Parker Lewis (00:02:11):

And that there’s also an idea that is that, markets have no memory, which as somebody who came into my career just before the financial crisis, at that point in time at least, everyone very much felt and learned the pain of counterparty risks, as virtually every bank in the United States, potentially in the world was on the verge of collapsing. But fast forward 13 years into Bitcoin and a lot of people have forgotten that markets have no memory. But Bitcoiners and people that are engaged in paying attention to the value proposition of Bitcoin, recognize that is one of the principle problems that Bitcoin solves. That you can hold your Bitcoin in a way that, you are not exposed to the counterpart risk or the financial risk of a financial institution.

Parker Lewis (00:03:02):

And while I think historically, most people have looked at that risk, for the ones paying attention as associated with potential insolvents. And it is that, but it’s also far greater than that. And what we’ve seen in the context of Canada, where normal, everyday people, for donating to a protest, have gotten cut off from their life savings. It’s a little bit different than counterparty risk, but the effects are very similar. And now, what we’re seeing play out in Russia and Ukraine, and you can agree or disagree with it, but the weaponization of a financial system, the normal people in Canada, people in Russia, it’s a greater risk that everyone needs to be cognizant of. And that, Bitcoin really fixes it. It is a risk, but it’s a risk that Bitcoin solves, not because Bitcoin just provides a better form of money, but that you can hold that form of money by holding your own keys. That’s core to what we help clients do at Unchained. It’s a principle idea that is close to the hearts of many people building around Bitcoin, not just our company.

Preston Pysh (00:04:06):

What do you say, Jeff?

Jeff Vandrew (00:04:09):

Everything Parker just said there, is obviously incredibly true. So to avoid rehashing anything, the point that I want to emphasize is, there may have been times in the past where you might have felt confident in your property rights, in something like a deposit account or a securities account or something along that nature. The United States historically, has had a long history of respecting those rights. Well, over the past, I’d say roughly, maybe two years, we’ve seen that go out the window.

Jeff Vandrew (00:04:41):

I would not feel very confident about a court system or a government respecting my property law rights, because we’ve devolved into a situation where, there’s not a particularly strong rule of law remaining anymore. Things are devolving into a friend/enemy distinction. And when you get to that point, you want to have that level of security like you do, with say Bitcoin, when you’re holding your own keys or holding those keys, hopefully collaboratively with Unchained, where those risks are outside of the picture. You’re not left in a position where you have to trust the fact that there will be a continuous rule of law, that’s not based on, what I’m referring to, is that friend/enemy distinction.

Preston Pysh (00:05:24):

I think so many people just, lose sight of the fact that one person’s asset on their balance sheet is another person’s liability in the first place, with respect to debt, especially. And when we look at how much of the quote unquote, money, or what people think is money in the system, is debt and we are seeing firsthand of how… I don’t agree with anything that Russia’s doing, point blank. And I want to make that clear before I say this next part. So all their sovereign wealth that had been saved, just became optional, whether they actually have it or not.

Preston Pysh (00:05:58):

Whether they continue to hold that, if it was in USD now, in 2018, they sold all this. And I would suggest that, this big event that we just are witnessing here in 2022, was probably preconceived and thought up back then, whenever they got rid of all these treasuries. But those types of situations where the bank can come in and literally, cut them off from the fine financial system is, like Parker alluded to, a situation that what you thought was yours, you found out isn’t, because you don’t actually control the quote unquote, private keys of those units that represent that buying power.

Parker Lewis (00:06:32):

I think Preston, to that point, and I actually knew this, but just recently going through, creating a new bank account. If you actually read a bank account, it makes it very clear that, that is not your money, and set what’s happening in Russia, or surrounding Russia and the sovereign assets and what other central banks are doing to prevent access. But just think about the individual that, in a bank account agreement, it basically says, or technically says in almost all bank account agreements, this is not your money. It’s the bank’s money, and the bank has a liability to you. And it’s very functionally, what also happens with large financial institutions or that hold reserve with a central bank or potentially, a sovereign that holds reserves with other central banks. And the consequence of that is, and I won’t speak necessarily to the case of Russia, but in the case of a deposit with a bank, it’s a liability of theirs.

Parker Lewis (00:07:31):

And what that means is, that money is not yours, but everyone thinks of it as their money. And when someone is in that situation, it does expose them then, for whatever the reason might be, to be in a position where that could be cut off. And like Jeff was talking about where, historically, we have had, to varying degrees in different countries, whether it’s a strong respect for a rule of law and that might be degrading, that when people start to understand that. And I like to think of it as, someone ever read a bank account agreement, that a Bitcoin address starts to make a lot more sense.

Jeff Vandrew (00:08:07):

Yeah. And just to piggyback on that since I’m kind of a lawyer on this chat here today, to clarify, not even clarify but emphasize what Parker is saying. For on a legal basis, when you deposit money in a checking account with your bank, that is not your money. You have actually issued a loan to the bank. It’s a payable-on-demand loan effectively, but that is now the bank’s money. The bank has title to your money and you now have effectively, an IOU for your money, and that’s all you have. You have nothing more than that. Most people are under the mistaken belief that, when they’re dealing with a bank, that they don’t know this term, but what they assume they have is what’s called a bailment arrangement. And what a bailment is at law means, that’s like a storage arrangement.

Jeff Vandrew (00:08:53):

In other words, if I pay you, Preston, to hold my gold bars for me, but I retain legal title to that gold, that’s my goal. If I have a bailment arrangement with you, there’s a lot of risks there. You could run away with my gold, et cetera. But at least, if you were to go bankrupt, you don’t have title to that asset. So it’s not subject to your creditors with a bank deposit. You don’t even have that level of protection. So really, as Parker said there, you have next to nothing.

Parker Lewis (00:09:24):

Yeah. One of the things that I just thought of, as Jeff was describing is that, we’re talking in the context of the relationship between an individual and a bank, and the nature what people believe to be an asset, not recognizing that the asset is actually different, that it’s alone, but that what’s also playing out here is, we’re talking about the relationship to an individual and financial institution. But because all financial systems have become so centralized that, it’s actually the centralization that allows for censorship weaponization, however you want to think about it. And what I mean by that, it’s not necessarily in the Russia instance it is, but then, if you think about the people who were having their funds censored or seized in Canada, what effectively happened there was, the central authority went to banks and the banks don’t really have a choice, but to go along. And if the system wasn’t centralized, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case.

Jeff Vandrew (00:10:28):

Yeah. And we’re going to see more and more of that. I’d like to point out, Canada’s a good example, because as Parker mentioned, is due to the level of centralization and central banking, what you end up with is a situation where when the government issues an edict like that, banks are forced to fall in line and they’re never going to, not comply. You have a much easier time getting a bank to comply than you do a police officer. We saw that in Canada, where the police regularly did not want to enforce orders against truckers. They had to bring in external police from other places like Toronto, to start doing stuff because local police did not want to. They don’t have that problem with the banks. The banks will always comply a hundred percent of the time. I think we’re going to see that more and more, even though it’s actually less effective.

