There was a lot

of bankruptcies as well.

I mean, BitMEX closed, AscendX closed, BitMart now is arguably insolvent, Movement Labs, Storage, bankruptcies.

I mean, really bad.

Movement Labs.

And I don't know.

You'd probably like to check your portfolio.

i mean for bullish bullish for bitcoin so let's talk about

So it almost seems like counter, uh, counter forces, but I just wanted to get your take on the overall financialization of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin.Uh, once again, I think that that's the inevitable process and the messy path that, that Jeff described.

So it's funny because when Jeff was speaking, I looked up one of my old tweets because I remember that I once made the unfortunate mistake of using the word co-opted in a tweet about Bitcoin, and I had to look it up to see because every Bitcoiner jumped down my throat.

This was in July of 2025.

I said, "Bitcoin's amazing, but it's obviously been co-opted to some degree by the very people that it was created as a hedge against.

Many of the most ardent early whales have seen their faith shaken and have been selling at these prices." So this was below...

It was a sub-tweet to me saying that we were seeing massive selling from early whales that said that they would never sell, which factually we can see on chain and was true.

To me, it looks bubbly and frothy, but maybe I'm wrong.

Can you give a few of them?

Yeah.

So first of all, like, I, I have high conviction in price, right? So, um, I, I think it's a superior way to store wealth.

When you know what you know about the central banks and the United States government and the way money is created, which I don't think most people do, uh, all of a sudden that volatility doesn't feel spe- like a, like a problem.

You don't feel like you're speculating.

Um, but I think there's also an element of it that is somewhat apolitical.

Um, it's a statement of your belief system.

Mm.

Scott, I did something from a conversation he'd had with Saylor himself, and it was striking.

He basically said to me, STRD, STRK, STR, all the other STRs.

He's like, I wish I had never created those or I had gotten to STRC first.

And I think that's actually part of the reason that we saw this flight from STRC initially and Sato was holding its value at par was because I think a lot of people went, well, Strive has the same product without any of the debt, without any of the convertible notes, with nothing encumbered, no leverage basically on it, and a day-to-day dividend being paid and a higher yield.

So if I'm going to take the risk, why don't I buy that one?

Scott agreed and put it in historical context.

We survived, you know, Mt. Cox, China Bands, FTX, Luna, Voyager, BlockFi, Celsius, you name it, Trump coin.

And countless leverage blow-ups.

Why, why do you think it's happening? And, I mean, I know we can't predict the future, but when you think about where we go from here, where is that?

So, uh, once again, I kind of remove Bitcoin from this, right? Because I think it's flown the coop, uh, to some degree as far as mainstream adoption, and I don't think you can talk about it the same way that you talk about crypto.

But I think a lot of people in crypto have been very depressed about altcoin performance, right? 'Cause even if you view this as part of the four-year cycle or even that we've had a Bitcoin cycle that made new all-time highs, we all know that 99.9% of the altcoin market didn't follow, right? They've effectively been in a sustained bear market, grinding down for five years now.

Absolutely brutal.

So, you know, for a while, we just believed it would happen, and maybe it still does.

There are tokens that do exceptionally well, but I think that it's for certain reasons.

But I think that what really happened is that, uh, maybe we can put it in terms of if we thought about Vegas, right? The early days of Vegas, uh, somebody put one casino in the middle of the desert.

How are you gonna talk to your kids about where we are financially?

Why, why do you think it's happening? And, I mean, I know we can't predict the future, but when you think about where we go from here, where is that?

So, uh, once again, I kind of remove Bitcoin from this, right? Because I think it's flown the coop, uh, to some degree as far as mainstream adoption, and I don't think you can talk about it the same way that you talk about crypto.

But I think a lot of people in crypto have been very depressed about altcoin performance, right? 'Cause even if you view this as part of the four-year cycle or even that we've had a Bitcoin cycle that made new all-time highs, we all know that 99.9% of the altcoin market didn't follow, right? They've effectively been in a sustained bear market, grinding down for five years now.

Absolutely brutal.

So, you know, for a while, we just believed it would happen, and maybe it still does.

There are tokens that do exceptionally well, but I think that it's for certain reasons.

But I think that what really happened is that, uh, maybe we can put it in terms of if we thought about Vegas, right? The early days of Vegas, uh, somebody put one casino in the middle of the desert.

Mm

What is your theory on altcoin season never coming?

I, I think, uh, altcoin season comes, but in a totally different iteration, uh, of what we've seen in the past.

So I think now you have sort of a have-and-have-not situation for the crypto market.

Have is anyone with an institutional element, so an ETF, treasury companies, uh, you know, a narrative around stable coins, whatever.

So let's call that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, and maybe you can throw in an XRP or some others in there, depending on, on where you stand.

And then there's the everything else that's relying on crypto liquidity, uh, to catch a bid, and I think that we've seen that liquidity really dry up.

I think I have a lot of theories on why that's happened.

Of course.