WBD326 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin Rehab: American HODL Yells at Everyone
Interview date: Friday 26th March
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with American HODL and Phil Geiger. 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 American HODL and Phil Geiger. We discuss settlement of our Trump bet, rumours of the incoming institutional stampede, strong hands (and HODL yells at everyone).
“Shitcoiners are into bitcoin too man, they’re just into your bitcoin. They want your fucking bitcoin.”
— American HODL
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Yo, HODL, how're you doing?
American HODL: Yo, yo!
Peter McCormack: Hey, Phil, how are you?
Phil Geiger: Hey, what's going on, guys?
Peter McCormack: So, we haven't spoken since the bet. When was that; when did we actually make that bet?
American HODL: Like, July? No; yeah. We made it a while ago.
Peter McCormack: But, Bitcoin was $10,000 because the bet was $5,000 each at the time, right?
American HODL: Yeah. It was like $9,600, I think; the Bitcoin price.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and it's now worth, what, like $25,000, $26,000?
American HODL: Yeah; don't remind me!
Phil Geiger: Can you price that in Teslas for us?!
Peter McCormack: Well, no, I'm reminding you, because that --
American HODL: That is almost a Model 3.
Peter McCormack: Well, it's actually --
American HODL: 0.8 of a Model 3.
Peter McCormack: It's pretty much the deposit -- hold on, you're going to love this. Let me tell you, because I think I'm getting my new car tomorrow.
American HODL: I'm financing your high time preference, aren't I; that's what you're going to tell me?
Peter McCormack: I'm going to get so much shit for some of this, but hold on.
Phil Geiger: HODL over here's drinking the Champagne and sparkling water, Topo Chico.
American HODL: That's right, Topo Chico, mother fucker! It's the best.
Phil Geiger: It's that the lime version?
American HODL: Yeah, the lime. The lime's the best; so good.
Phil Geiger: Topo Chico makes me want to move to Texas.
Peter McCormack: Right, so the deposit on the car is £19,000. Let's see what that is in dollars. $26,046. And Bitcoin is…?
Phil Geiger: So, it's at $51,000 or something right now?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so you're pretty much paying my deposit.
American HODL: So, not quite, I wouldn't say.
Peter McCormack: I'm going to hodl overnight and if it hits $52,000 --
American HODL: Dude, betting in Bitcoin is the fucking worst for the loser of the bet. For the winner of the bet, it's like eternal victory; but if you lose the bet, it's the fucking worst. Can I just say that the election was totally rigged; no, I'm just fucking it up.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's the only thing. I'm not really going to sell it, because if I sell it, I can't keep reminding you, right? Because, when Bitcoin hits $500,000, I can say, "Do you remember that time you gave me $250,000?"
Phil Geiger: Peter, you should just so reach out to the guys that do the automated $1,200 stimulus cheques in Bitcoin, to just do an automated bought that says, "HODL's 0.5 Bitcoin bet"!
Peter McCormack: Well, HODL's kind of got me over a, I don't know how you say it in America, but listen; last time we all sat down, we wanted to make the bet and we wanted to do the whole multisig with you guys, right; with Unchained Capital?
Phil Geiger: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: And, I've got a slight problem.
American HODL: Well so, here's what happened. I conceded the bet to you right around the time the media called it. I wasn't one of these, hang on until the inauguration, because I was like, "Listen, Trump doesn't have the evidence". I think a lot of us felt there was something fishy about the election, but it's probably because there's something fishy about every election and we just don't normally pay that close attention to it.
So, I view it like betting on a football game; there are going to be bad calls, shit's going to happen, the refs are going to fuck up; that's what it was like. So, I conceded early and when I conceded, I was just like, "All right, this is a fucking two of three, so it only needs Peter and Phil, so I'm just going to ignore my part, because what does it matter to me; it's not my money anymore?"
Peter McCormack: Yeah, fuck you, it's my money.
American HODL: And so I said, I told you, I said, "Go get with Phil. Phil will help you out; Phil still has his key" and then what did you tell me, Peter?
Peter McCormack: Well, I said to you, I turned round to you and I actually said, "No, I'm not going to take your money until he's conceded", because I thought I would be a good guy; but, that was actually a lie, because I'm a fucking moron and I don't know where I put the -- I was supposed to write something down. What was I meant to write down when we set up the multisig?
American HODL: You were supposed to keep the -- I mean, we told you this when we did the show. We said, "Save this text file".
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, did I save a text file, or did I copy and paste something?
Phil Geiger: You should have saved the text file. The other thing that I don't think either of you realise is that, engaging my key, there is some fine print in our verbal agreement where there is a 10% signing fee, so it's very expensive to use that escrow key here.
Peter McCormack: That's bullshit.
American HODL: That's on Peter. Pay the man his money, Peter; pay the man. You're out there buying Aston Martins; you can pay Phil his finder's fee.
Peter McCormack: I need to talk to Parker about that first, because I didn't realise. No, but I was trying to find it and I thought there's like, could it be in notes; did I put it in the notes? Is it like something if somebody found, it would be useful; or, should it be somewhere secure?
American HODL: Well, you need the key for it, you need the device to be able to sign. But, it's still something you should keep secure.
Peter McCormack: I've got the device.
Phil Geiger: So, Peter, in multisig, it eliminates single points of failure, in tha you can lose a seed or lose a device and then, somebody who has that seed or has the device isn't able to find or spend your Bitcoin. But, it comes with that trade-off of additional complexity where you need this file, which is essentially like a treasure map to your addresses.
So, if you don't have the map to the addresses, you basically just have a key and you don't know where you can use it. But luckily, you used a good escrow service!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but I'm not sure. Will I have saved a file -- I'm going to get fucking savaged here.
American HODL: You should have.
Peter McCormack: Or, did I copy and paste something off the website and then -- did I copy something off the website and paste it? I kind of have a feeling I copied and pasted it.
American HODL: We used Caravan and the way Caravan works is you have the ability to save it as a text file, which is what you should have done, which is what we told you to do, I'm pretty sure, if we go back.
Peter McCormack: Can I search my Mac for it, like .txt? I've got some txts.
American HODL: Yeah, but the individual addresses, it saves it as a little txt file and it will say, "2 of 3 multisig".
Peter McCormack: What's the name of the file?
Phil Geiger: I named mine Trump bet.
Peter McCormack: Oh, for fuck's sake, it could be anything. What would be in the file, because you can search -- if I type something into my search, what would it be?
Phil Geiger: "What is an xPub?"!
Peter McCormack: Fuck off.
Phil Geiger: No, seriously, the file contains all of the xPubs.
Peter McCormack: I thought you were trolling me.
Phil Geiger: Yes! So the file, in order to find your multi-signature Bitcoin addresses, you have to have all of the extended public keys that were used to create the address, or create the wallet. I think in this case, we just did a single address at a time, so it's just the file contains what's known as a RedeemScript, which contains all three public keys individually that created the address.
So, all this stuff is native and it's how Bitcoin addresses work. But, with single signature addresses, you can kind of hide that information; you don't need to kind of put that front and centre. With multisig, by eliminating single points of failure, you do have to then keep track of that additional information.
Peter McCormack: Well, I'm a single point of failure. So, I've lost it; I've fucking lost it!
Phil Geiger: Well, Peter, this is a great example of why somebody would use the collaborative custody model. So, I know there are some great services out there. Casa's a sponsor of your pod and at Unchained Capital, we do the same thing, where you hire a company to hold one out of three keys to your multisig addresses, so that you can make a mistake and you haven't lost Bitcoin. So, we always hear those articles of -- go ahead.
Peter McCormack: If HODL was as big a moron as me and we'd both lost it, we'd be fucked, right?
American HODL: You'd be fucked. I already lost the bet. I don't give a shit what happens to this Bitcoin.
Phil Geiger: I have the file too.
Peter McCormack: This is going to be so bad when this goes out that I've done this. I'm going to get savaged so fucking hard! I already have enough shit!
American HODL: Well it's like, dude, you took your key and you basically just threw it away. You're like the old lady at the end of the Titanic, just throwing the diamond off. That's what you did, Peter; that's what you fucking did.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I thought I copied and pasted it into notes or something.
American HODL: If I had lost my key, because I just didn't give a fuck about the bet because I lost; I deleted it or whatever; you're screwed; you're totally screwed. Phil would just be left holding one key!
