Michael Saylor did the homework, and then when Michael Saylor got done doing the homework, he couldn't sleep. He said, Anthony, I couldn't sleep once I figured out what Bitcoin was. It's like, how am I gonna buy enough of this network? How am I gonna do it? And so he's in. So I'm telling you, on the margin, there's gonna be a legion of people this year that do that homework and get long Bitcoin.
Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is Ryan Sean Adams. David is out today, and I'm here to help you become more Bankless. Guys, different type of podcast today. We have Anthony Scaramucci on the podcast. Wanted to have him on to get the tradfi perspective, the Wall Street perspective on everything that is going on in crypto. Of course, 2024 has been a year marked by Wall Street entering crypto in a very big way. We've got the ETFs. We've got people like
Larry Fink weighing in on it. And now at the end of 2024, we have a new administration taking the helm of which Anthony knows a thing or two about. We talk about a few things. Number one, the election of Donald Trump, what this means for crypto, two, the likelihood of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Anthony is actually very bullish on this and he explains why. Number three, how crypto peeled is Wall Street, actually? There are more evangelism to be done. What's left to do there? And number four, advice.
for investors who are trying to make it to the other side, not just in this market, but in all markets. Guys, let's get right to the episode with Anthony Scaramucci. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible, including our number one recommended crypto exchange. That's Kraken. Go create an account.
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after his brief tenure as the White House communications director under last tenure of President Donald Trump. And he's also coming out with a book in January as next month called the little book of Bitcoin, what you need to know that Wall Street has already figured out Anthony Scaramucci. Welcome to Bankless.
I deserved to be fired. I never complained about that. That wasn't anything I could buy. I get it. Why don't we start there actually? Because this year was a pretty big election. It had definitely some outcomes for crypto. Did you have any takes on this election going into it? Well, I mean, listen, I got it wrong. I didn't think Donald Trump was gonna win. I said that openly. I looked at the map and looked at the demography of the country. And I said, I don't think he's gonna win, but ultimately you have two choices.
And if I'm being fair, I think Kamala Harris had a hard road. It was 107 days. It was very hard to build a campaign. She had people working for her that weren't her people. She inherited the Joe Biden campaign. Literally when she went into the convention, Ryan, it said Joe Biden on the platform. It was sort of a rushed thing. And Donald Trump in 2024,
When I was working for him in 2016 during that campaign, he was a very famous person and he was probably in the top 100 celebrities in the world. When he ran in 2024, he was by far the most famous person in the world. So he had name recognition and name saturation,
on all six of the continents that have people. And so it's hard. You're somebody that's not well known. Ryan, the day before the election, the most searchable term related to the election was, did Joe Biden drop out? Actually, hilarious and sad. A little bit that the American population is so uninformed.
Yeah, so, but it just gives you a sense of what was going on. And so for me, what I would say to you is I figured he says things that I thought people would be like, okay, we can't really return to that, right? So he's talking about non-white immigrants, like they're subhuman.
He says he wants to deport 15 million people. He said last Sunday that if you're in the country and you were born here and therefore you had birthright citizenship, if your mother was not here legally, well, we're going to revoke your citizenship and we're going to deport the whole family. So let me give you a real fact set. I know somebody in the country 30 years, not here legally, has had three children.
ages 18 to 25. They're all American citizens. They've never worked or lived anywhere else but this country. And so what Donald Trump is saying is he'll kick the mom out and then pull those kids out of their schools, out of their jobs, and deport them alongside of their mom. So I looked at dad and said, okay, I don't think the American people want that. Now on the flip side,
If you're a Wall Street person, Wall Street said, no, he doesn't really mean that. He said 100 things, 20 things he said were really good. And those are the things he really means. The other 80 things that he said that are nonsensical or potentially would hurt the country, he doesn't really mean. So we'll have to see what happens. You know, people are talking about executive orders that are going to get signed on January 20th.
that start the process of deportation. If that's the case, I think it's going to be a very ugly thing for the country. If he's not going to do that, God bless. Look, I want him to do well. He's the president. She lost. He won. I hope he does well. I think he's got phenomenal political instincts because the Harris team and vice president Harris herself did not understand
the negative impact that they were having politically related to crypto. Yes. And so you had arbitrary and capricious behavior, you know, things that these people accused Donald Trump of doing, frankly, they were doing. That would be Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren. So the law said that you had to approve a Bitcoin ETF. Gary Gensler said, no.
But you're not above the law, Gary. This is what the law says. You can't be arbitrary and capricious in the administration of the law. But Gary said, no. And so he delayed personally. He personally delayed the Bitcoin DTF for two years. That should have been approved in January or February of 22. It didn't get approved until 24. Now, you could also say, well, you know what? We got lucky. Maybe that helped the industry because it exposed Sam, Bank, been free to expose
leverage in the system like three arrows and leverage in the system like Celsius and others imploded and maybe he cleaned out by accident a lot of the undesirables in the crypto markets but still people are upset they went into the voting booth and they voted people out that were anti-crypto fair shake the political action committee they went forty eight for forty eight on these campaigns sharered brown
And I know you're younger than me, Ryan, and perhaps your viewership is younger than me. But these senior senators, they have a 95% chance of getting reelected, 95% chance. And Sherrod Brown, who was the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, a friend in Acolyte of Elizabeth Warren, Mr. Anti-Crypto himself, got blown out of the seat.
