{ "episodeId": "SLP669", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "bold_with_zack_pardey": { "name": "Bold with Zack Pardey", "role": "guest", "tag": "BOLD" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.14, "text": "Everyone's talking about Bitcoin treasury companies right now. Do you have a take on that? How are you assessing this trend of Bitcoin treasury companies, especially the leveraged ones?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "00:10", "start": 10.03, "text": "I love to see the Bitcoin treasury companies, I love to see them growing. It's a speculative attack on the dollar, and we've discussed the issues with the dollar and how the dollar is a system of control and a tool of hegemony and has a lot of problems. So I, you know, I'd just love to see Bitcoin being adopted at, at an institutional level" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:41", "start": 41.38, "text": "Hi everyone and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold. Joining me today is the CEO and co-founder of Bold, Zack Pardey. Zack, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "00:51", "start": 50.9, "text": "Thanks for having me, Stephane. Great to be here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:54", "start": 53.65, "text": "Yeah, great to finally chat with you on the podcast. Obviously, we've been talking a little bit in the background for a little while. Now, I will, just disclose upfront, I am also an advisor, of Bold, and of course, Bold is the lead sponsor of my, show. But, really wanted to have a chat with you and give listeners a chance to hear your perspectives on things, you know, how you got started in this, why you started Bold, and of course, kind of The Clown World. So let's just start with a bit on you, give us a bit of a background on yourself and what, what really got you excited about Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "01:30", "start": 89.65, "text": "Yeah, absolutely. So, I grew up, in the Boston area, my interests were always kind of at the intersection of, science, engineering, and business. and so, you know, that led me to, you know, you know, through a path through engineering and then a path to, working as the head of research and development at a startup in San Francisco, starting back in two thousand eighteen, and my experience there, really is what kind of turned me on to the need for Bitcoin and the role that it- fills in the world today and w-with the most important issues, that we face as a society." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:17", "start": 136.91, "text": "Right. And so San Francisco, I'm sure, has gone through sort of, you know, i-in recent years, a lot of kind of ups and downs. I know that has, you know, been a big point for a lot of Bitcoiners, right? There was the big twenty nineteen San Francisco event that kind of pulled a lot of people together, and then, I guess there was a, a lot of, you know- Around the time of all the lockdowns and all this stuff, there was a lot around that as well. What was that experience like for you?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "02:45", "start": 165.01, "text": "Yeah, that had a, a big influence on me and, kind of the path that turned me toward Bitcoin. So I can say a little bit about how that went. So I moved to San Francisco, like I was mentioning, in two thousand eighteen. you know, I was doing great work, at a startup, we were building affordable housing, I was, leading research and development in construction systems. But I just observed around me, so much decay in society, right? So you have tons of homeless people that have really zombified themselves in their addictions, tons of crime, crime was rampant, car break-ins, you can't leave anything in your car, you know, my friends' houses were getting broken into. on top of that, the, the cost of housing was through the roof and unmanageable for most people. and then you layered on top of that, You know, the whole saga of COVID, right? Which was, particularly acute in San Francisco and that city's response to it, and so- you know, that was kind of what turned me on to and illuminated this concept, that others have talked about called anarcho tyranny, right? So, I realized we were living, in that city and, and many cities across the world in the West Under a system where" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "04:18", "start": 258.34, "text": "certain groups are allowed to break the law with impunity? Disorder is tolerated and even cultivated, but then for productive members of society, people trying to go to work every day, laws are enforced rigorously in an overbearing way, in my previous role, it was nearly impossible to actually build new housing, for example, and then with the COVID stuff, there was an increasing level of, control over personal, lives of everyone living there, right? So I'm trying to go to a restaurant, they're checking papers. and then, It, you know, it became clear how this system actually works, where, you know, a government introduces a problem" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "05:13", "start": 312.7, "text": "and the systems that they roll out to address the problem actually exacerbate the problem. they get more funding, and then the cycle continues. And so" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "05:28", "start": 328.3, "text": "I was witnessing that all around me and realizing that this is largely a fiat phenomenon So when money is easy and flows to these government entities that fund their nonprofits, that cause these issues, while they purport to solve the issues," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "05:50", "start": 349.81, "text": "you know, it, it became very clear that, this was a symptom of the fiat system." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:56", "start": 355.63, "text": "Yeah, and I think there's so many points that we can go into there. Like, I think, I mean, obviously, I think a lot of Bitcoiners will agree with you on this, that there are all these fiat cultural and social issues of our time that have exacerbated many of these things. Now, you know, people can argue about whether it was kind of, was it like sort of planned, you know, this kind of planned epidemic kind of thing, or I think It was almost like a bottom-up social contagion, but what drove a lot of that is maybe the conditions that we were in, like the world kind of broadly, because of things like the welfare state, because of, let's say, weakened mindsets about things, this kind of idea that, you know, as in what we saw was people at the bottom sort of yelling to the politicians, \"Hey, lock me down harder,\" right? Because they had been put into this sort of state of fear, and, you know, we in many ways had become Weaker as a society, and we weren't able to push back strongly. And those of us, let's say from the Western world, the kind of Western, Anglo-speaking world, the part of the world that, let's say, many of us thought we are more free than other parts of the world, actually some of these countries turned out to be, you know, these, some of these countries and places turned out to be some of the worst from a COVID tyranny perspective, right? Places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, they were some of the worst. of course, parts, many" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:19", "start": 439.24, "text": "I'm curious how you, how you, how you see that, like this kind of degeneration in our culture and kind of welfare statism and this kind of idea that, oh, well, some parts of the society are, you know, you're essential and you're non-essential and we can just give you checks and, you know, the essential people can just kind of keep the society keep working and everyone else, you just have to stay at home." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "07:41", "start": 461.04, "text": "Yeah. It exactly. So I think it functions essentially on two levels. the fiat system, it functions at the macro level and on the micro level, as a system of control. So at the macro level, for example, you look at, you know, just focusing on San Francisco again, you look at, the budget of that city, it grew two and a half x from 2010 into-- until now. a large function of what they purportedly are trying to do is clean up the streets, yet the homeless population there has increased by thirty percent. So if you just look at the numbers, it becomes clear that" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "08:24", "start": 503.78, "text": "there's a narrative and then there's the reality, and they don't match up. and then at the micro level, you know, Andreas and, Antonopoulos in a talk a long time ago laid this out, that money, is a system of control. as well as, it's, you know, three, you know, typically talked about functions. but, in this context, money as a system of control became very kind of apparent, with the lockdowns and what was happening, with inflation, right? So, you know, Bitcoiners know well the statistic, from approximately twenty twenty until twenty twenty two, forty percent of all dollars were created, you know, if you held dollars in your bank account, twenty-five percent of their purchasing power has been eroded in the past five years. If you live in a major city such as Miami, where I live now" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "09:23", "start": 562.74, "text": "rent has gone up in that same period about two point two X, right? So it's more than doubled. and so having a money printer enables this, right? Both at the macro level, with, wasteful, and counterproductive government systems and at the micro level as a system of control, where, you know, through that period, you know, the past five years, twenty twenty to twenty twenty-three, heavily, you know, we saw a number of things happening, right? So some of them in the US, but a lot globally, right? So, you know, there was the rollout of essentially the Chinese, digital yuan and, the beginning of their social credit system, right? So if you're crossing- The road in China, and you're jaywalking, money's being deducted from your bank account. back then we had also the Canadian truckers' protests in Canada, their bank accounts got frozen." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "10:28", "start": 627.67, "text": "and then of course, there was the choke point one point zero and two point zero sagas, right? So, you know, to summarize those, it was the systematic debanking of entire industries, that aren't in partic- aren't in political favor of the government at the time So, in the choke point two point oh example, the Bitcoin industry was strongly targeted and it was nearly impossible to get banking access as a Bitcoin company" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "11:02", "start": 661.91, "text": "you know, and w- you can look back to another example. So back under the, Biden administration in the United States, Biden nominated As the head of the OCC, which is one of the bank regulators, a woman named Saul Omarova, who, published a paper called The People's Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance. and, you know, upper, you know, the main thrust of that idea that Came somewhat close to becoming reality was that you'd have a bank account at the Fed, the Fed would be able to put Stimi checks into your account, or if they wanted to contract monetary policy, they would be able to withdraw money from your account at will. Not a lot of people know about this, as always, it was hidden in the fine print. You have to actually do the research and read it. But that was, that's what they were going for, right? Was a CBDC style system where- if they can't pass a law to control people in the way that they want, to enforce, for example, vaccine passports, which is a very real thing that, you know, you can read New York Times headlines like, \"Use this app to gain access to public spaces.\" and then you just look at what I was mentioning is going on in China, and they've put it all together. so, you know, summarizing at the macro level, you've got fiat funding, Government programs that, are working against personal liberty. you've got inflation, which erodes pur- purchasing power of people, which makes them more dependent, and, you know, on these Systems, and then you've got the explicit financial control via access to the banking system, that, you know, was used to enact Act," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "13:03", "start": 783.01, "text": "you know, was in different countries, these extrajudicial programs" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:11", "start": 791.1, "text": "Yeah, so I think the, you know, there's all these different elements going on, and meanwhile, I think it's fair to say 2020 was a, you know, that few years was a big time for Bitcoin adoption, right? There were a lot of people who came in, Michael Saylor at MicroStrategy at that time, Tesla, a whole bunch of people, I think they kind of had that wake-up moment that, hold on The money that I think is in my bank account, it's not all there, you know, or it's not, it's not really under my sole control. a-and up until that point, you know, I think if you talked to the average person on the street, they would have sort of, you know, they would have just accepted that, okay, yeah, my money's in the bank account and whatever, it mostly works. Yeah, maybe it's a little annoying here and there, I grumble here and there, but mostly it works. And then sort of twenty twenty, twenty But I'm curious your, what you think, why is it that more people haven't really woken up to, you know, to Bitcoin, you know, a, a, as, as being the answer here?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "14:15", "start": 855.23, "text": "because those systems that I was just mentioning and how the fiat system works against the everyday person, it's a convoluted story, right? It's not a direct-- it's, at least currently, it's not a direct path to say, \"Oh, You know, the government is getting all this money, and it's benefiting from my impoverishment and it's actually using inflation to fund its programs while taking money out of my pocket. Because, it's designed that way. and so, you know, I think people are waking up to the nature of Bitcoin as an antithesis to that system, because, what Bitcoin does is it" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "15:06", "start": 905.78, "text": "you know, well, it preserves your purchasing power, so it, fights against the macro level repression of the, of the financial repression of the fiat system. And on a micro level, it's open, anyone can participate, and it's unconfiscatable and therefore it's an antithesis to that vision of the, Chinese style credit system and the, you know, its embodiment in a US CBDC. I think it just comes down to, I guess," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:38", "start": 938.46, "text": "I mean, there's enough people, there's still a lot of people who don't really grasp those things, or maybe for them, they're just kind of going through life in a kind of complacent way. so I guess in your view then, you know, what is it gonna take for, you know, more people to really come to this? Is it just a matter of time? Is it a matter of having it explained to them the right way? Is it, you know- Until their influencer tells them to, or what?