{ "episodeId": "SLP679", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "jad_mubaslat": { "name": "Jad Mubaslat", "role": "guest", "tag": "JAD" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:10", "start": 9.71, "text": "Hi everyone, and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast. This show is brought to you by Bold, where American listeners can buy Bitcoin for the industry's lowest fees and earn the highest Bitcoin back rewards with the Bold debit card. Now, there's been a lot of talk about Bitcoin treasury companies, and, you know, some people want to hear some skepticism of Bitcoin treasury companies. Now, Jad Mubaslat is joining me today to explain, his view on this. So as I understand, Jad, you are, an engineer at Sonoda, but you are obviously in a personal capacity, and more as a Bitcoiner, joining me to discuss your skepticism of Bitcoin treasury companies. So first off, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "00:50", "start": 50.13, "text": "Awesome, thank you so much, Stefan. Appreciate you having me on today. And yeah, exactly like you said, the re-reason I wanted to be on here is, you know, as a kind of passionate Bitcoiner, kind of, you know, seeing some, potential red flags for, you know, what, what's been going on recently and- also to give a little bit more background as well, you know, I've been in the Bitcoin space since around two thousand thirteen. started initially with, BitQuick dot co, basically a platform for people to trade Bitcoin, and also then worked as an engineer at Rain dot com, now is actually, I think, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the Middle East, and, interestingly, while I was over at Rain dot com, we had even written about the, Terra Luna collapse, before it even, you know, went down. and I'll even say too, you know, when I first saw that, you know, MicroStrategy was implementing the, their Bitcoin strategy, if you will, I mean, it wasn't even necessarily a formal strategy way back in the day, you know, initially I was extremely excited about that, and we, you know, we saw some companies like Tesla, also following on, but, you know, fast forward till today, it, it feels like, you know, things are getting a little bit out of hand, if you will, and so, yeah, I wanted to come" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "02:06", "start": 126.48, "text": "An opposing potential perspective and, just kind of talk about some of the risks that are really out here and also some of the similarities to, you know, things that have happened, nearly a hundred years ago. It looks like we're, in, in some ways, we're doing the exact same things, that had happened a hundred years ago." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:25", "start": 145.16, "text": "Interesting. Yeah. So look, let's get into this. Of course, I think, we're probably not gonna agree on everything, but I am, and I guess I'll just say upfront, I am I am bullish on these, but I do ac-acknowledge that obviously there are risks, and I, I see it like, there's gonna be this kind of initial sprint, and there will likely be a big winner in You know, each jurisdiction, it, it might be like a winner take most kind of thing, and I acknowledge certainly that there will be people who, you know, get wrecked on as the equity holder on a particular, treasury company. and of course, it's not to say that every treasury company is gonna, you know, take over the world, but I think it's fair to say a bunch of them have been outperforming. and I guess I'll just quickly up front, say I am gonna be involved with one, so I'll just say that up" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:17", "start": 196.54, "text": "To the general public, probably in about a month or so, and I'm an advisor and an investor in that particular entity in a non-US country. so I'll just put that up there up front, and let's hear your kind of opening case. Now, I guess let's distinguish between merely hodling Bitcoin, right? Like just holding, buying and holding on the balance sheet, I presume you have no issue with that. The issue I see you're taking is more about the quote-unquote financial engineering, this kind of aggressive- Use of equity and debt to aggressively grow your balance sheet, using Bitcoin. I guess that's where your main issue is. So can you give us your- You know, your high level opening argument." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "04:00", "start": 240.28, "text": "Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, I'd say the, the argument boils down to, like, you know, if you think about, investing from a, from a first, first principles perspective, you know, the reason you would want to invest in any entity, whether it's public or private, is there are some kind of cash flows being generated. You know, the, the business is able to take their assets and do something innovative with it to, you know, almost like a one plus one equals two Three, you know, if I have, you know, sugar and water and lemons, well, I can put them together to create a cash flow positive business and ideally bring in, you know, revenues from, you know, doing some kind of business, business activity. But the, the problem that I seem to have with these Bitcoin treasury companies is that by and large, especially the new ones, there isn't necessarily any cash flow positive, business that is underlying, the, You know, the, the security, the public traded stock. And so, and especially when we're talking about an asset like Bitcoin that doesn't have any type of, endemic yield to it. It's, it's hard to see how, you know, if, if the company doesn't have any way to create cash flows, that they're going to be able to do anything particularly, let's say, innovative to be able to sustainably grow that balance sheet. a-and, you know, I, I almost see that perhaps the only way that some of these entities end up surviving is, you know, if the dollar- Absolutely, completely collapses. but aside from that, i-it's kind of hard to envision how these things end up, unwrapping ultimately. So it's almost like first principles perspective. If you don't have a cash flow positive business, and the only thing you have on your balance sheet is an asset that doesn't create cash flow positive, you know, any type of cash flow, then it kind of leads you to believe that, all right, there, there must be leverage or something unsustain- sustainable, baked into, baked into the strategy. And so I, you know, I, I think something else that would be interesting to go into as well is, you know, not only is, accretive dilution kind of one of those strategies where, you know, we just create more, common stock shares, sell those to raise funds, there are also, I'd say, more complicated vehicles like whether it's convertible bonds or these preferred shares, I still though feel like when you, when you dive into the details, that these still end up being Some type of flavor of, we're issuing a liability, we're adding some assets to the balance sheet, but you're not adding any sustainable increase to the, the equity of the company. There's not really any reason I could see that the, you know, the common stock should continue to always, trade at that premium. So I'd say that that's really my fundamental argument is, you know, from a, from a first principles perspective, if we don't have anything that is cash flow positive in the business This, then our instincts should tell us, all right, there's, there's gotta be hidden leverage in whatever this, you know, intelligent leverage strategy is." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:22", "start": 441.64, "text": "Okay. So First up, let's clarify your objection then. Are you saying you believe all of them are gonna go down, or you think like maybe MSTR will be okay, but the others will get wrecked, or like, where? How, how do you-- would you distinguish between any of them or do you put them all in the same camp here?