$40 million of crypto money, what did that campaign? And so the irony is the Democrats still don't understand it. When you meet with them and do a debriefing, they don't understand it. They've got some SEC commissioner who's mis-anti-crypto and they're trying to jam her in here before Joe Biden's term is out. So it's like, okay, guys, you're going to lose every election for the next 20 years. You know, the American people have spoken. They want
to own crypto currencies and they want crypto currencies in their portfolio and they know that there's a great competition with other nations and they want to make sure that the united states can maintain it's mantle of financial services leadership so what the hell are you guys doing and give donald trump credit for that he understood it.
He raised money off of it. He went to the Bitcoin conference. He's given several speeches. I was with Eric Trump this past week. Now, I'm no longer friendly with Eric, but I saw his speech at the Bitcoin thing, and I applaud Eric for what he said.
You know, politics is rough. You know, once Trump went after my wife on Twitter, that was the end of my relationship with him. You know, I'm not Ted Cruz. Do I look like Ted Cruz? Because I'm not Ted Cruz. You're not allowed to do that in my family. Your take then as well. I mean, this is certainly the crypto take and it's hard to know sometimes whether we're in a bubble of this is like,
The anti-crypto army on the Democrat side, Elizabeth Warren, Gary Gensler, that whole cohort. And then the lack of like Kamala Harris pivot on crypto in any way. She wouldn't say a thing in her campaign that was pro-crypto. Do you think that cost her the election or at least in some part? Among the things, there were three things that cost her the election. Number one,
She was having a very hard time defining herself. Again, Donald Trump was everywhere. Every podcast that Donald Trump went on, she should have went on. She wouldn't do it. She went on Fox News. It was one week prior to the election. And she should have been on Fox News for all 107 days. She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. She couldn't explain the situation going on in the economy. The economy is actually improving.
Wages have grown, wages have frankly outpaced inflation. Lower and middle income wages last four years. Inflation has been terrible for our society, but the wages have been better than the inflation. And there was a couple of pieces of legislation that they passed that was quite good, the reshoring of manufacturing, $250 billion, the CHIPS Act, moving microprocessor foundries into the United States. The bridges, roads, and tunnels
that had been rebuilt during the inflation reduction act, wages went up as a result of that. So she couldn't explain it. And then the third thing, and this is something that Trump was masterful on. Again, we have to be objective. There's a culture in our society that most Americans don't like. It's the cancel culture. It's the pronoun designation culture.
It's the you said something mean, so therefore we're going to knock you out of your job. And there were moms, you know, 55% of the white women voted for Donald Trump. 46% of all women.
voted for Donald Trump, and when they came out of the polling booth, they say, had enough of this. We made a vote to protect our kids, our sons, our brothers, our husbands. By the way, it was so resonating that AOC, who looked at the cross tabs on her election, people voted for her, Ryan, but many of her supporters split the ticket and voted for Donald Trump.
And so she asked her supporters why they told her, and then the very next day she took the pronoun designation off of her Twitter feed. So the Democrats have to shape up. They've got to return to
blue collar, lower and middle income families with solutions, and they've got to cut this nonsense about scolding people about the way they live, or scolding people about the way they talk. I really believe that. Now, having said all of that, it was still a very close election. I know President Trump likes to say that he won by a landslide, and it was an overwhelming mandate, and all this doesn't, but he didn't. He's got one member of the House more than the Democrats.
he won by a couple million votes great because most people didn't think it was going to win the popular vote but not great when you compare it to sixteen of the most recent presidential elections i think he's got the second
Most narrow is, if you will, the second narrow is victory. But in that list, Anthony, you didn't mention crypto at all in that list of three. So like, at least crypto, we like to think that we were important. We were sort of an election issue or tech. I mean, it was for some people. Well, I thought that was the first one. I was saying there were three other things in addition to her stance on crypto. Yeah.
No, I think crypto really hurt her. Yeah. And I think crypto really hurt them in the Congress, in the Senate and in the House. With Schrod. Yeah, Schrod Brown. And those shared Brown. The guy Casey from Pennsylvania got knocked out by McCormick. Right. I really hurt them. I think there's a lot of people in crypto that hope that crypto is a bipartisan issue, like moving forward, right? And then I hope maybe the anti-crypto army is kind of nullified in the Democratic Party that is just like no longer has teeth, that it's a thing of the past.
that your crypto returns to a bipartisan issue. Do you think Democrats are really like, have they learned their lesson? I mean, you're pointing out the example of this vote for Caroline Crenshaw, SEC commissioner that I believe was like this week. They're putting her up for vote. And I heard that Brian Armstrong, the crypto industry was basically like, hey, Congress, be careful how you vote on this one because we're watching. And remember, fair shake. And remember the races that like we impacted double the money next time. So there was 250.
million dollars that went into these campus, it'll be doubled. Yeah. Okay. So have they learned the lesson? No. No. Well, I said that they haven't learned the lesson. I've been on all tops. I can't believe that. That seems so. Shoot yourself in the foot. That seems so. Well, I asked the question to some of these Democrats, and I'm going to ask you the question. I want you to give me the answer. I know it's your podcast, but let me ask you this question. Did Democrats win any votes
being anti-crypto and having a quote-unquote anti-crypto army the democrats win any vote zero the democrat did you win any electoral college no one votes for a politician because their anti-crypto i can't believe that voter exists okay so that's my answer so what i said to these guys what are you doing exactly
You know, the rest of the world has embraced crypto. I mean, China has it, but trust me, China's coming into the swimming pool again. You just watch. It's just a matter of time. But the Western world has embraced it. All we're asking for is fair regulation. We're not asking for no regulation. We want there to be safety. We want there to be transparency. We want to eliminate fraud. It's just better for all of us.
but you tell me you know i think these guys did not get it just the fact that they put her up in the lame duck sex session post election is a sign they don't get it and i'll say something that worries me if you don't mind because you have really smart people come on your podcast and we have to influence these people we do not want crypto
And what I mean by crypto, it's regulation and the manifestation of its growth in the United States to be owned solely by President Trump. We want this to be a bipartisan issue. Let me tell you something that they did that also hurt them. Maybe this would be fifth on the list. In January of 2021, Joe Biden repealed all of the executive orders related to the border restrictions that Donald Trump put in place.
