The Art of Trading and Galaxy’s Next Chapter | Mike Novogratz

Transcript

But the great for the great fortunes in life and you can't pick one pick any of the great fortunes. They come from riding a trend and it's often the trend you're stuck in because it's yours. >> Yep. >> Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezel. There's not one person in that top 10 list that's there because they weren't riding a trend. >> This episode is brought to you by Block Damon. You'll hear more about them later in today's episode. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Block Works. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold

positions in the company's funds or projects discussed. Right? Welcome back to Empire. We got uh the man, the myth, the legend, Mike Novagrats from Galaxy joining us. Mike, what's happening? >> Good to be here. >> Yeah, good to have you here. I like the hoodie. >> You know, Bitcoin orange. Little Bitcoin Orange baby. >> Business Untitled. It's my podcast that I don't do nearly enough, but I do it with two friends. Uh, >> we got great merch. >> Of all the things you could show on the podcast. You're showing your own podcast. You got a stock to pump and you got companies to build. >> You know, my my two my two partners yell at me all the time because we just don't get around to doing it a lot. And we did it for >> the problem with podcasts.

>> We did it for a social uh a social cause, right? It was to give like in lots of ways uh advice to underserved communities. And it it was fun. It's great. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> but man oh man, I give you guys a lot of credit. It's hard to not >> got to show up every day. Yeah, it's tough. Uh quick disclaimer before we jump in. Galaxy is one of my biggest positions and holdings, so I'm very biased when talking to Mike. And uh that is I did want we we had an interesting conversation with Duncan. I don't know if you see this guy tweeting at you all the time. >> I love Duncan. >> Yeah. Yeah. Duncan and Written House. So, we didn't have my new favorite. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um >> well, Nick Nicholas FLL is like dear and dear to my heart because he's been there

from the beginning. >> It must be fun as a public, you know, running a public company. you got these guys who are like bowled up on your stock and it's kind of a cult following now. >> Well, you know what's so interesting about crypto uh is that the value proposition of crypto and I've only come to this in the last year is community. You think about it's not the technology that makes Bitcoin worth anything, right? We could fork the technology and call it, you know, Novocoin and it wouldn't be worth that much. My kids might buy it, but Right. It's the brand that comes around Bitcoin and it's the community. So, we're trusting ourselves in that community. And so, this idea that community be could become part of the value prop

has now migrated into equity markets, right? Palunteer, it's about community. This great company, lots of contracts, trades at an insane multiple. >> The value it's it's mimetic. It's >> Tesla with Elon. >> Tesla with Elon Micro Strategy trading at a premium forever. Uh because Micro Strategy became its own coin. >> Yeah, totally. >> It's its own community. And so I guess every CEO sees that and says, "Well, I got to build some form of I always want to build a wonderful business that stands on its own through like discounting cash flow."

>> I don't think that's enough anymore though. To thrive in the public markets, >> you got to have community. >> Yeah. How I mean, how do you think about that as a public company CEO? Because I see um what's the Palunteer? Alex Karp. I see Alex. He goes on CNBC. He's got the crazy hair. He puts a Zin in. He's spinning his computer like this with the t-shirt. >> Well, and I don't know this factually. I was told by a friend of his that they really do a a a real job of cultivating their 500 biggest Twitter followers. They bring them to a conference. They treat them like they're equity analysts because quite frankly, these guys do as much work on your company as >> Yeah.

>> the equity analysts at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. And >> I've heard Robin Hood is now starting to do the same thing. And you understand why there's a a real power in it. Like the big $64,000 question is how lasting will this be? Is it a permanent addition to valuation metrics, right? Or is this a phase that we've gone through? Like it started in lots of ways with COVID. Uh people had a lot of time on their hands. the idea of the democratization of finance. You gota everyone should be an investor, Robin Hood giving easy access, crypto giving easy access and the rise of gambling culture in America, right?

Same day options, right? It's shocking how much same day option trading happens. That didn't exist when I was your age. >> Um, now we have sports betting on my I sit with my kids, my son and his friends. They've got 19 bets per game. It seems >> you can't watch a sports game without some prop bets. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. And so this whole culture of gambling, which falls into community because community is part of >> that didn't exist for I'm not going to tell you that I'm that I'm a baby boomer because god damn it I'm a baby boomer about 34 days. I like to think I'm Gen Xer.

34 [ __ ] days. >> Uh excuse the language. Um it didn't exist back then, right? And so this is all new. We'll see how long it lasts. >> Yeah. I mean, there's also one other element. So, we just had Christian on the podcast. Um, we're talking about the the decline of religion in just in in the States and how maybe religion is coming back, but maybe people are just finding religion in other areas. >> How about this? It's the decline of trust. You can do a graph. The Pew Institute. There's lots of people that will measure trust. trust in institutions, trust in religion, trust in each other, trust between parties, and it's broadly a straight line from upper right to lower left. Uh no, upper left to lower right um straight line

down. And as trust has fallen, we look for, you know, we look for community elsewhere. We look for trust elsewhere. So the idea of crypto as a trust machine, that's what first had the appeal. I used to make that speech in 2014 2015 right? uh this is where we're going to instead of in God we trust or a community we trust in in cryptography in the Bitcoin community we trust. Um but now you're seeing it everywhere like these are these are little mini religions. >> Yeah. >> The XRP army is a real thing. >> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Or the link marines. >> Oh yeah. >> I talked to the guy who founded chain link and he was like I have no idea who the link marines are but I love them. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a cult following. >> Yeah. >> Um maybe going back to this idea of like is this sustainable? So, we just had um Dan Morehead on the show. Love Dan. >> Yeah. Who who I figured you know pretty well >> and uh his >> know Dan for 40 years. >> I actually to kick off the episode I pulled up a picture of him at Princeton on the rowing team. Uh it was a good good old pick of Dan. So, uh were you you guys were same >> same class? Yeah.

>> 867. >> Me, Dan. >> Good class. >> Joe Luben >> Luben >> and one other guy who's >> Gavin Andre. >> Gavin Andre. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> We like to call that the big four. >> Yeah. Good class. Yeah, good class. We like that. Um, so Dan, so Dan is basically making the argument that like uh the Fed so the Fed just started cutting obviously and he's like that this is just a bad idea. This is just a bad idea to start cutting this early. I'm curious to just get maybe we can start talking markets and macro and then obviously get into Galaxy and crypto. >> You know, listen rarely does the Fed cut when inflation's still perky, when gold is at an all-time high, when silver is at an all-time high, when crypto is at an all-time high. and the equity market's at an

all-time high. And so it's a dangerous cut. And when the president's putting a huge amount of pressure on you to cut, it's a dangerous cut. We are having job growth issues, right? The claims numbers are higher. The unemployment rate uh is still tight, but it's moving up. You know, non-farm payrolls was weaker. Um and so I would say if I was on the Fed, this would have been a a one and weight cut, >> right? Just to deal with because you got to make sure inflation doesn't accelerate.

>> Yeah. >> What makes all economic projections brutally hard right now is this AI effect. Um, and it's a really interesting dynamic. If you're running a public company, shareholders want to see that you're using AI to bring efficiency. So I talked to one guy who says we're cutting 5% just because we got to answer to the >> right the pressure of people >> to the pressure like we're we're doing it like I'm not sure the AI is helping.

