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The Honest Money Show is your guide to understanding what money really is, and where Bitcoin fits in. Hosted by Anja Dragovic, Australia's female-led, Bitcoin-only podcast, it cuts through the noise to explore how money shapes our lives, why the current system leaves so many people behind, and what a clearer, fairer future could look like.
Expect honest, accessible conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the space, the kind that take you from "I don't really get this" to genuinely curious. No hype, no pressure, just money, made clear.
Whether you're brand new to these questions or already deep in them, you're welcome here.
Gary Cardone, welcome to Honest Money.
Hey, thank you so much. Good morning.
Appreciate you making some time away from
painting to have a chat with me. Well, you
probably saved me because I was working on
something that needs a tremendous amount
of work. There's so many flaws, I'm
probably just going to paint over it. So
thanks for that. Yep, if at first you
don't succeed, dust yourself off and try
again. So I'm really curious to know, what
was your first impression of Bitcoin when
you first heard about it? I heard about it
and, well, before I tell you that, okay,
now I've been through, in my lifetime,
I've been through the Hunt Silver story,
which if you're in Bitcoin, you should
absolutely read the, what's his first
name? Lacey Hunt Silver Escapade that took
place in the late 70s, I believe. It's
soon, the first time I ever heard about
Bitcoin, I was invested into a fintech. I
came out of the energy business and I
invested in a fintech that was designed to
solve card not present transactions that
were occurring early, like in 2007-ish.
The internet had just really exploded.
Consumers were moving online, like at a
great volume. Visa MasterCard had not
expected that. And because I had been in
the energy business for 25 years prior to
that, living in a number of countries,
helping the energy minister, the energy
industry restructure the way their markets
work. Because the way the markets work
back then, they were really slow. They had
no price points. You had to have contracts
that were this big. Everything moved slow.
For instance, the Australian LNG
facilities are all based on pricing that
happens at the Henry Hub in Texas, based
on natural gas, out of a facility in Lake
Charles, Louisiana, which is my hometown,
that makes all the LNG from the West. So I
spent 25 years from the ground disrupting
ExxonMobil, ConocoShell, all the
pipelines, all the grids, making,
basically moving to a world of heavy-duty
industry that just only deals with each
other, to a fair and open market where you
and I, Anja, if there is space or capacity
on a grid or a pipeline, and I have
credit, which everybody does because they
sign a common agreement. An ISDA
agreement. This is very important for
Bitcoiners. I know you don't want to
listen to it, but the reason that market
works so well is that everybody signed a
paper document, a fiat document, and they
abide by the same rules. Today, when I
started my career at 21 years old, at 24
years old, natural gas, no, at 21 years
old, natural gas was priced at $7.62. It
is $3 today. Okay. And every oil company
and every advisor to every oil company,
every brain from every MBA school, double,
double, whatever, said, we are going to
run out of energy. No one will invest in
energy if there's a spot market. It'll be
too volatile. You can't print paper
kilowatts. You can't burn paper kilowatts.
You can't burn paper nat gas. I have heard
the Bitcoin responses about running out of
supply for so long. If Bitcoin supply runs
out, folks, no one dies in a hospital.
Okay. Electricity runs out. Natural gas,
oil, people die. Okay. So, like, we have
never seen prices in energy do this and
not massively correct and overcorrect. If
you let these markets work and you look at
the way the energy construct has worked
for the last, since Enron came in. They
did a lot. I mean, I am of the Enron era.
I competed with them. I slept in a house,
was married to a woman who was one of
their head traders. She and I literally, I
wouldn't say controlled, but 90% of every
molecule that the state of California
burned came through one household. I mean,
it was crazy back then. The point I'm
trying to make is, you look at the Hormuz,
every suit has said $300 crude oil, $250
crude oil. No, no, no. It will never do
that. It's $100, $120, because after COVID
and the Ukraine explosion of the pipeline
going to Germany, which will end up
bankrupting all of Europe, the energy
industry is like high engineering, okay?
They're like military organizations.
They've got Halliburton. And I mean, these
guys have been building shit bridges
forever. You hit them with a pipeline blow
up. They look for logistics. People are
chasing, looking around. Okay, let me
solve that problem. There's margin here
with problems and energy problems are big
problems. They then, you know, go to the
Hormuz and blow up whatever. I don't think
it's anywhere near the amount of crude oil
you think it is. But when crude can only
go from 62 to 100, and the bears say, hey,
you took off 20% of the global supply of
oil, dude, you guys will never have to pay
$150 for crude oil, more than a day or
two. More likely, you're going to get it
for negative, because at $100, these
people are going to drill a cow if it has
enough gas in it. Okay, they will drill,
baby drill. There's 150 drilling rigs
sitting in inventory right now. Okay,
there's zero turbines that you can buy
from anyone for the next three years.
Backlash. Backlash. So natural gas today
is at $3. Eight weeks ago, 12 weeks ago,
it was bordering over $6.50. And we have
crude oil at $100. Wow, that's wild. So I
think crude oil, and I would be happy to
compete and debate with any academia or
any other person that's written a book and
told everyone that energy was not elastic.
Energy is the most elastic currency. I
think it's becoming a currency. It's the
most elastic product in the world. It
moves to the highest point, the highest
dollar. We've become very, very good at
moving energy. And at $100, every project
ever considered in 100 years is being
restudied. The books are being opened
because at $100, dude, you could probably
burn a pine tree and have some use case
for that pine tree and make a better
margin than using whatever, right? Demand
gets cut off first. People didn't
understand this. They don't understand
that at least 35% of the demand of energy
that I, Gary Cardone, use, it's
convenience, man. It is like, oh, wow.
Fans going, lights going, AC going. My
aquarium's over there. It's chilling out.