Jeff Vandrew (00:11:15):

If you wanted to just do tyranny, it’s actually much… Let me be clear that I’m not advocating for this or saying it’s good. It’s much easier just to lock people up and throw away the key. Because when you enact, let’s say tyranny on someone through use of financial sanctions, then you’re left with a really angry person with nothing to lose, who’s still free roaming around on the street. That’s a very, very dangerous situation. So the fact that these governments are turning to financial sanctions, which are just objectively less effective in accomplishing what they’re trying to do, shows a level of desperation as well. So I think that’s very important to keep in mind, because when things start to get desperate, things start to get crazy. Again, that’s really emphasizes the value there, of holding your own keys with something like Bitcoin.

Preston Pysh (00:12:05):

Yeah. I love that point that you’re making there. It’s easier for them to implement it, because they’re not having to actually look at the person that they’re employing it against. So it’s just clacking on some keys and, “Oh, well that person’s no longer an issue.” But in the long term is what you’re getting at is, that person is still out there and they’re very upset. And then, they’re telling all their family members and it’s causing a much bigger, long term problem for the governments that would choose to implement that type of Policy, over something that’s much more enforcement like.

Jeff Vandrew (00:12:36):

To emphasize one of your points there too. It’s not just that it’s easier, because you don’t have to look at the person in the eye, but you don’t have to filter that directive down. Some administrator in an office, 30 stories up, it’s easy for him to say, “Oh, I want to go after this guy.” But if you tell an actual human being, “Oh, you’ve got to break into your neighbor’s house and round them up.”

Parker Lewis (00:12:56):

Oh yeah.

Jeff Vandrew (00:12:57):

You’re going to get pushback on that, more so than people would think. That’s why we’re seeing stuff like financial sanctions. Whereas you said, you click a couple buttons on a keyboard and you go to bed and you don’t think about it.

Parker Lewis (00:13:08):

Yeah.

Preston Pysh (00:13:09):

Yeah. I think the whole Canada situation is probably a whole lot easier for people to understand and why this is so important than maybe, the Russia situation, because you saw the banking sector weaponized against people who made $50 donations to a politic, whether you agree with the politics of what was happening or not, it could have very well been just the opposite of whatever your political belief was, that could have been used against you for literally, $50. To me, that’s crazy and I don’t want to get too political on this, but it’s really emphasizing a key point, which is, not your keys, not your coins, and you have counterparty risk and a system that I think so few have ever experienced in their life.

Parker Lewis (00:13:54):

Well, just think about, because I think it’s also when we get into the technicals about helping people understand that a deposit in the bank is not actually their money, even though the people think that it is. And historically, because there have been this strong respect for property rights, that those type of actions were not common, historically. Let’s not say seizures never, but they would generally happen with a court order or a warrant rather than cart blanche. But then when we abstract up a level though, and we just think about what money is setting aside, technically, a deposit is not someone’s money. What it represents is someone’s life savings oftentimes. And what that represents is, savings in a monetary good, is the delta between what you have produced for others and what you have not yet consumed from others.

Parker Lewis (00:14:50):

And that is the surplus of what essentially, you’ve delivered to other people in your community in terms of work and to be in a position to just have that zapped and shut off from you, from someone in a far off land or a far off city, is crazy. It is just flat out crazy. And for people that were paying attention to what happened in Canada, it did wake a lot of people up and realistically the media, because propaganda’s not just what they cover, but what they don’t cover, might just memory whole, that whole episode. But that the people that were paying attention learned something, that it was far different, that it was broad based, and like you Preston, it was happening to people that just donated, donated to what they believe is a protest.

Preston Pysh (00:15:38):

And I love the response that one of the wallet applications, when they went back to the government, and I guess they got pinged about their response or the way that they needed to provide the account information for people that had made donations. And they were like, “Well, sorry. We don’t really, even know the accounts for any of this stuff. And there’s no way for us to even give it to you. All we do is route digital packets and that’s all we know.”

Parker Lewis (00:16:04):

Did you see Ted Cruz, [crosstalk 00:16:08] not only did he repeat it it, but he read it-

Preston Pysh (00:16:11):

Yes. I did see that.

Parker Lewis (00:16:13):

Out at a conference. And I think, the last line was something along the lines of, “You should learn about self custody and private keys. And when the Canadian dollar is worthless, we’ll be here to help you too.”

Preston Pysh (00:16:27):

That’s how they ended the letter.

Parker Lewis (00:16:28):

Yeah.

Preston Pysh (00:16:28):

And then, he read that, it was crazy. It was crazy for me to see an elected official, literally reading that letter at a major event. We’ve come very far in the last few years. What do you say to a person who is very skeptical of everything we’re talking about right now? And they’re saying, “Okay, yeah, you got your private keys, you got your imaginary coins, but you still have to interact with changes.” And so, they can shut all of this down. What would you say to the person who comes to you with that argument?

Jeff Vandrew (00:17:02):

I’ll let Parker take this one first, because I have a feeling if I take this one, you might get kicked off your podcast now. So you go Parker.

Parker Lewis (00:17:10):

I’ll give the more sanitized version, but building on top of how crazy it is that a Senator like Ted Cruz is reading out a letter about private keys and self custody, that Marty Bent went on Tucker Carlson. And regardless of what you think, whatever end of the political spectrum you’re at that, after that Canadian episode, Marty, who runs a Bitcoin podcast was invited on and he received a very similar question to that. And then, these messages start being broadcast to millions of people. And that it is that, if you have your Bitcoin with a custodian or with an exchange that, all of these things that we’ve been talking about can also happen in the world of Bitcoin, that you can be prevented from accessing your Bitcoin.

Parker Lewis (00:18:00):

And that I think that there is a knowledge gap for a lot of people that think, whenever they hear that someone was hacked or that someone was prevented from accessing their Bitcoin, that is a signal of a failure of Bitcoin. But it really is just a lack of understanding, because if people are taking on the responsibility, which there is greater responsibility, with great power comes great responsibility, that there are very low barriers in practicality, to being able to hold your own keys to your Bitcoin. And so that, the same problems that exist in the legacy world, exist in the Bitcoin world, so long as you’re working with a third party. And that third party holds the keys to your Bitcoin because they, in a similar parallel, they aren’t your keys. If you have your Bitcoin with a custodian, oftentimes people think, “Oh, they have my keys.”