And I talked to other people like oh my god we're laying off people because I I do know one thing college kids are having a much harder time getting jobs in in in fields that they used to. >> Entry- level jobs. >> Entry level jobs. Yeah. the I was told this by a guy who would know that the this year's computer science major graduates from Berkeley only half of them got jobs every year in the past 10 95% of them got jobs. So it was a dramatic shift >> in uh oh we don't need young coders. Um, and so we're going to have a really interesting time in the next three years of trying to predict where macro data

goes. >> Yeah. >> Like this could be the greatest efficiency boost in all time and inflation could collapse or or not. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's interest. Okay. So that's one variable is like AI, right? So is it the great job destroyer or is the ma biggest productivity gain ever? The other one is um like central bank independence is an interesting topic. Um maybe I'd love to have you tease that a little bit. >> So the last autocratic leader of a big economy who said I'm smarter than the central banker was Erdogan from Turkey.

>> Yeah, it went well >> right Turkey was the darling of emerging markets. Seran takes over and oh they went 32% 86% backto-back inflation years. So to put it in perspective one year of 86% inflation has eroded a huge amount of your purchasing power right >> now. Luckily it it peaked there and it's come back down to like the high teens I think. But it's still look at the value of a Turkish lera in gold over the last 10 years and you're like why in God's name did I own any LRA? I have this tattoo on my arm done by a Turkish is a beautiful peacock done by a Turkish um tattoo. One of the best guys in Turkey.

He came to New York. He's like I lost all my savings. >> Oh what >> in this devaluation and so he moved to New York. >> It's a nice tattoo. >> Nice tattoo. >> Yeah. >> Uh it's the last tattoo I'm talking about. Uh and and so risking, listen, we're supposed to be running 3 to 4% inflation because we've got $35 trillion of debt that we got to quietly inflate away. But when you go to 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, you lose civil society often, right? People can't eat, you know, it it it literally becomes societal really really poisonous.

>> Yeah. >> And that's why the Fed has independence. That's why if you were in Germany, the Bundes Bank had this because they had lived it. They had lived Weimar Germany, which look how that turned out. And so I think we're in really dangerous territory. >> Do you have a sense of how this kind of ends? I mean, we're spending more on interest payments than the than than the military. >> It does. It does. Listen, Ray Dallio, who's brilliant at this stuff. Shout out Ray. uh he wrote a book about and about what would called the beautiful deleveraging. He called it like there was a chance that you can run growth a little hot and run

inflation just enough hot that you start eroding it away a little bit and growth takes you out and and you can get at it. I think we he now thinks we're through that. We're past that. um that we we we've lost our chance for the beautiful deleveraging. Um we'll see. I mean, Besson's move is to try to jolt growth so much, but they originally said, "Okay, we're going to we're going to cut spending." And they increase spending. >> Yeah. This the cutting spending didn't work. >> No. And and and you know, Donald Trump never in his life wanted a balanced budget, right? He he was the king of debt, other people's money. OPM.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and so we don't have a fiscally conservative government. We don't have any efficiency gains coming from Doge or some version of Doge. Um, we have an acceleration of rich people getting richer and the cost of living making it brutal for uh, workingass and even middle class people to survive. I mean, think about New York City. The minimum wage in New York is 15 bucks. Uh but I I'm talking to two friends. One guy's sister worked at Delta. She's been there 15 years. She's goes to Laguadia every day. Works 40-hour weeks. Uh makes about 17 bucks

an hour as she works ticket service. Um that's 35 grand a year. I have another uh friend who had a client who worked at Yankee Stadium. 25 years Yankee Stadium. Hasn't missed a week of work. 40 hours a week, same kind of job, same kind of salary, 35 grand a year. >> You can't find a one-bedroom in New York. >> Even if you go to the the the the bowels of >> Yeah. It's not liveable. >> Queens. Yeah. >> 2500. >> That's 30,000 right there. Really? 3,000 is the price. So you're 30 30,000 just on rent.

That's your whole salary. So what about food? 1,500 a month on food. thousand a month is the cheapest you could probably do food. You know, >> the real minimum wage in New York without needing a handout from your dad uh from a trust fund or from the government >> is closer to 45 bucks an hour. And that's still not a great life. That's just that's just making it. That's 75,000 a year. >> And so that's below the median income of New Yorkers. Uh and so you got half the city. Why Mandami is going to win this election is because half the city are saying, "Ah, this just doesn't work anymore." And that really crept up on us in a very quick way. Housing prices have over have more than doubled since 2010.

>> That's crazy. >> Yeah. >> Salaries haven't doubled since 2010. >> Yeah. >> Where do you as a as an investor and a trader almost like maybe tying it back? So, we're recording this in September of 25. Like how do you think about just the market today? I mean, you've got Nvidia putting 100 billion into OpenAI. Market feels frothy, gold ripping, crypto ripping. >> Listen, all the warning signs. Uh I saw Dave Ter on TV. Dave Ter is one of the world's best investors. And whenever he talks, you should listen. Him, Stan Draen Miller, they're very thoughtful.

And what's cool about Ter is he talks like the guy that you'd meet at the gas station. you know, he's and he's like, "Ah, this is brutal." Like all the momentum indicators, you got the Fed cutting is markets are going to go higher. We've got this great momentum, but it's a pain in the ass because everything's expensive. So, you're long expensive stuff thinking it's going to go higher like that encapsulates the >> market. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. What gets me nervous is the interconnectivity between does it feels like vendor financing >> Nvidia to open AAI to Oracle Coreweave even who's our partner like it's all tied together uh and so

I do believe in AI I do I see it we see it we have a big data center business when you see and actually take time to think about how much money is going to be spent we're going to spend $25 billion ion dollar or more just on what we have contracted seven billion from Galaxy probably 20 billion from the people that are taking the inside of the box right coreweave tenants to build one supercomputer one brain to help in this AI revolution now multiply that by a 100 it's just it's capex like we've never seen people don't understand what 30 billion of capex is like if we do our whole campus it'll be over 100 billion of capex the only project in American history that's over 100 billion of capex

is the interstate highway system. >> Yeah, it's nuts. >> Like these these are unprecedented amounts of investment. >> Yeah. >> And that means some group of very informed and very smart people think there's going to be an unprecedented precedented shift in how the world operates. >> Yeah. Okay. So, let's say you agree with that long and strong AI. You guys have a great data center business well positioned for it. Um, but as someone who maybe is listening to this, they hold a bunch of Bitcoin, they hold some gold, they hold Robin Hood stock, Coinbase stock, Galaxy stock. Are you Is it like, look, just close your eyes and long and strong.

>> I think I think you've got to listen, the ex CEO of City Banks once had this this sentence that got him just panned and he's like, you got to keep dancing until the music stops. >> You got to know when the music stop or stopping. I think we you've got to have a stop loss on your positions. Uh you've got to understand that things have moved a long way that things can correct. Uh it's probably you probably should have less at risk today than you did four months ago.

