Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] They're passing the torch and the torch is being received by entities who care less about ideology and more about returns. BlackRock doesn't care about being your own bank. They care about portfolio diversification and risk adjusted returns. Is that a loss? In some ways, yes. Bitcoin will probably never again have the radical energy it had in its early years. The days of 100x returns in a single year are likely over.
[00:00:29] The volatility that created life changing wealth will moderate as ownership becomes more distributed. But it's also a victory because bitcoin survived long enough to become boring. It succeeded so thoroughly that the original believers can actually cash out. It proved itself to the point where the most conservative financial institutions in the world are buying it.
[00:00:54] The best in Bitcoin made Audible I am Guy Swan and this is Bitcoin Audible.
[00:01:17] What is up guys? Welcome back to Bitcoin. Audible I am Guy Swan, the guy who has read more about bitcoin than anybody else. You know, we have got a fantastic show today. We've got a read that a number of people linked to me. I think I ended up with this one recommended like six times and I actually came across it in my feed already.
[00:01:40] There was a tweet I think the one that I, I saw that I thought had a really good chart with it was by Checkmatey. I'll try to remember to put. I think I can find that link again or the Twitter post and I'll put that in the show notes as well as the link to the author so that you can follow him on Twitter and or substack where the article was published.
[00:02:01] It was a really good article to understand where we are and because I've talked about this quite a bit is that where we are, we have so much liquidity in the, in the market right now with bitcoin and it's so much liquidity so quickly. Like just such a massive shift in the scope and breadth of the market in a period of like one to two years. I mean it's just like one after the other that things were going to slow down. The players that have entered the market are very careful. They're, they're. It is literally a slow institutional bid in the market.
[00:02:40] And but one of the things that I had not really considered was basically which players are able to finally make an exit or to finally stabilize or offset their position because the liquidity finally exists for them to be able to do that.
[00:03:02] And that has never existed before. Bitcoin has never been. The market has never been quite big enough to to actually, to hedge or to diversify. I don't like it from the context of like simple diversification, but to balance a position, you know, like let's, let's say you got 10% in a high risk, high reward asset, you've got 50% in something stable, you've got 30 and you've reallocated the other 50%, whatever, and you put your 10% into Bitcoin, but you're looking at $50 million and Bitcoin is like the thing. Well then bitcoin soars and now bitcoin is like 95% of your entire portfolio and you actually want to rebalance to like 20% is your high risk, high growth thing. 50% is your, you know, maybe even want more because you, you consider bitcoin partially in your, your stable thing, but you want to balance out that 95%. Well, if you're looking at billions and billions of dollars, you need liquidity to exit. And what I never thought about or what I the, the image that I never really put in my head that I think Jordi just does a great job and it's right in the title of this article, was that this is basically Bitcoin's ipo.
[00:04:14] This is Bitcoin is. Bitcoin has succeeded and it has finally been released to the public, to the public financial markets. And you're seeing all of that, the exits, the entrance, the institutional bids, the pension funds, the governments, like all, all of these massive entities, all of these huge new financial dynamics hitting all at the exact same time. And what you get is a distribution phase. And that's where we are right now. That's what he sees, where we are right now. And I don't want to lead too much because it's a really fantastic article and I love the perspective and the analogy and I think he's, I think he's really kind of hit the nail on the head. A quick shout out to Leden IO if you do not want to sell your Bitcoin, but you need and, or want to get access to your fiat, the best option is a bitcoin backed loan. And the best way to do that is with a safe, stable, boring company, one who has survived a bear market, one where you can prove that your Bitcoin are there. They do proof of reserves twice a year. They have open books. I'm pretty sure they are the biggest bitcoin backed loan like lender in the space. And I've been a customer of theirs for a while. I'm very happy and I have a link for you guys with a small discount right down in the show notes. Also check out the synonyms synonyms pub key stack. They have PubKey app but they have some really, really fascinating tools for re decentralizing the web. I'm actually thinking of doing a series that's kind of related to this and I'll keep you updated on it. But check them out. There's a link down in the show notes. Then of course the hrf, they have their Oslo Freedom Forum which is such a fantastic conference June 1st to 3rd, 2026. You can get tickets now and then also the Financial Freedom Report which is one of the best resources on what's going on for financial freedom and both the oppression and the tools to fight it all around the world. And lastly, people don't recognize how much damage our lights are actually doing to us, how unhealthy our light is.
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[00:06:31] All right, with that, let's go ahead and get into today's article. I've got Baby Isla here going to go take my camera down. Nope, nope, nope. Stop it. Okay, uh, we're going to jump into today's article and and it is titled Bitcoin's Silent ipo.
[00:06:53] Why this Consolidation Isn't what yout Think by Jordi Visser.
[00:07:01] The quiet liquidity event Reshaping Bitcoin's ownership base and its future stability.
[00:07:10] The distress is real.
[00:07:12] The sentiment in crypto right now is frankly brutal. The S&P 500 is flirting with all time highs. The NASDAQ has been on a tear. Gold just broke through. $4,300. Tech stocks are rallying by every traditional measure. We are in a risk on environment.
[00:07:31] Money is flowing into risk assets. Investor appetite is healthy.
[00:07:37] And Bitcoin. Bitcoin is doing nothing sideways, consolidating, grinding, boring.
[00:07:48] Choose your own description. None of them hide the frustration that's permeating the community.
[00:07:52] Twitter is filled with variations of the same anxious question. Why isn't BTC pumping with everything else?
[00:07:59] The cognitive dissonance is palpable. We have Bitcoin ETFs that launch successfully and see inflows every month.