And he said these things were inhumane. And because Trump did it, we hated and Trump's an evil person. And so we're going to revoke him. But if you don't like Donald Trump or you think he's a bad guy, analyze some of the policies, some of these policies are quite good. And that was catastrophic for the Democrats. And what's at risk here, Ryan, Donald Trump likes it.
Donald Trump is bad, so therefore now we will do the opposite of Donald Trump. You agree with me, right? So we have to get these guys off of that and we have to make sure that this is a bipartisan thing. Remember China and our defense of our industries against China using tariffs was a good idea by Donald Trump.
It wasn't embraced immediately by the Democrats, but they now both in a bipartisan way embrace it. We've got to get them to embrace crypto the same way. I'm sorry, I think I overstepped you, but I just wanted to say that. No, I was just going to agree with you. And I don't know if that's a solvable problem, kind of the whipsaw sort of effect, which is like, I just saw a clip earlier this week from MSNBC, and they were talking about Trump's advocacy for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, right?
And of course, like, they never talk about crypto. They never talk about Bitcoin. But in this context, because Trump is so pro Bitcoin, pro crypto, they have to whip saw on the other side of it, right? And this is like almost like makeup reasons why they don't like it. I want to ask you maybe a more tactical question because it does seem like obviously
We had an anti-crypto administration, at least like the executive branch, we had operation choke point, we had Gary Gensler, we had all of these things. What do you think about the cabinet and some of the administrative positions? You got SEC, the name is Paul Atkins, we've got CFTC chair.
Lots of good names around there. Some are a mercenary who's been on the show, Brian Quinten's possibilities. We've got a crypto czar type position. We've got maybe favorable treasury as well. I mean, what do you think about this administration that Trump is putting in place with respect to its crypto posture? Yeah, this is good port.
It's funny, you know, that thing we're talking about astrology on your podcast, but Trump is a Gemini, right? So he's got, he's a twin. He's got two people in one body, right? He's got the evil bad twin, and he's got the good twin, right? And so you get a mixed bag with the guy. And the stuff coming out on crypto is, I think fantastic. I think you learn when you do these things, when I was on his transition team in 2016, you learn that personnel is policy. And so Bessent,
positive on crypto understands it, wants us to be a force in crypto. Atkins, positive on crypto, understands the libertarian concepts of it, wants the United States to fairly regulate crypto. Howard Lutnik, he told Anthony Popliano, he's got hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin. I guess he's going to have to put that in a blind trust at this point, but he's Secretary of Commerce, loves crypto.
So personnel being policy, and those are just some of them. I mean, there's a whole list of others, you know, what about David Sachs? You know, David Sachs is going to go be the quarterback inside the White House to help run AI and crypto strategy. I think the position have power, by the way, the cryptos are things. See, it's interesting. It doesn't have to have power, but it can have influence. And so meaning everything is coming into your field of vision.
And you're like, okay, let me go to the president on this. It's important. President certainly has power. He'll call administrative agencies, he'll call senators and House of Representatives to move things for me. Or he can provide context or he can provide advice. Do you see what I mean? And so I think it doesn't have power where he can trigger poll on something, but it has influence.
Remember, there are two types of levers in Washington. One is power, executive orders, you vote on the House floor, the Senate floor for a bill, and the other one is influence. You're a counsel, the hour eight to the president, or you're an aide, a congressional aide, and you're advising people on what to do or how to vote. Those jobs are not direct power, Ryan, but they're powerful enough.
Do you think we'll get a strategic Bitcoin reserve? Do you think that's a thing? I do, actually. What does that look like? Do you think? So we had sent the lemons on the podcast and basically if you read through her bill, the very first proposal is basically keep the Bitcoin you already have. And the US has like 200,000 Bitcoin in reserve, right? So that'd be level one. Trump could maybe do something like that and kind of call that a success. Now going beyond that, actually purchasing Bitcoin, actually creating like a Fort Knox for crypto. Maybe that's possible as well. But what do you think is going to happen here?
Well, I'm very close to her. I'm very close to Tim Scott. They were both at my conference in Wyoming. Obviously, she's a senator from the Great City of Wyoming. We talked about it over the summer. They've got the votes. Hagerty wants it. McCormick wants it. They have the votes in the Senate, do you think? I think so. Yeah, there's 50. Really? I do think so, yes.
for like to her bill to get a million Bitcoin, right? That was her full bill, right? So keep the 200,000. No, this stuff gets horse traded. So you'll probably have 200 won't get sold. They'll probably buy another four or 500,000 Bitcoin. What? Over the next, you think this is going to happen? Okay. So I mean, we've been in crypto for a while. The fact that we're even talking about it still honestly blows my mind. But yes, we had a sitting Senator talk about it. Let me tell you why I think it will happen. Okay. Trump wants it to happen.