>> Y >> right now the problem is what's safe? Is gold safe? >> Yeah, that's the question. It's like well then what are you putting your money into? Are you just sitting in cash? Like are you just sitting in gold >> treasury? I you know it's some combination of I mean I have I mean I'm still long I'm a lot of Bitcoin I'm long Ethereum I'm long Solana I'm hyperlquid I'm long a lot of crypto outside of that I'm long gold I'm long a lot of Chinese equities like Chinese equities are a really interesting play >> of David Ter who's had an awesome year he got in early >> great Alibaba calls >> uh they're still very very cheap relative to US equity tech names uh China's government is inflating they're taking defl inflation really seriously.

And so that's a decent divers diversifier. Um, but it's hard. It It is hard. >> I don't think we're at the point where the dollar goes parabolicly down, but it could. You just never know. There's a thing called the Minsky moment in economic where confidence just evaporates. There's a there's like a line in the sand. You don't know when you cross it. >> You ever seen the movie The Right Stuff?

>> No. But I >> You're too young. >> One of the best. >> Put that on the list. >> Fighter pilot astronaut movies of all time. Right. >> Tom Wolf writer. Uh >> Chuck Joerger is the greatest fighter pilot in the history of the US military. >> He was the guy that broke the sound barrier. And this is about breaking the sound barrier and the Mercury 7 astronauts happening. And you know, Joerger was too old to be an astronaut. And and anyways, he's in this test plane and he's talking about where that sound beer is. He's like, "There's a demon out there." He's smoking a cigarette shoe and he's you don't know where he is, but damn it, I'm going to find him. Like that's the min schema. There is a point out there where confidence breaks, where

debt is too big, where everything unravels. >> We don't know where it is, but I know one thing, we're a hell of a lot closer to that Chuck Jagger moment than we were. >> Yeah. And it feels that way and that's scary. >> Yeah, you can feel it. >> And so the beginning of the year I was like, "Ah, right. We got Scott Bessant, 10 out of 10 guy." >> Yeah. >> Like I like him. He's got my background. >> Uh I know him. He's sharp and we're going to do Doge, which Elon probably was the wrong guy at the wrong time for Doge. Would have rather had Bezos. A little more methodical, but we need to cut government spending. We need to. And I thought we have a shot. and Elon went the way of the dodo bird in terms of Doge

>> and complete failure. Uh, and Bessant hasn't delivered. Now, it's hard to deliver. You got to get Congress on your side. He hasn't, you know, you got to get the president on your side. >> What What would delivering have looked like? >> Delivering would have been we're going to cut spending. Yeah. We're going to have a very tight plan on where we're going to tighten the belt, right? Uh you even if you're not going to raise taxes, like what what you really do when you have a strong economy is you should be raising taxes and cutting spending, right? Help get that to GDP heading back down. But if you believed in not cutting raising taxes, you're going to cut taxes. You

better be cutting spending. >> Yeah. >> We're cutting taxes and raising spending. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. >> And the single biggest problem that's separating the left and the right, the young and the old, trust and untrust, is the inequality gap. >> And the inequality gap's just going like this again. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Every rich guy I know is like pretty good year. >> Yeah. >> High five. >> Yeah. >> Right. Rich guys own assets. >> Poor guys don't own assets. >> Yeah. >> And so not good. >> Yeah. It's um one Christian and I were just talking about this idea that like it feels like everyone has this uh almost panicked feeling angst of like like right now like we need to make money right now. We need to go public right now. We need to get these data center deals done right now. Do you do

you feel that? >> You know I used to feel that more. We to be fair we inked our data center our big data center deal right 800 megawws. We've got contracted rent coming in from coreweave 20 billion plus over 15 years. So I'm more focused on us building this data center on time and on budget in delivering it and then praying every night that core weave stay solvent. Our father who art in heaven, please keep core solvent. Um I think cory's doing an awesome job and and I think they're going to be completely fine. And we took that bet like we could have done that deal with an Oracle and we would made a whole lot less money on it. We took the bet with a company that we saw growing at the same kind of time.

>> Yeah. Higher risk, higher higher return. >> Higher risk, higher return. And so I'm thrilled about that and I love those guys. Um so I'm I'm less insecure about everything else because that's just such a tremendous amount of money that comes into Galaxy and I want to share in Galaxy um that it gives me some comfort to ride the ride the bucking bronco on the other side. >> Is Galaxy a large percentage of your net worth? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's 70 80% of my network. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Uh and growing or you know as Galaxy grows the rest of my network doesn't grow as fast as >> beginning year was a third and now it's 80% 90% right.

>> Yeah. Doing something right. >> Uh and so I also feel like in the past we have just a crypto company because crypto was so volatile. Bitcoin had higher volatility than it does today. that catch 70 ball back then. Wherever my net worth was felt a lot more transient. It might be there and it might not be there because it was so much in Galaxy stock and you saw our stock went from 40 all the way to three all the way back. Now because we have this solid data center business which we should almost think of is like cash flows like a bond.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh and our book has grown, you know, not just our crypto book, but our non-dollar, you know, our dollarbased book has grown enough that there's a much in my mind a much uh higher floor uh to the share price than there ever was before. >> Yeah. >> And so even if we go into the end of the cycle in a bare market, I I kind of know where value is a galaxy and that leaves me still. >> Yeah. You've got this base of fundamental value basically. Yeah. Across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints, Block Damon Earnstack unites staking and DeFi into a single institutional toolkit for crypto rewards with multi-layered security, full asset

control, and 247 support. Block Damon Earnstack is built for scale and regulatory clarity, non-custodial staking, and seamless DeFi access allin-one stack. Direct access to DeFi with no intermediate smart contract or vaults. To book a demo, make sure to click the link in the show notes or head over to BlockDamon Earnstack to find out more. Thanks to BlockDamon for making today's episode possible. The machine economy is here. Devices are monetizing data for their users all over the world. Tokenized robots are generating revenue for token holders. The first machine economy free zone is live in the Emirates and it's all happening on Peak, the machine economy computer. Head to peak.xyz XYZ to find out how you can

benefit from the age of automation or click the link in the show notes to find out more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. How do you um think about the cycle? Uh the the the question on everyone's mind right now is is the four-year cycle still intact? >> Question. And the market's rolling off rolling over in crypto at an interesting time which is like this is kind of when you would start to expect the market I mean I guess is 2017 was December >> 2021 was November or yeah December Q4 let's call it yeah >> so listen traditionally yes what's different this time and it might be

>> yeah matter >> fact that's why we're all nervous >> what could be different this time by far the biggest difference is the fact that the world's largest investor, the world's largest consumer, the world's largest player in any financial markets, the United States. And we've got a genius act passed and we are going to with all likelihood by the end of this year pass a market structure bill which is going to not just enable, it's going to force all the big giant companies into this market. So, you know, my iPhone, my Apple Pad, there's no stable coins on it now. It would be shocking if in within the next few years, Apple doesn't have stable

coins. >> Yeah. >> Right. Or the Samsung phone or all your different apps. And so we're gonna see, I think, a much bigger shift than we've seen in the building of new architecture, which is blockchainbased for the plumbing of the financial markets. I talked about that years ago. Blockchains weren't fast enough and we didn't have a regulatory framework. We're now having a regulatory framework and an SEC chair who said, "Let's build everything on chain." I was like, "Excuse me? Did he say that?" And he said it a few times now. So Paul Atkins says, "Let's go on chain." I mean to today there was an article about a sandbox like they're going to allow DeFi to to flourish and that could change the

cycle. >> It just could. It's such a big story. Um look what Hyperl did this year out of nowhere to a a monstrous right you know 50 billion dollar >> company. >> Yeah. Yeah. uh that deserves to be there because they're doing a billion half two billion dollars of Ebida a year ago. >> Uh and never heard of him a year ago. >> Yeah. >> Right. And so you could see a bigger shift than we're seeing. I I think it's going to take a few years. Right. You see like Mike Kagny's company who >> Yeah. Yeah.