I got my song on there. Come on. I don't
need most of this stuff. Okay. So prices
go up. People go, oh, shit. Boop, boop,
boop. They start cutting everything. And
anytime a utility wants to cut a domestic
user's energy off, they can't. Anytime the
utility wants to cut the energy off to a
Bitcoin miner, Bitcoin just screaming $800
,000, you don't have a miner that's got
any real energy. They'll just take the
energy from you because they have the
contractual right to it. Unless you own
all that energy, right? So the first time
I heard about Bitcoin, 2013, I listened
for about four hours. I am a very good
student. I don't look like one, which is
my super hack, but I'm a really good
student. I study markets very well. And
anything that has, if it is related to
supply and demand, which is a key
principle for me, there is nothing I do
that does not always end with what does
the supply and demand look like for this
thing that I'm thinking about doing or
buying or selling. And I think that comes
from, you know, the natural gas thing,
because I was told, wow, you guys are
turning that gas into paper. It's all
going to blow up. Someone's going to just
die. This never happened. You know what
happens when you open the markets up to
competition? Prices fall from $6.72 to $3
and they stay there forever. I went to the
United Kingdom in 2000 and 1992. The price
of natural gas was 28 pence a thermal
unit. Don't worry about it. 28 cents a
unit. And two years later, just by one
human being being there, the price went to
9p. Just 28 to 9 in two years. The utility
lost $2 billion sterling. That was $3.7
billion U.S. dollars of net income from
the prior year because they would not
confront competition. And they just
watched it all happen right under their
feet. And then they blame me. And the
reason I bring this up, this is that
market. Bitcoin is exactly the market I
lived in in 1987 to 2001.
Everything that's happening to Bitcoin is
literally the same, except your lobby is
horrible. Your lobbyists are absolute crap
and the marketing is so bad. Okay. And the
reason why you have sent this is a one of
the gross negatives that no one ever
speaks about when they talk about
decentralization. Okay. Well, let's talk
about it. It has some downsides.
So this is where we are and you've gotten the
attention of every bank on planet Earth.
That's what I came for. Okay. I did not
come to go Mad Max and, hey, I have
thousands of 21 million Bitcoin, which
aren't really 21. It's really 16 million.
And then of that 16, 1 million is not
really ever going to hit the market. And
then of that 16, there's 4 million that
have been lost. So now we're down to 12.
And then there's another 3.5 to 5 million
that refuse to cooperate with the real
world market. And they're anarchists. And
they're like, I'm taking it with me. Fuck
you guys. Death to the government. Death
to debt. That is a peculiar market, I will
tell you. Okay. The dynamics of those
different people. Oh, by the way, the
anarchists, they're at 300 bucks. This is
25 or 30% of the spot. 4 million coins.
They're worried about a sailor selling 32
Bitcoin. This is 4 and 5 million Bitcoin,
dude, at 300 bucks. At 300 bucks. That's
why you never see any big whales nervous.
Yeah, whatever. I can wait, dude. It's
forever money. Never sell your coins.
Yeah, bro, you're priced at 300 bucks. I
mean, my God. But you're asking me to pay
70, 80, 90, 100. And what did we learn?
Well, we learned this year and the prior
years that whales sell $100,000 Bitcoin.
They're going to sell it next time it hits
it. And then they're going to sell 120s.
And then we need to do 175. Otherwise, we
have a really poorly performing asset. And
that doesn't mean it's a bad asset. It
doesn't mean it's a whore. It doesn't mean
it's, you know, vile. It means it is a
poorly performing asset to other options
and opportunities. And the people that are
coming to this market for the Bitcoiners,
we're not intending on paying a premium
for the responsibility to have seed codes
and seed phrases because our money isn't
going to get wrapped like that. And sadly,
I think it's actually good. Like when
people have lots of money, they don't do
it that way. And maybe it's just a real
ignorance on how money flows. But no one's
going to store, you know, $100 million in
a seed phrase.
Like Alzheimer's a deal, right? Really? I
mean, oh, yeah, oh, grandpa's got a seed
phrase. Dude, he's going to hand all of it
down to the kids one day. Tax treatment.
Have I actually accounted for, tracked,
traced all the Bitcoin I'm going to give
my kids? Have I actually, I know they're
going to be audited like they're
criminals. There's so many issues in this
industry. It's fascinating. But that, for
me, is the opportunity. I mean, I like
these young markets. And I just see
everybody else like having massive amounts
of emotion. And it just shows me, oh, wow,
you guys have never actually seen this
happen. I mean, I know what's going to
happen. And that gives me the ability to
actually invest money into it. I will tell
you, there'll be very few people like
that. Because they've never, like my
brother, is going to get nervous here.
He's never done this. He's always been
like, dude, I control everything. I'm not
impact. I'm only impacted by the cost of
money. It's literally down to how much
marketing he does and the projects he
picks. He's got a fucking awesome eye for
real estate, for multi-dwelling. In fact,
for all real estate. What to buy and what
not to buy.
And, see, I think that project would be
very, you know, he's doing a hybrid
Bitcoin treasury with real estate. And so
I helped him a bit with it. It's the best
treasury product I know of because he will
never go out of business. There will never
be the kind of issues that any of these
treasury companies have, which I think
there's 240 of them. I think probably 200
of them are going to go out of business
this year. Really? So those are Bitcoin
sellers. What do you do with those guys?
Yeah. Right. I mean, you've got to say,
let's study this market for a long time.
He's a very bright guy. And what did he
observe? He observed that everyone that
was beating him up, if you listen to his
early introductions of how he got here,
Google, Facebook, Meta, Amazon, all these
guys. You don't think he didn't study what
did they do that I didn't do and I got my
ass kicked. Michael Saylor got his ass
kicked by Monopoly Group and he's got a
hard on about it. OK. I mean, he does. If
you listen to him, I know the guy. OK.
We've never had this discussion. But if
you don't think he looked back and said,
hey, what mistake did I make? He didn't
borrow enough money. He didn't lean
against everything. All of these people.
Elon has borrowed more money than he's
made. Jeff Bezos borrowed it all. They
went to zero. These stocks were doing
what? Right. So he studied the playbook
and he's like, I must use Wall Street to
survive. And for you guys that are saying
that Bitcoin and the strategy product and
Michael Saylor are hurting Bitcoin.
Explain to me why it is fair or even
reasonable to ask a man that's in the
United States, public company, the most
transparent CEO I've seen in my entire
life. OK. And then you won't let him.
You'll penalize him if he borrows 11
percent of his total asset base. OK. If
ExxonMobil were to run the business that
way, we would have Nexon, no mobile. OK.
ExxonMobil has oil and gas reserves that
people think are there. They kind of look
over there. Oh, yeah. The pressure. We
think it's there. Yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, yeah.
It's proven reserves. They go to KPMG.
