack: Oh, you did?
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, but we've only taken it from angels and we've never taken it from a fund. Most of those angels are actually fund managers and sort of well-connected finance people, or just well-known people in the space. But, it's a pittance. We barely gave away any of the company and I think that was just a testament to building with bitcoiners that are good at what they do and are very motivated, frankly.
Peter McCormack: Do you know what; the interesting thing, and I spotted it early on, I love the team you've recruited. It's very smart the way you've built that team; it's very smart. You have built an all-star team of Bitcoin evangelists. It's brilliant; it's genuinely brilliant. I really admire it.
Cory Klippsten: I appreciate it. Yeah, we just hired from Bitcoin Twitter, so hit us up if you have special skills that would be helpful to Swan. Just be noisy on Twitter, or have a podcast or a newsletter or something, but yeah, it's been interesting. We have Gigi on the team, who's just a spectacular engineer; I don't know if people know that about him, because he's such a good writer and speaker, but he's one of the best.
I've been in tech for 20-something years; Yan's been in tech for 20-something years; Gigi is one of the best engineers on the planet, I don't know if people realise that, so it's great to have him on the team. Obviously, Brady and Brandon Quittem's full time now as well.
Peter McCormack: Brandon's great. I'm such a fan of Brandon.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, he's great. So, Brekkie is full time now; has been actually for a long time. But, it's good. It's really fun to spend time with these people, it's really motivating. I wake up and can't wait to see what happened, because I'm on the left coast, and a lot of shit's already happened in Europe and in Chicago and New York before I even wake up. So, I'm always playing catch-up and seeing what clever Bitcoin things people have posted and said; and plus, there's a company we're running.
Peter McCormack: It's funny you say that, because when I go to bed I get this little bit of FOMO. It's like, "What's going to happen if I go to sleep? Some shit's going to happen; you guys are going to do something". All right, man, listen, if people want to follow you, find out more about what you're doing, tell them where to go, dude.
Cory Klippsten: Yeah, sure. I mean, swanbitcoin.com, @SwanBitcoin on Twitter, YouTube.com/swansignal. Grab a free copy of Inventing Bitcoin at swanbitcoin.com/freebook. It's my personal favourite. It's the one that the Mooch, I guess his partner in SkyBridge recommended, when they did their launch for the SkyBridge Fund. They said, "Everybody go and read Yan's book". So, I think that's a good endorsement.
And, I'm @coryklippsten on Twitter, and I'm also on Clubhouse more than I should be, as is the entire Swan team. So, follow the Café Bitcoin. It's a group that we coordinate with a bunch of other folks like Guy Swann and a bunch of other people contributing to that and kind of running rooms and stuff. It's a fun place to engage. It's centralised as hell. Hopefully there's an amazing sort of BitTorrent style network that does the same thing in the future but for now, that's where the shitcoin conversation is happening, and that's where they're attacking Bitcoin. And, you're a soldier if you come on and help save newbs from flaming arrows being shot directly at their faces.
Peter McCormack: Be a Bitcoin soldier, man. Well listen, love this, you're welcome to come on whenever you want, dude, just reach out to me. Maybe we'll do this again in six months. Maybe in person, we will do this in the desert.
Cory Klippsten: See you in Palm Springs.
Peter McCormack: In Palm Springs with Margheritas, we'll do this.
Cory Klippsten: Well, we'll see you in Miami, right, for Bitcoin 2021. Are you going to make it, maybe?
Peter McCormack: Is it April?
Cory Klippsten: They've moved it to June. It's 3 or 4 June, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Dude, like I say. I will literally take every fucking vaccine; I don't care. Let me get on a plane. So, once they've done the vaccines, once they've done the vaccine passports, I will be there, I'll be in Miami, but it just comes down to that. If I can get on a plane, I will be there.
Cory Klippsten: Awesome. Well, great spending some time with you, Peter. Thanks for having me on.
Peter McCormack: Peace out, dude.
Cory Klippsten: Cheers.
