{ "episodeId": "SLP633", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "mason_carter": { "name": "Mason Carter", "role": "guest", "tag": "MASON" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:11", "start": 11.21, "text": "Hi everyone, welcome back to the Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold. For American listeners, you can buy Bitcoin over at getbold.io. Now joining me today is Mason Carter, one of the co-founders of Acropolis, and we're gonna be talking about Bitcoin corporate treasury adoption. So Mason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, man. I've been following you for a while, so really cool to be here. Great. and I know, so you, your company is really focused on corporate adoption, and I- I think I saw on your bio you're also involved with Early Riders as well. Correct. I'm a principal at Early Riders as well as the co-founder of Acropolis. I see. And so, as I understand, Early Riders is like a, a Bitcoin-denominated fund, is it? Or what's the, what is it?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "00:56", "start": 55.72, "text": "Correct. It's, to our knowledge, it's the first fund denominated entirely in Bitcoin, meaning that we raise from investors in Bitcoin, deploy and return, using Bitcoin as the hurdle rate. So every single decision that we make is measured against holding spot Bitcoin as the alternative. And we're really, I guess, I mean, I don't wanna say this too, too proudly, but changing the venture game from dollars being free and not really caring about what expenses are And just focusing on the next raise and really going towards a more sound capital way of investing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:32", "start": 91.69, "text": "I see, gotcha. And then your role with, on the Acropolis side, what's your main, what's your main role there, or is it just you're, you're, you're kind of wearing a few hats there?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "01:42", "start": 101.79, "text": "Definitely wearing a few hats, my official title is Head of Strategy, but, at Early Riders we have two forms of investment. We have, a more traditional venture investments, and we have build investments. Acropolis is considered a build, where instead of just giving the founder Bitcoin and letting him run with it with not as much advisory, we really like to, have our folks over there operating, making sure that everything is going, you know, the way that we would like it to. And which, which- Just really hands on for those build" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:13", "start": 132.87, "text": "investments. I see. So it's like you actually embed into the companies that you're investing into. Gotcha. interesting. Okay. And so yeah, let's talk a bit about the Acropolis side of it. I think probably the natural place to start is what is the challenge that most- Corporates and businesses face today from a treasury perspective. So let, let's start with" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "02:32", "start": 151.97, "text": "that. There's a lot of challenges. I think, first of all, it's good to level set in that most large S&P 500 companies all have robust treasury operations, but not every large private company, not every, you know, company that's just getting started has this. So that's first of all, but second of all, it's, everything that we're all experiencing individually. So Inflation, our costs are going up. That means for businesses, their, their, margins are compressing. They're having to come up with more money every year to pay, employees, and really to, to be growing your company, you need to be outperforming inflation. So the US government says that inflation is two to three percent, it got as high as they say nine to ten percent, and really I think most Bitcoiners would say the inflation is probably Double or triple what the United States government says it is. So if your business isn't growing at double or triple the stated inflation rate, then you're not actually growing. And Bitcoin can be a solution for that. We, we like to also say that we don't recommend every company just turn into a Bitcoin treasury company and not produce any value in the world. You should still definitely focus on what you focus on, but use Bitcoin as a tool to grow, as a tool to have, you know, your purchasing power saved into the future. And we think after a cycle or two, you might have an opportunity that you would have never had to go and acquire a company that might be- Be strategic or, anything along those lines. Yeah, and I guess" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:16", "start": 255.82, "text": "maybe a slight, a curveball, a slight off to the tangent, but you mentioned around, the Bitcoin Treasury company aspect of it, and of course, you know, companies like MicroStrategy, Semler Scientific, MetaPlanet, and probably, you know, probably others, and I know there are others that are kind of still in the launching process," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:36", "start": 275.72, "text": "Do you see this as every company, you know, who has access to the, you know, to the public markets, should be engaging in similar kinds of strategies, y-y-to what the Bitcoin treasury companies are doing in terms of issuing equity to buy Bitcoin or issuing debt to buy Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "04:56", "start": 296.16, "text": "I think not everyone should be, and we're very familiar with, these stories. We've had Eric and Dylan on our show, so super familiar with it and the value that they're creating by stacking Bitcoin before everyone knows about it. but I think, and we offer the services at Acropolis in terms of accretive, accretive financing and, connecting businesses with people who wanna lend and, you know, do these converts and these crazy, financing operations. But it's definitely not for everyone. It depends on- On the, the business that you're in, how all in you wanna go, you know, for this, is this, like sailor, do you want to make your entire company about