Parker Lewis (00:18:54):

No, they are their keys. And there might be varying different legal arrangements. But what that means is, you are building all of your security based on a set of principles, anchored to permissions. And if you live in that world, then you can be cut off from your life blood, which is your money. But if you’re holding your own keys in the Bitcoin world, then that is not possible. And Marty did a great job of explaining that on Tucker Carlson. But what that actually means is, you are holding keys to Bitcoin and those keys are what need to be accessed in or to transfer any Bitcoin. And if they are in your possession or you’re controlling quorum of keys in a multisig, where Bitcoin can either be secured by a single key or multiple keys, then there is no ability for any financial institution from being able to prevent that access.

Parker Lewis (00:19:47):

And I think, what we’ve all seen in Bitcoin is that, as a function of time, knowledge distributes, and as more people understand that fact, they take possession of their keys. And that, when we look out into the future, that the majority of people will be doing that. And I really think about keys and the more people that have keys, it’s like the second amendment that, oftentimes people don’t understand the second amendment, but the reason why we have the right to bear arms, is because it’s a deterrent, that it will actually deter a tyrannical government. I think there was a quote from a Japanese general talking about how, no one will ever attack the United States because, I don’t know if it quoted the number, but there’s 40 million guns or no, I think there’s 400 million guns. I can’t tell you the number, but there’s a lot of guns in the United States.

Parker Lewis (00:20:31):

And what that is designed to do is, to prevent tyrannical government from waring on its people, because you actually have something that you can fight back with. Well, keys do the same thing. The more people that have keys and the more distributed those keys are, the less likely a government is to take an action, because it would really be futile. And so, not only does it improve individual security, but in aggregate, the more people that are holding keys, the more distributed currency supplies are, is the less honeypots that exist that, you actually create the environment where in the case of Coinbase, the government could go to Coinbase’s door, knock on it and say, “Don’t send anybody Bitcoin, here’s a court order.” If that same court order came to Unchained, we wouldn’t be able to prevent our vault clients from being able to access their funds. And that actually reduces the likelihood that would happen. It reduces the incentive, because we’ve actually reduced our own power in that equation. And that we are all, our clients and us are all in a position of greater security because the incentives align.

Preston Pysh (00:21:32):

I think Jesse Powell had an amazing response to all of this that you’re talking about, where he just came out in a very public way. And for people that don’t know who Jesse is, he’s the CEO at KRA. And he said, “Listen, if I get a court order, there’s nothing I can do. I’m going to have to shut on your access or whatever it is, therefore, remove your coins off the exchange, pull your stuff off there.” And what I found just mind blowing is the Canadian government officials from the Canadian government came out and were wanting Jesse and others like him who are running large exchanges, to stop telling people to take self custody of their coins, like he had just told people to do. That’s not something you’re going to see out of JP Morgan. That is not something you’re going to see out of Fidelity. I think it just speaks to the culture of this community, which is just amazing. But Jeff, did you have anything you wanted to throw in on this particular topic or-

Jeff Vandrew (00:22:29):

I’m they out of trouble on that.

Preston Pysh (00:22:31):

Okay.

Parker Lewis (00:22:32):

I don’t know, Jeff. I say don’t hold back, but we can go to the next question.

Preston Pysh (00:22:36):

You were talking about how, Parker, you’re seeing more and more people take possession of their keys. This is a stat that I just saw here in the last couple days that, I think is an amazing stat. Right now, we are nearly seeing the highest percent ever recorded with 61.7% of Bitcoin in existence, not moving for a year, plus, 61%. And this is coming on the tail of a, we’re now at about a 35% drawdown from the all time high. So I’m just curious your thoughts on this, the fact that we’re seeing it now, opposed to whenever you had previously seen numbers like this, where you haven’t seen the coins really move too much, was always when you were making a new, all time high, not when you’ve been down for a hundred plus days and your down 35%, were you seeing numbers this high. 61% of all Bitcoin have not moved in more than a year. What does that mean to you when you hear that?

Jeff Vandrew (00:23:38):

Well, to me it means people buy Bitcoin for all different types of reasons. At least the first time they buy Bitcoin, they do. So some people really believe in the value proposition of Bitcoin for a bunch of the reasons that Parker has written about, and we’ve been talking about on the podcast here tonight. And there’s other people that think, “Oh, I think Bitcoin’s in an up cycle, so I’m going to try to grab some and sell at the top.” So what I’ve noticed though is, every time we go through a price cycle, more true believers get one over. Even if, when they made their initial purchase, we’re just trying to make a quick buck. So that percentage over time seems to get larger and larger of people that are really buying to hold for the long term, rather than trying to time the market and get in and out. And related to that is, I have this concept that not all price increases are the same.

Jeff Vandrew (00:24:27):

I tend to try and look at Bitcoin price increases compared to the NASDAQ 100. And then also compared to, if you get into, I’ll be polite, really speculative stuff, say the ARK Innovation ETF. If Bitcoin is rising on a correlation with the ARK Innovation ETF, I know that’s a lot of, for lack of better term, garbage buying. That’s not going to be people that are going to stick. And when that comes back down, a lot of those purchases are going to flip and become sellers. If Bitcoin is price rising and it’s not necessarily, the speculative of stuff like ARK or even stuff that’s a little broader, like the NASDAQ 100, are not rising along with it. That’s a more interesting price increase to me, because it tells me that people are buying Bitcoin for a different reason.

Jeff Vandrew (00:25:21):

But in both cases, even in the case where Bitcoin is rising as part of a larger speculative mania, there’s always a certain percentage of people, even in that situation that, once they buy, in the process of educating themselves about the asset they’re buying, maybe they read something that Parker wrote or that Safiedine wrote or anyone like that. And they become a true believer on accident in the process, which is a great thing. And we really see a compounding effect of that I think, over time.

Parker Lewis (00:25:54):

The only thing I’d add is, there’s a chart, or at least a visualization. I don’t know if Drew, our co-founder originally created it, but certainly helped popularize it, called the HODL Waves. And so, people google HODL Waves. They go to our website, they can find the HODL Waves, but it’s this visualization to see the bands of age and how they trend over time. And I think that one idea that you brought up Preston is that, historically, we’ve seen this range of coins that haven’t moved in over a year, oscillate between 60% and 40%. And that, when 20% of the supply goes from having been held for long periods of time, to being unlocked, that typically happens only when there’s an astronomical increase in price.

Parker Lewis (00:26:44):

And what it signals when the coins are, in effect getting older, where more of the coins are being held for long terms, it’s effectively more diamond hands are being created. We’re sitting here and at a time where Bitcoin drops from $60,000 to $30,000 or $35,000, that people aren’t selling. Now, of course people are selling every day, but on average, people are converting to long term holders. So I think it’s a really healthy sign, as more people decide to save Bitcoin for the long term, and don’t get caught up in the near term or short term volatility.