Peter McCormack: I'm a fucking moron, literally! But do you know what; I'm happy to take this one for the team, because you know this proves? This proves that Unchained Capital's process has a flaw in it. And do you know what, Phil; imagine I hadn't have gone through this and one of your big customers, someone who was as moronic as me, I've actually saved you future pain. You now know that you might deal with people as stupid as me who are going to really fuck this up, so you're going to have to explain this all to them.
Phil Geiger: Well, let's take a step back here, Peter; let's think about what we're doing here. So first of all, what we're using is Caravan, which is our open-source, free-to-use tool, and we used it for a bet, which isn't a typical use case that our clients would use Caravan for. When we have premium clients, we walk them through setting up their multi-signature vault, which is a little bit more foolproof than Caravan.
Peter McCormack: What are you saying I am?
American HODL: Usually, Pete, people don't get their keys and then immediately discard them. Usually they go, "Oh, there's something valuable on here; maybe I should put it somewhere safe and make a backup copy of it?"
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well usually you don't have people as fucking stupid as me. I am literally the bottom use case for Bitcoin. If I can figure it out --
American HODL: Oh, and by the way, what Phil said is important. This is the DIY version of Unchained Capital's service. Usually, there's someone like Phil handholding you in order to make sure you don't fuck this up this badly, you know.
Peter McCormack: Well look, I have fucked it up, because I'm a moron. I'm so sorry.
Phil Geiger: Well, listen, we just assumed, man. You're a big, big Bitcoin podcaster. We assumed you could hang on to just one key of a multisig.
Peter McCormack: Dude, I've got a team that looks after this shit now. The next bet we make, I'll bring my people in.
American HODL: Well, there definitely will need to be a next bet, because I'm not going to lie; this one hurts. I need to claw this one back, you know.
Peter McCormack: Okay. I am tempted by the $300,000 one. I think that's really interesting bet.
American HODL: Yeah, that one is interesting. So, what was the bet; it was $300k -- we were jawing on Twitter about it.
Peter McCormack: No, someone else was and I just dipped in. You had a thing with somebody else.
American HODL: I was saying that I'm very confident that the price will hit $300k before end of year and you were saying you would take the opposite of that bet; you would take the bear side.
Peter McCormack: No, I'm saying I'm tempted by it, because I think that's an interesting bet.
American HODL: Yeah, $300k is an interesting number.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's a really interesting number, because it's slightly above PlanB's. Before this, I just got off a call with Willy Woo and he's moved his target from $250,000 to $300,000. I would have taken that bet probably at the start of the year. Now I've done the thing with Willy, I'm just not sure.
For me, I've got to say, do I think I'm ahead? With the Trump thing, I thought I was ahead, despite you and all the other fucking people giving me shit all year saying, "You're going to lose that money; you're a fucking moron"; I was pretty confident on that one. This one, I'm not. If it was $400,000, I'm like, "Okay", or even $350,000.
The only problem with this bet is that, if you lose, you're essentially definitely losing over $300,000; but, if you win, you're winning less than $300,000, if you see what I mean.
American HODL: That's the problem with taking the bear side of any Bitcoin bet.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, you almost need like a 60/40 play?
American HODL: No.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I know, I wouldn't take that.
American HODL: No, fuck you, no. I want my half a Bitcoin back! I'm not giving you 60/40.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. I'm tempted. If it was a smaller bet, I think I might do it. Let me think about it.
American HODL: We could do it for like 10 million sats instead of half a Bitcoin? We could do it for one-tenth of a Bitcoin?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, like 0.1 Bitcoin. Let me have a think about it. The only reason I'm like --
American HODL: 10 million sats, please, Peter, please; 10 million sats.
Peter McCormack: No, because then I think Willy, like I say, he's changed his target to $300,000, so I think Willy, I know the amount of effort he puts into Glassnode and looking at different data; he's pretty bang on with most of his predictions.
American HODL: By the way, the $288,000 thing with PlanB, I think what everybody misses about that prediction from PlanB is that the model always overshoots. So, at the top, it always overshoots whatever the model price is. So, if that model is correct, and obviously there's a lot of debate in the community about whether it's correct or not, but listen, fuck it; it's a good meme; I like it. I'm going to keep using it as a meme chart. It has pretty colours on it. So, let's just assume it's correct.
It always overshoots. $288,000 is not the prediction; that's not the top prediction. $288,000 is like the median and it's going to go above $288,000.
Peter McCormack: Where do you think it's going to go?
American HODL: For me personally, there's a lot of fear in the community today. I don't know if you've noticed that on Twitter; morale is low at the moment. People seem scared. There are vague threats. Guys like Mike Green are out there making vague threats. Ray Dalio's saying, "It's very likely it will be banned", etc. So, when I see that and I see a bunch of people get scared, I just get super fucking bullish.
So for me, I think we're definitely going $750k, $800k. I think it's going to look like the price is taking a run at $1 million and then, we're going to stall out before we hit $1 million. It's going to be the same thing as 2017. You're going to be thinking, "This is it. Hyperbitcoinisation is upon us. We're just going to the fucking moon; $10 million next year", and then it's going to deflate all the way back down.
I definitely don't think the cycles are over. I think supercycle, to me, I gave a lot of thought to this; it's just wrong; it's just straight-up wrong. Because, listen, these institutions have mandates where they have to sell, they have to rebalance. I mean, they're not going to be the hardened hodlers we all think they are just because they're big money. There is going to be a lot of selling; it will cascade; the fractal will play out again, because it's reflexivity, it exists in the human mind; this is all psychology.
So, there will be a Bitcoin winter like there has been every other cycle and we will continue moving in these four-year halving cycles, at least probably until the end of the decade; that's my thesis.
Peter McCormack: I did see that thing though the other day; I can't remember who did it, because I retweeted it. Someone put about the NYDIG --
Phil Geiger: I think regardless of what pricing goes to, we should all be thinking about how to secure our Bitcoin as if it was $1 million per coin.
American HODL: That's true. Or, you could take the Peter McCormack approach and just chuck it in a bin and not remember where you put it.
Phil Geiger: Casting his keys in the fires of Mordor.
Peter McCormack: Listen, I've got my foolproof Casa. Do you know what, actually, I don't know if that is foolproof. What if I've fucked that? We'll come back to that, firstly because I want to talk about --
Phil Geiger: So, Peter, they do, I believe, provide you with a sovereign recovery file as well. So, at Unchained, we provide you with a sovereign recovery file.
American HODL: He doesn't have that. He has no idea what that is. He doesn't have it; he has no idea what it is.
Phil Geiger: He printed out, he's like, "This looks interesting; this looks important. Let me just shred it. Then, let me just light that trash can on fire after I've finished shredding it!"
American HODL: Pete, do you really not know what a sovereign recovery file is; are you serious?
Peter McCormack: I'm serious; I've got no idea.
American HODL: Okay, listen, fucker. You're a 3 of 5 Casa customer, right; you have platinum?
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
American HODL: Yeah, okay. When you did that, they sent you an email that was your sovereign recovery info for if ever Casa ever just spontaneously goes out of business.
Peter McCormack: Oh, yeah, I've got that shit.
American HODL: Okay, good; you should have that shit.
Peter McCormack: I've printed a copy.
American HODL: That is literally the only thing preventing you from absolute ruin.
Phil Geiger: In order to eliminate all single points of failure, you have to have a sovereign recovery file and that eliminates your wallet provider, like Unchained or Casa as a single point of failure. You have to have your seeds in order to eliminate your device manufacturer as a single point of failure, you know. It's a lot of responsibility, Peter.
Peter McCormack: I definitely printed it out, I just don't know where I put it. But let me ask you, just for a second; that's in case they go tits up, right?
American HODL: Yes.
Peter McCormack: But, that doesn't solve me losing three keys?
American HODL: No, if you lost all three keys, you're fucked.
Peter McCormack: No, I've got five keys, but that sovereign key --
American HODL: Well, Casa has two, you have three.
Peter McCormack: No, they've got one, I've got four.
American HODL: Well, they have one-and-a-half. You should count it in your mental model as them having two, because the mobile key is split between Casa and Apple servers, or whatever for Android, and then they have the sovereign recovery key. So, I don't know; count that as them having two keys and you have control of three.