[00:08:06] Institutional adoption is accelerating. The Genius act passed and clarity is coming soon. There's no regulatory crackdown, no major hack, no fundamental narrative breakdown. Everything that was supposed to matter happened.
[00:08:22] Yet here we are watching other assets rally while Bitcoin Treads water.
[00:08:29] As someone who has become increasingly connected to the crypto community over the past few years, I've had a unique vantage point. I've watched both worlds, the traditional fiat financial system and the crypto ecosystem. And I've begun to see a pattern that reminds me of the world I grew up in. The similarities are striking. So are the differences. But sometimes the similarities reveal themselves in unexpected ways.
[00:08:54] What if everyone is looking at this wrong? What if bitcoin isn't broken? What if it's finally having its tradfi version of an ipo?
[00:09:05] A bridge between two worlds?
[00:09:08] My journey into crypto has been illuminating precisely because I haven't abandoned my understanding of traditional markets. I've brought that lens with me, and increasingly I'm seeing that bitcoin, despite its revolutionary origins and decentralized nature, follows economic patterns that are as old as capitalism itself.
[00:09:31] Early stage investors take enormous risks. If the investment succeeds, they deserve enormous rewards.
[00:09:38] But eventually, and this is crucial, they need to realize those gains. They need liquidity. They need an exit. They need to diversify.
[00:09:49] In the traditional world, this moment is called an ipo. It's the moment when early believers cash out, when founders become wealthy, when venture capitalists return money to their limited partners. It's not a moment of failure, it's a moment of success.
[00:10:06] The company doesn't die during its ipo. It transitions.
[00:10:10] It matures.
[00:10:12] Ownership becomes distributed.
[00:10:15] Bitcoin never had a traditional IPO because it never had a company.
[00:10:20] But the economic forces don't disappear just because the structure is different.
[00:10:25] They simply manifest differently the divergence that tells the story.
[00:10:32] Let's talk about what we're actually seeing in the market right now.
[00:10:36] Bitcoin moves with tech stocks. It is correlated to liquidity and risk appetite. For years, you could predict Bitcoin's direction by watching the nasdaq. That correlation has broken down recently and since December of 2024 completely.
[00:10:52] This confuses people. It confuses algorithmic traders. It confuses momentum investors. When risk assets rally and Bitcoin doesn't participate, the narrative becomes something is wrong with Bitcoin.
[00:11:07] But here's what I've learned from watching traditional markets.
[00:11:10] This is exactly what happens during IPO distribution periods.
[00:11:16] When a company goes public and early investors begin to sell their positions. The stock often consolidates, even during broader market rallies.
[00:11:25] Why?
[00:11:26] Because there's a specific dynamic at play. Early investors aren't panic selling. They're methodically distributing their positions. They're being careful. They don't want to crater the price. They're Patient. They've waited years for this moment. They can wait a few more months to do it right.
[00:11:46] Meanwhile, new investors are stepping in, but cautiously. They're not chasing, they're accumulating on dips. They're waiting for the distribution to complete before getting aggressive.
[00:11:57] The result?
[00:11:58] A sideways grind that drives everyone crazy. The fundamentals are fine. The broader market is rallying, but the stock just sits there.
[00:12:09] Don't believe me? Go look at Circle or coreweave.
[00:12:12] They had this early surge post the IPO pricing, but since then, consolidation.
[00:12:19] Sound familiar?
[00:12:20] If this were a macro driven weakness, Bitcoin would be falling with risk assets not diverging from them. If this were a true crypto winter, we'd see panic, capitulation and correlated selling across the entire space.
[00:12:35] Instead, we're seeing something much more specific.
[00:12:38] Methodical. Patient selling into stable bids.
[00:12:44] The kind of selling that says I'm done, time to move on, not I'm scared.
[00:12:50] The evidence keeps mounting.
[00:12:54] Then came the confirmation I didn't expect, but probably should have. On a recent Galaxy Digital earnings call, Mike Novogratz announced Galaxy had sold $9 billion worth of Bitcoin for one customer.
[00:13:09] $9 billion in Bitcoin. Think about that number for a moment. This isn't retail panic. This isn't some trader getting shaken out. This is one of the OG players in the space methodically exiting a massive position.
[00:13:26] But they're taking profits, they're realizing gains. They're doing exactly what early stage investors are supposed to do when when an asset matures and liquidity finally exists to support large exits.
[00:13:41] And here's the thing, that one OG isn't alone.
[00:13:46] The on chain data tells a clear story if you know how to read it. Old coins, coins that haven't moved in years, some dormant since the single digit price days, are suddenly active. Not all at once, but not in a panic, but steadily this year, but especially since the summer. Methodically addresses that accumulated when Bitcoin was a cypherpunk experiment are finally moving their holdings.
[00:14:13] Look at the Fear and Greed Index. Look at social sentiment. The community is demoralized. Retail is capitulating the exact emotional setup you'd expect when smart money is distributing to weak hands.
[00:14:28] But here's what most people miss. The sentiment is actually bullish if you understand what phase we're in.
[00:14:36] The psychology of the original holder.
[00:14:40] Put yourself in the shoes of someone who mined Bitcoin in 2010 or bought it at a hundred dollars or even $1,000. You've held through Mount Gox, through China bans, multiple times through the 2018 bear market, through, through Covid, through regulatory uncertainty, through mainstream media, calling it a scam. For over a decade, you believed when almost nobody else did, you took the risk and you won. Bitcoin succeeded beyond almost anyone's wildest expectations.
[00:15:12] But now what you're sitting on generational wealth, life circumstances change. Maybe you're approaching retirement. Maybe. Maybe you have kids in college. Maybe you want to diversify into AI or buy a Jeff Bezos sized yacht. Start a business. Or simply enjoy the fruits of your patience. And for the first time ever, you can actually exit your position without destroying the market.