Bitcoin, or do you just wanna use it as a tool? So I think definitely not for everyone, but, if the business owner or, or company board is willing, we're very much willing to, to help them do that because we think that this is a once in a species opportunity for businesses to capitalize on. I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:56", "start": 356.0, "text": "see, yeah, gotcha. And so then bringing it back to, let's say, the general corporate challenge, so as you mentioned that there's different, there's different kinds of entities, right? You've got the publicly listed, you know, big company, really big companies, and you've got, you know, smaller private company or private companies that are big but just not listed, and then you've got all the, let's say, SMEs. So do you have I guess a target segment for what you are doing, or is it just, you know, any business? Or, and also, what countries are you operational in?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "06:26", "start": 386.4, "text": "any business in all countries, because we know Bitcoin is global, and it also works for the biggest companies on earth and the smallest companies on earth. So if you're, like, like the MicroStrategy example, and you're able to go borrow billions for very low percentages, then definitely do that. But if you're a smaller business and you just wanna put, Ten million or twenty million or thirty, whatever is, is works for yours, then, yeah, we can service that. Excellent." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:54", "start": 414.16, "text": "And then I guess if we-- Okay, so then let's just talk a little bit about, I guess, the, the specifics of what is the- What's the pathway that you would say for, let's say there's a, you know, a company or a person inside a company listening today, and they're sort of like, okay, what's the best way for me to dip my toe here? What's the best way to get started? can you explain that?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "07:16", "start": 435.59, "text": "Yeah, the-- We have a whole process with our team where we walk through the accumulation strategies. We have a, a, an accounting team, we make sure that, they're ready in terms of the shareholder communications and investor relations. So there's a whole process that we go through with, with companies. But to answer your question more literally, the, the first step is to get off zero and realize what Bitcoin can do for your business. I mean, I personally am 100% Bitcoin. I just recently decided to not own any dollars, like, I was, I was inspired by Jack Maullers. Are you getting on zero?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:51", "start": 471.49, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "07:52", "start": 472.4, "text": "Exactly. I was ins-inspired by Jack Maullers and use Strike and other services to only own Bitcoin. but, Let's see, I forgot the original question. Yeah, so" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:03", "start": 483.05, "text": "as in, what's the best way to get started? So as you said, like buying Bitcoin is kind of the, the step number one. And I guess depending on the size of your company, you may, just like Michael Saylor had to do, he had to kind of go and sort of sell it internally and get his C-level executives on board, get some of his board members on board, and in his case, get his shareholders on board, and that was a process. So I guess nowadays, in twenty twenty-five," }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "08:31", "start": 510.67, "text": "Right, and it's a one percent allocation to Bitcoin becomes two and three and five very quickly if you're not actively, rebalancing it. So we like to, we like to say, you know, let's, let's get you off zero first, I think is the best way to start. I see. So, and then," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:47", "start": 527.43, "text": "I guess, what are some of the big other questions, like after you've bought some Bitcoin, what are the kind of next considerations? Like once you've taken that initial, you know, you're dipping your toe, what's the next consideration after that?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "09:03", "start": 542.76, "text": "The number one most important consideration is the custody piece of it, which we at Acropolis wish that, that more people and by people we mean companies that are adopting this early would talk about this, because I think it's everyone's number one question is, is okay, maybe I understand the Bitcoin strategy, but how do you hold this? And you don't wanna burden your team with, technical risk and most of all, counterparty risk. We all know what happens if you leave your Bitcoin With a single custodian, you get FTX, you get Mt. Gox, it, it happens over and over and over and over and over. so yeah, the number one consideration is custody, which is why we use multi-institution custody as our sole custodian of client funds, and it's something relatively new to Bitcoin. It, it's using Bitcoin native multisig, which isn't new to Bitcoin, but, three separate institutions that manage those private keys For you. So in our case, we have two different quorums. We have one that is Onramp, BitGo, and Coincover, and then the other one is a multi-jurisdictional quorum. So it's, Onramp, actually no, it's, it's BitGo in San Francisco, it's TetraTrust in Canada, and Coincover again in the UK. So by, by using multi-institution custody, you're getting all of the benefits of self-custody for the business, but without having to store seed phrases and hardware devices. I spent time before doing Acropolis, I was on the treasury team at eBay, and it's funny, I, I always say this story, but I actually went into the CFO of eBay's office when I was teaching him about Bitcoin, and I had my ledgers with me that day because that day we were talking about self-custody and hardware wallets, and he laughed at me. He goes, \"You put money on those things?