Peter McCormack: No, but what I'm saying, a sovereign recovery key sounds like, in any scenario, we can get back your Bitcoin, right?
American HODL: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but that's not true, right?
American HODL: No, it's the key word "sovereign". You can get back your Bitcoin; you.
Peter McCormack: So, what are you saying?
American HODL: Nobody's going to come in and help you. This is a file for if Casa literally goes out of business, you know what I mean, like overnight?
Peter McCormack: Okay, let me ask this. Phil, if someone robs my house and finds my sovereign recovery key, can they steal my Bitcoin?
Phil Geiger: No. So, the file shows you the location of your addresses. You need to have the file if you're not going to use the wallet software that you choose, so an Unchained Vault or a Casa Keymaster. If you have the file, you can find your addresses with open-source technology, like Caravan or like Electrum or like Sparrow Wallet; but, you still need to have the quorum of keys in order to spend from the Vault, so two out of three keys, or three out of five keys.
Peter McCormack: So, I need that to move to another multisig basically?
Phil Geiger: You would need all that information to move the Bitcoin anywhere. You can move it to either a single signature wallet, or to another multi-signature wallet; it's kind of up to you.
American HODL: Yes, but this is only literally, Pete, if you go on the Casa app one day and it says, "We're out of business; you're fucked!"
Phil Geiger: Or, for people who are worried about governments banning Bitcoin or shutting down Bitcoin businesses, you do need to have that information to protect you from that scenario, even if you own a quorum of keys; because, if the government is like, "No Bitcoin companies are allowed in the US", they will shut down all the apps and all the websites. As long as you have that file plus your keys, not a problem. That's how you eliminate your wallet software as a single point of failure; you have to have the file.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. But, this is why the $5 wrench attack doesn't work against me, because I'm so fucking stupid, I've lost it all! I'm like, "Dude, I don't know where it is. I'm sure I put it here, I'm sure it's up here on the shelf, but I can't fucking find it"!
American HODL: They're literally pulling out Pete's fingernails and he's, "Seriously, I don't even have access to it!"
Peter McCormack: "Take the car!" I'm sure I did print that shit out.
American HODL: "Take the Aston Martin, it's worth a lot!"
Phil Geiger: Pete, really sorry to hear that you got that Aston Martin and then wrecked it immediately afterwards; it's a bummer.
American HODL: What bad luck.
Peter McCormack: That was so funny; it wasn't even the same model car and those people hate me so much. They literally hate me so much, they want everything to go wrong in my life. So, I was texting Preston Pysh and I was like, "I'm just going to post up a picture of a wrecked Aston and see what people say", and people were like, "Haha, you wrecked it already!" I was like, "Fucking come on, man, it's not even the same car!" I'll tell you what, it's fucking hateful out there right now.
American HODL: Yeah, it is. Any time the price is sideways, the fear percolates through the markets. When the price is up, it feels like the wind is up your back, you're like, "I'm strong, I can take on the world". Price goes down, you're like, "I'm scared, I'm fucking scared". It's really very simple psychology, you know.
Peter McCormack: It's because we're so fucking privileged that Bitcoin's hit $50,000. When Bitcoin's above $50,000, we're like, "This is bullshit. Why is not at $70,000".
American HODL: "$51,000, what the fuck; what the fuck, man! This is supposed to be $61,000 or $71,000!"
Phil Geiger: Well, the quality of Bitcoin trolls has just depreciated significantly over the last year. Now you have just the true idiots coming out saying, "Bitcoiners are violent; they're going to murder the ocean; they're going to kill my grandmother. Their money is too strong and I want the government to give me a hug". That's the type of --
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but they're violent themselves?
Phil Geiger: Exactly.
Peter McCormack: What was that guy; he wanted to basically genocide bitcoiners on the Titanic, that fucking professor?
Phil Geiger: I love it. It's always a professor; a professor of economics!
American HODL: The best one is, they pulled out the picture of Nic Carter's smiling arse and they were like, "This is the face of violence!"
Peter McCormack: Yeah, he's like the nicest guy!
American HODL: No offence to Nic Carter, I don't even know if he could kill a fly; seriously. I don't know if he has the arm strength to actually crush a fly.
Peter McCormack: I think he would just talk to the fly; probably get on well with him.
Phil Geiger: He'd write an amazing article about the fly.
Peter McCormack: That's right, he would and we would all share it. He was savage on -- were you in there on Clubhouse the other day when somebody was asking a question about, "Why does the price of Bitcoin go up?" and this person was clearly new. And, he did it in the most articulate, intellectual way possible. He said, "Well, the thing is about Bitcoin, it's been designed in a way that it has this technology embedded in it called NGU" and this person was starting to query what NGU was about and he was trolling them in his nice Nic Carter way. Anyway listen, I want to talk about the shitcoins.
American HODL: Dude, I've been talking to a lot of dumb people on Clubhouse; it's amazing. And some of these people have really high fiat net worths. I was talking to a guy, I won't say who, but he's a celebrity. It was Grant Cardone; fuck it, I don't care. And, he was basically having trouble with --
Peter McCormack: The secret billionaire?
American HODL: Yeah, that guy. And, he was having trouble with the infinite divisibility problem. He was like, "Wait, but Bitcoins aren't scarce, because you can just divide them down". I was like, "Dude, am I teaching fourth-grade mathematics here; what's going on? You guys don't know how to do simple division, or what?" And I heard this from somebody who was talking to an ex-Goldman banker; they had the same FUD. What's going on; you guys can't figure out the pizza problem? It's so simple; I don't get it.
Phil Geiger: Public schooling has failed us. No, it's pretty cool though to see -- Clubhouse, I feel like, is a completely different demographic. We'll get a lot of folks coming through from Clubhouse, getting set up on multisig with our Concierge service and then immediately, using our OTC desk to buy thousands of dollars' worth of Bitcoin. Their first allocation is, $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 of Bitcoin. So, it's pretty cool; that's a different demographic. But, they are, I think, a little bit newer to the space for sure.
American HODL: Dude, the other day, I was orange-pilling Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod, the famous baseball player.
Peter McCormack: A-Rod?
American HODL: He has a $500 million net worth and I was like, "Do you have Bitcoin?" and he was like, "Yeah, I have some Bitcoin". I was like, "You should get some more Bitcoin, A-Rod, you should up your allocation"! So, we were giving him -- and it's funny, because when these famous people come into the rooms that are full of Bitcoin plebs, the plebs just are rude to them, they talk over them. A-Rod will say something and somebody will just say, "Wrong; that's wrong"; it's fucking amazing! And the rich guys respond to this sort of behaviour, because they're like, "This is weird. Why is this nobody talking over me? I'm fucking A-Rod". It's the best. Bitcoin culture's the fucking shit, I love it.
Peter McCormack: I want to talk about the shitcoiners though.
American HODL: Let's talk about them.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so I'm getting it a lot. Every day, "You're the Peter Schiff of Bitcoin. You haven't opened your mind", etc.
American HODL: "Stupid maxis".
Peter McCormack: What is it; Elon Musk tweeted something earlier, "Don't defy DeFi", so I just replied, "Do defy DeFi", okay; that's all I did. And then literally, my fucking replies are rekt. Someone's saying, "You've admitted you've got no technical skills".
Phil Geiger: That's true.
Peter McCormack: "You're an old man, you're a DeFi --", I'm pretty sure I'm not an old man yet. "This is 2017. There's a new breed of crypto assets. Attached are protocols that are actually going to accrue value". There's just all this shit. "Maximalists have the most to lose". It's full on. Every time I say something about shitcoins, my replies are fucking rekt. Am I the only one? Are you getting this as well, or is it just because I'm followed by a bunch of them?
American HODL: I think they sense weakness. You're like an antelope that's limping. You're like -- the maximalists are very strong, but there's this one maximalist sort of dragging behind the crowd and they come and attack you, because no; I don't get that. People say stupid shit like that to me, I tell them to go fuck themselves.
Also, it's interesting, because on Clubhouse, nobody's tough on Clubhouse, because maximalists come into the room and start dissecting them immediately; it's like a fucking vivisection. By the end of it, you are splayed out open on the table and it's like, "Oh wait, you're showing Tron. How much Bitcoin do you own?", and they're like, "Well, I own 80% Bitcoin". "Yeah, of course you do. Why do you own 80% Bitcoin?" "Because it's the best performing asset; it's the hardest money". "Thanks. Thanks for telling us how you really fucking feel. Show us your portfolio?"