>> You know, tokenized HELOCs, you know, is it is are they trading on the right blockchain? Will you guys do that? I was thinking of your business when I saw that. >> We are we are spending a lot of time >> tokenized credit >> like I if we're not in tokenized credit uh in 12 months someone should kick me in the jaw. Uh like we are credit experts. Chris Ferraro my president came from a credit background. We have a great credit business now and so yeah we are gonna be in that that part of the space and it's it's one of our big initiatives and we're focused on it. Um because think about what's going to happen.

Stable coins are going to eat away at bank deposits. So if you're a banking regular like, oh, we tried to make it they could only be non-interest bearing. Of course you're going to hack that. >> You're going to have a money market fund and a stable coin right next to each other and they're going to, you know, >> Yeah. Yeah. >> flip back and forth in the same wallet. >> All right. So banks aren't going to give credit out because they're going to have less deposits. Who's going to give credit? You have tokenized credit. Yeah, >> you can tokenize money market funds. We're doing one. Uh Black Rockck has one, a big one. We're doing one with State Street. Uh you can tokenize private credit to Apollo is doing their funds. You're going to see Fortress and everyone else tokenize their funds. You can you can every part of the stack you

can tokenize. And so all of a sudden you're going to have your deposits in stable coin and your credit in in the banking system very well could shift on chain. Hm. Um >> that's why the bank that's why banks have fought this for years. >> Yeah. Yeah. What happens to the banks? >> The smart ones are you know like you can't be a custodian if you're State Street or Bank of New York or say we're not going to do crypto custodian because all of a sudden when you tokenize equities you're So they're all going to get in the space. Yeah.

Yeah. >> And they're all working like crazy right now to get in space. you're going to see some acquisitions. It's why in some ways the easier business to run is the single vertical business. Like if you're a good custodian, there's probably a bid from you from some trade five bank just to quickly >> totally, >> you know, get going. >> Yeah. >> Um but you're going to see every financial institution need wallets. >> That I don't know how fast this transition happens. If it's a year or if it's 10 years, it's it's somewhere in between.

>> Yeah. But it's happening. >> But it's happening. And it's happening. Why I know it's happening is because we were getting this legislation done. >> Yeah. Do you um do you think of yourself more as an operator or a trader? >> I am a storyteller. Um I'm a good leader. I think uh I can inspire people. I think I have really good instincts on markets. I think those are my three superpowers. And I think how we've built Galaxy is Chris Ferraro, my partner, is a methodical builder, >> also a great investor. And you try to put people around you that like, you know, what's an entrepreneur? There

there's a lot that goes into being an entrepreneur. Uh when you do Wall Street entrepreneurism, it's not the same thing because like when you start a hedge fund, you make money in the first year, first month. uh we have always funded Galaxy by being on the right side of the market. >> Uh you know as opposed to I'm going to lose money for 11 straight years and then start making money. So it's a little you know I have more of the investor mindset. Uh I have worked hard to try to figure out how to develop the builder mindset and sub and and and fill in my my blind spots with people that are really good at it.

>> Yeah. But that's the real trick uh is knowing what you're good at and knowing what other people are good at. >> Yeah, maybe that's a good segue into the uh the Aud Barack story. >> So I was a investor trader at Goldman Sachs speculator for at least six six years never lost money and at Goldman they were kind of smart enough. If you had a some pure prop guys, but a lot of people like me had a giant prop book, but also ran a business. Ran a business, you're kind of having some income coming in. That gives you a little more courage in the in the prop business, right? We go to the casino and I give you $100 every hour.

You're more like likely to not be as nervous. Um, so I start a hedge fund. I'm 18 months into it. It's doing fine, but I'm just so nervous all the time. I'm miserable. >> This is Fortress. >> Fortress. >> Yeah. >> And I remember talking to my wife. I said, I might just shut this damn thing down and do something else in life. I just don't want to live like I'm just stressed all the time. And she was like, "You really can't do that since you just hired all these people." And you know, I can stop whining and tough up. I had a good point. And I have lunch with Houd Barack who was just left being the prime minister of Israel. And he has two clients. I was his third. First client,

Lewis Bacon, more capital, one of the great investors of all time. Other client, Bruce Cover, right-wing version of, you know, hedge fund manager. Caxton, one of the great investors of all time. A little older, like call it a turn older than Lewis. >> Both multi-billionaires. And I'm at this point a $300 million hedge fund. Uh probably worth $20 million myself. So like not not in their league. Like one of the things doesn't look like the other. And I think to flatter me, he says, "No, regrats. I figured you out.

You know, you're not so smart." >> I was like, "Uh, thank you." He's like, "But you're lucky." And he said, "Don't worry about it. Like Lewis Bacon and Bruce Cumner, they're lucky, too." And that made me smile to be put in their camp. And he said, and then he gave me a quote in French, which of course I don't speak French. And he said, that's right, you don't speak French because you're not so smart. And he translated it was from Napoleon, I don't hire smart generals. I hire lucky generals. >> And he said something about being macro, having studied the three of us, you know, this is the second, third meeting I'd had with him. He had spent a weekend at place and a weekend with Lewis.

He said, "There's an intuition. There's a pattern recognition. There's an intuition. There's a way you process information and see the world that's nontraditional and therefore we would call it luck, >> but there's actually an intelligence there. >> Um, and Napoleon thought the same thing of being a general, right? People didn't understand it, so they called it luck, but it was a different kind of intelligence. And what for whatever reason, like the world just opened up and I was like, "Oh, because I I knew I had better results, but why should I be a better guesser of where dollar yen is going than you?

>> Well, this kind of gave you the permission. >> This gave me the permission to believe in that I had the intuition was real. >> The intuition was real that I should just trust my intuition. >> And real quickly, I decided how I made money. And it didn't have to be the same way you made money or he made money. >> And it was taking information, lots of different sources, know what the sources are and try to keep making them better sources. You process them through some algorithm and I knew what went in my algorithm, not linearly, but what went in it. And it was at the crossroads between that information working on your precognizant intuition and your analysis where I came up with an I think I think dollar yen is going higher. I think Bitcoin is going to go nowhere. I think

and because you recognize you're just guessing, right? This is the I think business. You know, you're going to feel anxiety. And so, how do you manage that anxiety? You manage it through some series of risk management rules and lifestyle management rules. What's really unique about guy like Dan Draen Miller is you studied him. He's maybe the best there is at this. >> Draen Miller is the best. >> Yeah. You know, Draen Miller, Lewis, Ter, I mean, you're you're splitting hairs. They're all so good. uh stands in his desk every morning at the same time.

