George Mekhail: Why Corporations Are Loading Bitcoin on Their Balance Sheets | DSH #1521

Put Bitcoin on its balance sheet, and then you're gonna look at the market.

It's not just gonna be how much Bitcoin you have in order to figure out the value.

Then you're gonna actually start looking at the company's performance again.

So it's almost like there's a new baseline being set, right?

And Bitcoin's at the foundation.

I mean, that's the big play.

It's like their stock goes up, they issue more debt, they buy more Bitcoin.

They just keep repeating the cycle.

It's like an infinite money glitch.

Okay, guys, got George here.

First in-person podcast for him.

First time, man.

Let's go.

It's way better than Zoom.

Yeah.

We're going to talk crypto today.

Let's do it.

Bitcoin conference in a week.

Yeah, it's coming up.

Week and a half.

Yeah.

Wow.

Here in Vegas.

A lot of big speakers, a lot of big stuff going on.

Yeah, it's going to be a fun time.

It's going to be 25,000 Bitcoiners descending on the Vegas Strip at the Venetian.

And yeah, a lot of killer parties and speakers.

And excited to hang out with you there.

Let's go.

How long have you been part of the conference?

So I've been with BCC Inc.

for a little over three years now.

I joined originally as a director of marketing for the conference team.

So I slowly moved my way up.

Now I'm part of our executive leadership team and lead an initiative called Bitcoin for Corporations, which is focused on accelerating corporate Bitcoin adoption.

So we partnered with MicroStrategy, which is run by Michael Saylor.

They have over half a million Bitcoin.

And basically they're opening up their playbook and, you know, hoping other companies, encouraging other companies and showing other companies how to, how to do this, how to stack Bitcoin on their, on their balance sheet.

I love it.

And what's the main talking points when you're trying to convince a company to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets?

So I think the main thing really is you have a cash on your balance sheet right now that's losing value every single day, whether it's treasuries or just in a straight cash position.

And it's losing value through inflation and it's losing value because it's not performing as well as Bitcoin is.

So the opportunity cost, obviously, is huge.

So switch basically upgrade your money, upgrade your balance sheet to Bitcoin is kind of the play.

And so especially if you're a public company and you have access to these capital markets where you can go out and raise or you can issue debt to buy Bitcoin, which is a scarce asset, whereas fiat currency obviously is unlimited.

They just can keep printing more of it.

That's the biggest reason.

Yeah, because it's 100K in your bank account over 10 years.

It's not worth 100K anymore.

Yeah, exactly.

Whereas Bitcoin performance over the last 10 years, I mean,

crazy.

It kind of sells itself, right?

Yeah.

I wish I had the Bitcoin I had in high school.

I got rid of it too quick.

Oh, man.

Brutal.

Many such cases.

Yeah.

When did you get in?

Were you super?

I got in around 2017.

Nice.

Yeah.

So top of the market at the time.

It was like, you know, 19K.

I remember that.

Yeah.

Bought the very top, like, and then wrote it all the way down.

And then just, you know, started learning more about it, started getting more and more convinced that this was, there's something like unique happening here.

And started learning more about money.

I think that that was really what got me.

It was like, yeah, like, what is, what is money?

Where does money come from?

Like, how come we are paying taxes, for instance, when they can just print more of it, whatever.

And so, you know, the more I learned about Bitcoin, the more I realized this is an actual real solution where I don't have to trust a third party.

I can transact with anybody I want to anywhere in the world in real time, basically.

And,

you know, fiat currency doesn't offer that.

So

Bitcoin very quickly captivated my attention.

And, you know, now it's like a major part of my life.

I love it.

You diamond handed it all the way down to 3K.

I did, man.

And stacked more, you know, so DCA'd?

DCA'd all the way down, all the way up.

You know, try to write as much as I can, try to hang on to it as much as you can and

try learning as much as you can, really, because there's something new happening, I feel like, you know, every day in the space.

Yeah, it's really cool, man.