All these guys are 80% Bitcoin, dude; they're all 80% Bitcoin.
Phil Geiger: Even the shitcoin owners are 80% Bitcoin.
American HODL: Yeah, they are.
Peter McCormack: But they only need one runner, remember, "That's it. I just need one runner; I just need that one".
American HODL: Well, I think also, the shitcoiners are still measuring their gains in United States dollars, whereas bitcoiners have started to denominate in Bitcoin; so, that's the key difference. Listen, I had this realisation a little while ago that shitcoins will always have some value, because the dollar is such a piece of shit! So it's actually, shitcoins, yes, they are better than the US dollar, because they're not engineered for Number Go Down; I mean, most of them are; they all are, fuck it, they're the same as the US dollar.
No, but seriously, they will always have value because of how bad the dollar is. I had that realisation the other day. But, when you look at them against BTC, when you denominate against BTC, they are all going to fucking zero, just like the rest of the world's assets are. Everything is trending to zero in Bitcoin terms. And listen, if you're going to play the shitcoin trading game, go ahead; go ahead and play the shitcoin trading game, but know this.
If you're falling in love with the shitcoins' marketing, you are making a cardinal sin and you are going to end up bag-holding that thing down to zero, because the smart players in this space know that the game is to get in on the new hot shitcoin, Polkadot or Cardano, or whatever the fuck it is, right, ride it up in Bitcoin terms and then fucking dump it on a bunch of idiots who actually believe in it.
Then, where do they put their profits; where do they park their profits? In Bitcoin. Beeple was out the other day with his NFT sale being like, "I immediately dumped all the ethereum for United States dollars".
Peter McCormack: Of course he did.
American HODL: Yeah, of course. Why would he keep it in Eth, why would he do that?
Peter McCormack: Well, that's what Udi said, right?
Phil Geiger: Yeah, and in the meantime, you have long-term bitcoiners that are getting a little worried, because they feel like they're out of dry powder, but then they're recognising, "Oh wait, no, I have my retirement accounts that I haven't even tapped into yet", and they're moving their retirement accounts fully into Bitcoin, right.
So, I think there was another tweet the other day where some guy was like, "Over time, the percentage of your portfolio measured in Bitcoin trends to 100%" and what I've noticed is this cycle is really people going literally all in with their retirement and personal accounts.
American HODL: I was talking to a buddy who's worth like $60 or $70 million, right, and he was like, "What do you think about this shitcoin and that shitcoin; and, should I do this and that?" and I was like, "Here's what you should do. What's your Bitcoin allocation right now?" and he goes, "15%". I go, "Double down on your fucking Bitcoin allocation; go to 30%. That's what you should do. Take your time that you were going to spend your activity bias, that you were going to spend researching all these pieces of shit vapourware products, and use that for Bitcoin education and figure out what's going on here".
He did that, he upped his allocation and he's super fucking happy with that decision, right; that's the thing that you should be doing if you have real capital to deploy.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. I mean, I don't know about you, Phil, but I've found, over a four-year cycle, the majority of my convictions come in at about the last year; and especially the last six to eight months; it's been really different. Despite the full year, it's just -- something over this last year, it's been, "Holy shit, this is happening".
Phil Geiger: I've been thinking about that a lot too and I think for me, at least, I'm like a decently intelligent guy; I'm not the smartest person in the room; but what I can do is I can --
Peter McCormack: You are when I am!
Phil Geiger: -- I can look at MicroStrategy and I can look at Tesla and I can look at MassMutual. I love MassMutual. It's a 170-year-old insurance company. They have teams of people that are analysing risk; teams of the top risk analysis folks in the world. They're going through and being, "Okay, where do we put money right now?" and they bought $100 million of Bitcoin. This company is super conservative; it's an insurance company; and, they're putting $100 million into Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy, they're a little bit more, I'd say, on the riskier side, but they have teams of folks who are way qualified to be making these types of investments and analysis and they're coming to Bitcoin. So me, as just an individual dude, as soon as these major companies started allocating to Bitcoin, it was, "Oh, they've done all the research that I need for me. I'm going to move my retirement account into a self-directed IRA with Key Keeper and then take control of my retirement private keys. It was clear for me. It was zero to one.
Peter McCormack: Somebody tweeted out the other day the NYDIG are talking to countries?
American HODL: Sovereign wealth funds, yeah. Yeah, they said that on Scam Vision with Raoul Pal. Sorry, Real Vision; it's called Real Vision.
Phil Geiger: Is it Real Scam Vision?
Peter McCormack: I'm going to lose all my guests. I'm going to have HODL on every month and within three months, no one's going to come on.
Phil Geiger: 20/40 Vision?!
American HODL: There are rumours out there, and I'm not going to say them because they're unsubstantiated, but that there are major American institutions that have taken positions. And I think there's just a lot more of this going on than we know about. And, because of the reporting requirements, even a billion-dollar position for some of these massive institutions is de minimis and is below the reporting threshold.
So, we may not actually even know about some of these players that have entered the market until the end of the year when they tell you, "Oh, yeah, we're up 10X on our billion-dollar Bitcoin position. By the way, our name is Apple", or whatever, you know what I mean? I think we're going to see a lot of that and I think it's happening right now.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, just look at the withdrawals from all the exchanges; it's savage. Thousands of Bitcoin per week are leaving exchanges. That's all going to cold storage, right; they're not taking that and then moving to another exchange. They're taking control of the keys, or securing it for the long run.
American HODL: I mean, when you look at the FUD versus what's real and what's really going on, what do you have? You have guys like Mike Green or Ray Dalio out there being, "The government's going to ban it". Who are you? You have no power; we're supposed to take your word on this? Also, it makes no sense. I mean, Fidelity is trying to get a Bitcoin ETF, you know what I mean? Anthony Scaramucci, Stanley Druckenmiller; Wall Street's in on this trade, so safety in numbers.
Peter McCormack: But, do you ever think that's some kind of post-rationalisation for themselves? They forgot to get in; they're worried; they're like, "It's too expensive, so I'll just FUD it, and that's me saying that's why I didn't get in"?
American HODL: All the guys who are FUDding it too are professional money managers and there's nothing to manage in Bitcoin; everybody knows this. You buy Bitcoin and you hold it. Why the fuck do you need a professional money manager for that; you don't.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but some are doing it and still getting 2%.
American HODL: That's retarded obviously. I mean, listen, Peter Thiel, who was Mike Green's former boss, he's Eric Weinstein's current boss, went out and said, on the CSIS podcast back in January, that his contrarian advice is just to buy Bitcoin. And he thinks the reason professional money managers don't want to do it is it suggests that they're not doing enough to earn their keep, basically.
So, you have a guy, contrarian investor, genius, Peter Thiel, well-respected VC, who's literally going out there and saying, "Just buy Bitcoin. You don't need a professional money manager", it makes a lot of sense why the guys like Mike Green, who are these professional rent-seekers, who used to work for Peter Thiel, would get offended by this. This is an attack on their very livelihood, right? He's like a wounded animal, just like clawing out. We've got him on the ropes, man.
Peter McCormack: If they could trade it and out-trade Bitcoin, fair enough. But, most of the funds we know that have set themselves up to be Bitcoin funds and tried to out-trade the market have blown up their accounts. The only one I know that's done really well is Ikigai Travis Kling. Do you know Travis?
American HODL: Yeah, I talk to Travis a little bit on Clubhouse here and there.
Peter McCormack: They've done well.
American HODL: Have they?
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Phil Geiger: What I think a lot of these wealth managers don't realise is that the really good wealth managers that are going to make it through this transition to hyperbitcoinisation are the ones that are going to help their clients get set up with keys today. So, for the folks that just can't leave, they can't recognise that they've been disrupted, they're going to go out of business; they just flat out will. But, there is room, I think, in the market for wealth managers to educate their clients on private keys and Bitcoin and helping to stay secure and multisig and stuff like that. So, I do think that there will be --
Peter McCormack: That's what you guys are?
Phil Geiger: That's part of what we do, yeah, is we'll walk you through.
Peter McCormack: You could argue that someone like Unchained is the Bitcoin version of a money manager?