Used to be six am now I think he gets himself 6:30 uh because he's retired uh going through the same charts in his same rhythm. >> Right? That's his process. That's his discipline. The greatest macro traders in the world that ever existed are the most disciplined. Hm. >> The second ingredient they have because I'm always like those guy like I'm not as good as those. I'm close sometimes. I I see the world as close but my track record isn't as good as theirs. >> So what's the missing link? The discipline.

>> Discipline and competitiveness. >> Oh, interesting. >> They're so competitive. It's crazy. I'm in the same fantasy football league. I you would you would think slight give me a story. >> His life depends on it. Like he loves competition. Lewis Bacon I told the story before. I I went out to play croquet at his house and I thought croquet was like a yard game. Oh, he's got a full professional croquet court with professional clubs and he had hired like the best croquet player in the world to give lessons of course just so he could beat you. >> He smoked me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Like everything they do they're competitive in. And I that that's I mean I'm I'm pretty you're competitive. You wrestled.

>> I think I'm pretty competitive. I'll wrestle anyone. >> I like these guys. Yeah. But it was just a different level of and you know listen I'm not you know thinking that one's better or the worst. I have a lot of different varied uh uh interest and you know but but rebuilding that discipline muscle is is something I work on. It's something every trader needs to work on. How do you think about seizing um in like a market that moves so much on narratives less on fundamentals these days more on narratives there's seizing the narrative in trading and se like the trade might be Palunteer right or the trade might be micro strategy um there's like how do you think about seizing the narrative in trading versus seizing the narrative in business because the trade you click a button you put on the trade whereas u you know business you can kind

of there's like a stable coin narrative do you chase it do you >> no it's d it's it's duration right Like when I say duration, I might be in a momentum trade, which is a narrative trade for years, but I know I can change my duration in a day. >> I could be long Bitcoin for for years, but if I wanted to, I could get out tomorrow. And so, if you know you have a quick exit, it's an it's a it's a trade, an investment trade, whatever you want to call it. In business, you have to have a lot more confidence that the narrative is real.

I'm going to spend $500 million building or $50 million or five million whatever you're going to spend investing in something for a future that you are predicting. >> Yeah. >> Right. And so you really have to have a lot more conviction. It's not the entrance the entry to the trade. It's the exit. >> Right? You build an asset management business. Even if you wanted to exit it, you got to call a bank, you know, like you got to find there not that many people that are going to buy your asset management business. You just can't pick up the phone and hit >> Yeah.

>> sell. >> Yeah. >> Uh and so I think a lot there are there much harder bets and then what determines success is partly did you pick the right narrative, but 80% did you execute >> right? A lot of people went off to start exchanges. Yeah. >> CZ out executed everybody times three. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> The richest man in the world because >> he knew how to execute. I remember asking him when I first met him. I said like what are you great at? He said I don't come up with any idea but I figure out what the good idea is and I copy it and I do it better >> like he's doing right now with Hyperlid.

>> We'll see. It'll be it'll be an interesting battle. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I you know I full disclosure I went and bought some of his his token today because I'm like he's a kingmaker. >> Yeah. It's hard to fight, you know, bet against. >> Across 30 plus networks and 180 endpoints, Block Damon Earnstack unites staking and DeFi into a single institutional toolkit for crypto rewards with multi-layered security, full asset control, and 24/7 support. Block Damon Earnstack is built for scale and regulatory clarity, non-custodial staking, and seamless DeFi access allin one stack. direct access to DeFi with no intermediate smart contract or vaults.

To book a demo, make sure to click the link in the show notes or head over to Block Damon Earnstack to find out more. Thanks to BlockDamon for making today's episode possible. The machine economy is here. Devices are monetizing data for their users all over the world. Tokenized robots are generating revenue for token holders. The first machine economy free zone is live in the Emirates and it's all happening on peak. The machine economy computer. Head to peak.xyz to find out how you can benefit from the age of automation or click the link in the show notes to find out more. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply.

Let's talk hyperlquid. Um, one of uh I'm trying to think of the right >> disclosure. I own a lot of hyperl. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one one of your guys was very early into the Hyperlquid ecosystem and don't speaking of fantasy, don't dox anyone here, but like I I I think you guys were pretty early into Hyperlquid or at least you discovered it or we I I I actually have an email that which I wish I had read that could have got me in at the very ground floor from a good friend who's who who who is big into it.

Um, we got in plenty early and it had been well. Um, listen, Jeff and Sophia are sharp as hell >> and they're stone cold serious. I I've only met them a few times on Zooms, never in person, but I've certainly spent time with them. And, you know, they have 12 employees and they've built an amazing uh my instinct, and this is not fact, this is instinct, is they're in it for the long haul and they want to build something spectacular. They both went to Harvard. They're both 40-ish. They had great, you know, pedigrees. Uh, this is not a a quick get get me rich scheme. They are rich.

>> Uh, and I think they've got big big plans. >> Yeah. >> Um, and so >> so you're not following Arthur Hayes and selling your hype off. >> No. Um, listen, when something falls 20% in a day, you wish you sold a little and bought it back. And >> because I'm a trader trader. Yeah. Um, and I actually I thought about calling uh not that they tell me uh my again my instinct is they're not going to panic sell out of their own hype just because it freed up. These guys are building a business for the long haul.

>> Yeah. >> Right. >> I I think so. >> You think about my my >> my partner Chris Ferraro has owned Galaxy stock. It's been all been vested for a long period of time. He could have sold all the stock because it vested. >> Yeah. >> And he'd be a lot less rich. He kept his stock even though it was vested, >> right? >> Because he thought I was going higher. Yeah. And he was building a company. Uh I have sold very little of my Galaxy stock and I own >> over half the company. >> Uh because I thought I was going higher. Now, at one point, >> it's prudent to take a little bit off the table to diversify. Your your >> your significant other can mental health >> mental health and all that stuff. But the great the great fortunes in life and

you can't pick one. pick any of the great fortunes, they come from riding a trend and it's often the trend you're stuck in because it's yours. >> Yep. >> Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezel. There's not one person in that top 10 list >> that's there because they weren't riding a trend. >> Yeah. Let's talk Galaxy. Um, so you guys have you have two you have two businesses as I see it today. You kind of have the uh cryp the crypto business and the data center business. How do you think about owning both of these? >> I'm happy. >> Yeah. Um I feel kind of like maybe I am lucky because >> you guys got pretty lucky with the data center business. Listen, we >> and now you've got an amazing >> We stumbled into it.