KPMG says, yes, yes, yes. They give it a
haircut. And then Exxon borrows $8
trillion for the next 30 years to build
out and grow. And everybody in Bitcoin is
saying, oh, my God. Saylor is
hypothecating Bitcoin. He's doing too much
of it because he's you know why he's doing
too much of it? Because no one else is
buying it. And then you're bitching. Oh,
wow. How did he buy 800? Because you guys
didn't step up to the table, dude. And to
all the whales, if you guys would have
just gotten together instead of trying to
show whose dick is bigger than the other,
Vitalik, all of you guys, dude, they all
left a tremendous amount of money on the
table. If they would have just worked
together, Bitcoin would be a successful
project right now. But instead, there were
30,000 different glittery objects, sucked
a bunch of intelligence out of the room, a
lot of competition, a lot of noise. And
you give Wall Street a time. I looked at
it in the first two years and went, I
wouldn't invest a dollar in the circus.
That's a long way of me saying, wow, Roger
Ver showed up. He released BV Cash or
whatever. I'm like, dude, these people are
LMN marketers. LMN, you know, those
marketers, the level, multi-level market,
MLM. It has a lot of feelings back then,
but multi-level. So this is where we are.
We have, I don't mean to be offensive, but
I'm just, look, I have a lot of money
invested in this space now. I'm not a
newbie. I've studied this market quite
well. The other thing people aren't
talking about is we have founders and CEOs
and guys that have been in deals now for
13 years. How many relationships have you
been able to have over seven? Okay. Or how
many jobs have you had? How many bosses
have you seen other than sailors stick
around for 30 years? People get burnt.
Entrepreneurs. And this is all I've ever
done. Dude, you get fucking frazzled.
Okay. Okay. I'm going to build a company.
I'm an exit, honey. Baby, we're going to
be rich four years from now. Four years
comes by and it's going to be another four
years. We had a little problem. Okay. We
didn't quite sell as much as we thought we
were going to sell. Oh, we had a lawsuit.
Stop the M&A activity. I've been through
this forever. Okay. You get a haircut when
you leave. There's no liquidity. This shit
happens. And when you look at a guy like
Vitalik, okay, these men are now involved
in one of the largest industries that are
competing with some of the biggest
gangsters on planet Earth. And they came
in with a fucking water pistol. And they
have to be exhausted. How would you feel
having $30 billion and you can't leave the
company and go have any fun? You have $30
billion and you have created this trap for
yourself that if you leave, your entire
legacy is you walked away from your
fucking pet project, Charles Hoskinson.
This is horrible. Okay. Why do I bring up
Charles? Dude, we're seeing exhaustion
kick in. This is real. I've seen this a
million times. I met, you know, I made a
lot of money because I would just watch
nutrition. I watched the really smart guys
that knew they knew everything. I'm going
out on my own, man. Boom. Blow themselves
up right in the face. Boom. Another one
blows up. You just stay somewhere and just
focus, man. These markets are massive.
We've had every token player, Vitalik and
they've changed their business model like
37 times now. They haven't made any money.
XRP is still looking for distribution. I
thought it would be in the porn industry.
Why he hasn't approached the porn industry
and used his shitty coin with too much
supply as a pure token for
microtransactions, high volume
microtransactions and dating, porn, high
risk, the gambling space. That's what I
thought he was going to do. Now, there's
two guys that have billions of dollars.
What if they leave? They can't leave and
all the shareholders, you know, token
holders would like them to leave so they
could have a really great business. But
they probably know that if they do leave,
they're going to get liquidated. If they
own 40% of the supply. The thing on the
token market, and I'll gamble on anything,
okay? Like, I will literally speculate on
anything. But if you're going to go invest
in tokens, really go buy IBM stock, man.
Okay? They have a balance sheet. They
trade like a meme stock now. They went up
30% the other day. The whole meme market
is crushed. The token market. As long as
Wall Street's behaving the way it's
behaving right now, Dell went up 40%.
Okay? And I could give you a list of 16 or
17 others. IBM. The weird thing is they're
all 30-year-old companies. These are
dinosaurs. They have massive balance
sheets, cash on the balance sheet, a
database of every customer on the planet
that has any money whatsoever. And now we
have AI coming in here. Everybody's
chasing the AI brain. I'm like, don't
chase the brain, dude. Chase the guy that
uses the brain. I think IBM's margins are
getting ready to quadruple. Exxon's
margins will go triple. Imagine a world
where you're paying $40 for crude oil. Not
$100. $30 or $40. And ExxonMobil is making
300% more than they used to make. They're
making more money. America has more
energy. And you and I are paying less. I
love that trade. Even if they make a lot
more money. I'm happy with them making a
lot of money. My prices come down. Their
margins go up. That's a great model.
Right? So this is a way of saying we are
going through structural change at a micro
and macro level. I don't think this
planet's ever seen. I'm extremely
allocated to Bitcoin. And the reason I got
there was because I've seen these before.
And if I'm wrong, my kids grow up exactly
the way I did. Plus about 300%. If I'm
right, I had a blast doing it. I don't
really get attached to money. So if I'm
wrong, it's like, dude, I can pivot on a
second. If I lose a bunch of money and I
have, okay, well, that was interesting.
But I don't need any of this to pay, you
know, to take my kids to school or I won't
take them to school. But you know what I'm
saying? Provide for anyone.
I don't think the asymmetric upside is as
great as it used to be. Yeah.
And. Why do you think that is? Well,
because I think that. And someone said,
hey, Gary's just envious of the people
that bought $300 Bitcoin. Look, I am a
market expert. Okay. Like I know how to
build markets and I know how to break them
down. And this is all I have ever done. I
have been asked to leave countries before.
I have been threatened. From countries
that they would, you know, cancel my
extended. Almost indefinite state
agreement. I've been threatened in the
United Kingdom by two bankers, different
bankers. Hey, you got to stop doing this.
You're going to bankrupt the power
industry. We're going to wipe your ass
out. I mean, this stuff really happens
when you start pushing. There's a couple
of companies in America. In fact, I think
they're Australian. I'm not going to
mention their name, but the first time I
met the CEO, their digital player. Four
years ago, four or five years ago, I met
the CEO and I walked away and somebody
said, hey, what do you think about that
pitch? I went, they will get destroyed. I
wouldn't invest a penny with them. And he
said, why? I said, Wall Street is going to
hate her, dude. Okay. Like you cannot just
keep putting pencils in somebody's eyeball
saying, hey, I want a part of the club.