[00:15:37] That's new.
[00:15:39] For years, the liquidity simply didn't exist. Try selling $100 million of Bitcoin in 2015.
[00:15:45] You'd crater the price. Try selling a billion dollars in 2019.
[00:15:50] Same problem. The market couldn't absorb it.
[00:15:54] But now ETFs are providing institutional bid. Major companies hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Sovereign wealth funds are getting involved. The market has finally matured to the point where early holders can exit significant positions without causing chaos.
[00:16:14] And here's the crucial insight. They're doing it during a risk on environment, specifically because that's when buyers have capital, when stocks are rallying, when confidence is high, when liquidity is abundant. That's the optimal time to distribute.
[00:16:33] Selling into fear would crater Bitcoin selling into strength elsewhere.
[00:16:39] That's just smart business.
[00:16:42] This is what the OG whales have been waiting for. Not price. Price. They've had liquidity, market depth, the ability to actually exit. The mission is accomplished. Bitcoin proved itself.
[00:16:59] Now comes the reward.
[00:17:02] Why this isn't a bear market.
[00:17:06] I can already hear the skeptics. This just sounds like you're rationalizing a bear market just before the end of the four year cycle. Fair. So let's talk about why this is fundamentally different. Bear markets are driven by fear, by macro conditions, by loss of faith in the underlying narrative. Remember 2018, exchanges were failing. ICOs were revealed as scams. The entire space felt fraudulent.
[00:17:31] People sold because they thought Bitcoin might go to zero.
[00:17:36] Remember March 2020, global pandemic, everything collapsing. People sold because they needed cash for survival.
[00:17:45] That's not what's happening now.
[00:17:47] Right now, Bitcoin's fundamentals are arguably the strongest they've ever been. ETF approval, the thing everyone said would never happen, happened.
[00:17:57] Institutional adoption is accelerating. The halving occurred on schedule, as it has every four years, like clockwork. The network is more secure than ever. Hash rate is at all time highs. Stablecoin Adoption is accelerating and tokenization is on the way. And the network effects are about to explode in volumes. The crypto dreams are finally becoming a reality.
[00:18:21] Despite this, everyone must remember crypto is only three years from its darkest moment. When prices collapsed, frauds were exposed and the regulatory backlash was severe. Altcoins remained 20 to 50% below those highs. Bitcoin was carrying the space the last two years. The VC and hedge fund world were major investors in crypto leading into that bubble and have not recovered. They are still licking their wounds from crypto and SaaS, investments that have been disrupted by the rise of AI.
[00:18:57] The sellers aren't selling because they've lost faith. They're selling because they've won.
[00:19:03] That's the critical distinction.
[00:19:06] In a bear market, there are no buyers. Price collapses because everyone wants out and nobody wants in. But look at what's actually happening. Bitcoin is consolidating, not collapsing. Every dip gets bought. The price isn't making new lows, it's holding a range.
[00:19:26] Buyers are stepping in, just not aggressively, just not emotionally. They're accumulating, patiently waiting for the distribution to complete.
[00:19:38] This is the exact pattern you see after a major ipo. When lockup periods expire, the stock doesn't crash, it consolidates. Early investors sell.
[00:19:51] New long term holders accumulate ownership transfers from the visionaries to the institutions.
[00:20:00] Lessons from traditional markets if you want to understand Bitcoin's current phase, look at what happened to the greatest tech companies after their IPOs. Amazon went public in 1997 at $18 per share.
[00:20:16] Within three years it hit $100.
[00:20:19] Then it spent the next two years going essentially nowhere, even as the Internet continued to grow.
[00:20:26] Why? Because early investors and employees were finally liquid. They were selling. Lots of people who believed in Amazon at $1 sold at $100. They weren't wrong to do so. They made 100x returns. But the stock had to digest that distribution before it could move higher.
[00:20:44] Google IPO'd in 2004. The stock consolidated for nearly two years. Post IPO Facebook, same pattern in 2012 and 2013. Lockup expirations caused significant volatility and sideways trading.
[00:21:00] This is normal. This is healthy. This is what success looks like. The company doesn't fail during this phase. The asset doesn't die. What happens is a changing of the guard. Early believers passed the torch to a new generation of holders who bought at higher prices and have different time horizons.
[00:21:22] From cypherpunks to institutions, from libertarian idealists to corporate treasuries, from true believers to fiduciaries managing billions. Neither good nor bad, just evolution. Just the natural life cycle of of an asset that actually succeeded.
[00:21:42] The changing of the guard.
[00:21:45] This transition is profound and it deserves recognition.
[00:21:50] Bitcoin was born from an ideology. It was created by cipherpunks who believed in decentralization, in freedom from government control, in mathematical certainty over institutional trust.
[00:22:03] The early adopters were rebels, outcasts and visionaries who saw what others couldn't.
[00:22:09] Those people are being made whole. They're passing the torch. And the torch is being received by entities who care less about ideology and more about returns. BlackRock doesn't care about being your own bank. They care about portfolio diversification and risk adjusted returns.
[00:22:29] Is that a loss?
[00:22:31] In some ways, yes. But Bitcoin will probably never again have the radical energy it had in its early years. The days of 100x returns in a single year are likely over. The volatility that created life. Changing wealth will moderate as ownership becomes more distributed. But it's also a victory. Because Bitcoin survived long enough to become boring. It succeeded so thoroughly that the original believers can actually cash out.
[00:23:01] It proved itself to the point where the most conservative financial institutions in the world are buying it.