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "16:05", "start": 964.95, "text": "Yeah, I think that it needs to start really simple for folks, you know, for your everyday person who's working a job You know, saves in dollars, might put a little bit of money into the stock market, feels like they're getting farther and farther behind, doesn't exactly know what's going on. We as a, a Bitcoin industry, I think it's incumbent on us to provide tools and solutions that make it really simple and easy and almost sort of the default action to start accumulating Bitcoin. and then once people own just a little bit of Bitcoin and they see the price appreciation in fiat terms, then they start to ask the question of What is this thing? It seems to not be dead. It's been here for, you know, decade plus now. It's been, and, and it's growing consistently. Shouldn't the government have shut it down? oh wow, it's actually being embraced, at the government level now. it's taking up an increasing, you know, place on corporate treasuries, states are putting it on their balance sheet, and so It starts with a small exposure to the concept. You need to have, multiple touch points with Bitcoin before you start to ask the question of What is it? Should I even be taking this seriously? because, you know, it's easy to forget that, you know, if you're not a Bitcoiner yet, the whole thing can just seem a little bit Weird or kind of on the fringe, or, you know, by definition it's not mainstream, right? So, like I was saying, I think the way to bring people around to Bitcoin is to build the tools to make it Really easy to acquire Bitcoin, gain some exposure, with the platform and through, through the fiat means that you're used to, right? And that, that kind of leads us into Bold." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:12", "start": 1092.12, "text": "The 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. With Bold, you can smash buy Bitcoin or set a DCA plan for only zero point nine nine percent fees and seamlessly deposit the Bitcoin direct to your Bold Vault. The Bold Vault is a two or three collaborative multisig where you hold two keys and Bold holds one as a redundant backup. Backup, protecting against loss or theft. You can use Trezor, Ledger, or cold card hardware wallets to spin up a Bold Vault in just a few minutes, and the Bold Vault is the only collaborative custody vault available with zero monthly fees. They're also offering zero fees on your first ten thousand dollars of Bitcoin buys and twenty-five dollars of free Bitcoin when you buy a hundred dollars of Bitcoin or more. Try Bold today and upgrade your stacking experience over at getbold.io. And now, back to the show. Yeah, of course. And so I think as you say, it's like- Like this idea of, you know, of course, we can be idealists and think about, you know, only using Bitcoin, but the reality of the world today is people still have to interface with the fiat system, and they likely will need to for some time because, you know, hyperbitcoinization isn't gonna happen overnight. So what does interfacing with the fiat world look like? And, maybe you could tie that in with a little bit of, you know, what does that look like in a bold context?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "19:36", "start": 1175.68, "text": "Like I was saying, to make Bitcoin go mainstream, you know, it, and it's on a glide path to getting there, but it's on that path because of the hard work of Bitcoiners. To bring Bitcoin to all the different aspects of the traditional fiat system, right? So Bitcoin treasuries are big in the news these days. It's our, belief that integrating- you know, at Bold, it's our belief that integrating Bitcoin with the traditional banking system is a key next step in the institutionalization of Bitcoin, or rather, I should say, the Bitcoinization of fiat institutions." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "20:19", "start": 1219.04, "text": "so that as an everyday person, you can say, \"Oh, Bitcoin is in my bank account. I could just buy a little bit or let me just spend on my card. I'm, I'm spending on this card anyway.\" I can get rewards in Bitcoin and I'll earn a little bit that way and gain some exposure to it, and then you're off zero. And once you're off zero, Then you start learning, right? So yeah, because people learn by doing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:49", "start": 1249.31, "text": "I'd love to tap, tap into more the concept there around Bitcoinizing the financial system, right? Because a lot of people, they might think of it the other way around, oh, Bitcoin is being financialized. Well, what about, in your view, what are some of the ways that bit-- that we're gonna Bitcoinize the world?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "21:04", "start": 1263.73, "text": "Yeah, so the thing about Bitcoin is its decentralized nature. That's what makes it unique as an asset As that class and more importantly as a technology, it's truly decentralized. And so what's become evident is that Bitcoin is going to do what Bitcoin does every ten minutes, a new block. And it's easier for an institution, so even one as strong and as big and old as BlackRock, for example, to- Start working with Bitcoin and to embrace Bitcoin than it is to make any change to Bitcoin, because of Bitcoin's decentralized nature. So we're seeing it happen, and when we bring Bitcoin into people's everyday FDIC-insured bank accounts you know, which is the next step in the bitcoinization of the financial world, that will be another step, in this process Of Bitcoin being an everyday thing, where, you know, it's not just, you know, the idea of being a Bitcoiner will be-- will, you know, in the next ten to fifteen years Maybe become an outdated concept, right? Because, you know, maybe when twenty, thirty, forty percent of people start holding a significant fraction of their savings in Bitcoin that's when Bitcoin really becomes, politically, you know, it can't be removed, right? It's like, you know Once it's, you know, once it's in that many people's pockets and it's composing a major fraction of their savings, you can't mess with that, right? So as, you know, so to summarize what I'm saying The way to get Bitcoin in the hands of many people is to bring Bitcoin into the fiat banking system because people already have fiat banking, because of the network effects Of the fiat system and the card system that we use for payments, those things are, hard to supplant. With, you know, we've had, you know, m-many attempts at Bitcoin for merchant adoption, the reason that they don't- Quite, get the traction that, you, you know, we know that they will eventually get, is because we don't yet have the critical mass of people that are holding Bitcoin and who understand what Bitcoin is and therefore believe in Bitcoin. so bringing Bitcoin, yeah, I think, yeah, it's," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:49", "start": 1428.9, "text": "it's gonna, it's, it's about this fundamental adoption, and we need enough people to have it, even in their cash balance or in their savings, before we'll start to see a real mainstream of spending. Now, of course, there'll be certain circular economies, things like, you know, Bitcoin Jungle or Bitcoin Beach and so on, but, in terms of making it happen at, at larger scales, I think this is what it will Yeah, and the circular," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "24:12", "start": 1452.38, "text": "go on. Circular economies are great. I mean, those are-- but I see them as R&D, right? And maybe, you know, we hope that incre-- an increasing number of them, will continue to grow. But still, you talk to, you know, your friend who's a real estate agent, they're not like, \"I'm moving to a Bitcoin circular-- circular economy.