>> Yeah. >> Um and that was the lucky part. But the way Chris and me, more Chris have prosecuted turning it from maybe to now we're going to build one of the country's largest data centers is, you know, I'm I'm proud of what what my team did there. And I'm proud that I was like, we're not selling now. Like once we've realized we had gold, it's easy to sell the gold early. We didn't sell. >> Yeah. >> Uh we we we are going to do our best to maximize value for our shareholders of that asset. Um, that's 70 of our 650 people and it's probably 20% of my brain, 10% of my

brain. >> It's probably half of Chris's brain right now. >> Uh, it's not as hard of a business to think about. >> The the data center business is not as hard. >> Oh, I see. I would think that it's much harder business than a crypto business. >> No, we have we have the power that people wanted. >> Yeah. >> We had to pick the right >> sell the power. >> Yeah. We're selling power. >> Yeah. And we had to pick the right tenant. We think Corby was a great pick. >> Yeah. >> We had to pay pick the right general contractor. We got a group called Clayo. We love them. >> Uh we had to get it financed. I couldn't have done that. That's where Chris Ferraro's expertise of being in that world, right? We borrowed a billion four from Deutsche Bank. We're in the market

to borrow more money. Like the financing piece is there's an art to it, but it's it's not >> Yeah. How do you just one thing on that? How do you borrow a billion for? You go sit down and Chris is like, "Hey, >> smile on your face." >> Yeah. Yeah. Like, "Are you putting together a pitch deck?" And >> this was a torturous long-term process because it was the first time, right? >> The second piece will be easier because people know where credit, they know who you are. >> One of the reasons a lot of the crypto mining companies haven't been so successful in the transition to AI is >> they don't have the capital markets expertise >> or the capital themselves. like we have to have a big enough balance sheet >> guaranteeing you know completion like the parental the parental guarantee on

the money we borrowed. >> Uh >> Deutsch Bank wouldn't let us a billion four even on a contract if we didn't have >> $2 and half billion dollars you know >> uh and so but where that goes what what the decisions each week that have to be made are limited. Now, let's talk about crypto. We're talking about this idea that stable coins are going to replace deposits and crypto credits going to come out. Well, where are those tokens going to even trade right now? They're on an ATS. Are they going to trade at Binance, at Coinbase, at the NASDAQ? You saw like a there's regulatory

uncertainty on where their liquidity is going to be, when people are going to care. Like there are so many more variables to predict and to bet on. >> And then you've got to execute. >> Yeah. >> And there are a lot more competitors trying to execute. >> Right. Yeah. >> You think a great I got a ton of money in Hyperlquid. They've got a moat of Oh, in the same week CZ and Justin Sun competitors. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's still regulatory uncertainty around the KYC piece of it.

It's a huge question, right? Remember Arthur Hayes and CZ went to jail for the KYC piece. >> Yeah. >> Not for security commodity. Right. There are two pieces to crypto. Security commodity. Are you licensed and are you selling an unlicensed security and the KYC piece? >> Yeah. Yeah. I I am a huge advocate to our government uh that we should allow permissionless systems but the systems that integrate with the permissionless systems should have to do some version of KYC. So what unis swap company not unis swap protocol does is they use a bunch of various I'll call them uh uh chain analysis like

>> right >> you know radar guns >> figure out the good users and the bad users and >> list and all the stuff. If we get that to become the standard, if the standard for using and participating in DeFi technologies is because blockchains make things transparent, it's the government's job to catch the bad actors and the government can hold users responsible to catch bad actors, but it's still permissionless.

>> Yeah. >> Then DeFi is going to eat the world. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It just will. That's that feels like it's happening. We're advocating it. I was literally on a hour call with the senator three days ago educating. But if you're not a crypto den, that's nuance [ __ ] >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And and I'm probably not good enough at the details to be the guy that helps that next level down, >> right? I'm a big picture storyteller. There are guys that need to know the details. Then you're talking to the person at the NSA and they're throwing [ __ ] threeletter words at you. you don't understand what they are like. And what's scary, the possibility that it happens, I think, is higher than it's ever been. But getting all this stuff right is going to be tricky.

>> Yeah. Um, could your data center business ever be bigger than the crypto business? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I mean, listen, we have 800 megawatts, which makes us a huge business. I told you it's 20 somewhere between 20 and 25 billion dollars of rent coming in 15 years. We are >> you have 800 megawatts. You want to be able to build more though, right? >> We are in line at Urkott. >> Yeah. >> With a 2.7 gawatt ass. >> Yeah. >> My own hunch is they won't do that all at once, but they'll >> So that bring it to 35.

>> Yeah. >> 35. >> The largest data center in the world just about. >> Yeah. >> Uh but let's assume you get another gigawatt. >> That's nuts. There you go. That's bigger than a data center that exists in Europe right now. >> Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And so you're we're talking such crazy numbers. That's another I don't know what value if the first data center business is going to discount cash flow out to six or seven eight billion. Like it's again it's you do the math. It's about 12 billion dollars of uh if it's of of free cash flow that comes over 15 years. So, >> like

>> there's such large numbers. >> Yeah. >> That each marginal piece adds a ton to our our business. >> And so, yeah, I think right now it's worth a whole lot. It might be worth half our business. Um, and it could grow a lot. >> Yeah. >> The jury's out like we need to get the second piece, then we go from a trade to a business. And then if you get the third piece in another geographic area, now you really start having felt like you have the muscle power. You know who uses it, when they need it, how to finance it. Right. They're not that many muscles, but we've learned them. And so we need a little time and a little luck and it'll be a monster business.

>> Yeah. How do you think about capital allocation between the crypto business and the data center business? >> You know, what did May West say? Uh, she had a great line about uh the too much is, you know, I blew my joke. >> Uh, >> I get where you're I get where you're getting at. >> It's complicated. Like right now, the data center business was such high ROI and so important to us. There was a lot of capital allocation there. We have made a lot of money in crypto.

We've always financed ourselves. This has been another great year. the data center starts cash flowing in the first quarter a year from June. So what are 18 months from now it really is cash flowing >> you know5 $600 million a year and so it it surviving for 18 months that's a self-funding business as fast as you want to grow. Um, will we split the businesses? If we find the market doesn't give us credit to be together in 18 months when the things are cash, we'd split the businesses because they don't have a lot of synergies between the two of them.

>> Right now, we share capital, >> right? Same capital that's guaranteeing this thing I'm using to run my crypto business. And so, um, >> what do you think the likelihood is that you split it? >> 5050. >> Yeah. I just don't we're not a public company long enough. >> Yeah. >> To to get have had enough chance to tell our story to get people to trust us and believe us to see if they'll give you value. >> People don't love some of the part that word >> is a discount >> and and the only way you can actually talk about our company is some of the parts.

>> We got a data center business. We got a crypto. >> Yeah. You need like a simple story circle stable coins. >> Yeah. >> Stock goes up. My and Chris's mantra, build a great company and the stock price will follow. Now, we'd rather have our stock price higher than lower. We have a great IR guy, Jonathan Lowski. Uh we I'm on podcasts, I'm on TV. uh you know we are trying to tell our story effectively and so we want our stock price to go higher because it gives you a lot of flexibility to do other cool [ __ ] with um but the best we can do is build a world-class company >> and I'd rather have a world-class

company that trades cheap than a shitty company that trades expensive. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Powered by a $4 billion treasury, Mantle is launching You Are, a Swisslicicensed smart money app that simplifies how individuals and businesses move between digital assets and fiat currencies underpinned by Swiss regulation. UR offers a multicurrency account with IBN support for euro, Swiss Frank, US dollar, and RMBB and one:1 backed deposits. Its Mastercard principal membership debit card enables global spending and can be added to Apple and Google Pay and is now available to users in 40 countries. This episode is brought to you by Geonet, the

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Let's get into the some of the parts of the some not some of the parts some of the aspects of the business on the crypto side. So you I mean you guys are maybe we can talk DATs right now. So So we just had Kyle on the show. We were talking about Ford. Um but even even outside of your guys' thing with Jump and and Multicoin guys. I mean you guys are dominating the DATs, right? I see I see you. It's basically you guys. Sometimes I see Falcon X, sometimes I see Anchorage, but >> we we we originally looked at DATs to say I'm not positive of the longevity of these things and I've kind of changed my mind on some of that. But I know one thing, I want to be the asset manager.