[00:23:10] More importantly, from a market structure perspective, this distribution is enormously bullish long term.
[00:23:19] Why Distribution Beats Concentration here's something I've learned watching traditional markets that applies perfectly to Bitcoin.
[00:23:29] Concentration is fragile. Distribution is antifragile. When Bitcoin was primarily held by a few thousand early adopters, the market was inherently unstable. A handful of wallets could move the price dramatically. One person's decision could. Sell could cascade through the market. The price was volatile because the holder base was volatile. But as ownership distributes, as millions of investors hold smaller positions instead of thousands holding massive ones, the market becomes structurally more stable.
[00:24:03] Think about it practically. If 100 people own 50% of the supply and one person decides to sell, that's 0.5% of the entire supply hitting the market.
[00:24:15] That moves price.
[00:24:17] But if 1 million people own 50% of the supply and 10,000 decide to sell, that's still only 0.5% of the supply.
[00:24:27] But it's spread across thousands of transactions at different prices, through different venues. Over time, the impact is diffused.
[00:24:37] This is exactly what happens after IPOs.
[00:24:41] Initial shareholder bases are tiny. Founders, early employees, VCs. After the IPO and lockup expirations, ownership fragments millions of shareholders instead of hundreds. Index funds, retail investors, institutions.
[00:24:58] The stock becomes less volatile not because the company is less exciting, but because the ownership structure is more robust. Bitcoin is undergoing this exact transformation right now. The OG whales who could single handedly move markets are selling to thousands of institutional investors through ETFs, to millions of retail investors through exchanges, to corporate treasuries, to pension funds. Each Bitcoin that transfers from concentrated hands to distributed hands makes the network more resilient, makes the price more stable, makes the asset more mature.
[00:25:34] Yes, this means the wild 10x years are probably behind us. But it also means the risk of a catastrophic collapse from concentrated selling is diminished.
[00:25:45] A distributed holder base is what separates a speculative asset from a durable store of value. It's what allows something to graduate from magic Internet money to global monetary asset.
[00:25:59] The Timeline Ahead if this thesis is correct, and I believe the evidence strongly suggests it is, what should investors expect?
[00:26:10] First, patience.
[00:26:12] IPO distribution periods typically last six to 18 months. We're probably several months into this process, but likely not done. Also, Bitcoin moves on a faster time period than fiat assets. I think we are way past the six months in Bitcoin time. For now, expect continued consolidation.
[00:26:32] Expect Bitcoin to keep frustrating people by not rallying with risk assets.
[00:26:37] Expect the sentiment to remain poor for a little while longer, but be wary because there will be no signal. It will just start because the good news is already present.
[00:26:49] Second, less volatility. As ownership distributes, the violent swings that characterized previous cycles will moderate. The 80% drawdowns that used to be routine may become 50% drawdowns and the 50% drawdowns will become 30%. The 10x rallies may become 3x rallies. This will disappoint degenerate gamblers and thrill risk managers.
[00:27:12] Third, the correlation with traditional risk assets will likely return, but only after this distribution phase completes. Once the OG whales have finished selling, once ownership has sufficiently fragmented, Bitcoin will probably start tracking market sentiment again, just with a more stable, less volatile character.
[00:27:32] Fourth, and this is crucial, the sentiment will only improve after the distribution is substantially complete. Right now people are demoralized because they don't understand what phase we're in. We're waiting for Bitcoin to catch up to stocks. They are worried about the four year cycle. Be patient once the heavy selling pressure lifts. Once the patient accumulation by institutions has absorbed the OG supply and the path becomes clearer. The exact timeline is unknowable, but the pattern is recognizable if you've seen it before in traditional markets.
[00:28:08] The maturation of an asset class.
[00:28:12] Every revolutionary technology goes through this evolution. The Internet had its early believers who built companies with no business model. Just faith that connectivity would change the world.
[00:28:24] They were right. Many of them became incredibly wealthy. Then came the dot com crash and consolidation. Ownership transferred, the dreamers gave way to operators and the Internet didn't die. It actually fulfilled its promise, just on a longer timeline than the early hype suggested.
[00:28:44] Personal computers, mobile phones, cloud computing, AI. Every transformative technology follows a similar arc.
[00:28:53] Early believers take massive risks. If the technology succeeds, they deserve massive rewards.
[00:29:00] Eventually they realize those rewards.
[00:29:03] Then comes a transition period that feels like failure, but is actually maturation.
[00:29:10] Bitcoin is following this exact playbook. The OG holders took risks when Bitcoin could have gone to zero.
[00:29:17] They held through ridicule, regulatory uncertainty and technological teething pains.
[00:29:23] They built the infrastructure, weathered the Mt. Gox collapse, defended against the scaling wars and evangelized when nobody wanted to listen. They won. They succeeded. Bitcoin is now more than a trillion dollar asset recognized by the largest financial institutions in the world. And now they're taking their well earned profits. This isn't the end of Bitcoin. It's not even the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning.
[00:29:54] From speculation to institution, from cypherpunk experiment to global asset, from concentrated to distributed, from volatile to stable, from revolutionary to foundational, the opportunity in distribution.
[00:30:12] Here's what gives me conviction.
[00:30:15] I've seen both sides now. I understand how traditional finance works. I understand the patterns of IPOs, of lockup, expirations, of institutional accumulation.
[00:30:27] And I understand the crypto community, the hopes, the frustration, the conviction that this time is different.
[00:30:34] Sometimes it is different, sometimes it isn't.
[00:30:37] What's happening to Bitcoin right now isn't different.
[00:30:41] It's the same economic forces that have governed markets for centuries just playing out in a novel context.