You can't do that. And one thing
Bitcoiners have done, they've been
obnoxiously arrogant. Obnoxiously
arrogant. And that's not, you don't see,
and obnoxious against each other. Have you
ever heard the head of Texaco or Shell
talking about the head of Conoco? Never.
We are a vital resource for this planet.
Those guys are good. We're good. We all
need each other. They don't start pissing
on each other in public. Okay. That's not
healthy. You think people with billions of
dollars, tens of millions built businesses
are going to look at this and go, really?
I'm going to invest in this circus?
Really? Where almost every pure Bitcoiner,
except maybe three or four that I know,
has launched a project, has launched a
token, has been an enemy to Bitcoin, has
diluted Bitcoin, has said, I'm never
selling it. And then they find themselves
in a strategy, treasury strategy that
dumps 99%. People calling themselves
experts having no clue what they're doing
on a macro level. People suggesting that
centralized miners buying electricity in
the middle of the grid, not owning any of
the property, not owning any of the
energy, not owning the miners, the
compute, just has a bunch of money and is
going to make some margin. And then they
find, hey, we're producing Bitcoin at $118
,000 in a $69,000 market. Well, and we
have 300 people going, let's go mine, man.
Let's go mine and pay at the very end of
the gasoline meter. Okay. I'm going to
drive my car up there and go, hey, can I
have the retail supply? Seven cents a
kilowatt. People laughed at me when I
first came here. I said, seven cents a
kilowatt. I did. What do you think it
needs to be? That's what a miner pays for
electricity. He said, what do you think it
needs to be? I'm like, it needs to be less
than zero. And they laughed at me. We will
find zero is going to happen. And that
will be so good for Bitcoin. Okay. So good
because it decentralizes that. The only
people that are going to make money in
mining are people that have owned the
source. And they're small and it's not
going to be scalable. It's not going to be
scalable. The only way it'll be scalable
is if we take all those miners and you
wrap them up into a public paper product,
which will defeat the purpose. But the
marathons of the world, the riots of the
world will go away. They will shift to AI
or go bankrupt. And then you'll see
sovereigns Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia.
It's already happening. They have no cost
of their MMBTUs. If they're not in the
market, they're worth this much. It's a
little bit like a $78 million airplane.
You own a $78 million airplane. The guy's
walking around going, hey, what's the jet
fuel cost today? What's the fuel cost
today? He's like, bro, that plane is not
worth anything without jet fuel. Okay. So
like it takes time to build a pipeline. It
takes time to build ships. You can stick a
miner right on top of power, thermal,
solar, outer space. Now, one person in
Bitcoin has talked about outer space
mining. Like we're not thinking enough out
of the box. Okay. What we're doing is
we're going from, okay, Bitcoin's 21
million. Then Bitcoin's like got the
greatest return in the history of mankind.
That changed. Hey, Bitcoin's going to get
on the strategic reserve. It's $1 trillion
asset does not go on a strategic reserve,
man. Come on. It's tiny. It's a pimple on
a horse. My God. Much. I mean, come on.
Okay. It's like throwing Gary Cardone's
balance sheet into the world of kind.
Gary's backing us. Look at it. He's got,
yeah, it's ridiculous. We have a disparity
between early miners and current day
price, early holders and miners and
current day pricing, which is staggering
difference. If you had a producer who had
zero, $300, excuse me, at least $3 crude
oil. Okay. This is very, very important.
Okay. Crude oil costs $5 a barrel to store
every month. Okay. So in crude oil terms,
let's say that I'm the king of Buki Buki.
My energy costs me $5. I've been storing
it forever. Well, I didn't store it for
free. I paid $5 a month. Okay. Over years
and years, $60 one year, $60 the next
year, $60. Dude, I'm into hundreds and
hundreds of dollars per barrel just to
wash my face. You understand that? Cost is
five. I store it. If I have five, if I
have five, now what's that producer going
to do? He is going to be incented to move
that product into the market as fast as he
possibly can. So he doesn't incur any
charges on the three. He crushed it, man.
Problem is he can't store it. Okay. So
what does he do? He starts trading,
selling, moving, selling the futures.
Because he knows, I got really cheap
energy. I want to lock in these margins.
And he does it until he can't. Okay. Why
did he do it? Let's go back. Because the
price to store, the cost to store this
oil, which never goes bad. But the time
value goes bad. Because $5 a month, right?
I can hold billions and billions. I can
hold 100 ships of oil value. $1 billion
each. That's what an oil ship carries,
about $1 billion. Never pay any fees ever.
So why am I going to come into the market?
I'm going to get on Spaces and talk about
how great Bitcoin is. I pay $3. Have no
cost to carry. We must fix that part of
the Bitcoin market. If ExxonMobil could do
this without any fees, it would be
antitrust. It would be the weirdest
fucking market you've ever seen. Because
what they would do is they'd move the
price up and down so they could buy the
product cheaper, buy the properties
cheaper, stress out their competitors when
they so choose. Go grab the land in Iran.
You've got to fix this. It's not about
Bitcoin. It's about the way markets work.
And if you guys would spend some time
getting out of your own little digital
asshole and actually look at the way the
world is working. Because like, I don't
mean to be mean, but it's like, I have so
much money in this. I could have helped so
much. But they fight back on what they
know. They know, which in reality, they
actually don't know. They're not taking
the whole scene in place. What's your
What's your thesis on why the Bitcoin price didn't
perform as well as most people
anticipated? Like, we never really got the
blow off top that most people expected.
Yeah, we didn't. We got a, you know, for a
17-year-old athlete, super athlete, you
would have expected an extended ectasy.
You know what I'm saying? It should have
been a little bit better. I mean, it just
didn't do anything. It went to $120 and
then just, right? I mean, maybe Bitcoin
needs a combination of Bitcoin and Viagra.
Maybe that's what it needs. Or maybe,
look, the old guys aren't buying it. And
the old money, the old Bitcoin guys aren't
buying it. They're broke. I'm just going
to call it out like it is. They're broke.