\" And, you know, I think I don't wanna, I wanna be- Being very clear here, it's great for a portion of your stack and great for sovereign individuals, but if we're talking corporations like eBay putting shareholder capital into Bitcoin and on the balance sheet, it can't be, you know, the CFO has a hardware device and, you know, someone on the treasury team has the other, even if it's a larger quorum than two of three, we're, we're trying to take Bitcoin and apply it to, the traditional- Personal finance world, but in a way that you aren't burdened to the technical risk and the counterparty risk." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:40", "start": 700.39, "text": "I see, yeah. So, yeah, it's always an interesting one trying to find the right balance point and, I guess, also onboard people when they're new. of course, the, the die-hard, self-custody is important. And to be fair, I think the, the die-hard self-custody stance is an important one. so, I guess the way I'm thinking about it is more like It's okay if people start with the custodial thing, that's how most of it, most people started, but, you know, i-ideally there, there should be some kind of pathway for them to eventually, be able to self-custody, and maybe that happens over time, i- H- I am hopeful. I, I guess, let me put it this way. Could there be a concern if a lot of coins end up in large custodians like a Coinbase, or in, you know, the ETF custodians, right? I think it's like eight or nine of them are using Coinbase, and only two or three of them are using something else, right? Either Fidelity doing their own thing or someone using, I think, Gemini. I'm curious if you have any comment around the centralization risk of a lot, a lot of coins being held with, let" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "12:49", "start": 768.94, "text": "Yeah, it's a large risk. It, it's like, like I said earlier, it's the number one most important consideration I think a business or a corporation needs to take when they're thinking about a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Because I don't, I'm not sure what the number is, but I think Coinbase has one point two or one point three million bitcoins in their custody, I believe, and just, I mean, the idea of all of that being with one company that's really- relatively new is not something that sits well with me. And, and, but the same thing would go with, BNY Mellon, for example. I just use them as an example because they've been, you know, I've seen a lot of news about them in Bitcoin, and they've been around for decades, probably hundreds of years. But I also wouldn't want them to have a million Bitcoin either. So I think the only way that, that Bitcoin scales and everyone in every company doesn't just, you know, they're only forced to use these hardware devices is Is to figure out a way where you can spread that risk around so that if, if the Coinbase goes out of business, then you still have two of three in your quorum or in a future state, three of five in your quorum and so on and so on that, can back you up. And, yeah, I, I just personally see it as the only way that Bitcoin scales into this one hundred plus trillion dollar asset that we all see it is now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:13", "start": 853.32, "text": "Yeah. And so- Do you see then, so I guess the current, as you said, you have two, options in terms of quorums that you can use. So, is that a, so you mentioned, is that two or three out of those, three, those two different sets of three custodians, that's the current setup? Is that likely to remain that way, or it, it would it change in the future that you would change like which custodian or which kind of quorum options would be available? It would" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "14:41", "start": 881.11, "text": "likely expand, you can imagine there being a key in the Middle East and a key in Singapore. I mean, personally, I've always wanted a quorum where I've got like one in North Korea and one in Sudan and one in Mexico, and it's all these countries that maybe they like each other or don't like each other, or maybe they like freedom or they don't like freedom. you know, I, I want my Bitcoin custody, or I want my Bitcoin to be passed down to my kids and grandkids and kids' kids. You know, to me, this is an asset that we're gonna hold Thinking about how am I gonna hold it for hundreds of years, then, this is the way to do it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:20", "start": 920.42, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. This show brought to you by CoinKite dot com, the creators of the best Bitcoin hardware security devices, such as the Coldcard Mark IV and the new Coldcard Q. Now, we use Bitcoin hardware security devices to keep our keys offline, our private keys offline. Now, the way these work is you can do that setup, write down your twelve or twenty-four words on the, the seed word card And keep that secure. Now you can use this device to interact with the Bitcoin network using software such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum, or Btcd Desktop or Nunchuk as a few examples. Now you have a range of security features that you can use with these devices such as passphrases, you can use seed x or, or my favorite is multisig. Now if you're starting in a basic way, just start with the device and the USB-C cable, plug it directly to the computer and use it that way. And then later improve your setup. But I believe these devices are great at helping secure your coins, especially as you start to migrate up into multi-signature security. But don't be disheartened or don't be, scared away. They are accessible, and I think you actually do learn about Bitcoin in the process. So to get yours, go to coinkite dot com, use code Livera to get a discount on your cold card. And now, back to the show. Yeah, I see. and of course, at the same time, I, I understand there's a tension People off, right? Like you don't wanna sort of, if somebody's like just about to start buying Bitcoin and then you hit them with like, \"Oh, hey, here's like, you gotta do all this stuff and da da da da da, like, twelve words, this, don't lose that, da da da.