Preston Pysh (00:27:20):

So I’m sure there’s tons of people listening to this that, they get the investment narrative to this. They are looking at it from a long term horizon and they immediately start saying, “All right, well, what can I do to own this in the most tax advantaged way, and quickly step into retirement planning and how I can own this for the long haul, but do it in most efficient and intelligent way possible?” Jeff, really, this is your lane. This is your expertise in this particular segment of Bitcoin. So out right out of the gate, what are some of the big nugget pieces that you think are takeaways for people who are thinking this? They don’t need to hear the pitch on, why own Bitcoin? They really want to hear, how can I do this from the most optimized way, from a tax efficiency standpoint?

Jeff Vandrew (00:28:10):

Yeah. So, it’s important to keep in mind, a figure that our head of concierge at Unchained, Phil, always likes to bring up and that’s that, we have $35 trillion in assets in the United States locked up in retirement accounts. Before I came to Unchained and Unchained to purchase my IRA product, that was a private practice attorney and CPA. So I got a good feeling of what most people’s assets were. And when it comes to people, my age and older, so basically middle age and senior citizens, the bulk of their assets tend to be in retirement accounts. It’s not at all unusual that I would’ve a client back then who, let’s say their net worth was $3 million, $2 million, $2.2, even sometimes $2.5 of that, may have been in their retirement accounts. Not unusual at all.

Jeff Vandrew (00:29:02):

So the thing about that is, most people, once they’ve been sold on the value proposition of Bitcoin, would be able to unlock those assets and move them into Bitcoin without having a massive negative tax consequence. Because that’s the thing that you don’t want to do. So what you could do obviously is, liquidate your retirement account and just buy Bitcoin. Well, there’s a big problem with that. You’re going to have to pay income tax on the liquidation, and assuming you’re under age 59 and a half, you’re also going to have to pay a 10% penalty. So that’s bad because that results in you being able to buy less Bitcoin, because you’re going to have to pay a bunch of money off the top before you can start going and buying Bitcoin. So on the other hand, what probably isn’t going to be satisfactory to you is, just to roll it over into a brokerage IRA and buy one of the new ETFs or Bitcoin proxies, like Bitcoin companies that hold a lot of Bitcoin, stuff like that.

Jeff Vandrew (00:29:57):

Because the problem you run into there is, the whole, not your keys, not your Bitcoin angle that we just sort of spent the last 40 minutes talking about why that’s so important to be able to have some level of control over your keys. So in IRAs, this has classically been a problem, regulatory and legally, because with an IRA, one of the issues is the statute. The section of the Internal Revenue that dictates the creation of IRAs is 408. And one of the main requirements under 40 8 is that, an IRA has to be a custodial account. There has to be a licensed financial institution acting as custodian of the assets in the IRA. So classically, the way that we dealt with this. And when I say classically, for those that aren’t aware, so I’ve been a lawyer and a CPA for 15 years, since 2014, I had been primarily in the business of helping people hold Bitcoin in their IRAs while holding their own private keys.

Jeff Vandrew (00:30:55):

It actually goes back before Unchained was a company. And since this past summer, I’ve been a part of Unchained, bringing that product over to Unchained and making it a lot more powerful. So historically, the way that was handled is through something called a Checkbook IRA. And we won’t go too far into the weeds on this, but it was basically a clever setup where the custodian of the IRA, would custody the IRA’s one and only asset, which was a limited liability company. And then, as the IRA account holder would be appointed manager of that LLC, the LLC would go out and actually buy the Bitcoin. And then, you as the manager could hold the private piece to that Bitcoin. Well, this past November, a lot of cold water was thrown on that strategy. There’s a case called the McNulty Case, that came out. It created a very novel legal theory under which that does not comply with the language of 408.

Jeff Vandrew (00:31:51):

And I wrote a long form article on the Unchained blog about that. People want to check that out, you can kind of go into my legal analysis of the case, frankly, not a very well reasoned case. It’s the rationale is very poor. But the issue there is, the IRS has always hated Checkbook IRAs and had attacked them for years. They only became popular after the IRS lost a string of cases in court, but now that the IRS has won one on an entirely new legal grounds that they hadn’t even tried before in the past, I think there’s going to be new life briefed into audits of those type IRAs. So what’s good about the product that we have, the Unchained IRA is, we try to offer you the best of both worlds. We offer a way for you to have a classic, custodial IRA, that is not a checkbook IRA of the type that got the taxpayer in hot water in McNulty, while still having access to a quorum of heats.

Jeff Vandrew (00:32:49):

And the way we accomplish that on a basic level is, we open up an Unchained vault for you. For those that are unfamiliar with Unchained vaults, that’s a multi signature wallet on our platform. And title to that vault is held by the IRA custodian partner. So the IRA custodian has to be a banker trust company. So we use Solarian National Bank for that purpose. Title to that vault is Solarian National Bank for your benefit. That’s how every IRA is titled. However, at the time of account opening, the custodian executes, what’s called a tri party delegation agreement, where the custodian actually appoints both, you as the account holder and Unchained as its key agents, responsible for protecting the Bitcoin and the way it does that is, it delegates private key responsibility to keys to you. So of the quorum in the two of three multi signature vault.

Jeff Vandrew (00:33:42):

So two of three to, you and then Unchained, holds one key as a backup. So the IRA custodian to go to touch on a point that we discussed earlier, does not have access to the private keys. So they would not be able to turn your assets over. They do however, to keep us in compliance with the IRS, have access to the public keys and the wallet configuration. And the reason that’s important is, the McNulty case did make very clear that if the IRA custodian isn’t able to monitor the underlying transactions as they go on, that’s a problem under its legal rationale under 408. So while the custodian is not able to actually move your coins, it does have eyes through Unchained on all your transactions. So for instance, if you were to make a withdrawal out of your IRA vault and not report it, thinking you were trying to do a tax evasion thing, it wouldn’t fly, it would be picked up.

Jeff Vandrew (00:34:41):

It would be reported to the IRS. That doesn’t sound great, except for the fact that if we don’t do that, then you’re not compliant at all. So the point of the Unchained IRA is, we want to offer you the best of both worlds. We want this to be a tax compliant setup. We don’t want it to be a Checkbook IRA due to the cold water that’s been thrown on them recently in the courts, but we still want you to have a quorum of key control so that you can be secure that your Bitcoin is really there and that no one can seize it or move it without your permission.