Or they refuse to lean on their Bitcoin
and to buy more Bitcoin. And if you're not
buying Bitcoin right here, then you're
either diversifying or you don't want to
pay this high of a price. I know the
feeling, by the way. I now have enough
Bitcoin that if I never buy another one,
I'm okay. My average cost is $57,000, but
that is not why I came here. I came here
to buy over a thousand Bitcoin because I
thought that would be like, hmm, I think
that's a really good strategy. Going to
require a lot of work. I got to move a lot
of things around and I got to get a little
lucky. And I was basing all this on this
price going to $175. And now it's here.
I'm like, I am reassessing now. I can
increase the speed by which my original
goal was. I can actually accomplish more
than I thought. I don't even think we're
close to capitulation. And one thing
Bitcoin has done very consistently, it
don't move till that happens. And there's
no way we've seen capitulation.
Capitulation has one definition. And I
have MBAs arguing with me over it right
now. Well, capitulate, he's been around a
long time. I lost $120 million once in
nine months. I capitulated in the ninth
month. I mean, I had a boss on the phone
saying, hey, let's double the position.
Let's double up. Gary, we trust you, dude.
Let's just double. We know it's the right
trade. And I literally said, no, I can't
do it. It's the wrong decision. This was a
wrong trade. I should have cut earlier. We
could have lost $30 million. Instead, we
lost $120 million. And, you know, this is
why I sound obnoxious sometimes to people.
Because when they get real bright with me,
I go, hey, let's make a wage run. Which is
what I've done to this young man. I'll bet
you $10,000. We see 50 before we see 80.
Now, why do I do that? Because I don't
like saying what I think is going to
happen and then not be willing to put my
money behind it. Because everything
changes when you have money on it.
Everything changes. Right? It's not just a
pride bet. It's, ooh, you know. Because I
want to deploy millions of dollars of this
stuff. I don't want to buy 0.1 Bitcoin. I
want to have a heavy, heavy, heavy
allocation. Why would I have a heavy
allocation if none of the big boys are
buying? Why would I want to have a much
higher allocation at a much cheaper price?
And while the whole stock market's on fire
and we are having this structural, global,
fundamental financial reset. This is
happening right now. We will write about
this period. It will be one of the, I
mean, it will be written about, like, wow,
that period. The question is, is Bitcoin
going to be adaptable and advanced and
allow it to do what it needs to do in a
market that is going to reward those that
move fast?
And I see a lot of wasted energy in the
space. And I'm not trying to, again, I am
a big Bitcoin believer and I'm a big
Bitcoin holder. But there is a lot of
confusion. Like, I see everyone getting
really excited when Visa and MasterCard
buy yet another company. And you guys,
like, when I see that, I'm like, wow,
these guys have no clue. They're lambs to
the slaughter. And most of them are
probably going to lose the businesses they
thought they were going to build. And
they're probably going to lose their
Bitcoin because they don't understand
what's happening, I don't think. You don't
take on one of the greatest monopolies in
the history of mankind that feeds the
chargeback problem, the disputes problem,
which Australia enjoys because you're into
the Visa MasterCard system. I know that
because I've got a company that helps
Australia do this or used to. And these
guys aren't simply going to, you know, the
way they built the system over 70 years is
so convoluted that you'll never unwind it.
I mean, unless you want to break the whole
system. For instance, refunds. Bitcoin is
going to take over world currency, but
nobody wants to talk about refunds. Never
thought of that. 7% of everything ever
bought for a good retailer is a refund.
Okay. An e-commerce retailer will have 16%
refunds. And then we get into chargebacks.
I have 108. The first thing I ever heard
about Bitcoin. Bitcoin. Bitcoin is
competing with Visa and MasterCard. Look
at this. I'm like, what? And they were
like, yeah, well, we don't do as many
transactions. Why are you talking about
your transactions? You're not a
transaction entity, dude. You're a
settlement money. I've been here six
years. Not one person in this industry
knows what the return rights for a charge.
When does a credit card transaction sell?
Do you know? I'd assume it's a number of
days. 187 for Visa and MasterCard has
recently asked for 270 extension. I get to
buy a lawnmower on Amazon. Let it sit in
my house for five months. Call up American
Express. Don't even contact Amazon. Hey, I
don't want it anymore. I've been with them
since 1986. Now start thinking about
really listening to what I'm saying. Okay,
I've been with them since 1986. It is the
only credit card I use. I refuse to use
Visa and MasterCard. Refuse. They're
animals. Because they pick on the poor.
That's my bitch about them. I'm not a
critical person. But when you pick on the
poor and steal from the poor, shame on
you. That's ridiculous. Come take me on.
They don't charge me those fees. I don't
pay any of these fees. Y'all get charged.
It's unfair. I spend several million
dollars a year on this credit card. If I
want to call up American Express and I
don't do this. Hey, Gary here. I've got
some charges that are just bullshit, dude.
No problem, Mr. Cardone. That's a 17
-second phone call for me. In fact, now
you don't even need to make a phone call.
I just do it because I'm a nice guy. You
can just go click, click, click, click,
click, click, click, click. In an economy
where we advertise, hey, wow, people are
strapped on credit card debt. And they're
paying 23% and they have no more. So you
get the Visa statement from your Bank of
Australia or whatever. And you go, shit,
I'm an overdraft. You start hitting the
dispute box. This is a way to capture
cash. I encourage everyone to use your
rights on credit cards, man. Use your
rights, okay? Know your rights, use them.
I could buy almost everything free if I
was a scumball. And you've got to believe
that if people put up cameras and security
people, in some cases shut down their
retail operations because there's so much
theft in point of sale, imagine what's
going on online, okay? Online shopping. I
just want to know how the Bitcoiners are
going to handle this, okay? Online
shopping on a Friday night. Explain this
to me. It goes from, it's just, ugh, it's
ugly. Everybody's partying. They're out.
At 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. in the morning on
Friday, transactions explode. Just like go
up like quadruple. Why would you think
that would happen? I don't know. Alcohol?
13% of every purchase made on a credit
card is under the influence. The
chargebacks and dispute claims go up
Monday. They're lumpy. And no one
addresses it. It could literally get
addressed by Facebook and Google, Visa and
MasterCard. I told them I could solve the
problem. Half of the problem within 90,
one and a half years. They walk me out of
their room. They do not want to solve this
problem. And therefore, I say to you,
Bitcoiners, you must figure out how to
offer the same guarantee because they
ain't letting it go. They have figured out
a way to make money out of this problem.