[00:30:49] The distressed sentiment everyone is feeling, that's not a sign of failure. It's a sign that we're in the hardest part of the journey. The part where believers cash out and late believers feel like they've missed it. It's uncomfortable, it's frustrating, but it's necessary.
[00:31:07] And here's the crucial insight that should give long term investors confidence.
[00:31:11] Once this distribution phase completes, Bitcoin will be structurally stronger than it's ever been.
[00:31:18] When holdings are distributed across millions of investors instead of concentrated in thousands of early whales, the asset becomes more resilient, less susceptible to single entity manipulation, more stable, more mature, more capable of absorbing real capital without violent volatility.
[00:31:39] The IPO is almost complete. The OG whales are getting their reward. And what emerges on the other side is A Bitcoin that's ready for the next phase, not as a speculative vehicle for massive returns, but as a foundational monetary asset with a distributed stableholder base.
[00:31:58] That might sound boring to the people who got in at $100 and dreamed of 10 million, but to institutions managing trillions, to corporations looking for treasury diversification, to countries exploring reserve assets. Boring is exactly what they want.
[00:32:14] The excitement of concentration is being replaced by the durability of distribution.
[00:32:20] The early believers are passing the torch to long term holders who bought at higher prices and have different motivations.
[00:32:27] This is what success looks like.
[00:32:30] This is Bitcoin having its ipo. And once it's complete, once the distribution has run its course, once ownership is sufficiently fragmented, that's when the real institutional adoption can begin in earnest. Because the market will finally be able to absorb real capital without the overhang of massive concentrated positions waiting to exit. The consolidation is frustrating. The sentiment is terrible.
[00:32:57] The divergence from risk assets is confusing. But the fundamentals are stronger than ever. And the structure, the distribution of holdings from concentrated to fragmented is exactly what Bitcoin needs to graduate from a revolutionary experiment to a durable monetary asset.
[00:33:17] The OG whales are having their liquidity event. Let them, they earned it. And what they're leaving behind is a Bitcoin that's stronger, more distributed and more resilient than the one they accumulated.
[00:33:30] That's not a reason to despair, that's a reason to accumulate.
[00:33:36] Bitcoin's volatility was the price of its birth. Its stability will be the proof of its adulthood.
[00:33:46] Shout out to leden IO l E D N IO they offer Bitcoin backed loans which is a great way, especially during a an accumulation phase like we are currently in, to not have to sell your bitcoin. If you need fiat, especially if you end up in a prolonged period like this and you want to buy yourself time and you have an investment that can beat an interest rate but you just do not think is going to be Bitcoin or a cost that you know to improve your house. That's what I've used it for, that you just, you don't want to let go of the bitcoin you, but you don't also want to delay your life or getting your family in the home that they deserve. So check this out. They do proof of reserves twice a year. They have open books every month.
[00:34:34] They have made it through a hell of a bear market and they came out of it simply slimming down and hardening their focus on just bitcoin backed loans and Getting rid of all the other features and being boring repairs, reliable and safe. I got a special link for you guys down in the show notes that gives you a little discount and also lets them know I sent you.
[00:34:56] All right, so who was it that actually posted this?
[00:35:01] Oh, so check matey, Check matey posted it with a. Posted this article that. I think this was the comment that first led me to this article and then I had a number of other people re recommend it to me.
[00:35:16] But showed a chart of the. The billions per day in cell side pressure which is still around 2 1/2 to 3 billion per day, which we've seen a handful of periods in which it has spiked and it just keeps, it keeps climbing. But it's like very, it's very steady. There's a lot of.
[00:35:42] I think it's mid to long term. Like the, the article Jordy wrote here I think has the idea.
[00:35:51] I think there's a really good point to be made here. I never thought about it in the context of an ipo. I think that's a really strong position or way to frame what's going on.
[00:36:02] I just think about it is.
[00:36:05] Or I have thought about it and have explained it is just there's an enormous amount of new liquidity and it means not only people coming in, but it means people being able to get out. And that was probably an element of it that I hadn't really, I hadn't really put my finger on it is that there are players who have made enormous profits that could not get out.
[00:36:32] Until now, they literally had no capacity. There wasn't enough liquidity actually present to exit a position that big. Now coming from the context of an OG whale and it's so funny because he. I mean I don't, I don't consider myself a whale and I don't think many other people would either.
[00:36:51] But talking about people who got in at $100 or lower and have held for that long and you know, were die hard believers, like that's me. So in the context of like imagining one of those people, all I can do really is give my perspective.
[00:37:10] Now I am not in a position where I would want to cash out, quote unquote, you know, from the context of what he is saying is that, oh, the OG whales are leaving, they're exiting their position.
[00:37:26] Now he does give the example of a handful of people who had like in the tens of thousands of coins that were looking to exit their position and had been in bitcoin for quite possibly a very, very long time on the Realm of, you know, 10 to 14 years or maybe even longer, maybe even the very, very early days and, you know, just having the amount, I mean, the sheer volume of coins that again, there was just never a way to actually make that exit.
[00:38:01] Now I have no interest in exiting. I don't know why an OG whale would want to exit. I don't know how you even, like, I can't think of any other place to put $9 billion that I would feel even remotely safe about. Like, that's the thing that I don't get from the context of someone who truly believes in this is what is your exit? What are you exiting to? Like, are you getting $9 billion in profit? Like, now? What are you gonna do with those dollars?
[00:38:33] Like, from.
[00:38:34] I've been on a bitcoin standard now for, I don't know, three or four years.
[00:38:39] And I can only see, I can only see myself being more integrated and more deeply involved now from a context of quote unquote, taking profits of realizing the value in bitcoin.