And he's got the Senate banking committee. Tim Scott wants it to happen. He's going to be the chair of the Senate banking committee, but sent wants it to happen. If you're telling me there are no Democrats, and I don't believe this because a lot of Democrats voted for the SOB 121 bill. If you looked at the dispersion of vote, it was a bipartisan approval of that bill. And by the way, Ryan, it was if you were 40 or 50,
Let's say you were below the age of 60, you voted for the bill if you were a Democrat. If you were a fossil like Elizabeth Warren or Sherrod Brown, you voted against it. So if you're telling me there are no Democrats that are going to vote for that, then I'll say, okay, then we're not going to get it. But I don't see that. I think Rokana would vote for it. I think there's a lot of Democrats who look at it and say, if Bitcoin is digital gold,
And we have $600 billion of gold on reserve at our bank, in the Federal Reserve Bank. You're telling me we couldn't put $75 to $100 billion of Bitcoin on reserve.
Is that what you're saying? And by the way, you may even liquidate some of that gold to do that. You're saying that's not possible? That'd be so wild to me. But like, maybe that's a possibility. What about the people who say? Oh, who is Cynthia Sadie? What did Senator Luma say? I mean, she obviously is as a bull. She thinks it can happen. And by the way, it's like, I watched that MSNBC clip. They were saying, oh, Trump's going to like sell gold to buy Bitcoin. The lumbest bill was not actually selling gold. It was actually just like adjusting the value of gold.
on the u.s balance sheet to the fair market value it's like book value right now fair market value use that excess and go by so not even talking about selling gold but yeah i mean she's obviously bullish but she is a massive bitcoin bull as you know i mean there's a counter take to this which is hit you'll nerf you'll lose the confidence the u.s dollar if you start go purchasing assets like bitcoin.
Right? Because then people will say, oh, well, actually, what is the dollar backed by? You know, the Fed scared is treasury scared. Why do they need this non fiat asset to start backing its currency? And you could cause problems that way. What do you think about that? You know, I mean, it's possible. I guess the question is, what stage are we at? I maybe, because I've been in this space longer than some of these people, maybe I think we're further along.
but if you're at the stage that i think we're at where people like larry think and people at franklin templeton jenny johnson and people like
Abigail Johnson at fidelity and you name the different people that are recommending allocations and the comparisons are the you know if I say it if it's digital gold you know my buddy Michael sailor get mad at me because he calls a digital property I mean he's called me and say I heard you on that podcast it's not digital gold but let's just for the sake of this argument let's say that it is digital gold to these people and
And if we're at that point, and we're in a modern society, and Trump wants to make a statement, and we believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Chinese are going to move to buy Bitcoin, and they're going to move to make it a strategic reserve asset for the Chinese economy and the Chinese government. And if that's the case, what are we talking about? We're talking about $70, $80 billion. To put it in perspective, we've got a $6 trillion budget
So you're talking about 1% of it, 1.5% of the budget to buy Bitcoin, but we're also talking about it over five years. So you're talking about 30 basis points of the budget over five years, which could emotionally strengthen the dollar and could put the United States on better competitive footing, or at least tie the United States with other Western nations.
You know, we said differently. If you put me in that seat, forget about the fact that I owned Bitcoin.
You put me in that seat and said, is it in the United States' national interest to have a strategic reserve in Bitcoin? I would say yes. And then if you said to me, why? I would say three reasons. Number one, I do believe it's digital gold and I think the future is changing and I would want to have it on our balance sheet like we do gold. Even if you said I had to sell $100 billion of gold and replace it with $100 billion of Bitcoin. Number two,
Your generation, forget about me, I'm an old fort, but you're a young man. Your generation is going to live further and deeper in the digital world than me. I'm old enough to remember when the internet didn't exist. I'm old enough to remember when AOL was the way we got into the internet.
And I have a, you know, should I embarrass myself on your bank list podcast and tell you that I have an AOL email? Because I do. You still haven't. I was the way you got in. Now I have other emails, but I had that one. I still have it. And by the way, you had to pay for it.
Yeah, they give it to you for free now, but you had to pay a monthly fee to have an AOL email. And so I'm telling you, your generation is going to be way more sophisticated about this stuff. Well, I got to say, I mean, the reason I sound so surprised is because of the ripple effects of kind of the most powerful country in the world, like the economy in the world, like kind of basically with the reserve currency, setting financial policy, purchasing Bitcoin, setting up a Bitcoin strategic reserve.
That would be massive because that sets off the game theory of every single country has to own it after that. There's like nine countries that own Bitcoin right now. And I was just looking at this earlier in the week. The two that have the most, most notably, are the US right now and China. And they both have around 200,000 Bitcoin. And it's both through confiscation. So the idea is that maybe these governments are going to sell it. They haven't established it as government policy that they're continuing to acquire Bitcoin.
But it's notable that the two largest kind of superpowers, economic rivals, have the same amount of Bitcoin. And if the US starts acquiring more, what is China going to do? Whether they declare it or not, whether they're explicit about it or not. Well, you know, I'm a cynical person. I think China is already acquiring it. Probably.