If the cost of the consumer and the
retailer and they lock the retailer up,
the retailer can't actually go anywhere.
He most certainly is not going to convert
his entire payment processing over to
Bitcoin. He's going to keep Visa,
MasterCard and everybody else wide open.
So how do you get the consumer to migrate?
When he walks into the store, if he's in
the store, I don't think there's going to
be stores. He walks in, there's a Bitcoin
terminal and a Visa terminal and a
MasterCard terminal and a Square terminal
and he ain't giving you the Bitcoin. It
doesn't have any refund rights. It's a
final transaction. And by the way, the
retailer didn't give you a discount. Why
would you use that kind of money and not
get a discount? Keep your cash, keep your
guarantee, your credit card rights. And
when somebody doesn't perform, you use
fiat for that crap. And then when you want
to do a big boy transaction between people
that you value, here, I want to send some
money to my kid. Boom, I bang them Bitcoin
because I know they're not going to, I
know how they're going to use it. Or if I
want to buy a company, I bought a company
on a Saturday afternoon and I think I paid
a discount. I most certainly wouldn't pay
the same price. I can close on a Saturday.
Okay. Hey, I'm ready to close right now.
All the bids are due for Monday. Okay.
Imagine this scenario. All the bids are
due for Monday. I'm there. I'm chatting to
the CEO. I've flown out there on my plane.
I have drinks with him. I get to know.
Hey, bro, I can close two days early.
You've already seen the bids. You know
where the bids are going and you know I
can close. Okay. I am going to get a
discount for my premium money. This is
what fascinates me that the amount of hate
I'm getting can I'm like, I am actually
exercising the true thesis of Bitcoin by
charging more to use it. If I use my
Bitcoin, I expect a discount. It is
perfect liquid collateral in that sense.
It is for big transaction is beautiful. No
lawyers needed. It's spectacular. But for
micro transactions, candy transactions,
man, I don't see Bitcoin being used for
that. I see stable coins being used. So
don't start telling me you people telling
me Solana and Ethereum are going to get
that business. Nobody giving Ethereum all
that business. 1.1 trillion dollars of
market, about $1 trillion of market cap
between Visa and MasterCard. They don't
just walk away from that, those earnings
guys. And the moat they have. Oh, my God.
Okay. Imagine you and I are Bitcoins. On a
Visa and MasterCard, I don't have to know
you. I know you're out there somewhere.
You got a Visa and MasterCard. Guarantee
you, I've been a million dollars right
now. You have a Visa or MasterCard in your
purse, right? You don't even have to make
a bet. How's that going to work on
Bitcoin? How am I going to find you? Go
through Nostra? I'm going to go get on
Nostra. Let's see. Gary wants a lawnmower.
And I only want to trade in Bitcoin with a
real Bitcoin. Like, it's going to be a
really expensive lawnmower for me. Or it's
going to take forever to get to me. But
this market is really, really slow. Right?
I know I'm exaggerating. But I'm trying to
show, like, wow, only the Bitcoiners? And
then how do we all meet? Oh, we meet on
Spaces. Wow. How do you know they're real?
I don't really care who you are. I just
want the lawnmower man. And I don't really
care how we trade. I'm going to trade with
the cheapest money I can trade. In fact,
if you say, hey, Gary, I would really like
watermelons. Dude, I'd rather find a way
to get you more watermelons if I can buy
it cheap. It's just currency. I mean,
let's get, let's. It's actually real
money. I just don't know why I would use
it as currency. Unless I could get a
discount. Unless I could show the bike,
the seller, hey, I am more real than the
other guy. Guarantee somebody shows up
with a check for 10 million, Bitcoin for
10 million, or cash for 10 million. I'll
take cash first. For certain, I take cash
because it's not traceable. Second, I
would take the Bitcoin because I know it's
going to go. It's going to. I know it's
collateral that will be real. I'm not sure
I would do that on a 10 million dollar
transaction, though, on a peer to peer of
Bitcoin, where you send me directly 10
million dollars in Bitcoin because I don't
know where your Bitcoin's been. This is
another issue for Bitcoin. Nobody wants to
talk about. I'm sorry, but I might as well
be the guy that's going to bring it up.
These are structural, fundamental issues
that are going to come back to bite us in
the ass if we don't confront. Gary, you've
depressed me. I don't know if you've seen
that quiz that's going around the Internet
at the moment. It's like the Bitcoin
depression quiz. And people in Australia
have been doing it. And obviously, people
who've been in Bitcoin for a while are
flexing their 10 out of 100 score. They've
reached Bitcoin Zen. My score was
embarrassingly high in terms of how
depressed I am right now. Right. And I
think it made me a little bit more
depressed. Well, but let's think about
this, OK? Look, first off, I'm not a
theorist. I'm not an academia. I'm not a
smart guy. I didn't do well in school.
I've only ever built businesses in really
complex and large industries. I think what
you should be hearing from is that, one,
this is exactly where this market should
be. It's immature. OK, it is immature. It
is Visa and MasterCard 52 years. When you
go into really big markets, it becomes
really, really hard. Like selling fruit at
the corner, you know, in Iowa, Idaho is
one thing. Then taking that fruit stand
and going, OK, I'm going to do all of
Idaho. Then I'm going to do all the world.
You know, Visa and MasterCard haven't done
anything in China. I mean, horrible.
Nothing. They have been trying to pay.
Why? Because consumers in China, one,
they're not going to be allowed to because
China needs to understand who they are.
Two, the consumers don't behave the way
American consumers do. They have a payment
processing rail that looks it's
unbelievable. I mean, everyone uses it. I
mean, it's there's no checks, no money, no
Bitcoin. But there's also very little
returns and fraud. People don't just buy
shit because they can. Again, it's almost
like every human being now has a has a has
an index finger that's, you know, controls
their body, their mind, their bank
account. So you shouldn't be concerned.
The things that are happening in the world
right now are exactly what Bitcoin was
built for. The problem is no one told you
that when and if the events unfold on this
planet to make Bitcoin what everyone wants
it to be, you are going to go through a
shitstorm. You are. And we're not anywhere
near there. OK, like this is really
important. Every market capitulation is an
issue. We ain't close to capitulation.