Parker Lewis (00:35:14):

I think as Bitcoin, as we always think about, it’s very adversarial in thinking around security, but when we relate it to what has happened and in the world around financial censorship, that retirement assets in many ways. And I wrote about this in a piece and gradual and suddenly called Bitcoin is the great de financialization, which is that so many people just sleepwalk through, hitting a button, contributing funds, take risk, buy a bunch of equities and retirement account. But what it actually represents is, protecting those later years in life. And that if we relate that also to this idea of holding Bitcoin for the long term sea, these coins, the 61% of Bitcoin are held over one year. But that in most instances, when people adopt Bitcoin, they’re holding for a lot longer than one year.

Parker Lewis (00:36:07):

And particularly in my case, when I went through, even before Jeff was part of on chain, I literally converted my entire IRA, which at the time was just sitting in treasuries to Bitcoin. And then not only was it the best savings technology that ever existed, it was entirely outside the financial system by holding keys. And that when we think about I’m not going to be retired for over 30 years, but that one financial system decision in my mind, it was this calming effect that happened. I was like, ah, that one decision will protect my entire retirement, but it wasn’t just because I was speculating in Bitcoin. I have a very deep and intuitive understanding of why Bitcoin is being adopted as a monetary standard. But it was because that was realistically the only to have a liquid asset outside of the financial system.

Parker Lewis (00:37:02):

And oftentimes, when people are thinking about their retirement, that this is Bitcoin, it’s like the best Bitcoin to hold. And I really though as I was in the process of doing it was again, it was before Jeff joined on chain, but this is peak savings. It is tax advantage. It’s Bitcoin and it’s being held without counterparty risk. And that realistically that, a lot of people that think about this, they are like, “Okay, well, this Bitcoin is a long term asset to hold. And it’s a forced hodl. I’m hodling for, at least 30 years with this Bitcoin that are in retirement funds, but at a more macro level with all the uncertainty in the world, not just as it relates to citizenship. Because what we didn’t even talk about before was that, all of this economic uncertainty only results in more printing of money.

Parker Lewis (00:37:50):

And that’s the very problem that Bitcoin stands to solve. And that, when we think about those long term assets that really are protecting your retirement, those are the most consequential. And so, doing that in a way and then, approaching it from a security perspective where those assets are going to be there and that the best way to ensure that is, by not taking counterparty risk and actually taking possession of the private keys, albeit in a structure where there is a legal custodian and that it fits very tightly into regulatory structure that works, is a very valuable thing.

Jeff Vandrew (00:38:24):

Yeah. And just to echo one of Parker’s points there, Bitcoin is the perfect retirement asset, because when it comes to your retirement assets, I’ll be retiring sooner than Parker. I’m a little bit older, but still even me, I’m not supposed to be worrying about short term volatility. I shouldn’t be sweating if we have a 20% draw down on the short term, when I’m thinking about retirement assets, I’m not thinking about accessing them for a while for maybe, 20 years. So in that situation, it is the perfect retirement asset in that, you don’t have to worry about those short term price wings. All you have to have confidence in is that Bitcoin in the long term and the very long term is eventually going to be, well, I was going to say the last asset standing, but that’s not exactly right. People are still going to live in houses and things like that, but you get what I mean.

Preston Pysh (00:39:15):

For a person who’s trying to look at this from a fundamental standpoint, who is suspect when they just look at the price action and they’re saying, “Well, yeah, I got it. It’s been going up for the last decade plus, and I guess that’s a reason to own it.” What would you tell that person to focus on? Would you tell them, look at how many wallet addresses are there or the utility? What are some of the fundamental things that you guys look at, that speak to how the network is growing and how it’s becoming stronger, beyond just the basic price action?

Parker Lewis (00:39:48):

Well, first I tell people always to focus on $21 million Bitcoin, because if people start to develop an understanding for how Bitcoin enforces a fixed supply of $21 million and why it’s relevant, that is the most fundamental thing about Bitcoin. And that is what drives all global monetary adoption and will continue to. And that does not mean that certain people buy for FOMO reasons and buy for reasons that they don’t understand and that there isn’t speculation, and there isn’t a lot of that, but that is the underlying fundamental such that, when the winds change and people that fumble bought it and then irrationally sell it, or China does something that, it’s a fooled by randomness and people sell because China did something, that I always ask myself. And the advice that I give people is, that if you’ve developed that understanding of how Bitcoin credibly enforced the fixed by $21 million and why it’s relevant, then the simple question to ask yourself is, did whatever happened today, change the fact that there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin?

Parker Lewis (00:40:54):

If no, hold by more, essentially is my philosophy. Now, I think that there are probably two things that I would look to. And one of them actually is the price. The price is the greatest signal of increasing adoption. They’re not making any more Bitcoin and has more people rush in, to save the best form of money that’s ever existed. It forces the price higher. It just distributes the supply over a larger number of people. People are willing to transfer an increasing number of dollars that are depreciating, because trillions are being printed for less and less novel units of the currency. So price is a indicator of itself, but underlying that, I would look at things like Bitcoin addresses. And oftentimes, we’ll look at the number of addresses that have more than 0.1 Bitcoin or 0.2 Bitcoin, to see that there’s actually more and more people, more and more… Another metric might be UTXOs, maybe getting a little bit too technical, but if you’re going to hold your own keys, you’re going to have to have, at least one of your own UTXOs, then a growing number of addresses and a growing number of UT XOs are both signals of increasing adoption, but ultimately price is that arbiter and as adoption increases, there’s only one way in the long term for price to go.

Parker Lewis (00:42:17):

But that if everyone always, in the midst of volatility, anchors back to that core, fundamental of did whatever happened in the world today, change this most fundamental fact of Bitcoin. That is really what allows the noise to disappear, and that as we see, people get Bitcoin crashes, what we often see as corrections, because the base always resets higher, right? And that happens because knowledge distributes more people figure out through the noise, through an incredible amount of noise that people are understanding that Bitcoin, is a monetary asset. It is a better form of money and that, when we see those bases reset at higher levels, even when sentiment is extremely low, that is a sign that more people not less are accumulating.

Preston Pysh (00:43:03):

What do you guys think from a policy standpoint, where we’re at? What do you see coming down the pipe?

Jeff Vandrew (00:43:09):

You mean like regulatorily?

Preston Pysh (00:43:10):

Yeah.

Jeff Vandrew (00:43:11):

That’s a good question. You know, I am always the one to say, like I actually don’t think that much is going to change in the immediate future for a couple reasons. Number one, Congress is not all that. Well let’s say it’s gridlocked. I guess that’s a good way to put it. There’s a lot of gridlock there and there has been for several years now. And then, in order to avoid accountability, whole host of things, Ukraine is going to be used as, just this horrible catchall to just shrug off accountability for everything, instead of legislation that actually addresses something that matters to Americans, we’re going to get stuff like, oh, liquor stores have to pour out their vodka. You know, I would expect a couple years of that sort of nonsense garbage.

Preston Pysh (00:43:57):

How about the sanctions.