You could take loans out against your, your balance.

You can't seen people do that to buy a house or whatever they want.

Yeah, definitely.

And, you know, there's, there's obviously

ways to do it that are responsible and there's the DGEN ways to do it.

But yeah, I mean, Bitcoin, I think, is pristine collateral.

Like, there's really no collateral that's better than.

than Bitcoin.

So I think lenders are becoming more and more wise to this.

And I think pretty soon you'll be able to get a loan against Bitcoin at a rate that's lower than a mortgage.

Yeah.

I mean, these days for sure, mortgages are like, what, 10% right now?

Yeah, I think seven, eight percent.

I mean, Bitcoin loans, because like the traditional, you know, system doesn't really recognize it for what it is, uh, you know, rates are still 12.

Oh, really?

Well, I did do a bank statement loan and it was like 10%.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's right there.

Yeah.

So it's getting closer and closer.

That's exciting.

Yeah.

That's really exciting.

No doubt.

Seems like this administration is really crypto friendly too.

Yeah.

So that's been a huge development.

I mean, just in the last six to eight months,

our company has gotten closer to the administration.

Our CEO, David Bailey, is an advisor to Trump on crypto.

Trump was at our last conference in Nashville last year.

We got J.D.

Vance coming to Vegas this year, a bunch of other politicians.

Senator Cynthia Lemmis will be there.

And it's becoming a big part of the political conversation.

And not only that, but I think...

nation states are starting to FOMO in as well.

You know, we saw the U.S.

pass the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, or at least an executive order so far, far, allowing, authorizing

the government to be able to buy and hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

There's still some steps that we need to take, I think, in order for it to really be the kind of thing where

we're spending money, like we're allocating dollars.

That has to be done by Congress.

And there is a bill in Congress that will vote on that.

But right now, you have to basically have it be budget neutral.

So you have to sell assets in order to buy Bitcoin.

But it's a huge step.

I mean,

especially compared to the last administration where they were basically criminalizing everyone that was in the space.

We have made a ton of progress.

So it's very encouraging.

I think every exchange base in the U.S.

got in trouble.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Pretty much every exchange or any software company that was doing anything that the government didn't like or could interpret it in a way that looked like a money transmitter or whatever was getting prosecuted.

So crazy.

Yeah.

That's all stopping.

Do you think banks are going to have to adopt crypto?

Yeah, I think so.

I think everybody, I mean, I think everybody eventually will have to figure out what they're going to do about Bitcoin.

It's one of those things where we're kind of past the point where we're trying to convince people yeah and i'm talking bitcoin specifically um because i think it's a lot easier to defend you know there's you know say what you will about crypto and all that kind of stuff there's just a different set of things happening that you know you have to figure out how to navigate um and regulate uh with bitcoin it's a little bit different and so it's inevitable in the sense that here we are 13 years in

and prices continue to go to go up.

Sure, it's been volatile, but I think everybody's going to have to just reckon with the fact that like this is here to stay.

It's not going anywhere.

And so even if you don't like it, if you don't understand it, it's not going anywhere.

Yeah.

I mean, $1.3 trillion market cap right now.

It's about to hit all-time high.

All-time high is 108, right?

100, yeah, 108, 109, something like that.

Crazy.

We're at like what, 105 right now as we're filming this.

Yeah, 103, 100.

Nuts, man.

It could be during the conference.

That'd be nuts, right?

Yeah, that would be very exciting.

Has that happened before?

I don't know if that's happened before.

Actually, traditionally, we have a history of seeing a little bit of a market correction after the conference.

But I mean, I feel like this time is different.

I feel like this cycle is

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A lot of of different things happening.

I mean, we didn't have this backdrop ever, really.

You know, I think the most bullish thing was Trump speaking at the conference last year.

I think that was the biggest signal that

the institutions and the governments are coming.

Three years ago, I think it was El Salvador announced that they were going to make Bitcoin a legal tender.

And so there has been a lot of kind of milestones.