[00:38:53] This year and last year, more than any other period in bitcoin's history, I have gone full on into, it's time for me to just build something cool. It's time for me to really invest in expanding the business and the podcast and quit penny pinching and just putting, you know, putting my money where my mouth is and building this out and actually having something that's sustainable, that hires people, that is a. That has people that run and it's not just me in front of my computer doing some work. And I actually have a team. And that has been a sub two year thing. Like it was, it was not long ago at all that I finally hit that point that I was like, this is, this is stupid. I need to quit thinking that I can do everything myself or scale this business infinitely without actually making it a business. And so I completely get it from that perspective because I, I kind of am an example that he is talking about, even though I am not even close to the volume or degree that he's referring to here, but I am making a bigger investment. And I just had this conversation with, I think, I think we talked about it live on the show, but we talked before and after, so I can't quite remember where it was in the conversation, but that we just feel this obligation. It's like, like, if you have a little bit of capital to actually do this is like, go build something.
[00:40:22] Like, there's so much stuff that I wish I could do so many projects that I want to actually Complete during my life. And now I've reached the point where that capital does actually feel, it does feel accessible to me.
[00:40:36] So I'm like, okay, pull the trigger. Let's just do this.
[00:40:41] And you can think about that. Or I think that's a fairly.
[00:40:51] Like, like you can absolutely, absolutely. Post etf, post the regulatory clarity post.
[00:41:01] Basically what's happened in the last two years has gotten me to the point where I felt comfortable doing that, where I could make the investment, I could, I could do this official and you know, had a business with a full on just bitcoin standard coming in and out and that this could be sorted out and I didn't feel like I was having to twist it to make it look like dollars or something. You know what I mean? Like something about the, the comfort of where everything has come and the I guess the size of bitcoin and the scope and like I don't feel uncomfortable or I don't feel like I have any real headwinds if I say that I'm in bitcoin. Like I'm sure they have this always in crypto sort of mindset every once in a while, but I don't really care. Like it doesn't.
[00:41:50] I mean I've always fought against the headwinds since the very, very beginning days that my brother and I got into it, but it just feels like none of that is even really there anymore. It's like barely an afterthought.
[00:42:04] So it has absolutely changed my mentality and my position and how I think about the capital that I do have access to.
[00:42:13] But for somebody that has 80,000 Bitcoin, like Jesus Christ, like just thousands of bitcoin, just a thousand bitcoin, anything, just like extraordinary amounts of money like that. I don't know what you get into. Like what's he selling it for?
[00:42:29] You know, like, you know, buy mortgage backed securities, like what bonds? I mean, okay, if you buy a business, you know, do a hostile takeover of Apple, like, but you know what I mean? Like what, what are you doing with that that you need to like you're actually selling that amount of bitcoin specifically. Like, like that's your stash and you sold the whole thing.
[00:43:00] Like I just could not.
[00:43:02] Like I would never, never. It doesn't matter how much it was. I would never sell the whole stack. And maybe that wasn't that person's whole stack. And maybe this is just.
[00:43:13] They are buying businesses, they are investing in projects. I mean, obviously we have no idea what the hell anybody's using any of it for. But it's still the idea that like they're quote unquote taking profits lends me to think. Jordi still doesn't quite have the mindset that I think.
[00:43:32] And all I can do again is go from my experience. Like that's not my mindset. I don't know how like, like I'm not taking profits.
[00:43:42] Like I am in a position where I am ready to spend, to invest into doing something real.
[00:43:49] But I am not in a position where I'm like, oh, I finally made it. Bitcoin made it. I'm going to get out. Because all I can think is get out into what?
[00:43:59] There's nothing. I don't want bonds. Like if I had $9 billion worth of Bitcoin then maybe, maybe I would sell $10 million worth or 20 million just to put it in some, something with like an interest bearing return or bonds or something.
[00:44:22] But you know, just to make a million dollars a year or half a million dollars a year just in income, that's just like a steady stream of capital that I could basically put to all sorts of projects. But even that would kind of be new. Like you look at the financials on that on like a 10 year timeframe, that's still stupid. Like you're still getting clobbered on the value of the dollar. And do I think bitcoin's going to do better than 5% a year? Yeah, you know, even, even that just seems ridiculous unless I'm able to get it on like a loan or I think we're going to go into a bear market. You know, if I bitcoin shot up to $400,000 then I might do that, put it in the bonds and for the next three years stack like mad with the income that would come in. But it would all be to accumulate more bitcoin, you know, So I don't know.
[00:45:13] I'm inclined, I'm more inclined to think that very wealthy investors who are very prudent and we're making a long term position and already have large financial positions in things that they feel safe or secure about in the dollar denominated markets. Probably not bonds these days, but you know, like they do own Apple or companies that they're very knowledgeable about and they've been in for a long time and they got in during a period in which liquidity was extremely low. Like you think about what's the Mexican billionaire guy and then there's Drucken Miller and like these sorts of people, they've been in bitcoin now for like four or five years. Like it was kind of the 2019, 2020, 2021 era in which they really kind of became vocal about all of this. And there's probably a previous era of that that landed in 2017 and 2018 and got into the market and they had, you know, they put $5,000,010,000,000 in the market and now it is a billion dollars. Now it is a substantially greater amount of money.
[00:46:37] Now with the exception of the obvious, obvious fact that there are going to be new big like people who have been in this for a very very long time with a significant amount of Bitcoin, every single time we do another jump or another hype cycle, there are going to be exits, they're going to be taking profits.
[00:46:58] But I wonder if it's actually more in the five to nine year time range holders that are the ones more than anything else that are quote unquote changing the guard.