I think they're already acquiring it because they're like, holy, blank blank. Trump is going to be long in pro-Bitcoin. We kicked all the Bitcoiners out of this country. Again, more evidence about the strength and resiliency of Bitcoin. They kicked all the Bitcoiners out of the country, and 10% of the mining Ryan still happens in China. To me,
I don't know. I mean, look, this is the stuff I like about Trump, right? Like I said, you have a good twin and you have a bad twin in there. And the good twin is like, yeah, we're going to have a muscular defense and we're going to have a muscular, national economic story. And Bitcoin could be a very big part of that for people. Also, remember, you're spending globally $7 trillion
on verification of transactions. And that's everything from accountants and lawyers and wire fees, credit card fees. I could take you through the whole verification economy. It's $7 trillion. If you're telling me over the blockchain that you and I can trade and transact with each other and have the network itself, the blockchain, the technology, verify the transaction for us and a permissionless
And let's call it trustless way because the network is something we both trust. It's going to unleash trillions of dollars of capital that can get deployed into more economic innovation. And we saw this happen with the internet 30 years ago. We saw this happen when we broke up AT&T. Again, not only am I old enough to remember an AOL account, I'm old enough to remember being in Europe.
and being told that the post office in Rome, if I wanted to call my parents, it was $5 a minute.
Okay, we can go to any cafe in Rome today and log into their internet and we can call like George Jetson does or the way you and I are doing right now. We can FaceTime our parents. And so the world is changing and the world is changing for the better. There was a group of politicians in the United States that did not want to embrace and accept that change. And they got their asses kicked.
in two thousand twenty four and their asses handed to them and so if brian armstrong saying hey fellas you want to keep this up we're going to handle your assets again in twenty six and in twenty eight and by the way do the math it's a very tight country ryan you know we're fifty fifty country if you have sixty million people that own a cryptocurrency in this country let's say three percent of them are single issue voters and that's a very small number
That's 1.8 million people. That could swing a Congress. It could swing the House of Representatives. It's swung the presidential election. So you fuck around and find out. Fuck around. Go ahead. They already did. Keep the nonsense up with all the stupidity. And let's see where it goes for you. Well, we've kind of seen where it's going and certainly going the pro-crypto direction.
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Let's talk about Wall Street and crypto. This is a subtext for your book. We're asking the question of how far along is crypto, how far along is Bitcoin? You were talking about Abigail Johnson and Larry Fink and Wall Street really coming around to crypto this cycle. That's part of the subtitle of your book. You got a little book of Bitcoin. What you need to know that Wall Street has already figured out. Let's talk about Wall Street. What have they already figured out about Bitcoin? When abouts did they start figuring this out?
So that's a great question and it's apropos to what happened to me this week because I was in Abu Dhabi speaking at the Bitcoin Mina Middle East and North Africa conference, Bitcoin Mina.
And I was in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Al Marion Island. And I turned to one of my colleagues. I said, do you remember November of 2021 when I saw Larry Fink in this lobby? And my partner looked at me and said, yes. I said, do you remember what Larry said? And he said, oh, yes. I went over to Larry.
I said, how are you doing? I understand you're still negative on Bitcoin. I know a few of my friends have talked to you about the positives of Bitcoin. And Larry looked me straight in the face and said, yes, I don't like Bitcoin. I just made a significant investment in Circle, which is a stablecoin. It's a digital dollar. I believe in the technical properties of the blockchain, but I don't like Bitcoin. This is 2021. 2021. Okay. And over that year,
You gotta give credit where credit is due because very small people change their minds. I know in Washington or in politics, if you believe this and then you switch them, believe that, you're a flip flapper and people perceive you not to have convictions. But in business,
When you're going in the wrong direction and you adapt and pivot or change your mind, in my mind, it's a sign of brilliance. And so over a 12-month period of time, people went to Larry Fink and explained the technical properties associated with Bitcoin. And when I say to people, I have yet to meet a person.
of above average intelligence that does the homework on Bitcoin that doesn't go towards Bitcoin. I have yet to meet the person. You know, I did 25 hours of homework on Bitcoin. I read the white paper. I talked to hundreds of people on Wall Street, 25 hours of Bitcoin. I hate Bitcoin. I don't want to go anywhere near it. Now, one person, Stan Druckenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones, Larry Fink himself, Abigail Johnson, do the homework on Bitcoin, go towards Bitcoin.
I hated Bitcoin. You know who else hated Bitcoin? Michael Saylor. But he did. Ask him. Get him on the podcast. He'll say, oh, it's a fad. It's Passay. It's ridiculous. He didn't understand it. I hated it. Why did I hate it? Didn't understand it.
Michael Saylor did the homework, and then when Michael Saylor got done doing the homework, he couldn't sleep. He couldn't sleep. He said, I couldn't sleep once I figured out what Bitcoin was. It's like, how am I gonna buy enough of this network? How am I gonna do it? Okay, and I said to him, because I got there after him, I said the same thing. Now, I've done in a similar way what Saylor has done, just smaller.
Our company is effectively a Bitcoin-based crypto company at this point. We pivoted. And so, Fink did that to his credit. And then in January of 2023, we were on our niece. I brought this for you. All right, so here's the problem I brought for you. What's this? It's a bobblehead? So this is me sinking. You see the SS movement?
I'm sinking in a Bitcoin boat. The clowns at my office made the bobblehead. This is a rendition of picture graphic art that was put in the New York Post when Bitcoin was at 16,000. Wow. Okay. So they did a graphic of you like a comic of you sinking in a boat full of Bitcoin sinking in the essence of sinking in a Bitcoin boat. There I am. Look, look, look, look, look, look, I'm going down.
See it, look, look, look, look. And okay, so we're on our knees. The BlackRock guys come to us and say, listen, Larry's finally on board, but we need outside investors. So SkyBridge put up $10 million into the BlackRock Bitcoin trust. We were the first outside money into that trust that got converted into the BlackRock ETF.
And then they applied for the ETF. And their lawyers, very smart guys said, hey, you know what, grayscale is probably going to win this court case. We want to be a part of this. So the reason I bring all this up is this an evolution. And so what Larry did, which I think is brilliant, others are now doing. Donald Trump did it.