You're depressed. That is not
capitulation. Capitulation is fuck Gary. I
hate Gary. I hate everyone here. Anyone
that asks a question you get irritated
with, you're getting closer and closer. I
have become I have had more doubt now. I
have asked myself more and more questions.
My doubt leads me to this. It is going to
take longer than anyone thought. And I
don't think that may or may not be bad.
But I would get a reasonable time frame.
You're maybe say you're 25. If I'm a woman
and I'm 25, 30 years old, all I'm worried
about is, hey, what am I going to be
holding when I'm 48? Because at 48 and the
guys, too. OK, 48. I have two daughters at
38. I want both of my daughters to be able
to say fuck you to any man on planet or
any boss, anything. Just go fuck you. Get
the hell out of me. Have a cool
diversified portfolio where at 48 you go.
You know, I don't need shit from anybody.
And it's simply a decision. Just like
running anything. OK, like to Houston, one
more hour a day. Just one. Hey, let me
grind out some ideas about it's one more
hour a day than anyone else is going to
do. People are lazy as shit. And they're
all whining and crying. You are going to
have the I've never had any of these
opportunities. Like you can stick your
nose 300 bucks a month. You have the best
M&A team on planet Earth. That's never
happened before. OK, you'll be able to do
calculus better than me. You can build a
business plan. I remember, hey, build me a
website. It would take months and months.
You don't need anybody. You can access an
MBA for zero cost. This is deflation,
dude. Your life is going to be near free.
And this AI thing, it's going to strip
everything down to a dollar. I mean, it's
going to rip the face off of inefficiency.
OK, the people that should be scared.
These are the masks. Oh, my God. What
purpose are you? You're just taking your
toll fee. There's no inch. Why are they
even there? They don't. They have no loss.
If we move to a digital world. That world
is going to reward value added. And it's
going to destroy value taken. Or too much
energy taken. You can't do chargebacks on
13 cent transaction. OK, like you got to
change the rules. This is another area
that if Bitcoin people would have really,
really, really thought about their
strategy on how to do this. They should
have started attacking this problem with
disputes. Because it does provide a very
unfair playing field. And the problem is
so big. I mean, I can teach the entire
digital industry how to rip that problem
into pieces. I actually probably should
now that my non-compete stopped. It's
interesting. My ex-partner says some of
her largest clients. Guess who they are
now? Stable coins. Exchanges. They're
getting hit with chargeback. What the hell
is this, dude? He went through the stable
rails. They have all the insurance rules.
Merchants will never adopt this the way
you guys are pitching it, dude. You're
barely able to get a consumer investor
like you to use it. To use Bitcoin. And
then you tell them, hey, go spend it on
Mars bars. I'm like, what are you doing,
man? Let the girl get rich. OK, stop
wasting your money on bullshit that can be
made over and over. You spend fake money
on fake products. Spend fake money on fake
products. If you can make a product
forever and ever and ever and ever, it's
nothing special. Dude, don't spend any
real money on that, OK? You don't use a
Picasso to buy something that's copyable.
Bitcoin is going to be cool, OK? And you
should listen to Larry Fink, OK? Look,
these guys are going, we are going to
change the way investments are made around
the world. They're going to start tapping
your 401k, your treasury. In America,
we're going to do this. We're going to get
every residential user the access. We're
started already. The SpaceX IPO is
oversubscribed by retail users that were
allocated 30% of it, which would be about
$24 billion worth of stock at $135. It's
oversubscribed four times. Now, the
digital guys are all going, oh, see,
that's Wall Street sucking in retail, dumb
retail, and they're going to rug them.
Last 40 years, you guys bitched that small
retail never had access to IPOs. You have
access to an IPO for $2,000. That is all
you have to have in your Fidelity account
to get into a pre-IPO. That has never
happened. Why are you complaining? That is
a Bitcoin competitor now. Are you fucking
kidding me? A woman your age? Dude, go
invest the $2,000 in the SpaceX. If it
doesn't work, we're fucked. Anyway, you
want in 40, 50, 60 years, dude, 20, 200,
you want us going somewhere. I mean, when
0.2% of the population can decide whether
we go to war or not, nuclear war, like
destroy the country. If we don't do that
and go into the Jetson era, you know what
the Jetsons are? Mm-mm. So when you leave
me on this thing, when you cancel, turn me
off. Go look at the cartoon Jetsons 1968.
That is the world we were headed to. And
that's why I came into this space. I
understood, hey, I am never going to use
an 8-track tape player again. I'm probably
in my lifetime, this is five, six years
ago, never going to be able to drive. At
some point, I won't be able to drive my
own car. All products on planet Earth will
trade like a commodity, including Nike.
Nike will go out of business. They offer
nothing. There is nothing there. It's a
sweatshop with a fancy label and a
promotion by probably a corrupt celebrity
or two or three. And private equity
funding bigger and bigger advertising
campaigns. Every American does not need
another T-shirt or tennis shoes. We are
max consumption at every level. By
American, I mean, I don't think anyone
needs more T-shirts. So we kind of capped
out all our consumption purchases. That
means prices are going to go down. And
everyone's worried about crude oil right
now because we have a war, but crude can't
even go over 100. It's $83 right now. And
that's not going to destroy the economy.
We still have, we are going to print 40%
of all the world's U.S. dollars were
printed since 1921. That's six years ago.
We will have to print more than that.
Because the balloon has, it's doing this.
And when you go to blow a balloon up, it
needs more helium back in it to keep going
because you're carrying more weight. So
we're going to, I mean, you know that they
have to do that. Bitcoin, the best
scenario for this is that we have a
nuclear explosion or we have an event. We
go into a depression, we're all fucking
destroyed for four years. And then Bitcoin
takes over as a proper reset commodity.