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "07:39", "start": 459.38, "text": "No, I think there are, there are different flavors, although I, I would say that You know, personally, I would say MicroStrategy is, the most likely, treasury company to outlast the others, and I almost view this as, you know, it, it's likely to, carry out as some sort of, And basically, in, in a way, a pyramid. And, you know, MicroStrategy, they're the, they're the most well-capitalized operation right now. You know, you, you look at, you know, say you're a bu-a buyer of maybe their, preferred shares, as an example, you are heavily over-collateralized by the Bitcoin on the balance sheet. But if you're a common stock shareholder, you know, you're, you're basically gonna be the first one to possibly get knocked off." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:31", "start": 511.0, "text": "Going back to the" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "08:32", "start": 511.74, "text": "scenario," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:32", "start": 512.22, "text": "like, are we talking Bitcoin bear market or are we talking like equity bear market? Like, who exactly gets wrecked here? Like, what's the scenario? So" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "08:41", "start": 521.27, "text": "the way that I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:42", "start": 521.93, "text": "would" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "08:42", "start": 522.07, "text": "imagine that, things play out is that This correlation between the securities and the, you know, the underlying asset, Bitcoin, eventually that, you know, this would decouple in some sort of way. Now, if Bitcoin drops significantly, I, I think the bear market is the most common kind of, scenario that people are thinking where, you know, all this company might get into trouble, because we're assuming that, you know, the, the, the, the company's common stock should- Always be tracking Bitcoin. But I have a feeling that a lot of this is, fueled by, you know, speculative retail mania. I'm not convinced that there are many, institutions that are interested in buying these common shares. Now, I do think these institutions are interested in possibly buying the preferred shares or the convertibles, because if things unwind, they will be the first ones to, To be paid back, you know, if there is, basically enterprise value in the market. Because the senior in the capital stack and so on. Okay. Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, I, I think what we could see, and what we're seeing a little bit right now, or we saw a little bit, earlier in the month, is Bitcoin moves up, but these, treasury companies don't follow it. And so I think you could see an MNAV, compression either in a bear market because the, these common stocks trade, tend to trade almost like leveraged Bitcoin. So say Bitcoin goes down thirty percent, you know, maybe one of these treasury companies goes down more, you get an MNAV compression. What I think people aren't necessarily, foreseeing is if Bitcoin, you know, let's say we start to go, go towards that, you know, one million dollar mark, which I think we all believe eventually we're gonna get there Depending on how much hype and excitement there is, you know, I, I really think this is kind of a, a hype fueled game. If you're not seeing your MNAV premium expand, and the whole reason you bought this Bitcoin treasury company was because, hey, I'm gonna outperform Bitcoin, there could be almost this, reflexive, Kind of reflexive behavior of getting out of your treasury company and going into the underlying. So I think you could see either in a, in a bear market or a bull market, these MNavs tend to compress, and that these, these all fundamentally rely on somebody willing to pay higher, Basically an mNAV higher than one, and the only reason you would do that is you're assuming someone else is gonna come along and ideally pay an mNAV higher than you are. Or even if we say we look at like convertible notes as an example, this is just, I'd say, another Tricky way of being able to issue stock at an MNAV higher than one. You know, I, I think the, the headline grabber, and, you know, I'll say myself too, when I saw that, you know, MicroStrategy had, raised, you know, their first convertible note and that they were able to do it at zero percent interest, you know The, the first thing you might, that might come to mind is, \"Oh, we're, we're doing a, a speculative attack, you know? We're, we're borrowing money risk-free, we're putting into Bitcoin, and as long as Bitcoin increases more than zero percent a year, you know, I'm golden.\" But the reality is, when those convertible notes happen, they're able to convert at a price that is, you know, usually say thirty to fifty percent above the current price. And so you're, you're almost basically locking in, Selling your stock at an MNAV that is higher than one. So once again, you know, whether it was doing an ATM, like an at-the-money issuance of our common stock, or we're trying to sell a convertible note, we're essentially trying to find somebody that is willing to, you know, To take on exposure for our stock at a price or at an MNAV that is, that is above one point o." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:03", "start": 783.43, "text": "The lead sponsor of this show is BOLT, the banking platform designed for Bitcoiners. With the BOLT virtual Visa debit card, you earn Bitcoin back on every purchase. The more Bitcoin you buy with BOLT, the more Sats back you get on the card. Buy twenty-five hundred dollars of Bitcoin and earn three percent Sats back. Keep stacking with BOLT to earn up to ten percent Sats back. BOLT offers the industry's lowest fees on Bitcoin buy- buys and sells with zero added spreads. 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The Coldcard Q has a full keyboard and big screen, it's got two secure elements and a true air gap, allowing you to go fully air-gapped using QR codes from seed generation to transaction signing. You can power the device using three triple A batteries 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 passphrase, it's easy. If you want to add multi-sig or co-signing features, you've got those too. So go to coinkite dot com, use code livera to get ten percent off on your coldcard or other devices and level up your self-custody today. Okay, so let me explain a few things, at least how I understand it, and I'll get your response. So a few things, I think the convertibles, my sense of it, just from trying to understand what's going on, my sense of it is actually Some of the treasury company guys are sort of going away from that, or at least they see that as like, at least for MSTR, they would rather let the convertibles roll off and just kinda go more with this preferred strategy because the convertible note, buyers in this case are like these, are like these trading guys who are basically kinda stripping the volatility, they're not aligned with you on the mission, they are actually also shorting your stock or they may be shorting your stock too. So whereas the preferred buyers, they're kind of on the, on the boat with you or on the rocket ship with you up, and they are, let's say, aligned a bit more. So that's one thing. Another thing I would say is, okay, so I've got probably three points. So that, that was the first point around the convertible notes. I think they're gonna probably-- it might be seen more like it's a life cycle thing. So maybe that's like something that earlier companies do To get some debt on their balance sheet and then