[00:47:12] I'd be inclined. It's people who were drawn in by the ideological argument but were still heavily focused on financial gain of a very very native. They just took a much higher financial risk for the potential of that gain and they never had the liquidity until now to get out that it's actually like this middle range. And the reason I kind of wonder if that might be the case is I was looking at the BTC HODL waves and then the long term hold holder supply net position change and then also checkmatey put a post today chart the realized value breakdown by age.
[00:47:57] Granted it's still very difficult to, to parse because the, the, the size of it isn't like the breadth of the chart like the, the ability to see how much each color is changing is very very difficult because you know the 10 year plus is kind of like really small on this chart. But I think it's the. Let's see.
[00:48:22] Yeah. Okay. So it's the HODL waves that kind of show the various zones and which ones are growing and which ones are shrinking and the two sizes, the two pools of bitcoin balances or age balances that are shrinking the fastest that are more than two years. So we've got the greater than 10 years, the seven to 10 year pool, the five to seven year pool, the three to five and the two to three.
[00:48:56] The biggest one that appears to be shrinking in size or the one that appears to be shrinking in size the most is actually the five to seven year gap. It's the three to five followed by the five to seven year that are selling the hardest.
[00:49:13] The Greater than ten year pool.
[00:49:16] Granted, this might also include a lot of coins that are just kind of stuck forever. So it's hard to say for sure.
[00:49:23] But the greater than 10 year pool is.
[00:49:27] It's kind of falling with the entire group and it looks kind of consistent. It doesn't look like that size is changing a whole lot, but the ones underneath it are changing quite a bit more.
[00:49:39] The 5 to 7 is very stark. Actually back at the end of.
[00:49:45] I don't know, that would be the beginning, the beginning of 2024, the five to seven year gap grew really, really big. Now it's actually really, really small in comparison. I say it's probably about a third as, as if like 2/3 of that group has basically offloaded their position. And that's what makes me wonder if, I mean, I guess from a lot of people's perspective, Those are the OGs, right? They've been in for seven years just talking about, you know, 2019, 2018, like that sort of stuff. But that's not quite the 2010, 2011 people.
[00:50:20] OGs that are ideologically cashing out.
[00:50:25] So I. It's probably a combination of all, but just the sheer fact that there's always a subset of the market, you know, say, let's just for practical numbers, let's say it's like 10% of the market from every era has been in for pure financial gain and risk in a new asset that maybe they were ideologically aligned to like it interested them because of that.
[00:50:52] They were, they had some experience in old money. So they know the traditional financial system and they're looking for that, that edge case like really big thing.
[00:51:05] And they are, they position into it, but they're not, they're not there for a bitcoin standard. You know, they're not there for, they're not all in. They are, they are in it for the really, the really profound reward and because it's a fascinating thing.
[00:51:26] Well, they can't exit, they can't a billion dollar position. So they, you know, they invest $50 million, it turns into $4 billion, $5 billion.
[00:51:36] There's no, you know, you have to get out at the hype, like at the very peak or you're selling into murder, you know, you're selling just into straight blood across the market. If you, if you miss that, that huge spike in liquidity.
[00:51:53] But now we just have massive liquidity. And this would be the time in which if they really wanted to offload without making a stupid emotional decision and where all the regulatory environment just seems super inviting to them and that this is just going to go through and they're going to have, they're going to have their gains like this, this would be when they did it, you know, and they would, they would offload for a period of months, maybe even six months or well, you know, somebody who actually had the capital could probably offload. These days the liquidity available, you got $3 billion a day is, you know, you could offload in a couple of weeks, you know, sailors just on the other side of that buy. But you know how many players are doing that? You know, if you, if you've got a subset of the market for, since the whole time, every, every era of new people coming in, you've got this subset that's thinking about it in these terms and with this perspective, they're all looking for that liquidity to get out. Because if everybody who's got billions of dollars of bitcoin tries to get out at once, the whole thing's just kaput, like it's just a disaster. But they're not going to do that because they're not stupid. That's why they have billions of dollars.
[00:53:14] And at the exact same time, institutions aren't going to just go ham and buy like crazy. They are going to also slowly accumulate positions. And they're not going to buy on the back of five big green candles. They're going to calm, they're going to wait. In fact, if they had bought before those five green candles, they might put in a little bit of sell, they might take some of their profit just in the short term to close those and basically realize that for a pension or a dollar obligation, some sort of dollar denominated liability that they have to offset, well, shit, they've already made their year offset. If they do that, then they slowly wait for another good entry point. They wait for three or four red candles before they start accumulating a little bit more to see if they can go ahead and offset the next few months of their dollar denominated liabilities.
[00:54:10] And there's a ton of six months to two year shifting like age of bitcoin that has selling pressure. And think about it, they're all hugely up and they are also much newer entrants into the market.
[00:54:28] So they think, you know, like a two year time blank, you're up to a hundred, 200%.
[00:54:34] I mean this time two years ago in 2023, the price was like $28,000, it was like 30,000.
[00:54:42] And the people who got into bitcoin then are probably much more Traditional market mindset, they are closing their positions, they're taking profits just as much or more than, I mean, maybe not in volume. It's a good question of, you know, what would be the good comparison there?
[00:54:59] Like, how do you actually get that measurement? But there's a ton of those people that are probably also like, well, hell, I've look at the freaking run that this has had in two years. Even though bitcoiners are like, well, this is boring as hell. We've just Crab walked for two years. It's like, dude, it went up from 30 to 120.
[00:55:18] Like, yeah, but this is boring. Bitcoin is boring. This is nothing. But I think over just the general thesis is correct, is what we have is a vastly more mature market with far, far greater liquidity.