Phil Geiger: Well, we also work with clients that are wealth managers for their clients, that maybe will hold one of three keys on behalf of their clients. So, there's room in this industry and in this economy for that type of person, for somebody who doesn't necessarily want to have full responsibility of the Bitcoin, but maybe wants to have one out of three keys. You could hire a money manager and pay them some sort of fee.
Now, I do think that that industry is going to be significantly smaller, but there is certainly opportunity for folks who are wealth managers to get in early and actually embrace this technology and help their clients, and then they're going to win clients for life. I mean, you guys have helped people buy Bitcoin and learn about Bitcoin and I'm sure you get tons of thanks over the years and people end up really, really appreciating all the service that you've done. It's the same thing with these wealth managers. The ones that are good are going to recognise, "My industry's been disrupted; let me help educate folks on Bitcoin".
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well HODL remembers all the people that he told at $200 then didn't do shit!
American HODL: You know what sucks about this? The people closest to you in real life never fucking listen to you, right. It's strangers on the internet who have listened to me and now are leading much more prosperous lives. All the young dudes who actually stacked to 6.15 Bitcoin, because of a stupid meme, are now doing really fucking well. They have significant…
I've talked to so many guys, Peter, who are young kids, who were dumb enough or smart enough or whatever enough to listen to Bitcoin Twitter. They literally dropped out of college, they got jobs on construction sites, or doing menial labour, or whatever, just fiat mining operations in order to stack sats; and literally, for the last two or three years during the bear market, these guys have been stacking sats.
Do you know how many under-22- or 23-year-old kids that I know that are at $0.5 million and are on their way to becoming a millionaire? It's a fucking shitload of them! All the young guns on Bitcoin Twitter, who saw the signal above the noise and had the balls and the conviction to go in on it, their lives are forever changed, right, and it's amazing to see. But the people in my real life did not listen to me and are resentful of me.
Phil Geiger: You can't win!
Peter McCormack: All those ones on Twitter are the ones that keep fucking harassing me!
American HODL: Yeah, good.
Peter McCormack: Yelling at me, "Go fuck yourself, Pete, fucking fuck!"
American HODL: Hey, man, you're being a high-time preference dGen with that fucking Aston Martin, bro. You could have at least waited until December, Pete, come on.
Peter McCormack: Why?
American HODL: I mean, because you'd get a better deal; it would be cheaper.
Peter McCormack: What if I died in November?
American HODL: I mean, you could, you are old.
Peter McCormack: No, dude, I'm getting it on credit anyway; I'm not selling my fucking Bitcoin!
Phil Geiger: What's so funny about this economy right now is, the folks that are dropping out of college and doing construction jobs, I'm sure they're raking in tons of cash, because real estate prices are going through the roof. Construction here in Austin, Texas, is a nightmare. Prices are changing, they're all increasing; so, if you get in on that as people are trying to escape the devaluation of the dollar, and start working in construction, you can stack a ton of sats; probably a lot more sats than going through and getting the PhD in economics and then posting on Twitter and writing articles that no one reads.
American HODL: Well, think about it; there are two economies here. There's the Bitcoin economy and there's the traditional economy and people that are participating in the Bitcoin economy are optimistic as fuck about their future. They have joy in their hearts and hope and a pep in their step. And when you get around a meeting of other bitcoiners, it's fucking infectious to be around.
When I go out and I talk to normal people who are stuck in their fiat job and they're basically doing wage-slave stuff, it is so depressing, dude. These people are trapped in nihilism and they can't get out of it and they see no hope. They have bleak futures, they don't think they can ever prosper or win; and the people that are in the Bitcoin economy are so excited and they have a future, they have a plan, they want to start families, they want to do this, they want to do that, whatever it is; that's the core of a strong society.
This is why I think that America's never going to ban Bitcoin. It's because Bitcoin is creating this low time preference activity that you need to have a strong society. And the more strong families you have, the more of a strong society you have. It's all centred around that.
Phil Geiger: Speaking of the Bitcoin economy and meeting up in person, are you guys coming to the 15 April Austin Bit Devs meetup?
American HODL: Do you know what; I'm coming, hell yeah.
Peter McCormack: I want to.
Phil Geiger: It's going to be a blow-out.
Peter McCormack: I'm booked into the barbecue, what do you call it; meatspace?
American HODL: Beefsteak.
Peter McCormack: Beefsteak. I booked in by mistake. I thought I was booking Miami. I'm fucking such a moron, aren't I? So, I booked it and he's like, "Are you coming to Austin?" and I was like, "Is this not Miami?" and he's like, "No". I was like, "For fuck's sake".
No, but interesting. So, if Unchained Capital require me to be there, I think I can get there, because I was looking at Miami and I can travel for work; no problem at all, okay. I just have to have a work reason, so I have to have a slip that explains it. And I have to have evidence, when I get to the airport, that I need to be there; that it's work I can't do from home.
So for example, because I'm MCing the Bitcoin 2021, I have to be there, so I can go. And also, I can get into Florida, because Florida isn't quarantining people. Is Texas?
Phil Geiger: No, Texas is not quarantining people. And actually, we do need somebody to interview people who show up to the Bit Devs meet up.
Peter McCormack: So, I should be there?
Phil Geiger: Yeah. I think you might need to come on 15 April.
American HODL: Plus the A&M, the Texas A&M Conf is going on around the same time.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, exactly. So, Texas A&M Conference is on Saturday and then on Friday night, there's a beefsteak, hosted by, I believe, awayslice on Twitter. Wednesday or Thursday, our Director of Sales, Michael Tanguma, is going to take folks cowboy boot shopping to get prepared for the 100k yacht party. You need to have 100k cowboy boots for Michael Saylor's yacht.
Peter McCormack: 15 April. And, what's the other conference?
Phil Geiger: I think the Texas A&M Conference is on that Saturday, so that would be the 17th; I'll double-check.
American HODL: And they have a pretty impressive speakers' list. Ray Dalio, who allegedly thinks governments are going to ban Bitcoin, will be there; Michael Saylor's going to talk; Parker Lewis is talking. There are a lot of good speakers at that conference.
Peter McCormack: Let me see if I can get a flight.
Phil Geiger: The Texas A&M bitcoiners get down, man. Isn't that just like a college club? They're fucking crushing it with their club. Kudos to them.
Peter McCormack: Let me just have a look. Let me see if I can get a flight. So, if I can get out on the 14th.
Phil Geiger: This podcast has just turned into travel preparation for Peter McCormack.
Peter McCormack: So, I'll do the 14th to the 18th.
Phil Geiger: Can you book me an Airbnb for Bitcoin 2021, please? I'll take a beachfront.
Peter McCormack: Well, I was thinking of doing that, getting an Airbnb. Let me see; yeah, there are direct flights. Oh no, there's one stop via Dallas. DFW, no, hold on.
Phil Geiger: Dallas is like a 3-hour drive.
American HODL: Yeah, it's pretty far from Austin.
Peter McCormack: Do you want to hear about my funny Dallas to Austin story; this is really funny? This is a typical Pete McCormack story. So, when I went to SXSW for the first time eight years ago, the flights to Austin were really expensive, but Dallas $1,000 cheaper. So I was like, "Look, I'll fly to Dallas, I'll have a night in Dallas, check that out; and then I'll drive up". So, I did; I hired a Mustang.
So, I was staying at the Omni in Dallas. So, when I left Austin, I put the Omni into my satnav, but I found out on the way, just outside of Dallas, you've got the grave of Billy the Kid, or the supposed grave. I was like, "Cool, I'll go and see that". So anyway, I do the detour and go and see his grave, and I'm like an hour away from Dallas.
Anyway, I get back in the car and I put the Omni back in my phone, but what I didn't realise is there's an Omni in Austin. So I actually put the Omni back in Austin and I drove two hours back to Austin.
Phil Geiger: Did you come say hi to the Unchained team?!
Peter McCormack: Did I fuck. There was no Unchained then, dude. For fuck's sake. I can get a flight via Atlanta. Let me look into it, because I don't know what the airports are like if you've got connections and COVID things.
Phil Geiger: They haven't been too bad for me. I mean, you just have to wear a mask, I think, while you're on the airplane. You're crammed right next to people, but you've got to wear a mask.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, Parker needs to write me a letter.