Donald Trump in 2018 or 2019, you can find it, Ryan. President Donald Trump, as president, I hate Bitcoin. Bitcoin is this. Okay, I remember. I remember when this tweet dropped. Okay, all right, so I'm not making it up. And then he got educated on it. And then he said, wait a minute, I now understand it. I want to be a Bitcoin president.
You gotta give him credit for that. I'm a balls and strikes person. I told people what I didn't like about it. The bad twin and the good twin. So he's in. So I'm telling you, on the margin, there's going to be a legion of people this year.
That do that homework and get long Bitcoin. But there's a supply problem with Bitcoin. I'm not selling my, you sell your Bitcoin, Ryan. I mean, you don't sell Bitcoin, right? Okay. Do you sell Bitcoin, Ryan? Okay. You don't sell Bitcoin. Why would you sell Bitcoin? You wouldn't sell it. You don't sell Bitcoin. It's a store of value asset. How many people in Wall Street are converted now?
at this point in time. I think a very small group. I just got done telling you that. It's still a small group. Like when you have people like Larry Fink, who is just like, who's more Wall Street? I think it's a very small group. Really? Okay, even after 2024 and the success of Bitcoin ETFs, even Ethereum ETFs now really picking up. There's a woman at Goldman Sachs asset management. I don't know her name. Maybe Charmene, something or other. She runs the asset manager. She says, Bitcoin's going to zero. She hates Bitcoin.
Warren Buffett hates bitcoin. He says it's rap poison squared. He says you're buying something with the expectation that the person buying it from you is going to buy it at a higher price. That's all it is is a lottery ticket. It's just a gambling token. I was looking
earlier this week, there was the Goldman rumor that they were starting a trading desk, a crypto trading desk. I was laughing at myself because this happens literally every single cycle. So it happened in like 2019. I remember it's happened every cycle I've been in crypto. Goldman during kind of like Bitcoin, mania, crypto, mania, they say they're going to open a desk and they never do. And then they stop and they're silent until the next like mania. So maybe there's something to that. I mean, not all of Wall Street's convinced, but it feels like now that we've got regulatory clear sales, we're talking about
a strategic reserve for Bitcoin and crypto. It feels like most of Wall Street would be converted at this point in time. They have products to sell. Why wouldn't they? There's not only the Bitcoin narrative, of course. There's stablecoins here. There's also tokenization, which many in Wall Street have started to talk about. There's a lot for them here. Paul Tudor Jones, you have an entire chapter on this, but you're still telling me you don't think all of Wall Street's convinced? I don't.
I don't, because I just got done telling you Goldman Sachs wealth management, no Bitcoin. Morgan Stanley is the only wire house that I'm aware of where they'll sell the Bitcoin ETF. You have reverse inquiry at Goldman, reverse inquiry at Merrill, reverse inquiry at UBS. You don't have their FAs calling up Ryan and saying, hey, Ryan, you just gave me a million dollars. I want you to put 20, $30,000 in a Bitcoin.
They're not doing that. They're just not doing it. But they're gonna do it because they won't be able to not do it. You know, the public teachers of Wisconsin and correct me because I may be wrong. It was a pension fund in Wisconsin. I'm not exactly which says, maybe it was a private, you know, the public employees or it was a teacher. I don't recall which one either, but I know what you're talking about, yes. Okay, but they put $153 million in a Bitcoin when they asked the guy, why'd you do that? He said, well, if you're not long Bitcoin, you're short Bitcoin.
I don't want to be in a consultant meeting with my board where they say we are now adding Bitcoin to our tactical asset allocation. So in addition to gold and private equity and bonds and all this other stuff, you're going to have a one, two percent allocation to Bitcoin. I'd rather get long it now. So when that day comes, which it is coming, I'm already in position to say, okay, good, I've got my pension fund covered.
But very few pension funds have done that. It's an under-owned institutional and Wall Street asset still. And that's why I think, if you stop and think about it and you say, okay, is it or is it not digital gold? If it's digital gold, it has to trade to $18 trillion, has to. I was in the Middle East, so you'll like this story. One of the shakes that's an investor of mine, he says, Anthony, yes sir.
He says, you know, I hear you on TV. You talk about Bitcoin being digital gold. I said, yes, sir. He said, well, it's not. It's better. It's better than digital gold. Let me tell you something. I live in Saudi Arabia. Right now, the crown prince likes me. There's no bone saw in my future. He likes me.
But if the crown prince turns on me, I have a USB that's about the size of my thumbnail that has $200 million of Bitcoin on it. I'm going to shove it up my ass and I'm going to head for the Yemeni border. Wow. Would you think I could shove $200 million of gold on my ass? Okay. So the point he was making is that this is way more portable.
And it is way more immutable. You can't make any more of it. And we trust it, and we're using it, and it's growing, and we're adopting it. And so to me, I think this is an $18 trillion asset if it takes 10 years, so what?
If I told you that you could hold this asset, it's 100,000 right now. And at the end of 10 years, it'll be worth a million dollars. Go back and look at Apple and video over the last 10 years and say to yourself, okay, we have something that's very obvious. It's right in front of us.
And there are people that said, I can't buy Apple. It's too expensive. It went up 10X. I can't buy Nvidia. It's a fat stock. It went up 15X. I can't buy Amazon. And they missed it. I'm not missing Bitcoin. I'm not doing it. Paul Tudor Jones has a chapter in your book. What's the chapter about? What's his story in crypto? It's just about his odyssey into crypto. We interviewed him about how he didn't understand it. It's a cycle. Everyone goes through the same cycle. I don't understand it. I don't like it.