\" They're like, \"Look, man, I got a house mortgage.\" Two kids, like this, you know, y-you guys are doing your own thing. But I do have a bank account, but I do have a bank account, and I do have a debit card. And I am already spending on it. So, oh, is there, is there a card, is there a bank account that could actually allow me to grow my purchasing power over time? you know, do well for my family and preserve the life's energy that I put into earning my money versus having it erode. that's what's gonna- Tilt the scales, toward Bitcoin truly mass adoption and, you know, think of it in terms of the, adoption curve crossing the chasm." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:17", "start": 1517.3, "text": "Yeah. Okay, so let's bring it back to Bold and how this ties in, and, yeah, give us just the overview, what's the plan with Bold? What are the main services, that you're offering? Yes. So," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "25:32", "start": 1531.53, "text": "you know, I talked about my, you know, adventure in San Francisco and, all the ills of the fiat system, you know, thinking about that and then contrasting that with the world of Bitcoin and how Bitcoin is the antithesis to that system. you know, led me to this question of what is going to be the future of, you know, everyday banking? It's gonna-- and, you know, became very clear that it's gonna go one of two ways. It's gonna go the way of the personal control and the Chinese-style social credit system, you know, where banking, you know, is only if- Only if you're good, right? You get your, your USD tokens." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "26:15", "start": 1574.58, "text": "or it can go the other way, where banking is Bitcoinized and it becomes a tool of freedom. And in order for that to be the case, it's important, you know, in, in our eyes, in my eyes, that as the fiat banking system becomes Bitcoinized, we do so In a way that, is in the ethos of Bitcoin. What does that mean? it means, you know, it's not packed full Of altcoins and shitcoins and things like that, it's Bitcoin only. One, and then two, it's centered around self-custody. So what we've built at Bold is A banking platform where you have, you know, it's a fully featured banking platform, so you get, a US dollar checking account with a linked debit card Where you can earn the leading rewards in Bitcoin back. Furthermore, it's linked in with a self custody multi-signature vault, so we're encouraging our customers to take multisig self custody of their Bitcoin in a safe, and redundant way that's, you know safe against loss of keys, or compromise. So we're embodying the values of what I was just, just laying out, right? We're making it easy for people to do what they do every day, which is interact in the fiat world, spend on their cards. Earn the industry's best Bitcoin back, store that Bitcoin in self custody, and also we've got a, we've got a setup where the more Bitcoin you buy with Bold, the more Bitcoin you earn on your card. The more Bitcoin back rewards you earn. So, you know, the rewards start at point two five percent, and they go up to as much as ten percent Bitcoin back on your debit card spending, the more Bitcoin you buy. and we're, we're the only program of that kind. and the reason we have it set up that way is because we of course want to incentivize people to- Hold an increasing fraction of their savings in Bitcoin in cold storage for the long term, but we give them an easy on-ramp to start stacking with the card." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:51", "start": 1730.99, "text": "Excellent. And so as I understand, then the basic, you know, the main premise is that you set up, you know, users can set up to have their salary and so on come hit the checking account in Bold or through the platform, and then of course, they can buy Bitcoin, but they can have maybe some fiat balance that they're using to tap their card when they're going to buy things, and this fiat balance on their card is also giving them Sats back. So as they spend, they're getting that experience of, \"Oh, hey, I, you know...\" No, just got some sats back instead of, you know, frequent flyer miles or some other kind of, you know, altcoin, let's say." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "29:29", "start": 1768.86, "text": "Exactly. so, yeah, like- All these fiat cards that are out there, you know, the trick they try to pull is make you think that the rewards you're earning on the card is really valuable. You know, half the time it just sits there and expires. And it actually doesn't have that much value. In contrast, what we're doing at Bold is we're giving you the world's hardest, most finite and scarce form of money as a reward on your card, and we're giving you a higher rate of reward than any competing Bitcoin-backed card on the market. furthermore, like I was saying, the more Bitcoin you buy with Bold, the higher the level of, you know, Sats back you earn on your card spending, and to make that an even more enticing offer we have it so that, you know, we, we offer the lowest fees on Bitcoin buys and sells of any Bitcoin only company on the market, and, you know, we, that, you know, that's a something that we're proud of because, again We're incentivizing people to store their life's energy in Bitcoin, take self custody of it, in cold storage. Serving that Bitcoin ethos, and that's another, you know, as another point toward what we've built. our vault doesn't have monthly fees, so some vaults out there, You know, there's a, it's great to see a, you know, a growing number of them. You know, but they charge tens of dollars a month, hundreds of dollars per year, and that, you know, of course, erodes your savings. It's kind of contrary to the point of what you're doing. you know, if you're, you know, we make money on, you know, when customers buy and sell Bitcoin. And so we offer the vault free of charge, on a monthly basis to use." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:20", "start": 1879.92, "text": "This episode is brought to you by CoinKite, the makers of my favorite Bitcoin hardware wallet, the Coldcard Q. Now, some people think self-custody is too hard, but it's really about taking responsibility for your Bitcoin wealth and understanding that self-custody gives you a true feeling of liberty. The Coldcard Q has a full keyboard and big screen, it's got Airgapped using QR codes from seed generation to transaction signing. You can power the device using three triple A batteries, so you don't even have to plug it into the wall for power. You can easily use it with Sparrow Wallet for PC or Nunchok on mobile, and you can dial it into the right level of security and complexity that you choose. If you want a simple setup, just use twelve words and single signature. If you want passphrases, easy. If you want to add multi-sig or co-signing features, you've got those too. So go to CoinKite dot" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:09", "start": 1929.31, "text": "Level up your self custody today. This episode is brought to you by Galloy, builders of banking software for the Bitcoin age. After years of risk and uncertainty, Bitcoin and banking are colliding. The regulatory environment is rapidly shifting in favor of Bitcoin and digital assets. Fintechs and crypto-native companies can become chartered banks, and traditional banks and credit unions will launch Bitcoin products. But the legacy core banking software that many financial institutions run on wasn't built for Bitcoin. The Galloy banking infrastructure stack delivers all the key elements Of a modern core banking platform with cloud-native infrastructure, event-based architecture, and robust APIs coming together to meet the security, scalability, and reliability needs of banks of the future. Whether you are launching a modern financial institution from the ground up or you are adding Bitcoin-backed lending or payments to your product offering, talk to the team at Galloy. Visit galloy dot io or reach out to the team at b i z at g a l o y dot io. Excellent. So let's talk about the card because I know that this is, I guess becoming a hot topic. There's a lot of, I guess competitors in this space. So just for listeners who might not be clear, I know there are competitors out there. So in the US market, as I understand, I think Coinbase have one, and I believe Gemini recently came out with one. So could you just contrast the Bold debit card versus, competitors in the US Bitcoin back market?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "33:31", "start": 2011.38, "text": "Yep. Yeah, yeah. So the card is, is for US customers, to, and the main differentiator of the Bold card, versus the other cards is, one, it's a debit card, so you don't need to have a, you know, your credit pulled. we don't need, you know, need to poke around your business in order for you to use the card. and, you know, you don't need any particular credit score or any credit score at all to use the Bold card So again, that's toward, our goal of bringing Bitcoin into everyone and putting it in everyone's pocket. yeah, yeah, so Coinbase has, has launched a card, if you must use Coinbase, you know, they're not a Bitcoin only company. They, you know, a lot of their revenues go toward pumping altcoins that are questionable, at best, and, you know, distractions from Bitcoin at worst, and so, you know Essentially, it's gambling. So, you know, in contrast, we at, at Bold, we're a Bitcoin company. you know, we don't want to mislead our customers into- Buying anything that's going to eventually go to zero, which everything other than Bitcoin will, and in terms of the, the card itself, so, you know, if you look at that Coinbase card, they incentivize a higher level of rewards if you hold the balance on Coinbase. and that, you know, we believe is kind of contrary to the ethos of Bitcoin because you're not taking self custody, you're holding your Bitcoin on Coinbase, and then there's always that question of Coinbase is holding so much Bitcoin, is it a government confiscation honeypot? Do they ha- actually have all the Bitcoin? probably they do, but- You know, are they doing proof of reserves? Even if they were, is there a proof of liabilities? Can there be? There's a lot of questions surrounding it. So with Bold, you just get a, a clean setup, It's Bitcoin only, and the rewards are higher than the, the rewards that you'll get on, any other card in the, in the crypto space, when you buy Bitcoin Bitcoin with" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:53", "start": 2153.23, "text": "Bold. Excellent. And, and then, I guess coming to the self-custody point, maybe just spell out what the vault setup is there so people understand how that works. and, you know, I presume, you know, just for the new- users and listeners, you know, Bold has like a custodial setup obviously, but then once the user is ready, then they can actually do self custody. So can you just explain a bit about that setup?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "36:17", "start": 2177.24, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So the Bold Vault is a two of three multi-signature vault That uses Bitcoin's native multisig. Right, so if you're not familiar, with multisig, how it works is, three Public keys are, on, you know, are combined to form a multisig wallet. Under, there's many possible permutations on the network, but with the Bold Vault, it's a two of three multisig. So it takes two keys of three to move the Bitcoin You hold those two keys. Those two keys, originate on two different hardware wallets that you own and that you plug in and register the public key from those hardware wallets with Bold, and then Bold uses those two public keys, one from each of your hardware wallets, to instantiate the vault we hold one key, as a backup, so if you were to lose one of your keys, we have you covered. you know, a lot of our customers find it beneficial where if they're traveling, they don't want to hold their two keys, you know, because then there's the risk of, of loss, so they just travel with one key and they request us, Bold, to countersign with them to withdraw from their vault. We charge a nominal ten dollars fee to do that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:47", "start": 2267.04, "text": "Excellent. And so, yeah, I think that's, I think it's, a cool setup because then, new users can just kind of get started quickly and easily, and then there's a nice, you know, ramping up, there for the user that they can actually step it up into self-custody at that point. And so, I think it's a good, setup, and I, I like, also, as you said, it's the lowest fees kind of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:14", "start": 2294.02, "text": "Of buying. So I guess if you could just ex-explain a little bit on the buying side or on the brokerage side, just explain a little bit about the structure there, about, you know, what the fees are at what level of purchase, just like roughly, so people get a rough idea there." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "38:28", "start": 2307.71, "text": "Yeah. So the fees, start, you know, like I was saying, the lowest fees across Bitcoin-only companies, they-- the fees decrease as your Bitcoin buys get bigger. So, start at point nine eight percent for, you know, a Small buy, you know, hundred dollars or something, they go all the way down to point three nine percent if you're making a big buy, in the realm of five million dollars worth. and everything in between." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:59", "start": 2338.82, "text": "Gotcha. So it's, it's just, it's sort of a scale based on, basically the more you buy, the less as a percentage your, your fees are. And I guess those amounts, is that, is that based on like an annual amount or, or an overall purchase amount or how does that part work?