Phil Geiger: That could probably be arranged.
Peter McCormack: Let me try and get there. Are you going, HODL?
American HODL: Yeah, I'm going to that one. I'll be there.
Peter McCormack: What are you doing?
American HODL: I'm coming for beefsteaks.
Peter McCormack: No, you're doing something else?
American HODL: What, right now?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I can see you clicking away.
American HODL: I was just looking at the multisig bet. I was making sure I had my details if we were going to settle up the multisig bet.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, shall we do it?
Peter McCormack: Oh, man. Well, yeah, hold on. I just need to find a…
American HODL: This podcast is just like, Peter making his travel plans, Peter rummaging around in his drawer!
Peter McCormack: I can't do it because both my USBs -- I've got my USB for my camera and I've got my USB for my -- we'll have to do it afterwards.
American HODL: Well, me and Phil can do it; we don't need you. Pete, you just need to provide an address.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I will do that once we've finished. I'm going to get so savaged so hard for this. "He's a fucking moron again. Fucking stupid McCormack".
American HODL: Oh, come on, this is your marketing strategy. You just act stupid and then people are like, "This guy's so stupid. I can't believe how stupid he is", and then they retweet you.
Peter McCormack: No, I am actually fucking stupid; that's the problem!
American HODL: Can I say, I talked to somebody on your team and they were like, "You know, it's amazing. Peter is so much smarter than you would think he is. But, he's also as dumb as you think he is sometimes too", you know; they can't figure it out.
Peter McCormack: I had it. I was messaging this guy who's got a great Twitter and, look, I've got it here. He messaged me and said, "I think one of the reasons your pod really works well though is you're not afraid to ask the stupid questions". And I was like, "Well, I'm actually stupid, so I just ask what I don't understand"!
American HODL: You're like, "Yeah, I thought they were just questions. I didn't realise they were stupid questions"! This has been going on on Clubhouse. There was this period of Clubhouse where Bitcoin Clubhouse was very altruistic and the OGs like Jimmy Song and NVK would hang out and answer wallet questions and be like, "Okay, here's the thing you're going to want to know about cold storage".
That lasted for about two weeks and now people come up on stage and they're like, "What about this?" "That's fucking stupid; shut the fuck up. Next question". It's amazing.
Peter McCormack: Jimmy had it with this guy yesterday. For about an hour, this guy was trying to justify shitcoins and Jimmy just lost his fucking shit with him, literally. He just went absolutely mental. I actually felt sorry for the guy, because this guy was like, "I'm just trying to learn. I'm trying to be open-minded".
American HODL: All the open-minded people are the worst. I hate them so much.
Phil Geiger: They're open-minded about everything, except for the fact that Bitcoin has already won.
American HODL: Yes, exactly. Why don't you be open-minded to reality, how about that? Why don't you go look at everything? Why don't you go look at your favourite S&P 500 asset priced in Bitcoin and then go look at your favourite shitcoin price in Bitcoin and then go look at the price of your house priced in Bitcoin? Why don't you look at everything priced in Bitcoin and tell me how everything's doing? Tell me how you're performing on a risk-adjusted basis.
I was talking to some guy and he was like, "Yeah, I've outperformed Bitcoin using real estate", and I was like, "No, you outperformed Bitcoin using a fuck load of leverage; that's how you outperformed Bitcoin. You had to take a shitload of risk to get that outperformance of Bitcoin. Meanwhile, I just bought Bitcoin and hodled and first of all, I don't believe you that you outperformed Bitcoin; let's just say that. Second of all, you had to take all of this risk to just barely outperform Bitcoin, just barely. Even if you did, it's not worth it. Bitcoin is the risk-free rate. Sit on your fucking arse and hodl Bitcoin and get rich.
"Are you scared about what's going to happen? Are you scared that a government might ban it? Why don't you just go for a fucking walk and stop being a little bitch; how about that? Think further into the future; stop staring at the fucking chart and being like, 'Oh my God, it's down to $51,000'. $51,000 is a huge fucking price; shut the fuck up; put on your big boy pants or your big girl pants, seriously. You people all piss me off".
Peter McCormack: Shut up for a minute, for fuck's sake.
American HODL: But I'm here to help, anyway. Any questions you have on Twitter, just reach out.
Peter McCormack: Phil, HODL's agreed to come on the show every month and do a show with me, which is very kind of him.
American HODL: It's going to be me yelling at newbs, just like this.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, which I'm glad about, and he's facing the wrath of the plebs for supporting my podcast scam.
American HODL: That's true.
Peter McCormack: But I think this is the one I'm going to have to say to my dad, "Listen, dad. There's this guy. He's going to fucking yell. He's going to be yelling at you, he's going to be shouting a lot at you. He is a nice guy".
American HODL: "He yells because he loves". It's because I care.
Peter McCormack: "He is a nice guy, man, don't worry about it".
American HODL: Somebody hit me up and they're like, "HODL, you're one of the kings of the plebs; can you talk to the plebs for me?" I was like, "Okay, first of all, no, I'm not king of shit. The plebs are a decentralised group of murder hornets and they'll kill you. And no, I'm not going to step between you and a bunch of murder hornets; go fuck yourself. If you did something to piss off the plebs, you fucking apologise, that's my recommendation"!
Phil Geiger: Surfer Jim.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I've learnt that. Big up, Surfer Jim. They all fucking hate me, the plebs. Fucking hell, they hate me. I've won a couple over recently actually, but they've all become like decentralised HODLs now. I saw one the other day, Lancashire HODL. Have you seen Lancashire HODL?
American HODL: There are a lot of HODLs out there, a lot of HODLs.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but there's Lancashire HODL!
American HODL: There was a Sri Lankan HODL!
Phil Geiger: There's a Japanese HODL; there's European HODL; there's British HODL; there are a lot of HODLs out there, bro.
Peter McCormack: Dude, we need a Bedford HODL.
American HODL: All the HODLs are my children, you know.
Phil Geiger: Peter's anon account confirmed, Bedford HODL!
Peter McCormack: They'll know it's me. I'll say some stupid shit. They'll be like, "That's not a pleb; that's Pete. Shut the fuck up!" HODL, though, we have got to make that show; we talked about making that one about how not to fuck up a bull market and we're at that stage.
American HODL: Yeah, we've really got to talk about that one. I think that's important, because I think a lot of people are already starting to fuck up the bull market. I've noticed that the people who are getting salty towards me have already fucked up the bull market. They didn't go hard enough in the bear market, they're feeling ashamed because of this behaviour; maybe they sold too early. They saw an increase from $10k to $30k and they were like, "I'm going to do the smart thing and claw back my initial outlay" and now they're feeling shitty because of that decision.
Listen, here's how -- like, TLDR. Here's how you don't fuck up a bull market; hodl, literally just hodl; the end.
Peter McCormack: Literally just hodl, don't get greedy.
American HODL: Do you know what I mean? If you hodl, you are going to see every update in the market. If Bitcoin hits a price of $1 million per coin before the end of the year, you are going to be there for that price. If you don't hodl, you are going to be on the sidelines regretting your fucking life.
Peter McCormack: One caveat. You can hodl, but you can't do it with leverage.
American HODL: Yeah, I wouldn't. Don't use leverage. Leverage trading is not hodling. You are not hodling if you have leverage.
Phil Geiger: My recommendation for the bull market is to scoop up as many sats as you can, like a hungry, hungry hippo. Every purchase, you should be earning sats. You should be buying daily or weekly and really, you should just start measuring your net worth in Bitcoin and your goal should be to earn more Bitcoin. So, getting rid of Bitcoin doesn't make any sense, because that would reduce your net worth and we're all trying to increase our net worth, but our net worths are measured in Bitcoin now.
American HODL: And we're also likely under the price floor. Even if there is a significant correction and a crash and we have a long bear market, we're under it right now. It will probably be above $51k. It will probably be in the 60s or 70s, the absolute trough of the bear market. So, if you're buying now, you're still getting a better price than you're going to get in a total collapse of Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, because it should be three to four the previous top, right, so it should be $60k, $70k, $80k and then the 80% drawdown to there, 70% drawdown. That means it's coming down from $400k, $350k, yeah.
