WEBVTT

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- It feels more and more like
just another place to park

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and maybe grow your money.

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Is that sad to you at all

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that we've lost all this
stuff about fixing the

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world or making things better?

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- Wasn't it Spinal tap when they're going

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through a department store

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and they hear one of their
songs as music, right, and they

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- Bitcoin, is it money or is it a joke?

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Today we're talking about the future

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of cryptocurrency with coin desks.

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Andy Bear. Andy, thanks for joining us.

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So when's Bitcoin gonna
hit a million dollars?

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- I mean, let's, let's check right now.

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Yeah, maybe it has hit a million
dollars, I think in a way

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to get people excited.

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People think about numbers
like this as possibilities.

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Certainly if you look at
the volatility of Bitcoin,

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it would be an extremely
unlikely event for Bitcoin

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to hit a million dollars anytime soon.

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But 15 years in, we're kind
of at an interesting point

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where the network effect
has established itself

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and now we have a bunch of
mass adoption things happening.

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So we have a kind of

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blessing from the regulators
in the United States

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and regulators in other countries.

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So certainly you're gonna have
more users coming in wanting

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to own and hold Bitcoin
for long periods of time.

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So there's certainly a demand curve

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there, which is interesting.

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Is it parabolic that we
get to a million dollars?

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I don't know, but I think it's gonna be

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a really interesting ride. So

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- What does the future
look like for Bitcoin,

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- For the foreseeable future?

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Bitcoin is so established,
its network is so strong,

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it's 15 years old.

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It's globally understood very well.

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It will probably remain the,

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remain the biggest
major for quite a while.

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The future has three components.

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We've just got through this
really historic event of having

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Bitcoin ETFs be listed on exchanges, which

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allows the user universe of
Bitcoin users to expand a lot.

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Right? Not only does this mean

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that there can be more
education from traditional asset

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managers to address a much wider audience,

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but it also makes it a
lot easier for people

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to integrate Bitcoin into their kind

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of normal financial planning, right?

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They can allocate it
with their other assets

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and other asset classes

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and it's a little bit easier for them

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to think about integrating that into

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how they think about
their financial future.

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It was a big event. We like to kind

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of call it the season finale
to all of 2022 and 2023.

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So then the question is,
what's happening in the short,

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medium and long term?

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In the short term, people
are gonna be eyeing

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how much money are coming into these ETFs.

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Are they successful?

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Are the distribution armies
around these big et f companies?

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Actually Apple able to persuade
advisors and individuals

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and institutions to add 2, 3, 4,

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5% Bitcoin into their portfolios.

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In the medium term, we have
this event called the having,

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which we expect to happen in late April.

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This is when the reward to
miners who provide security

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to the network, their reward
actually gets cut in half.

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And this happens every once in a while,

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every couple of years.

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That's baked into the Bitcoin
code from when it started

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15 years ago.

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And that means that a limited
supply of Bitcoin will be sort

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of added to the giant pool.

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This gives heart to
people who like Bitcoin

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because they get a sense that
with limited supply you kind

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of have this asset that becomes more

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and more rare and this is great.

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Historically, when the having happens,

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even though the miners are
getting rewarded less, the price

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of Bitcoin tends to rise.

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In the longer term, we think adoption

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will continue to expand.

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And remember Bitcoin is a global asset.

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More and more people will
be adding it to portfolios.

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And then we have to think
about how it starts to react

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to macroeconomic signals.

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Is it an inflation hedge?

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Well, we think it
actually maps pretty well

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to people's inflation
expectations in the future

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and central bank activity in the future.

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It did really well that way in 2022

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and 2023 mapped pretty perfectly.

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And so for something
that has those factors,

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those macroeconomic factors
that can diversify equities,

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diversify other asset classes,
we think people will come

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to appreciate it and will
find its way into more

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long-term portfolios.

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- So we just had the opening up of

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ETFs in the cryptocurrency market,

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which in one way legitimizes it,

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but in another, I think a lot

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of people view the entire conversation

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we're having as a joke, right?

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Because cryptocurrency is also
in the minds of the public

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synonymous with fraud and,
and all kinds of scams

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and different kinds of financial crimes.

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Is that something that concerns you?

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Why should people take this seriously?

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- The digital asset industry,
even from a small scale

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to a big scale, has found instances

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of people taking advantage
of other people, people

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behaving fraudulently,
people taking too much risk,

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and people participating in

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what was in 2021 pretty
much an asset bubble.

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These are human characteristics
that are most unwelcome,

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whether they're actually bad behavior

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or just, you know, cognitive biases

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that led people down the wrong path.

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This is what money is about.

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These are certainly teething pains.

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I think probably if the regulatory
path had been paved more

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clearly from early on, some

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of these things might have been avoided.

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We've had to wait a long time

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for regulation in the United States

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to kind of meet us halfway.

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But the underlying technology
is based on just the opposite,

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on trust, right?

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On consensus, on non
reliance on decision making

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to generate security.

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So that we think that
as the adolescent period

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or you know, of the
industry kind of fades away

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and we get into more serious
conversations about utility

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investment properties
and investment use cases

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and other areas where we
think we can improve our lives

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through the use of blockchain

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and the the tokens that support them.

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We think that we'll rise into a new world

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where we'll look back at those
things as as teething pains.