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "39:14", "start": 2354.43, "text": "yeah, it's on a per purchase basis." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:17", "start": 2356.62, "text": "Gotcha. So I guess then the bigger like that individual stack is that you do, then the lower that fee is for that particular buy. exactly. Okay. and then in terms of, the fiat aspect of it, are you seeing that like, c-cuz obviously the ideal case, you know, for you, it would be if the customer is setting up Kind of their salary to come to this account and then they're, you know, just buying and, then the idea is you're, you're bringing most of your banking or most, you know, or your primary banking is with Bold. So can you just explain a little bit around that setup?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "39:59", "start": 2399.47, "text": "Yeah, e-e-exactly, it can be. So we've got sort of like a, a crawl walk run la-ladder of product," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "40:12", "start": 2412.43, "text": "levels with Bold. Right? So you can just sign up with Bold, take five minutes to sign up, start spending on the debit card. And start earning rewards at point two five percent without doing anything other than signing up and, and using the card. Then you can deposit, some fiat, you know? Draw from your FDIC-insured, fiat balance to spend on that card, or to buy Bitcoin. So you can buy, like we were just talking about, you can buy Bitcoin with Bold, either from your Bold bank account balance or from an outside bank account balance For, you know, those low fees. And then, you know, the next step is, if you'd like, you can set up direct deposit So that your paycheck or a fraction of your paycheck goes into Bold and you can auto-stack all of or some of your paycheck As Bitcoin. and then we give you a secure place in the vault that we were just talking about, to secure your Bitcoin for the long term. We also offer a managed Bitcoin wallet, For smaller amounts, that's, insured by Lloyds of London. it's running on infrastructure that has been battle-tested over eleven years this is the Bold managed wallet, so it's," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "41:44", "start": 2504.0, "text": "you know, it's as safe as a managed wallet can get. It's been proven, no security incidents for eleven years, insured for up to two hundred million by Lloyd's of London, And, you know, that's important, those, those factors, because, you know, as we've seen, that's, you know, where Some dubious exchanges have basically disappeared and, you know, people lose money." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:10", "start": 2529.75, "text": "Yeah, of course. And, you know, every-- I mean, we have to just keep shouting this from the rooftops, right? Not your keys, not your coins. But at the same time, we can't, you know, and I agree, like I, I don't, I don't wanna be a hypocrite and say, \"Well, hey, you know, many of us, or when we were new, maybe we started on custodial exchanges, but you, the newbie, you shouldn't, you shouldn The reality is a lot of people will start on some of these things, and as long as there's a, an upgrade pathway, let's say, I think that's, I think that's the way to go for a lot of these people. But that's perhaps one, concern that people are having this, this cycle, you know, this time around in twenty twenty-five, people are saying, \"Well, is it, is all the new adoption happening through Bitcoin ETFs and treasury companies? And what does that mean for self-custody adoption and the decentralization of Bitcoin aspect of, what's happening with self custody?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "43:03", "start": 2583.44, "text": "Yeah, so self custody, it's, I went through this journey myself, as my Bitcoin holdings. You know, accumulated and grew in value, right? So you do. I mean, I like a lot of us, and maybe m-most of us, some by, you know, our user behavior and other, others, something like eighty percent of people start off holding their Bitcoin kind of on the exchange in, you know, if, you know, if it's with Bold, that would be with our, our Bold wallet, the managed wallet, because it's, you know, when you make a Bitcoin buy, that's where it lands. We make it easy so that, you know, you to your vault, but not everybody has hardware wallets when they first start buying Bitcoin because that requires, you know, a higher level of, involvement and And work to set up. And it's also not necessarily perceived to be worth it if you're only holding, you know, a thousand dollars Bitcoin or whatever, you're like, \"I'll get to it later. Like, you know, this managed wallet is good enough for now.\" As your Bitcoin savings grow, as you stack more and as the value increases, you know, you start to just ask these questions of, \"Well,\" Bitcoin is a really powerful tool. Shouldn't I be using it in the way that it's, in, in the way that I'm taking advantage of the very property that makes it valuable and is driving the price up, which is the ability to take self-custody? And, you know, that's a, that's a journey of just kind of understanding that Bitcoin as a bearer asset, you're not getting the full benefit of Bitcoin until you take self custody of it. And Yeah, you know, there's, like you were just saying, there's a, a lot of adoption happening on exchanges, you know, or indirectly on exchanges via the ETFs. I think that's actually fine. It's good because, you know, w-within the, you know, sort of life cycle of a Bitcoin holder, there's awareness of Bitcoin, there's buying some Bitcoin, it's probably gonna be on an exchange, and then as you get more educated, as the value increases Taking self custody becomes the, the natural next step, and so, you know, that's why we offer it on our platform because we want to enable folks to base their entire financial life with Bold." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "45:31", "start": 2731.28, "text": "But, you know, the, at the institutional level, you know, it's, it's one step at a time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:40", "start": 2740.19, "text": "Yeah, yeah, and I, I mean, I think that's part-- I think it's, it all, it all makes, you know, sense to me at least in terms of what a typical person may go through as part of their journey, and yeah, I'm, it's not that I'm, you know, negative on Bitcoin ETFs or treasury companies, the opposite, I think, look, it's a, it's a rising tide, it's, it's gonna lift all boats here, but, you know, we just have to, if, if we are, let's say, ideological Bitcoiners, we have to just remember to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:15", "start": 2774.76, "text": "the other big one I think, you know, people are having, and this is kind of like a perennial debate in Bitcoin on, should you spend your Bitcoin or should you, you know, just, you know, spend your fiat and this kind of thing. of course, lots of arguments back and forth on this, but, do you have any takes on this? Should you spend your Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "46:33", "start": 2793.17, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So there's the perennial discussion of, \"Should I get on zero? Should I get on zero fiat?