I then start to understand it. Oh, wow. This is another commodity. This is a digital commodity. I got to own it. And it's just about how one of the smartest investors in the world, who's a polymath, who's one of the greatest philanthropists in New York City with the Robinhood Foundation, and how he's a cutting edge, 70 year old.
Ray Dalio. Okay, these guys looked at this thing. They did the homework and said, I'm in. And so that's what we did. And by the way, when I bought it, my clients, there were people wanted to fire me. You want to hear the story? I buy it in October of 2020. It goes from 17,000 to 69,000. My clients are calling me, telling me that I'm a visionary and I'm a genius. We go from 69,000.
You know, we flash crowds. I think the low print was like 12,000. I don't know if you, it was like overnight. You don't remember. So let's call 15,000. We're from 69,000 to 15,022. And I had clients calling me, the very same clients call me a genius. You're an imbecile and I'm selling out my position.
Okay, first of all, I wasn't a genius. I'm not an imbecile, but I did see something. And now you go from 16,000 to 100,000 other people now see it. And so I don't want my clients to miss it. I don't want your podcast listeners to miss it. So that's why I wrote a book about it.
Our podcast listeners are all in, Anthony, let me tell you, this is kind of like more of a- Okay, I want to stay- Oh, yeah. Because you know, and I know Bitcoin could trade to 75,000. You know, we had a move from 70 to 50,000 recently before the election.
So yes, it could go down from here. I'm not saying it's going to go straight up. Nothing goes straight up. Just don't sell it. For a lot of our listeners, part of like doing an episode like this with you is just like you're in the trench, you know, so much about kind of what we call tradfi, right? They're just like the Wall Street level. It's interesting to hear what they actually think about this asset class in general. And like that's a piece that's fascinating. What's your price prediction for Bitcoin, the cycle? Do you do that? Do you give price predictions? What do you think?
You know, I have gotten it wrong forever. I said, at the end of 2021, Bitcoin would be 100,000 at the end of 2022. I got my ass kicked, so I made no price prediction in 2023. When the Bitcoin ETF came out, and I guess Bitcoin was like 3540 at the beginning of the year, I said, it's going on 100,000.
And people scoffed at me and said, well, you made that prediction already, dummy, and it didn't happen. And I said, yeah, I got it wrong because I thought the SEC chairman was going to apply the law the way the law was written. I didn't think he was going to be arbitrary and capricious in the application and administration of the law.
In fact, that's exactly what the court said in the ruling, okay? So now you get the thing approved. It's at 100,000. There's going to be a supply shock, Ryan. And so there's no reason why this can't trade 200,000 over the next 12 months. 200,000. You don't have enough Bitcoin in the marketplace. So what happens? I need to own it. My board just told me I got to get a 1% position, okay?
What do I got to do? I got to go buy a 1% position. Start buying it. It's liquid. It's the deepest crypto market, but it's not super liquid. $10 billion will move that market. Just what about other crypto assets? Do you dabble or is it all Bitcoin for you? What do you like? No, it's mostly Bitcoin, but I own Solana. I own Avalanche. I own Polkadot. I do believe that there's a series of layer ones
that are transactional tokens, they're utility tokens. And I view those as digital software on the internet that you'll be using that application to transact with people. I see Bitcoin, you know, Jack models, I get the lightning network right.
Munir at Stax will get things right. You'll do transactions the extent you want with Bitcoin, but it'll be mostly for store value. Those are other ones. I think you can put smart contracts on top of them and run them over their network. And Solana is fast and Solana is cheap. So that's my number one Solana. What do you think about Ether? Do you like Ether at all or do you think that's right? I don't dislike either. My partner
Who runs our research department is like an ETH Maxie. So he loves ETH. So we do own ETH, but it's not as big of a position as the other two. Asking if he's a bankless fan. I'm curious where it will know ETH bulls. Okay, so this book is coming out in January then. Who's it for? It's for the lay person. I mean, it's a non-academic book. Is this kind of the book that crypto people, crypto natives can just send to their family who's curious? That's how I wrote the book. You know, Safedane Elmos, who's a brilliant economist,
wrote what i think is the bible it's called the bitcoin standard pretty hardcore that's not this book for people have read that book yet it's a hard core rigorous analysis i learned so much in that book and i think it's important for a research analyst or an asset manager read that book that's not this book
This is a collection of stories and a collection of different people who are very high profile, who started out with no Bitcoin. And now they own some Bitcoin and they express to you their reasons why. And then I finish up with a recommendation at the end that, you know, I have a considerable amount of money net worth in it. Michael Saylor's got a hundred plus percent of his net worth in it were the two named authors on the book.
You should own some of it. You should get off a zero. It was basically the message of the book. Michael Saylor's on the book, too. He's the named author on this book. Well, he wrote the folder. He wrote the folder. He also rewrote the last chapter, which was sort of funny. I'll say, I can send you a clip where it's on my Twitter feed. It's pinned to the top of my Twitter feed. He said at the book party, so I read the book and I told Anthony, I didn't like the ending. And I said, what's wrong with the ending? He said, well, you're recommending a 2% allocation.
I said, yeah, well, what's wrong with that? And he said, well, let me ask something. You said in the book, it's your best investment idea that you've come up with in 35 years. I said, yes, I did. He said, you have 50 other investment ideas like this. And I said, no, I don't. He said, well, why are you recommending 2% then? He said, by the way, how much of your net worth is in it? I said, well, over 50%, over 50%. Well, then why are you recommending too?