\" Like, I can understand Yeah, there's, there's a, there are some challenge you ha-challenges you have to sort of walk through there. H- I'm curious, in your conversations with corporates and companies and, you know, people working in these businesses Has the custody question been like top of mind for them or ha-have, have other questions been important for them? Maybe it's accounting and legal and regulatory or some other consideration." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "17:18", "start": 1038.3, "text": "I think The custody piece of it, actually, most people don't think of that first. They're thinking about Bitcoin versus cryptos, what other cryptos, Mason, should we put in our basket? And we say, you shouldn't put any other cryptos in your basket because they're not meant to store value. And so they're worried about that. They're, they see XRP on the news, TrumpCoin, FartCoin, whatever coin there is, and they see it went up, and they, they want, you know, isn't that good, isn't it good to diversify a basket Sets. so we have to tackle that a lot. I think the other thing is, the regulation piece of it. So, when I was at eBay, I advocated, of course I did everything I could to get Bitcoin on the balance sheet, get Bitcoin seller payouts, buyer payments, the whole, the whole gamut, but really, the biggest blocker was the regulatory. And Saylor called this out maybe a year and a half ago. He said, \"In order for Bitcoin to really make its way meaningfully onto corporate balance sheets, you're gonna need the Bitcoin ETFs, you're gonna need SAB 121 to be repealed, and then, you're all- Also going to need the FASB accounting rules to be amended, which now that we have all three of those boxes checked, it really, just clears the runway for corporates to start adopting Bitcoin, and I think most of the clients that we've worked with, since being founded in the summer of last year, they were completely unaware that, that these were even things, or, you know, that, that FASB was going to change. So it's just a lot of education, and, and that's why we, we do- We focus a lot on education at Acropolis. We put out a lot of research, we have a podcast, we do, just as much as we can because as much as we are in this Bitcoin echo chamber, everyone else is very much not. So we're, we're hoping to fix that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:16", "start": 1155.6, "text": "Yeah. yeah, I think that's right. in terms of, kind of the, the what a typical business person is kind of thinking and, you know, I think what we've seen is over the years, a lot of people when they come to Bitcoin, they have a lot of the same kind of- People make the same kind of mistakes, right? They either, they start shitcoining or they think they need to mine, or they kind of think blockchain technology, right? That, that sort of seems to come up every now and again. So these are kind of the common, questions that, you know, it's almost like a cyclical thing that people just kind of-- Sometimes they kind of have to go through this, not, not endorsing it, but they often do have a shitcoin cycle before they sort of learn, \"Oh, okay, no, I just need to hold" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "19:54", "start": 1194.16, "text": "And, and eBay is close to it. eBay is, you know, an online marketplace. So when NFTs were the big thing, eBay was looking at OpenSea, an NFT marketplace that was doing I don't know how many billions, a lot of billions in volume, and they were scared, and they go, \"What do we do? This, this seems to be a thing.\" And they went and acquired an NFT company, that was supposed to be this, this whole eBay NFT, which still doesn't exist today. I haven't worked there in a while, so I don't know what the status of it is, but they've clearly already sort of done that where they, they go, \"Okay, we sort of did a little bit of a foray into air quote crypto" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "20:36", "start": 1236.46, "text": "thing that we need to be paying attention to, and, hopefully they are. Hopefully they, they give us a call. And then," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:43", "start": 1242.95, "text": "kind of as you mentioned some of the regulatory hurdles and legal aspects of it, so things like the FASB accounting, right? So as I recall, kind of the Cliff Notes for people who aren't familiar, as I recall it, it's like It gets accounted for as an intangible asset, and historically, you weren't able to recognize the, the, the gain in Bitcoin on your P&L. And so, but I think you were forced to recognize the, the downside though. So it was kind of like, it was kind of bad in, you know, in, in that way. And I think now, I believe that's changing now, and so now it will actually be recognized, for, you know, i-in, i-in your accounting as, you know, when Bitcoin has gone up, that, Can you explain a little bit on that, for listeners and just, you know, how that's working now with businesses?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "21:29", "start": 1288.54, "text": "Yeah, it actually went into effect, this January, so it is in effect now. And you're correct, before, for the past like four years that MicroStrategy's been doing this, they've only been able to mark down Bitcoin at its lowest point, which is, it's just silly. so now you can acquire Bitcoin and every quarter mark to market, it up or down, and that will reflect on- On the earnings statement properly and not make it look like you've got this whole burning in your balance sheet that's Bitcoin and all your investors are going, \"What's going on? What's, what's up with this Bitcoin investment?\" Which sounds trivial, it sounds like Yeah, but wouldn't most people realize this? Unfortunately, the answer is no. most people don't, wouldn't realize this. They don't know much about Bitcoin, in general. So, yeah, Fasbe has been a, a huge unlock." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:20", "start": 1340.14, "text": "Yeah, so this accounting standard change has helped this. Now, I guess the flip side of this though, the, the blessing and the curse, is there a question around unrealized gains and taxes now? Because if you are recognizing like a profit, let's say Bitcoin went up, and you still wanna keep holding your Bitcoin, you don't wanna sell it? is there a risk here or is there, is that also going to be dealt with around potential of a tax on an unrealized gain?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "22:44", "start": 1364.29, "text": "I'm never worried about taxes on unrealized gains because I know how difficult it is to actually- Put that into, into process. Like I'd, just think about it, think about any country on earth, I don't care how draconian the laws are or how bad they've been for freedom, how do you possibly enforce, enforce unrealized gains? I just- I don't see it, I really don't see it, so I, I don't worry about that too much. to us, we only see it as a benefit and, I think we're gonna see this with MicroStrategy, their earnings is, I think this week or next week, and they're gonna finally mark to market all of the Bitcoin that they've been buying over the last four years, and I think- I believe this is correct, someone corrected me, so I'm still not certain, but people have been saying that it'll be the largest change in earnings per share. I'm not sure if it'll be earnings per share or, equity on the balance sheet. There's some sort of, of specification there, but everyone on Wall Street is going to see that come this quarter when they release their earnings, these are the real numbers. And I think that just, kind of going like along the lines of Bitcoin being a measuring stick that you- You can actually rely on as, as a unit of measure, unlike the dollar that's constantly, changing in terms of supply. I think that's how I view the, the Fasby change is, is helping, businesses have a proper measuring stick." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:11", "start": 1451.07, "text": "Yeah. And then on the other side, the, the Sab 121 side, as you mentioned, that, that going away could mean that some of the la- you know, if some of the large banks Really come to play and they start offering Bitcoin custody services, what do you think that means? Do you think that will be, there'll be a lot of businesses who maybe they already have an account with? BNY Mellon or, let's say, some of these other big banks like a, like a JPMorgan Chase or a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America, what does that mean for Bitcoin, corporate adoption?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "24:47", "start": 1487.26, "text": "I think more banks will obviously integrate into the, Bitcoin financial system. I think a lot of them will become keyholders in multi-institution custody quorums, not just on-ramps. I think others will come. but I think what we're gonna see over the next couple decades is The Bitcoin financial services industry begin to mature. And if you look at it now, if you look at banks, for example, if you wanna go and get a personal loan, you might go to Wells Fargo. If you wanna go and get, a car loan, maybe you'll go to a credit union. If you wanna sell your company, you'll go to an investment bank. And we specialize in these different areas. And I think the idea of a Bitcoin company that does everything, they do all the financial services, they do lending, they do custody, they do this, they do that. They do treasury services. I think, that's not the future that we're going into. I think we're going into more of a, a specialized future, a-and SOB one twenty-one being repealed will allow banks to do this, so that if you're a bank that has existed for decades or hundreds of years and you specialize in a certain service, you'll now be able to help do that, with Bitcoin. And, yeah, we're, we're very excited about SOB one twenty-one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:04", "start": 1564.13, "text": "I see, yeah. so let's go into, I know on the website you have an eBay case study as well, so we can talk a little bit about this. 'Cause I understand you've-- I mean, the, the kind of the high level gist of it is this idea of, you know, free cash flow and allocating twenty percent to Bitcoin. But can you explain a little bit about that? what does that look like?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "26:24", "start": 1583.92, "text": "Yeah, so our chief investment officer, or yeah, chief investment officer Glenn Cameron put this together over the last few weeks. Basically, eBay as an example, but it could be any company, it could be healthy companies, zombie companies, companies that are just struggling to find their footing. but basically it's really long, so it's hard to, it's hard to say it in, in just a few sentences. It's, I think it's like forty pages. But, basically using eBay as an example and putting twenty percent of their free cash flow into Bitcoin over the last, five years and analyzing what that could have done in transforming their balance sheet. They They would have ended up with over a hundred thousand Bitcoin, a much larger treasury than ever before. I don't wanna make, you know, too many speculations, but you could probably assume that their stock price would be higher, they'd have more ability to go and acquire and all that. So, yeah, we just use it as an example and, and finally release that today. The" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:25", "start": 1645.03, "text": "lead sponsor of this show is Bold, the best place to buy, sell, and save Bitcoin. For listeners in the US, Bold lets you secure your financial future with complete peace of mind by integrating a low fee Bitcoin only brokerage with next gen multisig vaults. 