Jeff Vandrew (00:43:57):

Yeah-

Preston Pysh (00:43:58):

How about everybody calling for sanctions right now? And they’re seeing Bitcoin as a potential way to bypass sanctions and how that might get roped into.

Jeff Vandrew (00:44:08):

Yeah. So that’s interesting. I wonder how long sanctions in their current form are going to be able to continue. These are going to be disastrous for the United States, but also, especially for Europe, I don’t know if you’ve looked into it all the fertilizer situation. Yeah. Are you familiar with that? Yeah. Yeah. So for people that are listening that aren’t aware of this around 40% of the chemicals that Europe needs for fertilizer come from Russia, Russia is also the bread basket of Europe, just in terms of exporting wheat and other agricultural products. So, you know, the sort of global ruling class seems to be willing to shoot their citizens in the face to make a point about this for somebody that’s not playing ball the way that they would like. So as a result, you know, I think a lot of really bad stuff is going to happen on the ground in a lot of these countries, including the United States, but especially Western Europe.

Jeff Vandrew (00:45:06):

And when people get, you know, when their food gets real, I mean, you know, it’s one gas getting expensive. Yeah. That sucks. But we’re talking about food, getting expensive. I don’t know, man. Like I don’t know that if you’re, you know, in a supposed democracy in Western Europe, if you’re going to be able to continue winning elections when people are pretty mad about their grocery bill. So, so I wonder if these sanctions aren’t going to prove to be really porous right. From the get go. You know, for instance, I don’t know if you saw this, but the, you know, the oil companies have been partially exempted from the sanctions already. They’ve all been able to open bank accounts in Austria and Italy that happened. So we’ll see what goes on with things like agriculture, right? Like if that’s, if there’ll be easy workarounds there through third countries, or even if it’s not a formal carve out, if there’ll just be workarounds through third countries.

Jeff Vandrew (00:46:06):

So I don’t know cause of all of that, if Russia will be making large use of Bitcoin, they may, and there may just be businesses on the ground in Russia that start using it more, right? Like a lot of people, for instance, get their web hosting from Russia. If I’m not able to pay my web host with my credit card anymore, well then I may be forced to pay in Bitcoin. Right. And that may have some impacts on adoption, but I don’t know that necessarily that it like the gate level, there’s going to be a lot of going around. Cause a actually, and in addition to everything I just said, you know, Russia and China have been demoing over the last few years, their own sort of, you know, financial system. When I say financial system, I mean, as a competitor replacement to swift. And just today on that point, I believe Jerome pal said, you know, the world can have more than one reserve current. See? So I don’t know how much the sanctions directly are going to matter. It’s a long answer to what should have been a short question. I, well,

Preston Pysh (00:47:02):

No, no, no. I think those are all fantastic points. And I think really kind of the essence of what you’re getting at is it could swing, the pendulum could swing that way, but you don’t see it being able to be sustained because of the pressure and the impacts that it’s going to really kind of rot throughout the globe. So Parker,

Parker Lewis (00:47:20):

Yeah. I think that, you know, there are certainly going to be politicians that sling mud at the wall and say, Bitcoin is used to evade sanctions, you know, and this thing Bitcoin is bad because Bitcoin help bad man Russia. Right? The reality is that those politicians hate Bitcoin because they don’t control it. And that was really the part that Ted Cruz zeroed in on. And again, like Ted Cruz hate Ted Cruz, but that is what it is about that they don’t like something that they can’t control. And so there’s a, there’s a lot of memes in Bitcoin, but one of them is everything is good for Bitcoin. And that in this instance, the broader setup is waking people up to. And I had a client or perspective, you know, in the process of onboarding, reach out that I’d given a presentation to and go around and give these Bitcoin.

Parker Lewis (00:48:15):

And one lesson presentations, I had a few aha moments when half the world was shutting the other half off of the world off from their financial systems. And so it’s like, I think we’re all adults. And we recognize that people are going to say some mean things they’re going to try to use what’s happening to, without any justification or statistics backing up or evidence to say that Bitcoin is being used to evade regulation. My former boss, Kyle Bass came out and said something like some very shady people have had a very sunny day using Bitcoin and I fired back and its spirited way that there’s no invention more consistent with the principles or at least the founding principles of America, individual Liberty and private property than Bitcoin. And that everyone who is using it to avoid the debasement that comes from unelected, private boards is really this signal.

Parker Lewis (00:49:09):

And when politicians talk out regulation deriving from the fact that Russia’s evading sanctions via Bitcoin, whether or not they are, or aren’t that the signal that is actually sent and why everything is good for Bitcoin is that the signal that it’s sent is that no one controls Bitcoin and that the then derivative of impact of that is that Bitcoin starts to make more sense for more people. It’s like the honey Badger don’t care Bitcoin is the honey Badger. And it’s going to take all things that, whether it’s Brad Sherman or Elizabeth Warren or whoever the next person is. And it won’t be just one party. There will be many people that say that Bitcoin is bad for X, Y, or Z without recognizing the bow that it’s delivering to everyday people like the three of us who just want to save in a form of money, that’s not getting destroyed.

Jeff Vandrew (00:49:59):

And to one of Parker’s points there, the number one thing that’s used for to just refer back to the quote he made for shady business is not Bitcoin. It’s physical a hundred dollars bills, by a mile. And there’s statistics on this that I wasn’t prepared for this co for this, the conversation to go in this direction. So I don’t remember exactly what they are, but some just massive percentage of actual physical, a hundred dollars bills are used for illegal activity. It’s like the majority of them or something like that, because some people do carry physical hundreds in their wallet, but not nearly as commonly, as they’re used to be able to transport money in a briefcase. When you’re dealing with hundreds, you can actually transfer a lot of money in a briefcase, much more so than if you were just dealing with twenties.

Jeff Vandrew (00:50:46):

And there are people that have noticed, there have been arguments that have been… I’m not anti cash, so I would never make this argument, but there have been arguments that have been made by people that look, we should just stop printing a hundred dollars bills. We could end a lot of crime if we just stopped printing hundreds and made the largest bill of 20, because it would be so much less convenient to be able to carry out this sort of activity in an untraceable manner. And that never goes anywhere, because the government benefits from demand for those a hundred dollars physical bills. In a variety of ways. So the argument that Bitcoin is somehow money for shady people. I mean, I just think that’s a ridiculous argument when you look at it in the context of comparing it to dollars in that regard.

Jeff Vandrew (00:51:30):

Yeah. I think everyone forgets that we gave around $400 billion of physical cash, that nobody has control over and the entire Bitcoin network is worth $800 billion-ish today, or there around, so you got to start making some really wild unfounded claims and everyone just figures out that you really just don’t like Bitcoin.