But that is not going to happen. And if it
does, I'd rather not be here. I mean, I'd
rather have my dollars and just had a big
party. Mad Max is not a cool world. I
don't think you want to do that. But I
think the other thing is Bitcoin's
probably, you know, we've probably seen
max allocation by players. I don't, I was
much more incented to, which nobody really
cares why a guy like me coming in and
going, dude, I think I'm going to allocate
85% of my net worth to Bitcoin. I'll
probably pull that in now. And the reason
is the OG whales who haven't bought any
Bitcoin lately, they have given me a
pause. It is literally that bucket of
Bitcoin. And it's not their, it's not
their statements. It's their behavior of
holding it and locking it up with no
intention and no motive. No, because they
all can go borrow money. See, that's what
y'all don't know. They can borrow money
with their Bitcoin and not put it in the
market. So they're never going to bleed
out and not have any cash. Not like they,
oh, I'm starving. I remember to store a
barrel of crude costs five bucks. You
ain't going to do that for long. The
natural gas costs three bucks. Okay. If I
hit Australia with $3 MMB2 gas, you're
going to pay 30 cents a month before your
pipe's ready to take it. In the
summertime, you don't need any because
it's cool. It's in the wintertime, you can
need it for heating. So you spend four
months storing natural gas for when it
needs. You've added $3 core price and then
$1.20. You're at $4.20 into a $3 market.
It's a hard way to make a living. So what
do they do? Sell, sell, sell everything
you can. And the price does it. It just
stays down for long, long, long, long
periods of time because people are
competing and learning how to make money
at $3. That don't happen with Bitcoin. See
the problem? Doesn't happen. That's an
issue. Because let's say the Bitcoin whale
guys, the green candle, 10,000 candle
guys, every time it does the 10,000 candle
thing, let's say it does it three or four
times. Sometimes you're going to get your
face ripped on the way down because this
has nothing to do with anything. It's just
pure greed. You know, supply and demand on
that day. But you don't want this. How
would you like, you've been here four or
five, six years and then you find yourself
in year eight and you're like, God damn,
dude, I'm right back to $68,000 again. A
price that I was supposed to never, ever,
ever see again, like I'm never supposed to
ever see $16,500 the prior eight years.
Well, we just broke this one. So why
couldn't I go visit $16,500 again? I don't
think we will. So I think I'm going to
probably end here, but I think we will
have to get to the price of what it costs
for a miner in Australia that is sitting
on farmland he owns, that he doesn't have
a jet to Tinder, doesn't talk to Wall
Street. I have friends that are making
Bitcoin all in, including G&A, $37,000.
And then we hear people that are producing
Bitcoin at 90. So please stop telling me
what the average is. I don't care what the
average mining cost is. I want to know who
the most competitive is. Right? Because
$37,000 is a big difference than $118,000.
That means that, like, let's say it's the
average, oh, they're still losing money.
So what do they do? Hey, go tap Treasury.
Pre-sell some Bitcoin. Mine harder,
faster. Another thing, hey, what if Saylor
decides he's irritated this month and he's
just not going to even buy it through the
summer? I'm not sure that way. These
questions are really legitimate questions
to ask when you're making these kind of
decisions. You've got to remember, this is
a business for me, okay? I am treating it
like it's a, I'm trying to move into a
country and get my little piece of the
operation. I use the same thought
processes. Right? The what if. Have I lost
you? No, no. I'm still here. I just wasn't
sure if you took a pause. Yeah. No, no. Or
you finished. No, but I think, you know,
look, we're pretty close. I think, you
know, we have to get to a point where it
feels nasty. I don't think we're there
yet. That tends to be the way this works.
I know no one wants to hear that. I don't
want to hear it either. But I can prepare
for that. Right? I can then start setting
up my bids and go layer some bids in there
and go, hey, look, I'm a buyer at 58. I'm
a bigger buyer at 55. And I'm even a
bigger buyer at 52. I'm not going to buy
any Bitcoin at $100,000. I've made that
decision. That is not going to happen. I
will have many chances, many, many, many
chances to buy below. It is not, you're
not going to get left behind. Don't worry
about that fear. But I also think you
shouldn't worry about your investment.
Because you're listening to people like
me. I am literally talking about a four
-month window. And you're trying to store
squirrel nuts, nuts, you know, like a
squirrel. You're trying to store up for 20
years from now when you're 48. You don't
even need to follow this day-to-day stuff.
Right? I do it because I'm trying. I'm a
predator, okay? Like, I want to buy them.
And someone telling me, hey, it doesn't
matter. You're not going to, it's not
going to matter if the price is $190,000
in eight years. It matters to me. Why
would I overpay for it? Like, there's no
reason to overpay for it. I mean, it's
just not, it doesn't have a soul. I mean,
it's just a thing that we've all agreed
on. Which, by the way, is everything that
you and I do. It's agreements we make. And
that isn't going to change. Like, have I
really upset you? No, not at all. No, no,
no, no. Not at all. I think when you say
that, I'm like, oh, wow, man. This is
really what the response I'm getting from
a big part of the community. I mean, I
believe I've been a net asset to this
community. And I'm not looking for
accolades or, hey, yeah, you have been.
And I am shocked at how talking about
specific things, that there's so much
fear. And the response to some of these
comments I'm making, these are not,
they're
not loaded comments. You know, I'm not
like trying to poke anybody or meme
anybody or tease anybody. I'm actually
asking a question like, hey, have you ever
considered? Like, what happens when?
Because these are anomalies that I've
never experienced in a market. If I have,
I've walked away from them. Because the
game was, imagine walking into a casino.
Okay. And everybody in the casino has zero
cost on their chips. And every chip you
have is $50,000. Every chip you have is 50
grand. But there's, or 50,000, but they
didn't pay anything for them. You're going
to get killed. Okay. Because they'll just
stack up more chips than you have. At some
point, you'll be, I can't make the bet.
You run out of time. You want to know why
these prices are going $2,500 and $3,000?
Because they know they can do that to you.
And that is exactly why it's happening.
Because there's 5 million coins that are
inactive, man. 3 million are lost.
Saylor's taking up a million. Satoshi is
not using his. Thin market. And that's why
the Googles and the big companies are
probably looking at Saylor going, what are
you talking about, dude? We can't put this
on our balance sheet. Half the coins
aren't even there, right? I hope I haven't
been too negative. I'm sorry if I have.
But if I have been, it's going to be good
news for me. It's going to be good news
for me because I get to buy cheaper. Yes.
All right. Well, thank you so much. You
guys are worried if I can talk the price
down. If Gary Cardone can talk the price
down even $1,000, this is exactly what I'm
saying. This is a very thin market. Yeah.
We'll see. We'll see. I'll check the price
once the episode is released. All right.
Maybe put a little limit order. Sorry?
Yeah. Limit orders are good. Limit order
is $55. You'll get hit at $55, I think.
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much
for your time. I really appreciated the
chat. Thank you. Have a good day. You too.