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Because you might have a bull, you might have a, okay, we're in a bull market now, but maybe we'll have a bear cycle and then another bull. And so it takes time, but after you've kind of been through a full cycle, you're just so far, so much further ahead. And if you look at, like, you know, when you look at Michael Saylor doing these presentations, he sort of shows you, okay, here's the S&P five hundred, here's the Magnificent Interesting to see the companies that adopt Bitcoin as a, you know, as their corporate treasury reserve, they will then start to become more wealthy and they will be able to use that to Start, you know, buying competitors or start, you know, making plays, and that'll be really interesting to watch. I'm curious what you see with that." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "29:12", "start": 1752.26, "text": "Yeah, save to invest. If, you're able to save in the best form of money that, humans have ever created or, or discovered, if you like to say it that way, then you'll have more freedom to do what you'd like in the future. maybe you won't have to lay off employees when things get tight. Maybe, you know, like I said, you'll be But it, it allows more freedom, and when you own on-chain Bitcoin, not just Bitcoin in an ETF, 'cause that's something that we run into a lot also is people, people saying, \"Why don't we just-- Why don't we just buy the ETF?\" And we want you to have access to the Bitcoin financial services in the future, in terms of the lowest borrowing rate, when that's eventually figured out, a-and all of that. So Yeah, so I guess that, that's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:03", "start": 1803.06, "text": "probably one other element because I guess for now, ETFs, again, not endorsing, but just s-saying it may be that that allows more access to other financial products, whether that's this kind of asset-based lending, products, like collateralized loans, this kind of thing. So how do you view that from a comparative perspective of like, you know, having multi-institution custody versus going- With an ETF that many companies may do, whether, you know, we would, we, we may not like that, but that's what they may do." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "30:39", "start": 1838.75, "text": "Yeah, I-- and again, this is, this is obvious to most Bitcoiners who are probably listening to this, but if you have your Bitcoin or your company's Bitcoin at an exchange or, or in an ETF, you can't verify that. I think some of them have gone and, and released their public Bitcoin addresses where you can see the aggregate balance, but you can't go and see the Bitcoin that belongs to your company. And with Acropolis and multi-institution custody, you can go and take the Bitcoin address and verify it on any block explorer, mempool dot space, whatever you'd like it to be, and confirm that the Bitcoin is there. And if, if at any time the Bitcoin wasn't there, then you'd have a problem. but yeah, trust don't verify. Or I see. Verify, don't trust, whoops." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:27", "start": 1887.04, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, interesting. And, again, I try to, of course, we have our ideology about how, you know, we would like things to go, but at the same time, we shouldn't be blind to, you know, the realities of the world and what is the cost people are gonna pay for that or what is the, What is the likely way, right, distinguishing between what we want to happen from what is likely to happen? I think that's important for us to also understand because there may be a lot of businesses who we would love for them to, you know, set up self-custody and do all these kinds of amazing things, but in practice, they might just think, \"Look, it's easy just to buy this thing and...\" they do all the complexity for me. Yeah. so I think that's an important thing to sort of grapple with, it, it may mean there'll be-- there may be people who aren't as, let's say, they're not as far down the rabbit hole and they're not as interested in verifying, so I'm curious what you make of that." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "32:24", "start": 1943.55, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I think the number one thing that a treasurer or a CFO worries about actually is counterparty risk. That's the number one thing. They don't really care about what asset they own, you know, when I was on the treasury team at eBay, I like to say that it felt like a hundred, or it felt like a hundred different ways to earn five percent. Where it's, it's more about, is this backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government? Is that how we're getting return on our capital? So, yeah, that, that's the most important thing, and when you can actually verify the counterparty and verify that the capital is in the address that you control only and no one else has access to, then that's a really powerful thing that we, we highly encourage, and obviously that's, that's why we use it exclusively. I see." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:12", "start": 1992.49, "text": "well, I guess it's-- what we're talking about is Your three custodians own, that's what we're talking about. And, so I, I'm curious as well, from a fiat, you know, treasury, treasury perspective, this is like that thing where a lot of, I guess, corporate treasury, I guess, departments, they're thinking about like s-s-splitting up fiat across different bank accounts 'cause they wanna stay under the guaranteed level and, you know, maybe holding, short-term government bonds, this kind of thing, because people say cash and cash equivalents, right? That means up to I believe three months worth of treasury bonds as an example, right? Right." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "33:51", "start": 2031.38, "text": "that is a hurdle. The idea that there isn't an FDIC insurance or FDIC insurance on, on Bitcoin is definitely a hurdle, but I think in order to get over that, you have to, you have to realize that That is the benefit of Bitcoin, is that it can't be printed, and that, yes, it's more volatile because we let mistakes happen and we let the market naturally dictate the price. So there is no stopgap, there is no, you know, volatility stop that, that hinders a Bitcoin market. The education is really how we get over that. I see, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:25", "start": 2064.86, "text": "and then kind of turning more to the, I guess, broader Bitcoin as store of value conversation, how big the Bitcoin market is, like, as today, call it two trillion as a size of a market of Bitcoin. How does that compare with other markets? And, you know, what kind of growth are you f- foreseeing there?