Anthony Pompliano 0:00
Other things that you guys are doing is obviously working with folks like fidelity obviously, is a very big kind of stamp of validation, if you will, to some degree and people kind of trust that brand.
Ryan Radloff 0:10
But also to pass their diligence, that’s for sure.
Anthony Pompliano 0:14
Yeah. But there’s also this element of like, if I want to take my retirement account, turn it into a self directed IRA, right, which I’ve done, I’ve got a choice account personally, is I also not boxed into just Bitcoin, right.
Which I actually think is a really important piece of this, because you and I are, you know, kind of hardcore believers of hardcore believers and, and frankly, we probably are willing to take much more risk when it comes to an asset like Bitcoin than most people. But if I wanted to, I could actually go buy stocks, I could go buy other alternative assets, I could kind of do all of this stuff out of this self directed IRA.
And so I don’t get pigeonholed in saying, oh, if I convert my retirement account into this new structure, then like, basically, I have to keep it in Bitcoin forever. So maybe talk a little bit about like the optionality that people Have, and why you look at that as a positive?
Ryan Radloff 1:03
Yeah, it’s amazing, like we looked at, you know, you look at the retirement market, and you know, what’s happened the last three or four years is that there’s been some of these companies that have emerged and they just do Bitcoin only, and they charge and what you have to do, you have to sell all of your stocks, and all of your mutual funds, and you have to move cash over to this group.
And they’re charging, like 10% on the way in. So 10% of every everything you move in, they’re charging. And you know, it’s amazing, where you having to dump all your manage this stuff over here at your Schwab account, and then send it over here. And, you know, it creates this friction, and I don’t think that’s what’s best for Bitcoin.
And I don’t think that what that’s what’s best for users. And, you know, I view this option of choice that we’ve provided where you can go from legacy markets, digital markets, as just like the upward momentum of integration of these two worlds. Like I don’t think it’s anything that we’re doing that is necessarily overly intense. active.
It’s just that now what we’re seeing is like, Look, hey, rest of the investment world, Bitcoin and the extended blockchain industry, your crypto industry is at the table, we’re not going anywhere. So, now we’re here, we’re part of the portfolio, whether you guys like it or not. And now investors are able to participate in your world and ours from the same technology rails that they’ve been doing for the last 30 years.
And I don’t think we’ll be the only ones I think it’s only a matter of time before you see the exchanges start to offer legacy assets like stock trading, I think you’ll see the big fit, you know, the mothership fidelity and Schwab start to offer crypto trading soon in Bitcoin trading.
I think this is an industry you know, us with choice. We’re kind of running through that gap as hard as we can right now for the people that want one account, legacy and digital and then have the option of how they want to hold their digital in a in a forward thinking way.
So we’re trying to be our generations next Schwab and fidelity and really understand From the bitcoiners view, right, we understand things like, our people want to own their own keys and our people want to keep stuff with fidelity or our key people want to put it in motion.
It isn’t just some like siloed and we see that extending into the world of defy beyond just Bitcoin to I mean, people are gonna want to start baking, staking, or, you know, earning other types of yield in the industry out of their retirement accounts. So I think that’s where we’ll stay competitive.
But it’s only a matter of time before you see the coin bases and the Schwab’s and the fidelity’s at the mothership level offer both access as well and I look as a Bitcoin er, I’m pumped about that, you know, you know, I know I’m here we’re all here to make money and you know, advance commercial and shareholder returns but as a Bitcoin er, I think that it’s my best thing that I can do right now is get Abby Johnson’s attention that we’re seeing.
You know, 20,000 plus people on our waitlist to open a choice account and that if they integrate Bitcoin and the rest of the thing in their fidelity accounts, that’s that’s that’s a big one for Bitcoin. I think so. That’s what I’m hoping that we’re that we’re going to do and I hope that the big players take notice and take Bitcoin or industry as serious as we do.
Anthony Pompliano 4:08
One of the stats that you told me early on that blew my mind was there’s like 7 million people who already own Bitcoin, but they have none in their retirement account. Right? And this would be the equivalent of saying there’s a bunch of people who own stocks, but none of it’s in their retirement account like that would just be unfathomable but Bitcoin that’s the truth, right?
Ryan Radloff 4:26
Dude, I’m I was so an I was actually I am so embarrassed that I was one of them. Like, I bought my first Bitcoin in 2012. I brought like, I sit there I stacks, like, I got my wife sign up with lolly. I do all of this stuff, right? Like we like I and I didn’t own any Bitcoin in my retirement account. So you know, and we did the math.
There’s, there’s, if you take the cross, there’s two ways of getting this you take the cross, there’s 7.1 million Americans that have already made the leap, right the leap to buy bitcoin or, or take the dive into our industry, so to speak, and have a retirement account, but don’t have Bitcoin in their retirement account.
And if you also look at people’s investable discretionary investable money, they usually have three to four times more investable discretionary money in their retirement accounts than they do their non retirement accounts.
So when I say this is the biggest opportunity for Bitcoin, especially in this kind of stock to flow model that we look at, I’m looking at 7.1 million bitcoiners that have three times more investable money in their retirement accounts that aren’t using their retirement accounts to huddle. And, you know, that’s all we’re, that’s what we’re focused on.
And, you know, if we convert some more people over to Bitcoin along the way, that’s great, but for now, we’re just, you know, if we stay narrow focus on that, it’s, that’s big enough. And I think that that’s, you know, it’s massive to me, and I think that if you look at that there’s there’s $28 trillion dollars 28 trillion that is in the US retirement market.
And you know, it’s just I think, I just think it’s It’s a really big opportunity for us to all go out and and, you know, evangelize about make sure that these bitcoiners know that you don’t have to just have your life your retirement savings that some zombie bank is telling you that Bitcoin is not okay.
And the other thing, by the way, just because I rant about now we have 50,000 people in the US 50,000 that work in the Bitcoin industry or extended Bitcoin industry, like blockchain industry, and most of those companies have for one case, like employer sponsored for one case, and what you get is some like, you know, for like some time intervals, like products that rebalances for you and says, you know, here put $16,000 of your money a year in this, and we’ll tell you what happens with it later.
And I you know, I just, it’s amazing to me, and you talk to some of these CEOs of these Bitcoin companies. And, you know, you say well, why your employees wake up every day to advance this industry, but they can’t access that in their, their employer sponsored retirement account. And I think that’s an equal injustice. And it’s because the same thing like these, some legacy provider and bank is saying no, no, no, too risky.
Meanwhile, you know, they’re the extent of that is in this kind of rat fed rat trap cycle of printing and, you know, stock and you know that this whole stock inflation bubble there and I think that our, you know, our community has an opportunity to opt out of that as at the employer level too. So, I think you’ll see a lot of emerge there in the next year or two as well.