And so Steve Kurs who runs our asset management business, Jason Urban, they have done an amazing job of getting in front of the debt users, the debt builders, and saying, "Hey, we'll help. We will bring value added in staking in buying and selling in doing all the the the execution uh storage custody for for your debt taking that off the table and getting paid a fee for it. And these are long-term contracts. And so we've done that for eight different people maybe. We've got more coming. Uh it's a substantial amount of assets and you know and then we did it of course for Ford and the

great news about that is when you add it all together we had an asset management business that you know wasn't making it was doing fine it was growing but because we have a heavy cost structure was in the negative IBIDA and now it's in the in the big positive >> IDA. Yeah. >> And that just gives the business so much air and oxygen. >> Yeah. um you have optionality. If those crypto prices double, your assets double, right? And so that's been wonderful. It's also been a great way for us to connect with these new entrepreneurs, some that we've known, many that we've known in the past to say, hey, some of these DATs like B&MR, it's a 10 billion dollar enterprise all of a sudden.

>> Like, >> and Tom, >> if you can manage X percentage of that, >> and Tom Lee has Mojo. >> Oh yeah. uh you know, ESPED, I met with the uh CEO of Esped. I realized I'd known him for a long time. He came from Black Rockck. Uh and we'll do [ __ ] with these guys. >> Yeah. >> Um and so that piece has been very exciting and I think it's, you know, Galaxy took a long time to build and I think our number one asset we built was brand and that brand was you can trust us. We broadly know what's going on in the space and we understand how institutions work and this year brand has made us a ton of money. What brand brings you is

these opportunistic ideas gives you fuel to then build the the longer term business that >> scales. >> Yeah. Yeah. You guys tokenized your equity. >> We did. >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh so that's cool. What do you think? So, one idea. So, um, okay, Vlad, when when Bullish IPOed, Vlad from Robin Hood tweeted and said, "Shout out to Tom Farley. They've allocated, I think it was 20% of their, um, retail their their allocation to retail via Robin Hood." And then you guys did this via I think it was Superstate.

>> Yeah. So, let me let's I'll give you some inside baseball. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> You asked earlier on about how do you create community? >> Yeah. Yeah. We went public and shame on me, you know, like we picked great al you know Goldman Sachs and Jeff and they did a great job and I didn't even ask the question how much went to retail. >> Yeah. >> I'd gone public at Fortress. I'd gone public at Goldman Sachs. >> Yeah. >> Banks know what they're doing. >> The third IPO, right? >> Third IPO.

>> And after Bullish went public at the same market cap. >> Mhm. [ __ ] a lot better than Galaxy. I called the Goldman Bankers and I said, "What the hell's like what is the goddamn difference?" Like, is Jeremy that much better a storyteller than me? We're both bald. I'd like to think I could win in a wrestling match. Uh they have a simpler story, but is it that much of a better story? And their stock just took off like gang busters. >> Yes. Not bullish. Circle >> circle. I'm sorry. >> And then one of the guys uh who was on the deal, not one of the leads, I went out for coffee with, he said, I got to give Jeremy credit. He fought like hell to get a higher retail.

>> Oh, interesting. >> And >> Huh. >> So I of course called Tom Farley uh and said "Dude >> give the retail." >> Uh I mean it's and it was such a wake up >> Oh, interesting. I didn't >> It was such a wakeup call for both for all of us. Like crypto has been about the little guy. And what's traditionally happened, big banks give allocations to their hedge fund clients who pay him a huge amount of and their real money who pay him a huge amount of commission and these things trade up and some sell right out of it into retail.

>> Yeah. >> And so it's like, wait a minute, it's exactly the opposite reason we got into crypto. We all got into crypto because it was supposed to be the little man's revolution, right? give retail and and what was so cool about crypto is it started with the little guy. It started with like there was no institutions and I was like the first institutional you know guy and everyone laughed at me. Uh and so I give Bullish a lot of credit. It's Brendan and and Tom Farley uh and Jeremy credit for saying hey like we got into this thing for the little guy.

>> Yeah. >> And I think that's helped them get liquidity. Uh I I wish I had that foresight before we went public at Galaxy. I would have said 30% retail. >> But now you can still do it by tokenizing the >> So we tokenized ourselves. >> That's the I thought it was genius to do this because that's the that's the other allocation. >> And so listen, so far I think there's a million half2 million dollars that have been tokenized. >> Uh that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the only million half2 million dollars that have been legally tokenized under the kind of SEC. What will happen most likely is at one point somebody will move those tokens and start trading them on a def decentralized exchange. we can't push them there. But like if it happens and at one point

you're out of the the superstate sandbox and you're on to decentralized exchanges and and at one point the SEC is going to say to the NASDAQ or to Coinbase, you can trade these things. >> Uh you know, right now you've got to be an ATS to trade them. But at some point I would assume a significant amount of our liquidity happens on chain. >> Yeah. >> Like one of the reasons we're tokenizing stocks is a much broader distribution. Uh when you talk about the democrization of finance, that's what we meant by the democratization of finance. Not that everyone should be a portfolio manager, that everyone should have access to the same investment opportunities that rich

people do. >> Yeah. What do you what other advice would you have? So, there's all these crypto IPOs that are coming probably, I don't know, a a dozen or so in the next 12 months. >> Um, what other advice would you have for these exacts as they as they think about IPOing? I mean, you you were you went through the gauntlet, right? It's like >> I think the hardest thing about being a public company is knowing that every three months you got to stand up in front of the world and say, "This is what we've done." And so you should not go public unless you know that you've got a fivearter story baked into the cake of good things that are happening. Um it would have been far harder for us to go public without the data center business.

Now in the last six months our crypto business has done great things. And so you'll see our earnings call probably I don't know midocctober and we'll tell you a great story about crypto. We won't talk as much about data center business because we had a great crypto quarter. But the what gave me a lot of courage to go public was I knew I had this this business that everyone cared about that that's easy to talk about and it's going to show progress in a linear fashion. And so I see a lot of these crypto companies going public without great businesses and you're going to see the moment the the tide goes out, those things are going to fall hard.

>> Yeah. >> Um right. So you again when I said early on I'd rather have a good business that trades cheap than a than a bad business that trades expensive. >> Do you think these folks should be rushing to get to get public? >> No. I listen I shouldn't say no. Uh because I'd probably be like what why being public helps is it gives you so much more visibility bringing in customers bringing capital. You might be able to raise capital and then use that currency to merge into something. Um there are a ton of crypto companies that are subscaled to be public. Let's say they're 60 to$80 million revenue companies that have been around for a while that make a small amount of EBIDA.