eventually they sort of graduate up to the preferred scenario. That's probably, that's at least how I'm understanding it. It depends how you view it, but I think some of these companies are intending to- Build a balance sheet now and then do financial services later, right? They may be buying a bank, they may be doing insurance, or they may be-- or it might be more like the preferred shares kind of route. and then I would say the third thing is this concept of, do we," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:23", "start": 983.1, "text": "Are there tax and regulatory reasons for MNAV to be greater than one? And I believe yes there are. That, for example, in Japan, there's this differential tax treatment, or in the UK, they have, I believe it's kind of like the equivalent of the US 401k, I think it's called SIPs, and basically these are people, in their retirement accounts, they can't just buy Bitcoin, and so a bunch of them just buy MSTR and these, you know, Smarter Webcoin and whatever. and in the Japanese case, I Social tax rate on when you buy Bitcoin in your personal account versus, corporate, capital gains tax rates. So there's like this differential. And so my argument would be It's more like we would expect mNAV to be, maybe it, it can be very high during these hype phases, but it's eventually it's gonna sort of compress down over time, and maybe the longer run mNAs will be more like this one point two, one point five, now none of us knows, right? We're, we're kinda speculating, right? But ju-just as an example, let's say the tax differential is twenty or thirty percent, wouldn't that justify an mNAV of one point two or one point three, right? Just as a quick example?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "17:36", "start": 1056.06, "text": "I, I, I think that's, you know, these are compelling, I'd say, like, narratives for, you know, why these, products should exist, and, you know, they are valid use cases. I, I mean, there, there are, you know, whether it's retail or even certain type of, institutional investors that do have these restrictions, but I'm, I'd say I'm not convinced that Strictly because of these tax advantages, that, that is why they are buying into these vehicles. and, you know, even if, let's say, you know, that, that is the underlying argument, I know a lot of these, you know, they can't buy an instrument like an ETF, but essentially you would want something that's going to behave as close as possible. And so, you know, I see maybe there would be room for something like a micro strategy, to exist, but- I'm not convinced that, you know, you're gonna need hundreds of these different ones to exist, and that, you know, eventually there, there, there are, I'd say There are ways, a lot of the time, to get around these, investment restrictions. It's, it's a bit of a pain in the butt, but, you know, like for me personally, for example, like you can open up a, like a self-custodied, retirement account. You gotta jump through a few hoops, but I'm, I'm not convinced that intelligent, maybe intelligent is a little bit insulting, don't wanna go that far, but that, you know, risk-averse investors would want to, you know, pay that, that twenty percent premium, assuming that it, that it would, continue to persist. And so I'd say that, that's, probably my response to your, your third point there. And your first two points, I'd say, you know, talking about maybe the shift away from convertibles in- into preferreds or, you know, essentially the, the plan to financialize the balance sheet. My, my bigger issue with these is that they are still different flavors of financial alchemy. I mean, even if we look at, MSTR's, you know, preferreds I, I think they represent a, a very small fraction so far of, of, you know, the total debt that they've taken on. You know, I think they've, they've, issued, I think like in the, billions of dollars for these preferreds that they are allowed to issue, but in terms of what has actually been issued today, I believe it's only a couple hundred million dollars. So, I, I think the, the verdict is still open if, first of all, there is a, a substantial market appetite to actually absorb billions of dollars of issuance of these preferreds. And, you know, I, I'd say another one of my problems, like each, each one of these different vehicles comes with its own, drawbacks, if you will. So let's say just starting with the preferreds, I think the obvious one is if you're pr- Promising to pay out ten percent, you-- your Bitcoin better always be, growing, growing faster than that, yeah. Exactly, and- Now we're all Bitcoin bulls, but eventually you've gotta think that, you know, that growth rate would slow down. Or even if basically, you know, if you average out over a hundred years, maybe you're still able to get that ten percent average if the entity at any point becomes, you know, unable to pay their dividends, That could still start a kind of reflexive downward spiral. So I'd say, you know, with the preferreds, the problem is if you issue too many preferreds and Bitcoin isn't growing at that guaranteed ten percent, you know, dividend that, that you're promising your investors, you're not gonna be able to continue issuing these preferreds. And- So just on the ten percent," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:40", "start": 1299.96, "text": "I think we should address this because I'd have to look it up, but- With micro-strat, now I'm not an expert on these, just to be clear, so people correct me if I'm getting the number, the exact numbers wrong, but MSDR has Strife, Strike, Stride, and Stretch, which is that new one that's kind of like, almost like a quasi-stablecoin. But, I think the others pay, I think it was eight or ten dollars, on, you know, when they started, but that number actually moves up and down over time as people, you know, just like bond math, as people buy the underlying percent. So I, I'm not sure if it stays at an eight or ten percent, I think it was set at eight or ten dollars, and then that number also moves around based on who's buying and selling the security and how much they issue of those preferreds. and I think that's probably the other key point that I see, which is it comes down to, are you bullish on Bitcoin, right? Like this is where Saylor in his, I think the recent, quarterly earnings call spoke about, like, Buy you a, a maxi or a double maxi or a triple maxi, and based on, you know, those projections of where you think Bitcoin is going in projection-wise, if you think it's gonna average whatever, twenty-nine percent per year or twenty percent a year or forty percent a year or something like this, averaged out over, let's say, twenty, twenty-one years or whatever the projection, then, yeah, it really can make that sense, like it-- I guess that is the That's what's in question here, isn't it? Like if you are, like, you and I and probably most listeners of this podcast, we're all bullish on Bitcoin, we think it's gonna be, like, now I'm looking at, let's say, the power law as an example, a power trend, and on that We're currently growing about 40% a year and it's gonna taper down to maybe 25% a year in like 10 to 15 years, something like that. So we're still well above what they're paying, what they would need to be paying out. Now of course There'll be some years that it's more and some years that it's less, like it's not gonna be a smooth ride. We're gonna have bull and bear seasons on the way. but the way I see it is it's fundamentally Workable. Like if you, like, the proviso is if you are sufficiently bullish on Bitcoin that you believe the, the return is greater than, call it twenty-five percent a year or twenty percent per year for the next twenty years Doesn't that mean you-- they actually, this is actually quite a, a good deal for them in that sense, and that there would be a lot of, you know, let's say retirees or like old boomers who want eight or ten dollars a year per share because they want some income and they're not willing to stomach the volatility of just hodling Bitcoin? What would you say to that?