\" And I actually believe for most people, and I'll discuss the exceptions, for most people the answer is no. you probably should hold some fiat. Why? Because if you hold all Bitcoin, you're gonna end up selling some of that Bitcoin when you don't want to and when you will regret it. Why will you sell it? Because psychologically you think you're prepared to have your entire net worth go through a seventy percent drawdown, but you're not. You're really not. And so because it becomes, it becomes, you know, really nerve-wracking when you're like, \"Oh, wow, like- I was kind of, you know, within striking distance of retirement when, you know, it was at the top of the bull market, but, you know, wow, like, is this money really gone? Bitcoin's very volatile. that is the, you know, it's a double-edged sword. That's the other side of the sword to sixty, fifty, whatever percent compound annual growth rate, that's You know, makes it the top performing financial asset over, you know, pick your timescale. So in order to not sell your Bitcoin at a bad time and then wind up with less Bitcoin than you started with because, you know, let's say Bitcoin dips, you get concerned, you sell, and then it rips right back up, and then you have to buy back in at a higher price. This happened to me, this happens to many people who- haven't heard this message that, I'm delivering right now, which is I recommend, you know, hold some fiat because You know, if you have enough personal runway for you and your family in fiat, that gives you the psychological resilience to hold onto, your stack of sats for the long term through heavy volatility. Right, so, you know, you hold from fifteen K up to sixty, down back to sixteen, up to a hundred twelve, down, you know, down to a hundred three. Up to two hundred fifty eventually, and by that point, right, once you've been through one of these halving cycles, we can debate whether the halving cycle is, you know, what drives the volatility or if it's, you know, liquidity cycle, It's probably both." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "49:14", "start": 2954.18, "text": "once you've, once you've experienced, you know, a 10x of your Bitcoin's fiat purchasing value, that's when I kind of start to think, \"All right, maybe it makes a little bit more sense to just hold Bitcoin, because you're aware of the volatility, you've held through the volatility, Bitcoin's w- now worth more on the other side of that." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "49:41", "start": 2980.98, "text": "so, you know, a swing of five, ten, twenty percent doesn't Doesn't make you lose sleep at night when you've already been through a protracted two year, three year long seventy percent downturn and then come up the other side. So experienced Bitcoiners, you know You wanna get to the point where you've been through a cycle, a drawdown like that, held onto a significant amount of Bitcoin. once you've done that, then you can start, in my opinion It starts to become wise to hold zero or close to zero fiat." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:16", "start": 3016.12, "text": "Yeah, I think it's a fair point you make around psychology and our emotions, especially for a new person, right? It's one thing for, you know, an OG who's been in the game for a long time and for them, for that person to be taking more, let's say, advanced or, or more, you know, out there strategies, because maybe that works for them, but for, for an everyday new person, it's, it's just, perhaps beyond the pale for them, You know, assess for themselves later down the track after they've had a, you know, a full four or five years in the game, let's say. What a" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "50:47", "start": 3047.28, "text": "lot of Bitcoiners, what a lot of Bitcoiners do, is they say, \"Oh my God, this thing is amazing.\" This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I need to stack to the gills. I'm maxing out my credit cards to stack. I mortgaged my house to stack. I have zero fiat left. well, okay. Maybe the mortgage, I, I think can be, can be a wise thing to do because it's, you know, as long as you can stay solvent and manage the interest payments. But, you know, the credit cards, things with significantly high interest payments or that have You know, are gonna cause, high monthly payments on, you know, if you're, if we're talking about leverage here, that, you know, let's say it's now a seventy percent drawdown, you have much less Bitcoin to sell to pay that loan back. you're servicing the loan at a, you know, at a rate that now you're maybe needing to sell a little bit of Bitcoin just to service it, you really wanna avoid that. So that's why I recommend a, you know- Keeping a close, a close eye and running a scenario, for yourself of, you know, what do I do, in the case of a significant drawdown over the course of years." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:02", "start": 3122.07, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, I think it's prudent you need to think about that. Obviously, there have been eighty percent drawdowns in Bitcoin's past. Who knows what the future holds? None of us knows. you know, yes, volatility is coming down a little bit over time, but none of us knows wh-what, when, or how big the next bear market is gonna be. So it's, it's, you know, it's prudent for people to think about that. now, ex-exactly. And the last, the" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "52:25", "start": 3144.8, "text": "last thing I would add to that is when you have a little bit of fiat set aside in the event that Bitcoin does go through that big drawdown, you have some dry, you have some" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:34", "start": 3154.28, "text": "Yeah, and that's also another great point that, you know, being able to, you know, buy those bottoms, it helps you be the hodler of last resort also, right? The, the buyer of last resort. You are arguably helping by kind of helping stabilize, the bottom of the price so that it can sort of have a more steady, You know, up, up, you know, upwards growth, over time, but of course, you know, that volatility still exists, so we have to be aware and be ready for that. so last topic, that we probably have some time to cover, obviously super hot topic, it's the big, you know, everyone, everyone's talking about Bitcoin treasury companies right now. Do you have a take on that? How are you assessing this trend of Bitcoin treasury companies, especially the leveraged ones?