They're not big enough to be public, but they've got bad prefounds they raised. And so they're kind of orphaned. >> And so listen, if one of them can get public, it unorphens them. And and it turns that pre into common and and it's probably smart strate strategically, but it's hard to run a company that's upscale public. >> Yeah. Yeah. How much of your time do you spend selling the stock? Meeting with either one-on-one or publicly.

>> If you asked my senior team, including Jonathan Gulowski, they'd say about 90% too little. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More. They should do more. >> Um, listen, being a CEO is a challenging job because partly >> like you're supposed to be out selling your stock and telling your story. It's supposed to be you're out meeting your clients uh and converting them into bigger clients. partly you're helping set the mission. Um, you know, we're still a new com, you know, young company and we're doing a little all of that.

Uh, I divide and conquer with Chris Ferraro. Like he he approaches thing like a partner. Um, and so that helps because he does a lot of like getting ready for earnings and all that stuff. If I had to do it myself, I think I'd have less hair. >> That's Chris. >> Yeah, that's Chris. >> Good format. Chris and Tony and Aaron Brown. Yeah, >> you give them all the credit, but uh well actually like putting it together, making it logical, making sure the auditors don't hate us, uh you know, making sure that we that we do all the things necessary to be a great public company. I have a team that does that and it's just my brain doesn't, you know, work well in that that environment.

>> Yeah. Um, so I always text friends who know you or know in in your circle before these podcasts for for the guests. And um, as we think about wrapping this up, I got I got more questions about your personal life than pretty much any guest that's come on. People said um, so I I'm in the same circle as like your your kids in New York actually. And a lot of So a lot of people were like, "Ask him how he has such good these were these were the questions I got. I got ask him how he has such good relationships with his kids." Um uh ask him about living a risk-on life.

Um and ask him about uh his siblings and how what parenting thoughts he has to rate why why did your sib your whole family basically seems very successful. Um so I don't know if you are open to talking about any of >> I'd love to talk about it. So listen I think I I am lucky I have a great family. Uh, I'm one of seven. I have sweet parents. Uh, my mom was very aspirational. She how you guys can do anything in the world. She wasn't pushy. She was just aspirational. And my dad was a stoic. Tough. He was an all-American football player in the military. Didn't say as much. Big smile.

Very tough. Um, >> by the way, I was looking at your sibling names. Robert, Jackie. >> Oh, yeah. The Kennedys. Kennedies. We're the Kennedys. My mom wanted us. My mom My mom got married when she was 19 and engaged at 18. Yeah. She was gorgeous and she looked a lot see the inspiration. >> She looked a lot like Jackie like >> I was reading these I was like is this right? Yeah. >> And you know the Kennedys 1960 think about it. That that was everything. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. >> And and so but we were raised to be like if the Kennedys can do it you can too. >> Yeah. >> And we middle class neighborhood in Virginia. Uh >> the one thing about having a big family is when you do poorly they're there to pick you up. And when you do well,

they're there to kind of take shots at you for fun in a nice way so you don't think your [ __ ] doesn't stink. Um, there's a lot of studies on families with more than one successful sibling and it always is the same answer. One parent is aspirational. Neither parent really have the tools to mentor everybody, >> but one or two siblings succeed early and that role model and mentorship brings everyone else along. a lot of >> So, who was that for you guys? >> My sister Jacqueline has has been successful. I was successful. We we've kind of shared that role. My brother Bob surprised everyone. He became this, you know, media star with his wife building h, you know, TV empire and houses.

>> And so, >> I think also you see someone succeed, you're like, well, we grew up at the same dinner table. If he can succeed, I can succeed. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And that, >> you know, he's not that special. >> Yeah. No, no one's that special. I mean, that's the reality of it. And so that that part's been fun, you know, to raising kids. I have gotten lucky. I have really >> How many kids do? >> I have four kids. >> Four kids. >> Two 30-year-old girls. Uh shout out. They'll be one will be 31 soon, but they're Irish twins. Uh a 27y old son and a 22-y old son. And I had this theory called light touch parenting.

Sounds a little creepy these days with all this, you know, Epstein stuff. Uh, it was every New York City kid's gonna feel pressure. So, let's not put any pressure on our kids. Let's just be good role models. If you want your kid to be kind, be kind to people. If you want your kid to talk nothing about money, then talk nothing about money. If you're talking money all the time, your kids are going to talk about money all the time. >> If you want your kid to work hard, well, work hard. I can't tell my kid to work hard and lounge around and do nothing all day, >> right? So both my wife and I and quite frankly my siblings had this very loose way of raising my kids.

>> Uh they had no rules. >> No no rules. >> No rules. Yeah. >> The rules. >> How do you make sure they're not spoiled kids then? If they're you grow up very wealthy, no rules. >> Is it because you embod if you don't act like an [ __ ] your kids would act like [ __ ] And >> I never asked for report cards. I never went to parent teacher conferences. And I told the schools, I'm paying you $70,000 a year. If my kids's having a problem, call me. And I had one daughter had dyslexia and we had to intervene and get her into a different school. And and she's in some ways been the biggest success because, you know, you're looking at terrible scores and whatnot. And she just outworked everybody and and she, you know, has done great. Now she's a social

worker in New York and married and couldn't be happier. Um, and so it's not like you you're you're not neglecting your kids. You actually are talking to them all the time. How's your day? But you're far better off to ask your kid how their day was than how did you do on that math test. You ask a 5-year-old how they did on a math test. There's only two answers. I did really good, Dad. Pat me on the head. >> Yeah. >> Right. There there's no upside in it. >> Yeah. >> How's your day? Hey. Oh, I had a hard math test. Oh, that's okay, right? Like, if your kid brings it up, of course, talk to them.

>> And I My kids have great friends. I'm so social. Like, one of the gifts of of life is my kids' friends. So, they become your friends. And And I believe in multigenerational party. >> I remember going to a 50th birthday party at the Rainbow Room costume, Black Tire costume. They had a great band and the party was >> Yeah. And two weeks earlier, I had had my summer party, which was a 40 out of 10. It was just so awesome. And I'm like, they had the great band, we had the great band, they had the costumes, we had costumes, they had the Rainbow Room.

It's the best room in New York City. What was the difference? Youth. >> Yeah. >> You can't go to a good party with just 50-y olds. >> Yeah. >> You got to make some 20s, some 30s, some You got to have the whole gamut. >> Yeah. >> And it's that youth that brings energy. And so becoming again, you're not supposed to be your kids' friends, >> but as they grow older, you're supposed to be friends with their friends, and then you become their friends. You're supposed to be their parent. >> And then there's this transition as they get into their 20s. Uh, and so that's the fun part of life we're in right now. >> Yeah. >> Uh, so shout out to my kids friends. >> Yeah. There you go. Um, Mike, anything we didn't cover that you want to cover?

>> I'm good. >> You're good. Congrats, man. Hell of a run. Cool to see you build Galaxy over all the years. And yeah, congrats on the run. >> Thanks a ton. [Music]