Preston Pysh (00:51:55):

I know you guys can’t name names here, but I’m curious if you’ve seen an uptick in corporate entities, wanting to do custody type services from call it a year ago or two years ago.

Parker Lewis (00:52:10):

Definitely. Yeah. I think the idea of businesses figuring out that Bitcoin is a better balance sheet reserve currency has certainly picked up. I don’t think that it’s necessarily accelerated in a disproportionate way to individuals, more individuals are still figuring out it’s easier for individuals to come to these conclusions than a consensus of people say, on a corporate board, but from a percentage base, just because the percentage of businesses that we’re figuring this out was so low that, maybe on a percentage basis, it is higher, but probably not on a nominal basis. But yeah, definitely seeing it accelerate and also seeing it accelerate, not just mom and shop, not just sole proprietorships, actual operating businesses, having that, aha wake up moment to Bitcoin. So we’re definitely seeing it from our side.

Preston Pysh (00:53:05):

Any other stats or figures that have made your eyebrows go up in the past six months?

Parker Lewis (00:53:11):

Do you know how many dollars the fed printed in the last month?

Jeff Vandrew (00:53:13):

It like 120-

Parker Lewis (00:53:18):

It was $122 billion. The comedy of it is, it’s really serious, but everyone talks about it is comical that so much of the hedge fund class, they literally read every word that Powell says. And then, the market trades, it and now there’s algorithms that are built around the differences between these fed minutes and the next fed minutes. And they literally look for insertions of war and then have automated trades on financial assets. And everyone’s talking about, is the fed going to raise rates or are they not going to raise rates? It’s like, hey guys, they’re printing $122 billion a month. It’s very simple. Your dollars are getting worse less for that reason.

Parker Lewis (00:54:00):

That’s the problem that Bitcoin solves. And it doesn’t matter what the fed does in a week, in a month, in three months and six months, like, yes, we do have to be considerate of short term volatility, but we’re playing long term games and there’s only one way that it’s going. And when they talk about what they’re going to do in the future, just look at what they’re doing right now. They’re printing $120 billion a month, more than any time, post financial crisis QE. And even if they slightly reduce it or stop it for a period of time, they’re going to print more in the future and they’re going to have to print even more than they’re doing right now. And so, when people find that signal, again, Bitcoin starts to make a lot more sense.

Preston Pysh (00:54:44):

We’re here at the beginning of March, and the amount that they’ve inserted into the economy, just since the start of this year of 2022 is approaching the level that they did for tarp during the 2008 crisis. And I know back then, having lived through that experience and being involved in the markets through that experience, everybody was flipping out into saying, “Oh my God, this is going to cause hyperinflation, it’s going to cause the markets to melt down and this and that and everything else.” And here we are, we’ve done nearly that amount just in the past couple months and not a word of it in the news or anything. It’s almost like it’s imaginary. It’s not even real.

Jeff Vandrew (00:55:26):

And in fact, Powell today said, basically indicated that the first interest rate hike in two weeks, that they’re only going to do 25 basis points. A lot of people had thought it was going to be 50 because inflation was so high. So obviously, they’re not very strongly prioritizing this.

Parker Lewis (00:55:42):

Yeah. And I’ll also point out for people that when the fed increases short term interest rates, if they’re still printing money, they’re actually reducing interest rates. The only thing that dictates the dollar interest rate from the fed side is the supply of dollars. Again, people might trade it, but that idea that you brought up Preston, is this the degree to which they’re doing this is. Numbing. The numbers are getting so large that people are numb to it. And people that are not doing something about it that are just sitting back, taking the punches to the stomach, to the stomach, to the stomach, they are the boiling frog. And going back to your last question of businesses, the interesting thing that I find, because I do go around and educate and sit down across the table from executives of all sorts and not just executives, but many of them when I sit down and I talk to people that are some way levered to the legacy financial system, wealth managers, asset managers, hedge fund, like they listen to these ideas and they’re like, but the will never let it happen.

Parker Lewis (00:56:43):

I’m like, did you not just hear what I said? They’re printing money and that’s a problem for you. And you’re not anchoring it to a principle. It’s like, you’ve got a problem. And it doesn’t mean that you would necessarily have to agree that Bitcoin’s a solution you will, at the end of the day, everyone’s going to figure it out that everyone gets Bitcoin at the price that they deserve. But the conversations could not be more different than, when I sit down with an actual operating business. When I share these ideas with an operating business to a company it’s like, I’m connecting dots. And when they’re in the market and they’re experiencing the inflation and they experience literally every day, the disruption to their business, that’s caused by all of this uncertainty, it dawns on them like the light bulbs go off. You can see it sitting across the table with someone it’s like, they all knew something didn’t make sense.

Parker Lewis (00:57:34):

And that this thing Bitcoin, explain not just what didn’t make sense, but also prevents a solution. And so the contrast between the people actually building and delivering real goods and services to a market versus the people that live in this financial world, this hyper financialized system, their ability to get Bitcoin and understand why it’s important and why it’s a tool, why it literally solves a problem for practically speaking, everyone in the world could not be a greater contrast. And so, it’s not just quote businesses, but it’s, it is a very contrasted reality of predisposition to be able to understand it, that if people are in the market and I mean in the market, not the financial markets, but in the market of producing actual goods and services that these as resonate and that they, they do something about it.

Preston Pysh (00:58:29):

I love this point because you’re talking about an entity that’s actually creating value in the marketplace, as opposed to financial organizations that are controlling the flow of capital and effectively scraping tax out of it, that’s how their organization, quote unquote, adds value to the system. When you’re seeing this stuff real time by, because you’re managing inventory or you’re handling all the contracts as they’re flowing in, and you’re looking at the prices go up a hundred percent because you’re building a house or you’re building whatever. I think, think it’s just so common sense to them. They’re like, “I’d never seen anything like this in my life.” And two years ago, we had less than 1% inflation or whatever the number was to before COVID. So I’m with you. I think your businesses that are actually performing services and putting products into the marketplace are finding out real fast that they can’t outpace the debasement rate that’s happening here.

Preston Pysh (00:59:31):

And all the economic calculation is pointing towards there’s something seriously wrong until maybe Parker Lewis shows up at the door and gives us a pitch on the, this thing called Bitcoin. It didn’t really click as to why everything was getting so warped and difficult to understand. And to your other point, Parker, the about them shutting the… A common argument that you hear is the fed will never let it happen. They’ll shut it down. Coin Telegraph has a stat 61% of Americans expected to, or own some type of crypto asset in 2022. Those numbers are insane. I think you’re at a point now for these people that make the policy arguments, that they’re going to regulate the living heck out of it, this and that. I think you’ve got so many people that have some type of exposure to this in their portfolio. That it’s almost a laughable argument, because if they would do this and maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m too close to this, but I just think you’re going to have people flip out on such a grand scale. If they try to do anything to pump the brakes on this.