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "24:19", "start": 1459.15, "text": "No, definitely, you know, you, you make some interesting points, but I, I think that on a risk-adjusted basis, buying a treasury company versus buying Bitcoin, buying straight up Bitcoin is always gonna be a better, a better move if you want that exposure to Bitcoin. I also wanna go on that flip side of, you know, say you want to buy the preferreds, you want that kind of more stable- You know, eight to ten dollars coming in, and, you know, going back to your point as well on, you know, once, MicroStrategy issues these, whether it's, Strife, Stride, S T R K, yeah, once they've issued them, they will kind of trade on the open market. If the market thinks that, oh, I don't think MicroStrategy's gonna pay their eight dollars today, you might be able to actually get a, a higher APY because, you know, the bond itself on the open market is gonna- It's gonna be trading, at a lower price. But I, I think, you know, if it is, you know, for example, if you wanted to buy the prefers, this is another interesting thing as well. If you're interested in Bitcoin exposure, buy Bitcoin If you're, you know, let's say you're putting the Bitcoin bull thesis to the side, you, you, and you just wanna get some kind of stable, appreciation I don't think it would be a great idea to buy one of these common stocks, you know, of course, the volatility. You mean the preferred" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:53", "start": 1552.92, "text": "shares, preferred shares, yeah?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "25:55", "start": 1554.62, "text": "So, no, actually, in specific, you know, I, I don't think if you're trying to minimize risk, you wouldn't be looking at the common shares, but you may be looking-- Oh, no, no," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:03", "start": 1562.52, "text": "no. I see it like the common shares would be for the people who want more risk," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:08", "start": 1568.23, "text": "and the preferred shares are-- Exactly. Exactly. So it's kind of the You know, get it on your cold card and, you know, hold that. But if you want more risk and more return, then MSJR or these treasury companies, and if you want less- Then that's where these preferreds can come in, right? And, and to go" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "26:32", "start": 1592.1, "text": "back to the example of the preferreds, one thing I, I, I do foresee, likely happening is, some of these more risk-averse, sophisticated institutional investors, I mean, I could see a great reason for them to, buy something like, like, Strife and be at the very top of the capital stack. Also, forgive me if I- If I'm mixing up Strife and STRD, but basically, you know, if you wanna be at the very top of the capital stack and maybe you wanna go ahead and short the common stock. I could see a lot of, investors, doing this because, you know, the, the common stock, at a certain point, basically, you know, the common stock in a bear market would be dropping faster than the preferred itself. So I, I do almost see it as a type of, you know, a, a pyramid, if you will, and if you're gonna play with these companies, you, you wanna be at the very top. And so far today, from my understanding, Microstr- Strategy is really the only one that has been able to, issue these preferred shares. Everyone else, more or less that I've seen is, you know, chasing basically the at-the-money accretive dilution a-a-and so I, I don't wanna beat up on MicroStrategy too much because, you know, I do think there is that first mover's advantage there, You know, the, the way that they are taking on this debt, I think there is a chance that they might be able to survive basically Bitcoin's volatility. And, and that's the key here is kind of like you're saying, yes, we're both long-term Bitcoin bulls, but how these Bitcoin treasury companies are structured, that's gonna determine if you can kind of last, you know, last things out. MicroStrategy by issuing these preferreds, by having the flexibility of if they wanna pay these, these dividends or not, you know, some of these preferred shares, it's, it's optional, if the dividends need to be paid, and that kind of means that, you know, in a time of, of crisis, if you will, MicroStrategy's gonna have more levers to pull. and, and a lot of that is just by matter of the fact of how large the, the market for MicroStrategy itself is. The, the high volatility, the high volume, but, you know, these new, treasury companies that are being spun up, they don't have this kind of luxury. They, they, you know, they may be able to get some convertible debt, we've seen that, and a lot of them are just doing more and more, at-the-money issuances. So my, my problem is, is mostly with, you know, these kind of copycats that are, that are jumping on top of the trend and that- I'm not convinced basically there is enough, you know, that there's enough room to feed, feed everybody, so to speak, and especially, you know, if you, if you're not able to get an appetite for things like the preferreds You're pretty much just stuck with the, this, you know," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:43", "start": 1782.72, "text": "at the money ATM only, yeah. Now, exactly. I think where I maybe I agree slightly with you is that I think it, it is gonna be like a winner-take-most, right? Like I think in-- and it's probably gonna be the, the case that winner-takes-most in- Certain markets, right? Like Japan will have a winner, probably Metaplanet. The UK will have a winner, probably Smarter Web Co. You know, there'll be other country, maybe, Capital B or previously the Blockchain Group in France. Maybe they'll-- you know, the-- there's different ones in each country, and I think for tax and regulatory reasons, it just makes sense that people in each country, because maybe on their stock broking platforms and whatever, it's just easier to buy the one that's domestic, you know, or maybe- There's some tax reason like if you buy a US thing that you pay whatever thirty percent withholding for dividends or so, you know, there could be different tax and regulatory reasons why these things exist in the different countries. So while I agree with you that Not every copycat will make it. I think the point is that the people who are trying to do this in the other countries, I believe, you know, yes, you are You are essentially, if you were to buy these, you are essentially, you're, you're, you're hoping or you're betting effectively that they will reach the size and scale, s- you know, effective that they can reach the size and scale to issue preferreds. And once you have preferreds and not just like authorized, but like liquid and out there in the market, then you are in a better position to weather the next bear market. And so I guess that's kind of, maybe that's also the question as well, like, I don't know how long- How long this bull run goes, like maybe it we just sort of, steadily keep growing for a while and a bunch of these treasury companies, maybe some of them do get big enough to be able to have their own preferreds and now they can survive the next bear market or, keep buying during the next bear market. I, I guess there's a lot of these open questions and we don't know exactly how it all plays out, but that, that's my view. What do you think?