American HODL: Yeah, which sounds about right honestly. That's about middle of the range. The high side of the range is $1 million; the low side of the range is $200k. People who are saying $100k are just pussies with no balls. I don't know who the fuck is saying $100k. We're going to be at $100k next month.
Peter McCormack: They're trying to justify selling at some point. They're trying to get -- people will say that to try and get a signal out of somebody. Like, "I'm thinking maybe I might sell 1 or 2 at $100k", and they're trying to get a signal from somebody else to say, "Yeah, I'm going to do the same". Whereas if they said it to you, you'd be, "Go fuck yourself, you pussy!"
American HODL: Well it's also, look at all the investment banks and their price targets. If you see somebody like JP Morgan come with a, let's say, $220,000 price; I don't know what their price target is. I think I saw one from them that was $600,000 and then I saw one from them that was $160,000. But, if they come out with something that's like $300,000, that means they really think it's going to $250,000 and they're planning to dump on you at $250,000 so they can step out of their position.
Peter McCormack: Well, I think it's going $300,000. Look, Phil, are you guys going to do a card or anything; are you going to get more into that banking stuff; a sats bank card? Are you guys looking at shit like that?
Phil Geiger: I don't think that we're able to kind of do that right now, but what we are trying to do is become your lifetime financial services partner in Bitcoin. We're building essentially, and I'm going to use the B-word, a Bitcoin native bank, where as a company, we never need to take control of our clients' funds. So, you can secure your funds in multisig, where we hold a key; you can use your Bitcoin as collateral for a US dollar loan; you get to hold a key, we hold a key, neutral third party holds a key. But really, this is how I think this Collaborative Custody Model, is what we're calling it, where keys are shared, is how we build a really robust Bitcoin economy, where there are no single points of failure.
We, as a company, we never want to be a single point of failure for our clients, so for everything that we do, we give our clients everything they need to recover without us. So, our website, we could disappear as a company and our clients would be able to recover their money. So I think that that's really how we establish ourselves as a trusted name in Bitcoin; how we help our clients with different financial services.
So, again, some folks will just show up, we'll get them set up. It will be their first time in Bitcoin, we'll get them set up with cold storage multi-signature and then they'll use our OTC desk to make their initial allocation of Bitcoin. So, from one place, they have their security, their Bitcoin; then they can use financial services in the future. We can do that for personal context; retirement context, so again, folks who are setting up self-directed IRAs, going all in; and then for businesses as well.
So, yeah, kind of think of us as a Bitcoin native financial services provider, or a Bitcoin native bank that never needs to control our clients' funds.
Peter McCormack: Are you seeing a lot of inflow as well this year; like, is yours reflecting everyone else's experience; is it going crazy?
Phil Geiger: Oh my gosh, yeah. We've seen massive -- so we're doing, in terms of volumes in one week, the number of clients that we were doing in a month, a year ago. And ever since the NYDIG announcement, that they invested our seed round, we've seen an influx of a different category of client. So, it's been really good.
We're kind of working on our Concierge programmes right now. Within about two weeks, you can get set up with multisig and we'll train you all the way through the process. We're trying to shorten that timeframe so if you want to buy $500,000 or more of Bitcoin, we can get you set up with multisig tomorrow or the next day. So, we're working towards that, where it's a one- or two-day turnaround for significant purchases of Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, congrats on that seed round, by the way. Tell Parker I say hello and congrats for that as well; it's pretty fucking impressive.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, thank you.
Peter McCormack: NYDIG, man, those guys, I wasn't really aware of them until recently, and they've just come out of nowhere and they're like a fucking steam train through this. What's that guy; is it Ross?
American HODL: Ross Stevens, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Damn!
American HODL: They're balling out of control, dude. And you know what I like about NYDIG? They really get Bitcoin; they really understand it. They're not tourists, you know. There are a lot of people coming in who are tourists and they're not one of them, which is great.
Phil Geiger: I think the Ross Stevens, Michael Saylor interview is one of the most profound videos, or interviews, that I've seen in years. I think it's incredible.
American HODL: Same.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
American HODL: It was the most articulate, well laid out, condensed, thoughtful hour of Bitcoin orange-pilling I've ever seen. If you have a sophisticated person that you're trying to orange pill, that is absolutely the video that I would send them, because it just lays it all out in a very concise manner and Ross is clearly very well-practised at talking to these types of individuals.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. I mean that or this hour, basically; one of the two.
American HODL: You know, I was so bullish when I listened to that, I -- Pete's just been like, "Hello, can I go to DFW? Oh, let me rummage through my drawer. Okay, I've found my key"!
Dude, when I listened to Ross Stevens, that hour with Michael Saylor, I was so bullish, I had to stand up and pace. I stood up, I paced, I went for a walk afterwards. I was like, "We're here; we fucking made it". I think we're going to look back and we're going to realise that this was the moment; not necessarily Stevens, but basically sometime in the last six months, around the Tesla announcement, this was the moment that Bitcoin went truly mainstream and there was just no going back. We're past the tipping point now.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, somebody tweeted, as a response to the video, "I'm so bullish right now, I could run through a wall", and that's pretty accurate.
American HODL: Absolutely.
Peter McCormack: Dude, I've had a few moments this year. That's why, like I said to you, this last six months to a year, there are a couple of people I've spoken to who've been absolute game-changers for me. Spending time with Ben Prentice and Clown, when they were talking about really being taken through the 1971 shit, and with Guy Swann, those three, how do I put it; they re-orange-pilled me, right. Already there and I'm double-dropping my orange pill now, like all my fucking money.
American HODL: You were born again.
Peter McCormack: All my money's going in. This 25% allocation; fuck off. Everything's going in.
American HODL: Hey, Pete, when you bought your Aston Martin, what did you tell the guy at the dealership?
Peter McCormack: I haven't bought it yet.
American HODL: Yeah, but what did you tell the guy at the dealership; what did you tell him you do?
Peter McCormack: So, I told him, I said, "I have a Bitcoin podcast", and he was like, "Oh!"
American HODL: And had he heard of Bitcoin?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, he'd heard of Bitcoin. He was like, "You're one of those?" and then he was like, "So, you're selling your Bitcoin?" I was like, "No, I want finance, dude. Am I fuck selling my Bitcoin!"
Phil Geiger: Yeah, it's so funny, people in the general public are still so in a fog about this stuff. I can go out and, Peter, you're a very large podcaster and people still don't really know much about Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Easy, I've lost a bit of weight; I'm not that large!
Phil Geiger: But, the fact that people aren't recognising you or even know that much about Bitcoin still, it's like, "Oh, we're at $50,000 right now. Do you think we could double; do you think twice as many people could have Bitcoin, or do you think the people who are holding the Bitcoin today might move twice as much of their fiat currency into it?" "Yeah, absolutely; we're going to go nuts".
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
American HODL: There's a lot that's going on with Bitcoin reaching the tipping point. Like, for instance, we are getting a better class of enemy. People who really are hardcore ideologically opposed statist are coming in and they're willing to fight Bitcoin with everything they've got, because it's a direct attack on their livelihood. We've gone from, first they laugh at you, then they fight you. We're in the, then they fight you, stage.
The enemies that we have now are not like the Peter Schiffs. They're not going to be these pathetic, loser pushovers, you know. And that's great; let's fucking go! I'm ready dude; I love it; it's going to be a fucking fun decade when Bitcoin reaches mainstream adoption.
Peter McCormack: Well, listen, I mean I think it's been a wild year. I can't remember who I was talking to; I was like, "Everybody needs four years in Bitcoin; you just need that first four years. You've got to get through that first fucking four years, because that first --"
American HODL: That's true.
Peter McCormack: You've got to do a whole cycle. You've got to experience a full bear and a full bull market. But I think once you've got through a four-year cycle, you've made it; you're clean through. But, it's four years of hard work. That first four years is really fucking hard.
Phil Geiger: It's proof of work. You have to forge your diamond hands. You don't just show up to Bitcoin with diamond hands. You have to experience what it's like to see your net worth 10X, 100X and then crash 90%.
American HODL: It's so brutal! But, you know, over time, you become totally desensitised to it and you actually start to like it, you enjoy it. 20% drops, you're like, "Oh, yeah, now I can fucking feel something again".
Phil Geiger: I love bear markets!