Jeff Vandrew (01:00:34):

There’s another point in there too. So the people sometimes when they analyze things, forget that institutions are made up, right? There is no like Mr. Federal reserve who is out to, you know, protect the federal reserve. There are a bunch of people that work at the federal reserve and the banks and all these other places that are out looking out for themselves right. Themselves and their families. Presumably. So if you’re in a situation where, you know, ahead of time, far enough ahead of time, that Bitcoin’s going to be the thing and you know, far enough ahead of time that you would have the ability to ban it, which would you do? Would you ban it to preserve the integrity of your institution?

Jeff Vandrew (01:01:17):

Or if you’re that far ahead of the curve, would you just buy a bunch of it to make yourself and your family rich? Right. Most people are not going to like sacrifice their future families’ wellbeing in order to protect some like amorphous intangible institution. It’s just not how things work. I think when you look at it through that lens and that perspective, you can sort of gain some clarity as well.

Parker Lewis (01:01:43):

Yeah. And I also anchor people back to that core question of how does Bitcoin credibly enforce a fixed supply of 21 million? And why is it relevant? Because if somebody figures out how Bitcoin Credly enforces a fixed supply of 21 million, they will realize that because of the degrees of decentralization and that it would be the biggest game of whackamole that ever existed. And that anyone attempting to seriously impair that realistically only causes it to spread like wire wildfire, because it’s not practically possible, but it does signal to everyone. Hey, you should be paying attention to this thing, Bitcoin, because it’s working so well that it threatens us in some way, when we told you that it was not money and that it was a toy and it was too volatile and that it consumed too much energy, but it was the only thing that was, was actually preserving value, you know, relative to any other currency or all other goods and services was the only thing preserving purchasing power.

Parker Lewis (01:02:46):

And that is what money is designed to do. And so it’s just like, someone’s, you know, moving around in a straight jacket, you know, so anyone that anyone that attempts to take those type of actions is actually playing into to Bitcoin. Hey, ends doesn’t mean that governments can’t make things marginally harder than on, on any certain people, if not, you know, materially harder, but you know, everything is good for Bitcoin and Bitcoin wins in the end because of how it’s actually constructed that it’s actually designed to route around and immunize every threat. And it’s actually the threats that make Bitcoin stronger.

Preston Pysh (01:03:22):

It’s the ultimate fools, err, to try to try to stop it or try to censor it.

Parker Lewis (01:03:29):

Yeah. And I think that, I think that regulators, even the ones like Brad Sherman that, you know, hate Bitcoin, because they hate America. That, that the smarter ones, when they, when they think about this, that they go through that, you know, 4d chess, their, their first in is like, oh, we got to ban this. And then they, and then they go through the actual, well, how the game theory, how does this actually play out? You know, do we actually make our problem larger? And it’s not to say that they then don’t attempt other things that are, that are more coercive and less overt, but that when they play the game out, they realize that they’d be shooting themselves on the foot. And so they’d rather try to tackle it via, you know, some sort of increased, you know, coercion or financial surveillance taxes, you know, kind of however you want to look at it. But Bitcoin went in the end and people that hold, you know, the hardest form of money that ever existed will benefit dis fortunately,

Preston Pysh (01:04:23):

Because at the end of the day, you would have to have the opinion that you can a control every entity in the world, which is obviously false or B, you just don’t understand what’s happening or how it works. It’s one of those two and either one and both of them lead you down a path that you’re going to be unsuccessful,

Parker Lewis (01:04:43):

Just imagine. And again, not everybody in the United States has Bitcoin, but imagine there’s hundreds of millions of Bitcoin keys spread out all over the world. No one knows exactly where any of them are. You know, you might know where one is or you might be able to go to a company and, you know, get a warrant and figure it out. But just visualize what hundreds of mill of Bitcoin keys distributed literally across every jurisdiction in the world. That’s what they’re up against. That’s ultimately what secures Bitcoin. That’s what decentralization is. And as Bitcoin gets larger, it only gets more and more decentralized at every layer. You know? And so with each passing moment, it’s like once they figure out that, this thing can’t be stopped, it’s too late. Once they figure out what it really is on how it operates, that it just gets bigger and bigger and more and more decentralized. But that visualization of keys being distributed, that’s the game a whackamole and that’s ultimately what protects Bitcoin.

Preston Pysh (01:05:40):

Jeff, if people want to learn more about the IRA stuff that you were talking about earlier, give them a handoff where they can learn more about it.

Jeff Vandrew (01:05:47):

Yeah. So if you head over to unchain.com, right there on the website, you can schedule a consultation with one of the fantastic members of our client, a solutions team. They will walk you through the process, teach you everything you need to know about it and get you onboarded and good to go.

Preston Pysh (01:06:05):

Guys, we will have links to both of your Twitter accounts. Parker, I know you’re pretty active on Twitter. Jeff, are you active on Twitter?

Jeff Vandrew (01:06:13):

Not so much, I’m pretty low key on there.

Parker Lewis (01:06:16):

You know how Jeff was saying, he is like, “I’ll let Parker take that. I’m not going to go off the rails. I mean, look, I wouldn’t mind Jeff being out there expressing his views to the world, but you know, you can find me on Twitter, at least Parker, a Lewis. And then also all of my writing is on our website as well. So my series is called gradually and suddenly talks about the fundamentals of Bitcoin. People would not do wrong by themselves to go grab the graduate and suddenly series read it because once you figure out Bitcoin, then you know, protecting a retirement with it, protecting all of your savings with it is something that you’re going to want to do, but that it all starts with education, verify don’t trust, but that the more that people understand Bitcoin. And so our educational come content is there for, for everyone. It’s free. You can go learn, distribute the knowledge. You know, you can find on our website and if people are interested in the IRA, they can also find that on our website and our services

Preston Pysh (01:07:12):

And people now know Jeff, even though you might not be very active on Twitter, you know what you’re talking about when it comes to this stuff. So folks, if you want to ask questions, hit these guys up on Twitter. We’ll have the links in the show notes. We’ll have the links to the Unchained Capital website in the show notes. Parker, Jeff, thank you guys for making time and coming on the show. I love talking with you guys. This was a blast.

Jeff Vandrew (01:07:34):

Thanks for having me, man. It’s been great.

Parker Lewis (01:07:36):

Yeah. Thanks Preston. Always enjoy it.

Preston Pysh (01:07:39):

If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to the show on whatever podcast application you use, just search for. We study billionaires. The Bitcoin specific shows come out every Wednesday and I’d love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that. And it’s something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm. So anything you can do to help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening. And I’ll catch you again next week.

Outro (01:08:11):

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