And I said, well, because I did more of the bureaucratic institutional nonsense. And he said, just tell people that you own more than 50% of your net worth in it. I own 100% and that most people are starting it too, but you should own more. Bitcoin's like tacos. And Bitcoin's like potato chips. Bitcoin's like Doritos. You can't just have one, Ryan. Once you taste it, you're dipping back into the Bitcoin bowl for more Bitcoin.
Can I ask you this because, you know, a lot of listeners and myself included don't come from a like traditional finance background. And so we're looking at what sailors doing over there with micro strategy. And it just looks, you know, like phenomenal. And we sort of understand like the trade that's going on. There's been some like recent articles, recent like takes that there's some over leverage going on there. And that could be like a landmine that gets tripped later in the cycle, particularly if people stop buying the debt instruments that the micro strategies issuing or
You know, Bitcoin price goes down a significant way or something. Are you like, on behalf of, it sounds like you guys are friends, but like, are you worried for Michael Saylor and micro strategies or something going on there that we should just be eyes wide open about? I'm going to let him talk about it, you know, get him on your podcast, let him talk about it. But if you looked at his balance sheet,
He has long dated convertibles on his balance sheet. So there's no one move that's going to knock Michael out more over when Bitcoin went from 69,000 to 16. People said, that's it. Michael Sellers going out of business. That's it. And he got on a conference call. He laid out his balance sheet and explained to people that it's a long term.
And so the composition of his balance sheet is designed to sustain micro strategy through volatile periods of Bitcoin. So I'm not worried about it. I'm worried about something else though, if you don't mind me sharing with you what I'm worried about. Yeah, tell me, because in the last cycle, a few things caught us off guard. There was that GBDC kind of trade thing that blew up Celsius and kind of three hours capital and everything that we were talking about the beginning. Like sometimes in these frothy markets, there can be stuff hidden in the water. So like, what are you worried about?
I'm going to tell you what I'm worried about. Are you ready? I can't find anything to worry about. And that's what I'm really worried about. Not recession, not in the broader macro economy. No, I think a recession would probably help Bitcoin. I think it'd be a flight to safety to Bitcoin. But what I'm worried about is the unknown unknown.
Right? And so we have like things that we worry about that that could happen and may not happen. But there's something out there that we're not currently worried about that could happen. And it's called an unknown unknown. There are some known unknowns, but there are some unknown unknowns. And that's what I'm worried about because I'm worried that, okay, I see a Rosie 2025. You know what I saw in 2022? A Rosie
2022. That's what I saw. Now, I got the two-year cycle, right? The three-year cycle, right? But I'm bullish for 25. You know, you could invite me back on December 25. Bitcoin's down 50%. And I'll be saying to you, geez, Ryan, I got it wrong. I missed something that was out there or
And again, I think this will happen. It'll be at 200,000 and then we'll have to evaluate it again at 200,000. See where it's going from now. So you're a hedge fund guy and this is kind of a hedging question. I think the bankless listenership is probably skewed towards people who are like you in that they have greater north of 50% of their capital and crypto assets.
Okay, so that unknown, unknown piece that you just mentioned, we all know that there are unknown unknowns. But like by nature, we have no idea when it's coming, what they actually are. How do you prepare for that? Is it like dry powder and super safe assets? Like one way I've approached this in the past is just you have your volatile assets over here, like your risk on assets.
And I do like the barbell strategy where I'm like heavily skewed towards these risky crypto assets. And then the other side of the barbell is just like super safe key bills and stuff like that. And like that's how I kind of manage it. But what do you think? How do you hedge it for these like unknown unknowns? So I live below my means. That's how I hedge it. My attitude is I'm long it.
It's a number in my Coinbase account. It's a number in my edge fund. But I'm living below my needs. What do you mean, just like no lifestyle inflation kind of thing? No lifestyle inflation. I live in the exact same house. I've got the same cars. I've got the same budget. Because what I don't want to do is drink the Kool-Aid. And I'm just not going to do that. My attitude is I'm 61 years old.
I want to be doing this. Hopefully, God willing, if I'm still alive and knock on wood 20 years and I still want to be doing this. And the smartest people I know hold the greatest assets and they do nothing, Ryan. And in order to do nothing, you have to be set up in your lifestyle where you can afford your life away from doing nothing.
And so I would just tell people, live below your means, buy the Bitcoin, shut it off. You know, Fred Krueger, I think his name is, he had a great line that they exist. There are two types of people. There are those that check their Bitcoin price every 15 seconds. And there are those that lie and say they don't check their Bitcoin price every 15 seconds. But even if you're checking every 50 seconds and I appreciate that,
Don't sell it. Lock it up. Keep your brain away from Bitcoin. The emotional oscillation of your brain that could be affected by Bitcoin's prices. That would be my message to people because there is something out there that you and I don't know.
that could happen, that upsets price in your term, but I don't think it knocks off the 10-year trajectory. That's great advice to end it on. As our friend Morgan Haswell likes to remind us, good investing is all about good psychology, right? And you got to watch out for that volatility can really affect your psychology, but not if you have a long-term holding outlook. Anthony, Scaramucci, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a lot of fun.
Great to be on. I really appreciate it on a Friday night. You coming on with me, man. Thank you, brother. Amen. Well, have a great weekend. Gotta let you know, Bankless Nation. Of course, none of this has been financial advice. Crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier, not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the Bankless journey. Thanks a lot.