American HODL: Well the thing is, if you're new and you're first coming in and you're just hearing the Bitcoin maximalists and other people are telling you that the maximalists are, "You're too close-minded, bro, and they don't understand and they're stupid", and this and that, Bitcoin maximalists are people with experience.
A lot of them, you know, the pleb movement was a bunch of people who got dumped on by the ICO promoters, the guys like Vinny Lingham and all the bad actors from 2017; and they realised that the only thing that's real here is Bitcoin and that Bitcoin is the risk-free rate and that by just doing very simple…
Listen; hodling Bitcoin is very simple, but it's not easy; it's fucking difficult. Every single day, you have to wake up and you have to make the decision to hodl. But, hodling in itself is a simple action, but it's not an easy thing to do. It's just like anything that's worth having in life; it's very simple, the principles of it are very simple.
Getting healthy is very simple; eat less, you stupid fat fuck and then fucking exercise; the end. Getting wealthy is the same. Live on less than you make, pay yourself first; the end. It's not hard. I mean, it's not complicated, but it is fucking hard; it's really fucking hard. You're going to have to learn some self-discipline, some self-responsibility, some self-control.
I mean, caveat emptor, buyer beware, one of the things that I've been saying is, if you go out and tell lies in mainstream traditional advertising, the FCC is looking out for you. Burger King can't come out with a Whopper and be like, "This Whopper cures cancer". But a shitcoin can come out with anything they want and say that it does anything they want and because you're used to living in a nerfed world, where there are guardians who protect you from evil manipulators and liars, you're used to things that are being told to you in mainstream media being true or more or less true, right.
So you just go, "Oh, Burger King says it cures cancer, then it must cure cancer. I guess I'll eat a bunch of Whoppers". That's literally what you're doing when you're believing a shitcoin sales pitch. There's no one going to step in and save you; you've got to step in and save you; you know what I mean? That's it. Also, you've got to love yourself, really.
Buying shitcoins is nihilism. You're just going, "My life is shit, everything around me is shit, I've no hope for the future, I'm going to put $10,000 into this thing and maybe it's going to 1,000X in the next two months. I don't care if it's an absolute piece of shit; I don't care if it does nothing for the world; I don't care if it's vapourware. I'm either going to sleep in a tent, or I'm going to fucking buy a Lamborghini; that's what I'm going to do". That's nihilism; that's fatalistic.
Bitcoin is rational optimism. You're putting aside something for future you. You're saying, "I have a future; I love myself; things are going to be better for me; I'm going to have a fucking family; I'm going to claw my way out of this fucking morass I find myself in". That's a revolutionary action to actually love yourself and to actually do the right thing for yourself and put aside money for your fucking future.
So, hodling starts with self-love, all right? You've got to love yourself. Shitcoiners are into Bitcoin too, man; they're just into your Bitcoin; they want your fucking Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, follow that up, Phil.
Phil Geiger: Amen!
Peter McCormack: Amen, brother! All right, listen, HODL, we're going to get together in a month and we're going to actually go through how not to fuck up a bull market --
American HODL: Let's do it, yeah.
Peter McCormack: -- and how I actually fucked it up.
American HODL: This one should be titled, "How to fuck up a multisig bet"!
Peter McCormack: How to fuck up a multisig bet, yeah! How to fuck up a multisig beg, but have a good friend who's always there!
American HODL: I already lost this Bitcoin, I should just throw this fucking Trezor in the fucking ocean, dude, with the key on it!
Peter McCormack: You should. You should throw it in the ocean with the key.
American HODL: I have no seed backup for this either, so if I lose this, it's over.
Phil Geiger: Put on some Celine Dion, take a cruise.
Peter McCormack: Well, if you do that, you won't hear from me again. While I'm taking my bath I'll be like, "Well, I'm not fucking texting HODL". Every time I take a bath, Phil, I text HODL; I don't know why!
American HODL: He does. It's really fucking weird. He texts me from the bath.
Peter McCormack: I've just got this habit.
American HODL: And then he sends a picture of his fucking feet in the bath to prove he's in the bath. I'm like, "Stop doing that".
Phil Geiger: "Hey, HODL, just taking a bath thinking about you"!
American HODL: Also, Peter, how old are you?
Peter McCormack: 42.
American HODL: He has a rubber duck in his bath.
Peter McCormack: It's for my kids, dude!
American HODL: He literally has a rubber duck in his bath.
Peter McCormack: I've got an 11-year-old daughter, man.
Phil Geiger: Peter, the listeners deserve to know, what aroma bath salts do you use?
Peter McCormack: Radox. I think it's Radox; hold on, let me check.
American HODL: No, seriously, this motherfucker texts me from his tiny European bathroom, which is fucking so small, you know. In America, we're used to having a palace in the bathroom. This is so tiny, it's a shoebox and it's him and his rubber ducky and his weird hairy legs.
Peter McCormack: It is, look, I have Radox bath salts and I also have Westlab Mindful.
American HODL: I don't know what that shit is, honestly.
Peter McCormack: Ones you get in Tesco.
American HODL: It sounds very European and I can't support that; I just don't support that.
Peter McCormack: Our bathrooms are small.
American HODL: I don't support anything from Europe; I can't support it.
Peter McCormack: Have you ever been over here?
American HODL: No, why the fuck would I go over there? It's a fucking garbage dump over there.
Peter McCormack: Have you ever been outside of America?
American HODL: Yeah, to Canada, America Light, and Mexico, America Poor; I've been to both.
Peter McCormack: You've been to three -- you've never been to Europe?
American HODL: No, why would I want to go to Europe?
Peter McCormack: I'll tell you what; when the planes are flying, I'm going to buy you a flight.
American HODL: What do you guys do over there; pet cats and eat baguettes? I don't want to be a part of that.
Peter McCormack: Dude, I'll take you on a pub crawl around London and see if you survive.
Phil Geiger: No, London pub crawls are legit.
Peter McCormack: We don't have your pissy, weak, light beer.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, HODL, you have to drink the warm, flat, cask ales that they have.
Peter McCormack: No, fuck that stuff.
Phil Geiger: No, I actually like that stuff.
Peter McCormack: Do you? I think it's gross.
American HODL: I used to have an English buddy who got me hooked on Snakebites, so I'll fucking drink the shit out of --
Peter McCormack: Some places won't serve them, because people were just getting --
American HODL: Really? Because they get you so fucked?
Peter McCormack: They get you so fucked, yeah. Most people would just have it and then have a fight.
American HODL: Well, yeah, because you can just drink them all day long and they taste like you're just drinking some delicious concoction.
Peter McCormack: Something you'd give your kid!
Phil Geiger: What I love about visiting Europe is that all the cities were -- or not all of them, but most of the cities were built under sound money standards, so they all are just way more liveable, walkable, beautiful than your typical American city, which is designed for cars.
American HODL: Yeah, but you know what sucks? They're all ripping down those beautiful buildings and putting up these glass, metal boxes; it's fucking gross.
Peter McCormack: We have these rules you can't do it. Most of our old buildings, you have these things, they're listed, like Grade I, Grade II listed buildings, you can't knock them down. But, come here. We should get you to Bedford. I will pay to get you to Bedford.
American HODL: I'll come to Bedford.
Peter McCormack: I'll take a loan out to get the Bitcoin --
American HODL: I mean, the UK's going to have to be off extreme lockdown conditions before I go there, because Jesus Christ --
Peter McCormack: It's so fucked.
American HODL: -- you're basically living in V for Vendetta right now.
Peter McCormack: We have to get a permission slip. We have to get a permission slip to come out.
American HODL: It's literally a combination of 1984 and Brave New World. I mean, that's what it is.
Peter McCormack: It's fucked, man.
American HODL: With a dash of Fahrenheit 451, because they're burning Dr Seuss books. But, that's happening in America, so listen, it's fucked everywhere; it's all fucked.
Peter McCormack: Well listen, look, next month we'll get together and we're going to talk about bull markets and not to fuck up. Phil, thank you for joining us, man. Speak to Parker, see if he'll write me a letter and I'll see if I can get there next month.
Phil Geiger: Yeah, absolutely. We definitely, like I said, need someone here interviewing all the plebs, making sure that things are well-documented at the 15 April Austin Bit Devs meetup.
Peter McCormack: I would love to be there, dude.
Phil Geiger: It's going to be lit.
Peter McCormack: HODL, man.
American HODL: Peace, bro, peace.
