The Future of Bitcoin Treasury Companies | Phong Le & David Bailey

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The Pomp Podcast 29 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed
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What are the three phases of Strategy's evolution as a Bitcoin treasury company?

David Bailey 0:00
Back in the day, we used to have 50% drawdowns in the price of Bitcoin in six hours. Okay, it's like a whole nother world of crazy.
Phong Le 0:07
The key thing is survival. And that was the eureka moment where we said, if you want to match something like Bitcoin, which has long duration, high volatility, we need to provide to the market a short duration, low volatility product. That's what STRC is.
Anthony Pompliano 0:23
When would you guys sell the Bitcoin if ever? I think when people look at strategy, they would say you guys are the pioneer of putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet of publicly traded company.

How has Bitcoin integrated into Wall Street and traditional finance?

Anthony Pompliano 0:32
And I think early on, the pitch was we're going to accretively acquire more Bitcoin. You guys have gone through, I think, a very positive evolution in terms of how do you get more capital to buy more Bitcoin? And so how do you describe today maybe the strategy complex and the way that you guys are approaching this accretive acquisition of Bitcoin?

What macroeconomic factors influence Bitcoin's value and adoption?

Phong Le 0:54
Thanks for having us. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

Under what circumstances would they consider selling their Bitcoin holdings?

Phong Le 0:58
Three phases of the company. 2020, we took $600 million or so invested in Bitcoin. And I would call that a Bitcoin holding company.

How do government policies affect Bitcoin's political adoption?

Phong Le 1:10
And that's pretty much what we did. Not much different than an iBit today. We just bought and held Bitcoin. second phase really started beginning of 2021 is we decided to lever up and we became a bitcoin treasury company and the leverage was primarily through convertible notes we dabbled a little bit in some secured loans we even dabbled in a bitcoin back loan with silvergate but primarily raised at this point in time about 12 billion dollars in convertible notes

What responsibilities come with running a public Bitcoin company?

Phong Le 1:42
0% interest on average, up 50%, pretty successful. Those who work in the convertible complex realize that it's about 50 dudes with like PhDs or Harvard MBAs who sit across the table. They buy your converts, they short your stock, It's over the counter, which means that a retail investor can't buy a convertible note. And it's sort of a quick dopamine hit and we're able to buy a lot of Bitcoin. But at some point in time, you have maturity risk, right? You're going to have the convertible notes come due.

What does the future hold for Bitcoin treasury models and industry consolidation?

Phong Le 2:19
Not bad for an early Bitcoin treasury company or somebody who's just getting into the space, who's trying to raise funds to buy Bitcoin. But for what we're trying to build wasn't long term the right move. phase three last year was digital credit became a bitcoin credit company and what we did is we raised about seven billion dollars of uh perpetual preferreds uh and and those who invest in preferreds you know it's a pretty small space primarily banks provide preferreds people call them hybrids between equity and debt but it's really an equity instrument meaning we don't have to pay it back ever because it's perpetual in nature And it trades it trades on the Nasdaq.

How do they envision Bitcoin's role in the global financial system moving forward?

Phong Le 3:04
So STRC trades 150 million bucks a day. And that was the eureka moment where we said, if you want to match something like Bitcoin, which has long duration, high volatility, we need to provide to the market a short duration, low volatility product. That's what STRC is. that was phase three, uh, learned along the way, a lot of invention along the way. Uh, but, uh, you know, Michael said it stretches our iPhone moment. It's paying out today is trading at like 99 spot, seven, zero, uh, strive has done something with their SADA product. This is the future. This is the future for people who don't want, uh, the volatility of Bitcoin, but they want access to the underlying returns. They buy stretch. I met somebody out there, they're buying the product.
Phong Le 3:50
Uh, So constant innovation and stretches is going to be the big thing.
Anthony Pompliano 3:56
Describe just real quick on this digital credit with stretch. People will see the yield number. It's much higher than treasuries, etc. Maybe unpack a little bit of the plumbing in terms of how are you guys paying that yield and then certain investors buy Bitcoin versus buy stretch and how you guys think about maybe the two different cohorts of who are buying these different assets.
Phong Le 4:19
Yeah, so those who want to buy Bitcoin, they want... First of all, I'd recommend long-duration investors, right?

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