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "31:49", "start": 1908.54, "text": "So I guess, you know, would it be fair then to say as well that," }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "31:54", "start": 1914.36, "text": "you know, let, let's put the, users that are chasing Bitcoin beta to the side. You know, we're saying that the, the reason that some of these treasury companies may continue to exist is that, i-it's because there's, you know, some type of regulatory structure that, i-is holding them back from either buying a spot ETF or buying the actual underlying. Now, I, if I had to make a bet that, you know, say, say we do believe that the Bitcoin one million dollar per coin future is going to happen I, I don't know if I would make the bet that that happens before regulatory, you know, regulatory, the regulatory frameworks change and make it easier to be able to invest in these vehicles. I mean, for the longest time, people didn't think we would ever have an ETF. so, you know, i-if we are really seeing Bitcoin take off, that this like million dollar future is, you know, in the near future, I have a hard time believing Believing that, you would still see these kind of barriers to entry for being able to, participate in a more tax advantaged vehicle that can actually behave more like an ETF." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:14", "start": 1994.36, "text": "So when you said a one million, what's your kind of timeframe you're thinking there? Like, 'cause the way I'm thinking about it is, like, if I just look at the power law and just kind of look at the bands and the kind of, you know, on the trajectory, like on the trend, I think power law or power trend, on the trend, it'll be about a million in twenty thirty-three. So we're talking like eight years from now. Now maybe it, it's possible, obviously we have these bull runs, so it's possible that we, let's say That could happen in like, I don't know, twenty thirty, twenty thirty-one, who knows, right? and then, and then it, it gets to like on that trend about ten million in twenty forty-five. So that's kind of, I'm seeing this as like a You know, this is like a twenty-year play, you know? So I'm seeing it like there's this fiat regulatory arbitrage that exists from between now and hyperbitcoinization, and that could be twenty years out, could be thirty years out. So I'm seeing it like, this is a, you know, we're gonna, you know, strap in and we're gonna, we're gonna ride a few of these on the way there, whereas I take it maybe your view is more like a million dollars could happen kind of soon." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "34:24", "start": 2063.62, "text": "You know, even, you know, whether it's, you know, honestly, I would say in terms of how long it takes, you know, I could see it happening sooner than eight years, but that- What I, I guess I'm trying to really point out here is that I think that, you know, regulatory, the regulatory frameworks, you know, actually enabling people to have access to Bitcoin or Bitcoin investment vehicles is going to be closely, tied to the price of Bitcoin. So that, you know, if Bitcoin is continuing to rise in price, it means that, you know, it's kind of indicative of adoption in some sort of sense, and that it becomes most likely an easier, regulatory regime. I don't think it's any coincidence that, you know, we look at the last election, we look at the price right now, and we look at how favorable the current administration, has been towards Bitcoin. I don't think that these things are, by coincidence. you know, people's opinions Opinions and positions, they do tend to follow where the money is going. And, you know, you think about the issuers, of the, of the Bitcoin ETFs, you know, your, your, your Black Rocks, et cetera. They, they are leaving money on the table by allowing these small treasury companies to issue what I would also describe as fairly inefficient vehicles if the end goal is to just get that, you know, that, that baseline exposure to Bitcoin. It kind of really depends on there being this, you know, some type of arbitrage available. You know, as, as soon as there's not a justification for the MNAV premium, it, it kind of, it, it stops the flywheel, if you will." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:15", "start": 2174.72, "text": "Okay. Possible. But I, I see it like- It change takes time, and the kind of tax rate change that we're talking, like for that kind of thing to happen, I think it just does take, you know, that eight to, you know, twenty years time, right? Like I think it's just maybe that's also a part of our disagreement, whereas you think that, you know, the world is gonna adopt Bitcoin sooner and therefore the tax and the regime and all the-- and not just the tax part, but also like fund mandates, right? Like that there may be funds who are only allowed to buy bonds or only allowed to buy- certain kinds of equities or don't forget index inclusion, right? So MSTR and the others as they grow and they become-- and what, what are we seeing? We're seeing a lot of these treasury companies become the winner in their local market, right? Like AltBG or the Blockchain Group was like the top performing stock in Europe, MetaPlanet was the top performing stock last year just in the world. I think SmarterWebCo is like the top so far in this, in this year. So Like, I think there's, it's, it's difficult for us to sort of step back and be like, \"Well, there's nothing going on there,\" if they actually are outperforming Bitcoin. So I think, yes, to your point about like, okay, if it's like a regulatory reason that's kind of giving them an advantage over the ETFs, but don't forget these, the treasury, the common equity of these treasury companies, the public ones, I, I view them as designed to Outperform Bitcoin, right? They're designed to do more. Now, to be clear, they're more risky, they're more volatile, but they are designed to go faster than Bitcoin. And so while we'll see on the short term, and that's why some, some people are kind of complaining that, \"Oh, why is Bitcoin price ran up to 118K recently, but MSTR hasn't like pumped up to its new all-time highs yet? Why?\" I think it's more just like- The, you know, it takes time. It might be like another year or two before MSTR, I don't know, maybe not a year, but it, it takes-- you have to, if you're an investor in these things, it's gonna be volatile, and you, you can't expect it to kind of instantly outperform Bitcoin. It's more like a- You know, one year, two year, three year basis that it outperforms Bitcoin, at least in the fiat financial term sense. Of course, you, you and I would always talk about, you know, not your keys, not your coins, self custody, etcetera. But, you know, as long as you understand the difference between BTC on chain and equity and debt, and you're holding equity that you are expecting fiat outperformance, that's, that's what counts here, right? So, I," }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "38:48", "start": 2328.38, "text": "I, I guess- You know, we're, we're, we're, we're centering on a couple like, you know, fundamental assumptions that, you know, there, there would be this kind of reason for, for people that, you know, aren't able to basically get that direct exposure to Bitcoin. and, you know, I, I think that's, you know, we're, we're making, say, predictions, if you will, on how long that kind of regulatory arbitrage can last." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "39:19", "start": 2358.69, "text": "I, I'd also say though, and we're also, I'd say, you know, fundamentally, I think we also agree that we are making a somewhat time-based bet. Like you said, if, if we have to get, you know, a, a turnaround on our investment in a short time period, these vehicles probably aren't gonna be the best for us. W- you know, they, they work out probably best if you're, if you're going to be a patient investor. But, you know, I think maybe one thing that would be interesting to, interesting to discuss is About, you know, the, the incentive for, for people to get involved in these vehicles and how I really think that the common stock shareholder is really getting the worst risk-adjusted deal in the end, and how I think it makes perfect sense, you know, let's say I'm a long-time holder, you know, I've got, you know, a hundred or a thousand Bitcoin built up that, that I've been saving, it would make perfect sense for me to find a- A shell corporation, you know, maybe some kind of random dead company, and this is essentially what's been going on for the past few weeks when we see these copycats is, you know, we find some publicly traded company that, you know, probably isn't actually making significant cash flows, and, well, why don't I go ahead and seed this, turn it into a Bitcoin treasury company, and all of a sudden, if, you know, say I seed this new Bitcoin treasury company with a thousand Bitcoin, and the, the stock is able to trade at, you know- A two x mNav right from the get go. I've all of a sudden just figured out a pretty clever way, clever way for me to sell my Bitcoin at double the price and, Yeah, and ba-basically, you know, sell my Bitcoin at double the price or, if I don't sell all of my shares that are allocated, 'cause I, you know, a lot of these they do have lockup periods, but I, even if I don't sell that immediately, I'm gonna be at the top of the capital structure. If things collapse, if things don't go well, you know, the way that your, your shares may have been issued, you, you might be able to ensure that, you know, you're not really putting your one thousand Bitcoin at risk. So Part of it is, you know, I, I don't think people are, are acting in, in bad faith, or, you know, even yourself, you know, acting as an investor for these, you know, I, I don't think any of us are acting in bad faith. I think it's really just about- Do we really understand, all of the risks and, and the risks that we, we want to take on? And I think if you're able to get in at the ground floor of these, You know, that's, that's an incredible opportunity. There's almost zero risk for you to be one of the first investors in one of these, one of these companies, or let's say you're acting as an advisor, like, you know, if we looked at, Meta Planet's balance sheet, you know, I think Meta Planet, is full of, Convicted individuals, you know, Dylan, Dylan LeClaire, you know, can tell he's, you know, he's, he's a great dude, he believes in the mission just like we do, but, you know, if you look at their balance sheet right now, the advisors that are being compensated the most is, I, I believe it's, Eric Trump, maybe Donald Trump Jr., one of the, one of the Trump sons, as well as David Bailey, and they're sitting on," }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "42:43", "start": 2563.48, "text": "I believe it in their locked up shares. Now those do unlock over a period of about three years, but I don't know if people are aware that if you're just a buyer of the common stock Before you kind of get paid, this, this investment vehicle is making sure that their advisors are getting their shares, that their advisors are getting paid, that the executives are getting paid. And You know, my, my worry is that, not everyone is going to be able to essentially get out of these vehicles unscathed. And maybe another question to, to, to flip, for Eustaphan is, what do you think the end game is for these, these treasury vehicles? You know, say, say we do get to hyper-bitcoinization, the dollar doesn't go anywhere, or, you know, the dollar goes to zero? I mean, eventually you have to think that these, these corporations would-- I don't know, maybe they're gonna dissolve and give out the Bitcoin. Like, what is the, the true end game? Or you, you'd mentioned potentially trying to financialize the balance sheet, but- i-it doesn't sound like, you know, what are they gonna be doing that is something that someone else can't do? That's, that's another fundamental issue that I'm seeing is, you know, w-w-what is the innovation? anybody?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:13", "start": 2652.89, "text": "Okay, so let me respond to a few points there. I would say to the point about, you know, people getting in on the ground floor, don't forget There's risk with these things, and it's easier said than done, right? Like I think, yeah, there are, there are people doing copycats and whatever, but like I said, I think it's gonna be winner takes most in, you know, big markets around the world. So there'll be maybe one, maybe two kind of, players. And so certainly people can be putting up coins into ventures that don't make it, that don't win in that market. So I think there is risk, especially early stage, because You know, you need partners and you need people to sort of help you put it together, right? It's no, it's not, it's not a one man band kind of thing, you know? You need like, you know, people bringing capital markets expertise and Bitcoin people and, you know, various, employees and staff and, you know, people, expertise, right? Whether it's capital markets aspects or legal or accounting and so on. so I would say there's risk, right? It's compensation for risk, just like, you know, equity in a startup Been in, you know, in the Bitcoin world, as an early employee or a founder, you might have equity and, you know, you got in on the ground floor. Are you dumping that on REIT? Well, it's more like you took risk to build that business, that opportunity, and the opportunity in this case is more like, can these entities tap these huge markets of debt and, and equity? In a way that you and I as individuals can't do. And I believe that answer is yes. So that's kind of my fundamental answer. Now, to the second point you raised, which is like, \"What's the end game? \" For me, I think it's-- the future's difficult to predict, right? So none of us knows, but maybe it's kind of like a Berkshire Hathaway situation, right? There'll be all these shareholders and- You know, they, they dis-- they, they, they treat it like, this is like a big holding company that holds other companies, or it could be that some of them are like a bank. They try to become like a Bitcoin bank. you, you could sort of, if you kind of squint, and you could sort of loosely say that about MSTR even now, that it kind of- that they are paying out, you know, they have these kind of financial, these securities, these financial products, right? Strike, strike, strike, stretch, et cetera. You could say that they're kind of like a, a quasi bank, but not in the traditional, you know, with a credit card and a debit card and an ATM network. you know, so it could be that they become banks, it could be that they become insurance companies, it could be that they, you know, for-- maybe the play is, look, there's this, this gold rush Let's say ten to twenty years, and the gold rush now is to build your balance sheet and grow your balance sheet, grow your company, and then it becomes a game of, well What businesses are you going to acquire? Because, okay, to your point, long term, let's say hyperbitcoinization happens in, I don't know, maybe not twenty, maybe twenty-five or thirty years from now. Maybe at that point, who knows? There's different views. Some people have the view that fiat is going away, right, that like, you know, it's gonna be Bitcoin and everything's denominated in Sats. Other people have the view that, no, actually fiat isn't going away, that there will be-- Now, I don't agree with that view, but there" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:35", "start": 2855.32, "text": "Kind of just like people will just still have fiat, and these, these, Bitcoin Treasury companies will just keep, keep on going because it'll always be more, Bitcoin will still be growing even at that point faster, you know, than what, the fiat, the typical fiat investments would do. Now, my view is more on the, we're going to the Bitcoin standard, and it's gonna be denominated in sats, but it's just a long time, and none of us can predict when. It could be thirty years, it could be- It could even be after our lifetimes, for all we know." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "48:08", "start": 2887.72, "text": "And, and it, it's absolutely, and, and it's hard, of course, you know, I, I tend to agree with you, first of all, because it's hard to imagine a future where, you know, say Bitcoin for, for thirty years straight has been, you know, growing twenty percent, against the dollar, even, even more against other fiat currencies, you'd have to think eventually people would be like, \"Okay, like, the, the, the jig is up, like, I" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "48:35", "start": 2915.3, "text": "The scenario you're describing of, you know, what if these become kind of banks of some sort or, I mean, really, you know, some type of investment vehicle perhaps? And I would, I would say that, you know, if they do become, say, they, they operate as if they're some type of, you know, well-capitalized hedge fund, like Berkshire Hathaway. And actually, I mean, that's a good one to, to study. I'm not sure if, what Berkshire Hathaway's MNAV is. You know, I, I an interesting thing to take a look at, but you'd-- I'd have to believe that, you know, the, the mNav wouldn't really be a, a premium And that there, there's not really anything different here than, you know, some type of hedge fund. And it, it takes me back to, you know, I think this might be an interesting segue into the kind of nineteen twenties, stock bubble. you know, I think there are-- what I wanna paint maybe a, a, comparison towards is the structure of the investment vehicles and that- I'm not convinced that the story really makes a huge difference, you know, whether the story is it's because we're, we're, you know, creating this, we're, pursuing this type of strategy with Bitcoin as the underlying. You also have the ETH folks, you know, they're, they're doing the same thing, but part of their-- Of course," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:05", "start": 3005.01, "text": "as a Maxi, I believe those strategies will fail, but I think-- Yeah, yeah. But I would-- My answer would just be, this time is different, truly, because of Bitcoin. But- Go on." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "50:14", "start": 3014.22, "text": "Yep, yep. And, and you know, I, I, I'd, right there with you. You know, I, I think these, these altcoin treasury companies are fundamentally gonna, gonna fail even worse, but they do, I'd say, have, you know, an interesting, dynamic into their story of, hey, we've got yield. You know, these, the Bitcoin treasury companies, they really do have a little bit of this problem where there's not really any underlying yield being created from the Bitcoin, and if we look at the- Story being told back in the nineteen twenties, trust boom." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "50:50", "start": 3050.34, "text": "back in the twenties, basically there were these investment trusts that would buy other securities, other stocks, and they would basically say like, hey, we bought a stock that's, you know, making, twenty percent, you know, returns. You know, so usually these stocks were paying some type of dividends, but then the investment vehicle itself would end up- Ended up trading, for a premium. And actually, there's a, an interesting quote from, a guy named John Galbraith. he was a Canadian, Canadian American economist, like back in the, the thirties and the forties and fifties. And I just wanna read something quickly that he had said. He said, \"The, the measure of this respect for financial genius was the relation of the market value of one outstanding, one of the- The outstanding securities of the investment trust to the value of the securities that they owned. Normally, the securities of the trust were considered, were worth considerably more than the property it owned, sometimes even twice as much. We're, we're seeing MNAV basically again in the past. There'd be no ambiguity on the point, the only property of the investment trust was the common and preferred stocks, debentures, mortgages, bonds, and cash that it held. Yet, had these securities all been sold on the open market, the proceeds would have invariable been less, often much less than the current value of the outstanding securities, on the balance sheet. And, actually James Chanos, you, you just shared like an interesting, interesting stat, I think it was a few weeks ago, that, you know, if you look at the amount of capital being built up by Bitcoin treasury companies lately, that it's, I think it's, it's matching ten percent of the, the savings rate of the entire US economy. So like there, there is a, it's a substantial amount of capital being sucked up into these investment vehicles. And a very similar thing was happening Happening back, back during this, investment trust craze, if you will, back in, nineteen twenty-eight, there were, I think, yeah, the average was, oh, sorry, excuse me There was an average of one treasury company being, issued each day, and the only difference though is what they were, they were buying other stocks. and by the end of nineteen twenty-nine, it represented a third of all the capital issued in the US stock market, period. And the reason I, I think these parallels are really important is, you know, if we look at the similarities between what happened in the nineteen twenties, nineteen twenty stock crash and, and Kind of the direction we're going right now. I don't think, to be clear, I don't think there's systemic risk posed by these treasury companies today, but if they continue to get more and more popular and we do start to see, like we said, there's probably not gonna be room for a ton of these to exist. Maybe you get room for, you know, a few to exist in their local markets, you get a winner, but You know, what, what happens if this thing kind of starts to get out of hand? I think you could see a massive crash, and ultimately, you know, what happened in the nineteen twenties was these investment trusts, investment trusts, they actually started dumping their underlying shares to try and rescue the, the, the common stock. It's kind of like this reflexive collapse where, You know, say your MNAV is at a discount, you sell off some, some of whatever the treasury is to buy back the stock, but then you harm investor confidence because the underline, you know, you're adding selling pressure to the underlying, creates this kind of reflexive loop, and, You know, this was a huge driver of the, stock market crash, back in like, back in the thirties, and, the Investment Act of nineteen forty was created Strictly to stop this kind of behavior. and my feel here is that, you know, you, you don't know the incentives or the moral framework of, of all of the promoters, but, you know, certainly back in the nineteen twenty stock crash, especially towards the end, you know, you're getting all kind of different promoters, and I'm worried that we may end up seeing something similar where you have anyone willing to promote, you know, a treasury company and- That the only reason that a lot of them are existing is, you know, you're not allowed to do these with under-- with a securities underlying, but you could do it with commodities. and I think I even saw, there was like a, a gold treasury company, I think they were maybe like stable coins of gold or something like that, but There's, you know, I, I think they're basically trying to open, you know, take advantage of, basically the, the last remaining way of doing the same scheme that existed over a hundred years ago. And, you know, honestly, I wouldn't be too surprised if, if you do have a couple of these blow up, could there be a regulatory risk where even just the entire structure, you know, of trust companies gets shut down, where you can't run a trust company with securities? You also can't do the same thing, with commodities." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:29", "start": 3389.27, "text": "So I think to me, the-- coming back to what I was saying earlier, I think this time the, the Bitcoin aspect of it is different. What I would say is, as an example, even in that nineteen twenties example with Treasury companies blowing up and whatever In, you know, in this go-around, I think what we may see is M&A. We may see like, okay, yeah, maybe a bear market happens and maybe some of these treasury companies get kind of-- there's some who go Pac-Man on the others, right? Like they just kind of are big and maybe they are able to do mergers and acquisitions activity. And remember, the underlying Bitcoin is a global, liquid, twenty-four-seven market. That's very different to kind of the treasury companies aspect of what you're talking about in the nineteen twenties with like different companies, different assets and- Yeah, yeah. I would say that actually genuinely is the thing that's different this time, and what we're effectively doing, right? As my friend Safteen would say, it's like, it's kind of ironic that people lament that- you know, this guy, maybe someone worked really hard to make sandwiches or make a restaurant or do a cafe when they could have just bought and held Bitcoin. And Saftey's answer to that was kind of like, \"Well, maybe actually stopping central banking is the most profit- profitable venture of our time, and that actually, you know, if you adopted Bitcoin, and if more people did adopt Bitcoin, then eventually we do get to that kind of hyperbitcoinization state, and then...\" At that point, I think it, it might have more conver- it might have converged more, and then at that point, it is more about trad- kind of traditional business. The other point I, I think it would be good for you to answer as well is, remember, we are already living in a world with crazy PE valuations on fiat companies anyway, right? Like, look at Nvidia and Tesla and so on. You know, people are buying these companies at some, you know, huge, you know, they're, they're buying it at a very small fraction of what the, annual earnings is. Like," }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "58:28", "start": 3508.14, "text": "do valuations and, you know, cash flows even matter, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:33", "start": 3512.98, "text": "Yeah, so I think, I think that's kind of where we're at, but I acknowledge that there is risk, and I think people should acknowledge that, yeah, if you are an equity holder of these, you could get double wrecked, right? Especially in a Bitcoin bear market, and if your Bitcoin treasury company isn't successful at growing to a certain size and scale or has some other kind of- Blow up or failure or government seizure or government regulatory risk, certainly. So the way I see it is, you should first and foremost self-custody Bitcoin, and then only with a smaller portion, that's where you should, if you, if you wanted to do this treasury company thing, that's where you should think about it, but it's not, it shouldn't be, you know, the, the lion's share, of how you do things. But I be- I guess I believe fundamentally that You know, in ten, fifteen years time, some of these will still exist, and there will be a bunch of them that survived through this, you know, through this, you know, through these bull and bear market cycles on the way that You know, in a, let's say sustainable in the sense of from here until hyperbitcoinization, like because of the tax, the tr- the regulatory, the, some of the, these different arbitragers that they're able to tap into. So that's kind of- That's kind of, I guess, that can be maybe my closing statement, and you wanna take your, you know, have a closing statement, and give us your, your final argument on, on this, and we'll call it an episode." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "01:00:04", "start": 3604.75, "text": "that thing that sounds great. And yeah, don't, don't wanna come across as strictly a hater here, and I, I think we do, you know, we do land on a extremely reasonable middle ground. you know, not your keys, not your coins. You know, the vast majority of your exposure to Bitcoin, you should own spot. But, you know, if you do decide to partake in these, you know, these Bitcoin treasury vehicles, you should look at it as increasing your risk, potentially increasing your returns. but, you know, what And, you know, you see some people getting more excited about the treasury companies than the underlying. You know, they dump all the underlying, they buy the treasury company. You know, as long as you're not doing that No complaints whatsoever. And I, I think it really just comes down to, you know, I don't think that it's a sure bet. You know, basically, I think we both agree on that. These treasury companies aren't a sure bet. I think the disagreement comes on, you know, could some of these hang around? You know, like I said at the beginning, my, my, my first inst-instant is, you know, the, these aren't necessarily doing anything past, you know, taking advantage essentially of like financial- Services, financial innovation. I, I am a Muslim, so I have a Muslim background, and, you know, just part of the values as well is, you know, if something is somehow sustained on, loans or, you know, kind of gets close to usury, basically just feels like to me on a first principles perspective, it does feel, you know, there are differences this time versus the forties and, and thirties, but that I still have a feeling that this won't end well, but as long- As long as you have the vast, ex- of your exposure in Bitcoin, the underlying king asset, then you should just be, be just fine." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:54", "start": 3714.92, "text": "Right. Yeah. And I, as I, I've, I've mentioned elsewhere that I do understand-- I would say the two principal objections I can think of are, one, the cypherpunk objection of like, \"Hey, not your keys, not your coins,\" you know, it should be, peer-to-peer asset that you use in the self-sufficient way. And two, the religious objection, right? Which You know, usury and, you know, the, the riba, concept. and so I, I certainly, I, you know, I see those as the two main objections, but I just see it like not everybody, like I see it as, well, not everybody will hold those, or it's kind of not a zero or a one, it's not a binary kind of thing. So anyway, but, yeah, thanks for joining me. And, where can people find you, and, any, Anything else you wanna mention?" }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "01:02:47", "start": 3767.09, "text": "I appreciate that. Yep, if you guys wanna find me, follow me on Twitter, Jad Mubaslat handles champ bronc too. and yeah, also follow Sonoda. If you guys are doing commercial, industrial, energy contracts, you're involved in that, hit us up, we can get that money flowing a little bit faster for you. Fantastic." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:06", "start": 3786.23, "text": "Well, thank you for joining me." }, { "speaker": "jad_mubaslat", "time": "01:03:07", "start": 3787.68, "text": "Awesome, thank you, Stefan. Take care." } ] }