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "53:17", "start": 3196.7, "text": "I love to see the Bitcoin treasury companies, I love to relative attack on the dollar, and we've discussed the issues with the dollar and how the dollar, is a system of control and a tool of, you know, hegemony and has a lot of problems. So I, you know, I'd just love to see Bitcoin being adopted at, at an institutional level. And, and adopted at an institutional level through a lot of companies that are sort of pure play Bitcoin treasury companies. And, and, you know, one of the reasons that, that's interesting is because it, it is that speculative attack on the dollar where these companies are, you know, b- and, and it is a speculative attack on the dollar because of the financial mechanisms that the companies are using to build their Bitcoin treasuries. So You know, just by kind of way of education, there are three ways that a company can, can finance itself and And can buy Bitcoin. You know, one way, the obvious way, is they sell stock, right? So buyers of the stock give them, give the company dollars. the company can sell debt, right? So- You know, for a big company, that's bonds, or of course, they can use their earnings. So all corporate activity and any way that a company gets money is one of these three ways. And so the Bitcoin treasury companies, especially the pure play ones, they're interesting because they're, you know, they're issuing stock, they're using that, the proceeds from the sale of that stock to buy the Bitcoin. And then a lot of people who are holding the stock in these Bitcoin treasury companies are, you know, they're, they're looking at the, the MNAV ratio, right? So, The multiple of the stock's market cap to the net value of the Bitcoin treasury of the company gives you a ratio. Oftentimes the ratio is over one that's possible because, there's an expectation that the companies will, you know, the given company will buy more Bitcoin per share Than it currently has, and in so doing, as a holder of those shares, you get an increase, in-- you get a Bitcoin yield, right? You get a greater number of Bitcoin. per share that you own. That's kind of the thing that people are chasing. so for a pure play Bitcoin treasury company, we'd- stockholder. They already own the stock. There's n-not a, not a huge operating model, right? They're not really, they're not selling a good or service, right? So they don't really have a ton in terms of earnings. so mainly they're financing the Bitcoin purchases via debt of some form, and there's many forms of debt, and sometimes they mix the debt with the equity, but essentially, fundamentally, they're and debt often has a servicing cost, it often has an interest payment, and always debt introduces some form of risk, right? Because you have to repay that debt" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "56:44", "start": 3403.81, "text": "and the early Bitcoin treasury companies, you know, the MicroStrategy, Strategy All the new ones that we're seeing popping up, Nakamoto, all of its derivatives, and the, you know, just a really a growing raft of them." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "57:02", "start": 3422.41, "text": "you know, they're, Especially in Japan, right? they're able to sell and finance their Bitcoin purchases with, with debt on really great terms that are very favorable to the company. especially, Metaplanet in Japan, because Japanese government bonds and corporate bonds are, are so low yielding, right? So the, the, the debt markets are really hungry at the moment for exposure to Bitcoin companies, because you know, it's something new, it's something different, and the, type of institutions that buy most corporate debt, very often have a ton of restrictions on them in terms of Things they can buy, they can, a lot of them, pensions, for example, they can kind of only buy bonds of companies or bonds of some form. They can't actually buy Bitcoin itself So if they can, if those buyers of corporate debt can get exposure to Bitcoin indirectly, they're really interested in doing so, because they believe it provides good value relative to the other kind of debt being sold on the market, That will change as the amount of Bitcoin treasury company debt on the market increases, because there's a competitive market for debt. I think we're a ways off from that, you know, like maybe a decade or five or ten years off from From the debt market getting anywhere near saturated, in terms of the demand for," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:40", "start": 3520.4, "text": "yeah," }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "58:41", "start": 3521.14, "text": "for Bitcoin company stock. but, you know, kind of final note on this point is I would expect this trend of Bitcoin, treasury companies selling debt to buy Bitcoin, approximately when The interest that they need to offer on that debt approximately comes to equal the compound annual growth rate of Bitcoin's price appreciation in fiat terms." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:10", "start": 3550.17, "text": "Right. And so it's kind of like, as that tapers down over time, then eventually there, there might be a crossover point, or maybe, maybe there won't be. I mean, who knows, right? None of us knows. But it could be, it could be a while, you know, it could be twenty, twenty years out, thirty years out. I mean, none of us really knows." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "59:24", "start": 3564.42, "text": "It really could be, it really could be. So this has a long way to run. But just as with the personal sort of- you know, recipe for financial success that I was spelling out, you know, don't over-leverage yourself. companies need to follow the same advice, right? So if and when that market for corporate debt to fund Bitcoin treasury companies becomes more competitive, and they need to offer terms that- Maybe our shorter term, you know, have higher coupon payments, you know, they add risk to the companies and, you know, as a Bitcoin treasury company, as a buyer of Bitcoin com-treasury company stock you know, it's probably just worth doing a little bit of research into, are the terms of the debt that's funding the Bitcoin purchases, are they going to be sufficient to allow the company to stay solvent through a significant drawdown?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:18", "start": 3618.66, "text": "Yeah, and that's, I think that just comes down to professional management competence. ideally, the people managing those companies are Bitcoiners who've been through cycles themselves, so they know sort of, you know, what to expect and how to, structure things such that the company, is set up for success. And of course, I think- It's important for people to understand that, you know, while people might make plays here and there on Bitcoin treasury companies, I think, you know, it, it definitely comes back to kind of not your keys, not your coins. Self custody Bitcoin is the most important thing in terms of what is the lowest risk, right? The way I'm seeing it, and I'm sure the way you and probably many listeners see it, is, you know, self custody Bitcoin is the safest thing. But some of these Bitcoin treasury companies, they may be able to outperform Bitcoin, but there are some additional" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:11", "start": 3671.19, "text": "to sort of assess what they view those risks being compared to self custody Bitcoin being the safest thing." }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "01:01:18", "start": 3678.04, "text": "Exactly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:19", "start": 3679.0, "text": "Yeah. so look, I, we're probably about out of time now, so any final comments, and, where can people find you and find Bold?" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "01:01:27", "start": 3687.47, "text": "Yeah. so, check out bold at getbold dot io, and you can find me on X at zachary party, just my name, and, you can find our bold account at bold bitcoin Fantastic," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:44", "start": 3704.06, "text": "Zach, thanks for joining" }, { "speaker": "bold_with_zack_pardey", "time": "01:01:44", "start": 3704.88, "text": "me. Thank you, Stefan." } ] }