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "34:45", "start": 2084.81, "text": "Yeah. So traditionally, or not traditionally, but if you look at the entire pie of assets, globally, it's nine hundred trillion. So referring to that chart by Jesse Myers, nine hundred trillion, you've got three hundred thirty trillion roughly in real estate, three hundred trillion roughly in bonds, a hundred and twenty trillion roughly in Money, so in currencies, one hundred and fifteen trillion in equities, and then the rest is art, gold, and collectibles, and then this tiny little dot, like you said, Bitcoin, which is two trillion. And we see Bitcoin as a better way to store value than all of those categories, frankly. I don't wanna go through each one necessarily, but, just as an example, is, is, it's a lot easier to store value in Bitcoin than in a building. And If you need money quickly, y- it takes a minute to liquidate that building, you have to pay the taxes, you have to wash the windows, you have to do everything there is with a building. so we think that all of these different asset classes that are over a hundred trillion today, it's going to bleed into Bitcoin as the better way to store value. and then, I mean, just comparing it to gold, gold, I don't know what the market cap is right now, but something close to sixteen, seventeen trillion. So if Bitcoin is just equal to Gold, then we're at, you know, seven, eight hundred thousand Bitcoin price, and to us, that's just the start. So as all these other assets de-monetize, you want to have exposure to Bitcoin, which, which is the king Yeah. And so I think" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:25", "start": 2184.58, "text": "a big part of this is actually the social aspect of it, the, you know, that, that, that's almost what needs to change more so, to get people a-around to the idea, like it's been, you know, in earlier years, you were kind of more and more crazy to be into Bitcoin or really into Bitcoin or all in Bitcoin or whatever, whereas now it's sort of becoming- At least a bit more normalized. but we've still got some time before it really does normalize out, right? Like I'm sure if you just talk to everyday people on the street, that it's not a common thing that they, they think of Bitcoin as their savings, right? They're probably, a lot of them think, \"Oh, crypto, that's kind of like people are gambling in that or people are kind of getting scammed in that.\"" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "37:06", "start": 2225.93, "text": "Right, it's, it's happening slowly, but it's happening. The, the, the legitimacy is here for several reasons, and everyone goes through this. I mean, when I first got into Bitcoin, I was in high school, it was around 2017. So you've, you have Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett, at that time, Larry Fink, everyone saying that it's rat poison, it's a scam, it's Ponzi, it's all these things, and I'm here, I am just a, just a young guy, and I'm like, what do And so, I can totally understand how maybe you've built a career on Wall Street or, in traditional finance, and for me or any of us to say that, that this Bitcoin thing, isn't going anywhere and that it's better, you know, per se than, than the traditional way of doing things. I can totally understand the skepticism, but when you have, you know, coming full circle, you have Larry Fink coming back and saying, \"Okay, I was very wrong about Bitcoin. I wasn't just a...\" A little wrong, but I was very wrong, and now we're going to launch the best performing ETF in history, and we're going to basically go on a Bitcoin marketing campaign, and you can consider me chief marketing officer de facto of, or one of them, of Bitcoin. When you have that happen, over and over and over, and also the psychological barrier of one hundred thousand dollar per Bitcoin is okay, i-i-it's the point where treasurers and- And CFOs, they say, okay, maybe this isn't going to zero, maybe it's at a hundred K, and how high is it actually going to go? Is, you know, the whole Trump family is touting one million dollar Bitcoin, so I personally believe they're gonna do everything in their power to get Bitcoin to a million within the next four years, 'cause we know, President Trump doesn't have another four. So when you see that, you know, it adds a lot of, a lot of legitimacy to the asset class, and it picks- Curiosity, thankfully. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:08", "start": 2347.97, "text": "interesting. And so, one other question around allocation, right? As you said, get off zero is kind of this, really the starting point, but in the case study you've gone with twenty percent. Curious if you can explain a bit why twenty" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "39:20", "start": 2359.91, "text": "percent? I think it was just, it was just an arbitrary number that seemed like it was more meaningful than a couple percent. Someone might see the report and go, \"Ah, well, what's a couple percent?\" You could bet a couple percent on anything, but also didn't wanna go full bore, you know, fifty percent, seventy-five, eighty percent, because then people would say, \"Well, that, that would never happen realistically.\" But, to me, realistically, twenty percent is, is a good Bitcoin allocation for a corporate- Operation, it's not so much that, if we go into a bear market, your entire balance sheet is gonna wipe away, but it's also enough that if Bitcoin g-does go to a million within this cycle, then you're well exposed. So, yeah, I think it was just more of a, an arbitrary pick." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:10", "start": 2409.98, "text": "Yeah, fair enough. I, I, I think, yeah, it makes sense for, for a person who's not kind of already, let's say, orange-pilled, to sort of think about twenty percent as a, as a So I would say I, I, well, I'm curious what you think on this. I'm kind of more in the diminishing returns, camp. I think one million this cycle is very, very unlikely. of course, hey, it would be great if it does happen, but I just think it's very unlikely. I think more likely we might get a million, like Early twenty-thirties, something like that, you know, might be like seven, eight years from now kind of thing. but I'm curious if, if you, if you have a view on that or i-is it more just You know, look at historical returns." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "40:54", "start": 2453.82, "text": "So personally, I think it's in play, but, professionally, we always, always stress the importance of a long term time horizon, and we're talking three, four, five, ten years plan on holding this asset for ten years. Don't try to become a trader as a company. and always be prepared for Bitcoin to have its fifty percent, seventy-five percent correction and make sure that your business capital in a way that Bitcoin doing that isn't going to wreck everything. But personally, I think there's a chance, I mean, I've, I've never seen a cycle where ETFs are buying Monday through Friday and presidents' families are launching tokens. You know, it's, it's not like I don't celebrate the token piece of it, but it does just shift the overton window in terms of possibilities and when you've got an ultimately scarce asset, twenty-one million and capital just flowing, flowing, flowing. Looking for a safe haven for inflation, you know, the Fed is, is constantly doing Fed speak, changing their tone. It's, \"We're gonna lower rates ten times, \"and now we're only gonna lower rates three, \"and now we're done lowering rates because inflation isn't actually where it needs to be. \" So to protect yourself from inflation, I, I think Bitcoin might be, I think people might be waking up to it, which- You know, I, I thought that was gonna happen in twenty twenty one. I'll be the first to admit that, it didn't happen. so I am just being a little bit more hesitant this time, but I, I think, I don't know, I'll give it a fifty percent chance personally. Yeah, interesting. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:30", "start": 2550.07, "text": "I mean, for me, I think, put it this way, I think it's I, I'd say the chance that we hit a million this year in twenty twenty-five, it's easily less than one percent. Like, I think it's, it's, it's possible, but it's like, it's such a small, possibility. but I mean, hey, I could be wrong, right? And of course, I'll, I'll be happy if I'm wrong on this, but, I, I just think people have to be realistic, and I think it's a common thing when people come in and they're sort of super bullish," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:59", "start": 2579.09, "text": "Almost get over-optimistic on how quickly people will change their minds about this, but really it's their money, it's their life savings, it's a big shift, and it takes time for that. So I just, yeah, we'll see what happens with that. But anyway, that, that to the side, let's talk a little bit about the, on the other side of this. So let's say a company, you know, buys Bitcoin, they have it on their balance sheet, they're using multi-institutional custody. Let's say in a few years' time they've seen some appreciation," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:30", "start": 2610.04, "text": "what about things like borrowing against the coins at that point? Is that a service Acropolis offers, or is that at that point they would have to go for-- go to someone else for that particular borrowing against the coins kind of service?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "43:43", "start": 2622.83, "text": "In terms of borrowing against your current Bitcoin holdings, it's not something we offer today because we don't think there's a completely bulletproof solution in the market that doesn't, you know, open your, your company up to an excessive risk. And I think The vast majority of companies aren't interested in doing this at all right now, anyways. but I do see a world in the future where there are lending platforms using multi-institution custody, in a way that you can, get leverage on your Bitcoin. We'll just need to see that happen first. So definitely not recommending clients go out and do that today, but if there is a solution in the future, then, we're open to it. I see, yeah. And I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:28", "start": 2667.97, "text": "mean, it could-- it doesn't necessarily have to be leveraging up on Bitcoin as well. It could just be like they have been saving into this thing, but now they need some fiat to pay some, you know, to pay for a new factory or whatever kind of business expansion purpose, and so it could be for that reason too." }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "44:44", "start": 2683.84, "text": "Absolutely, and, and over the next cycle, there will pro-- there will be definitely a lot more, people interested in, in doing that after seeing a cycle of appreciation and letting more infrastructure be built out. Yeah, interesting." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:56", "start": 2695.87, "text": "Okay. So, yeah, I guess, that's probably, that, those are probably the key questions I had. So, listeners, check it out, it's acropolis treasury dot com. And, any closing thoughts you've got there?" }, { "speaker": "mason_carter", "time": "45:10", "start": 2709.5, "text": "No, man, I appreciate you having me on. it was a shame that, my co-founder Chase couldn't join. He, had his first child, so it's, it's a great excuse, but happy to represent Acropolis Solo if you wanna find me on X. I'm at OnchainCowboy, and then just Mason Carter on LinkedIn. but yeah, thanks for having me, man. Thank you." } ] }