[00:55:33] And that is realizing all of the things that you get with far, far greater liquidity. But once the distribution phase is over, once you get that shift, like now that this is opened up and you do have this shifting of holders, there is so little in bitcoin's way now and there is still nothing with the degree of, of the fundamentals of bitcoin. Like think about the fact that we are in the quote unquote distribution phase and one year ago the price was like $62,000. For as much as everybody's frustrated, it still just kind of keeps making higher lows. Like it is still a slow but strong climb to where we are today.
[00:56:19] I think this still lends itself to an extremely strong position where for, for a rally, for, for just growth, for just growth in general.
[00:56:31] And even though he says we're probably not, we're probably past the 10x's I think that's a little bit.
[00:56:39] I mean, yes, yeah, we're past the point in which the size, the actual size and the genuine growth of the network can 10x in a year.
[00:56:50] But I don't think we are past that point when it comes to the dollar price because I think fiat is getting incredibly volatile.
[00:56:57] So while bitcoin becomes more and more stable and more structurally sound and more liquid, the dollar is getting less stable and more volatile.
[00:57:07] So I don't think actually in the context of the fiat price, if bitcoin does what I think it is going to do and what I am trying to set up my life to prepare for, then I don't think we're past the 10x in a year because I don't think we're past a point. I don't think we will have a point where unless the dollar literally turns and just says we're going to be backed by freaking Bitcoin which might actually happen depending on how horrible things get. But that would also mean that they actually need to do something to clean up their financial situation because you've got an exponential debt problem. And I don't know, you could just as easily be. You could quote unquote back things by bitcoin and still be a complete disaster because that doesn't. Your obligations will just grow. But regardless if I don't think we're out of any sort of situation where the dollar can't fall by 50% and I think we will get to a point where the dollar falls by 50% in a year, might still be 10 years away.
[00:58:08] But if that happens and bitcoin can still 2 or 3x then you're looking at a 10x in the bitcoin price. And again, just when it comes to economic calculation and building the base of an economy, like more and more capital is just going to flow into Bitcoin because bitcoin is going to be a better foundation to build on and it needs. Exactly. This is like one of the things everybody's like, oh, Bitcoin's not never going to be currency because it's not stable. It's like this. Like what is wrong with you? How do you not understand?
[00:58:39] Like this is a basic, the most basic market principle. I want to pause right here. Just give a shout out to Leden IO. They do bitcoin backed loans and I've been a customer of theirs for a while now and I am very, very happy that I found them and I have a lot of respect for the company and I think this is a really fantastic toolkit and they support this show. So I have a special link for you guys down in the show notes. Also get Chroma. They have some really fantastic lights and nightshade glasses. I think light health is one of the most ignored areas that we as bitcoiners. If we're serious about our health, we should really think about 10% discount right down in the show notes. Also pubkey and Synonym. They've made a protocol stack for re decentralizing the web. Really fascinating stuff. And the HRF and their financial freedom report as well as the article we'll be reading very soon from them. Stay tuned and you can check them all out right down in the show notes.
[00:59:35] Liquidity is the source of stability, period.
[00:59:39] Like there is no. You can't like artificially create something that's young and changing and like the growth rate is Happening at a massive pace. And it's a very immature, illiquid market. And it's just arbitrarily stable. Like that makes no sense. It completely begs the question of stable against what?
[01:00:02] All economic activity is comparative.
[01:00:05] It only compares to something else. Everything is relative. There is no objective measure of economic thing. Which means that all they're thinking is that it has to be stable in price of dollars. Which makes it stupid, because dollars aren't stable.
[01:00:22] They're just the most stable of a batch of horrible bullshit that is being manipulated and printed by the trillions every single year.
[01:00:31] Bitcoin is, and practically always has been since it was born, the most stable asset we had available to us because of how unbelievably predictable the supply is and how unchanging that supply schedule is against every other asset. And because of that, it actually reveals the correct change in how much its network has grown.
[01:00:58] Which when you're dealing with a small network that can double or triple or quadruple or 100x in legitimate size, like the actual number of people in the capital in it, in a short period of time, the price is going to do the same. But it was never going to be stable until it was massively liquid. You can't create something from scratch that is arbitrarily stable at a small and large scale. But they are fundamentally contradictory concepts.
[01:01:30] Price stability must, must come after broadly accepted and understood to be valuable.
[01:01:41] And that's the place that we have found ourselves in. We are in the institutional bid. Conservative institutions, some of the world's most conservative institutions are openly buying bitcoin.
[01:01:54] This is bitcoin winning. And it was always going to get to this point. And I don't even think it's like less radical because of that. It's the, the radical nature, like its ideological foundation is literally the foundation like that. That is its foundation like the Internet. It's. It's exactly what allows that that movement to actually continue. Like the idea that the Internet is like less foundation or less ideologically driven or less cypherpunk today than it was. The Internet is the reason Bitcoin exists. The Internet is exactly the reason we could actually create the next layer of protocol to push the world continuously in this direction. And that will keep happening. And Bitcoin will be the foundation that lets the next thing come when we build and we push ourselves toward more freedom and sovereignty.
[01:02:46] So don't forget to check out Jordy's substack. I will.
[01:02:50] I'm actually going to be following because it was a great article. Great article. I thought it was a really great position and framing to understand where we are in Bitcoin's life cycle. And I think the best way to put it is that Bitcoin is becoming an adult.
[01:03:05] So with that, thank you guys for listening. I am Guy Swan. This is Bitcoin. Audible. And until next time, everybody. That's my two sets.
[01:03:33] When we are children, we seldom think of the future. This innocent leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
[01:03:41] The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
[01:03:46] Patrick Rothfuss, the Name of the Wind.