But yeah, I mean, the last six months have been incredibly bullish.

Do you still think the, because you hear about the four-year cycle and the halving thing, do you think that's going to keep repeating that pattern?

so i actually don't i'm actually i'm pretty bullish and you know we have a meme in bitcoin that's like this time is different and we say that a lot uh but i actually believe that because now i think bitcoin is going to still be you know volatile still going to fluctuate a lot and it may even have some pretty steep corrections but what i think is over is kind of like this traditional four-year cycle where the pullbacks are huge and it stays we stay in like a low kind of bear market for a while just because there's so much buying pressure now right you have a perfectly scarce asset there's only 21 million bitcoin there will only ever be 21 million and so when you have all this buying pressure, right, like right now, corporations are buying more Bitcoin than is being mined.

Damn.

So that's not sustainable.

I mean, that's, that's why we're seeing so much, you know, price action, the price action that we're seeing because of all this buying pressure.

And so that there, there are no signs of that slowing down.

If anything, it's just, you know, getting faster.

So I think the four-year cycle is over.

Wow.

So it's going to speed it up, you're saying.

Yeah.

I mean, there's really no other way of looking at it.

It's basically math, right?

You have, it's, it's, it's what you learned in economics 101.

It's supply and demand so uh yeah nothing stops this trade is another meme like we are going to keep going up i think million dollar bitcoin is right around the corner um you know people thought a hundred hundred thousand dollar bitcoin was crazy i remember that uh retail isn't even here yet you know if you look at google searches uh people aren't even searching for bitcoin wow uh and so right now it's all institutional demand And so once retail catches up, you know, it's just going to keep adding fuel to the fire.

That's nuts.

I still remember this kid in my high school 10 years ago was mining Bitcoin and everyone bullied him.

They're like, what are you doing?

You know what I mean?

He was like ashamed to talk about it.

He's chilling right now.

I'm securing generational wealth is what I'm doing.

He's mining like what on his laptop?

He had two computers that were mining back then.

He's chilling.

If he kept it?

I bet.

Oh, my gosh.

That was probably 10 years ago as well, like five bucks.

Something like that.

I mean, I remember, I wasn't in the space yet, but I remember you used to be able to just go on a website and enter a CAPTCHA.

and you would get five Bitcoin just to spend all yeah what yeah so like it was before it had like about market value so it's like here's five Bitcoin.

Just saw this caption.

Oh my gosh.

So those days are over, but you know, we're 103K is actually crazy.

I mean, you know, from 19K down to like the COVID crash, like 3K, all the way back up to 103K, it's pretty, pretty remarkable to see kind of how far we've come.

Crazy.

Are we ever going to know who made it, you think, one day?

You know, it's a good question.

I kind of hope not.

I think the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the most fascinating parts about Bitcoin.

In a lot of ways, one of the most important parts.

You know, if I had to guess, I'd say he's probably not alive.

I've heard that theory.

Just because it's like such a hard secret to keep, right?

But I've heard the theory of it's like, oh, it's multiple people.

That'd be another thing.

I'd be like, I don't know.

The three people one.

Yeah, three people.

There's all sorts of aliens, right?

That's another theory.

CIA.

CIA, right?

I think it's probably just a single person and they're probably not alive anymore.

Yeah.

And that seems like the most likely.

And I hope the coins never move.

I hope the million coins that are attributed to Satoshi never move.

I just think it's one of those things that's kind of like this weird, like mythical

component to it that adds to why it's so extraordinary.

Yeah.

I love the Scotty Pippen clip of Michael Saylor giving him the side eye when he said he knew who the founder was.

Was that at one of the conferences?

That wasn't our conference.

That was a random event, but

he hasn't let up.

Scotty's like, oh, Satoshi visited me in the dream last night.

Like, bro, chill.

He's doubling down.

Yeah, he's like, I know Satoshi.

So, hey, good for him, man.

Satoshi visits you in the dream, I guess.

That's hilarious.

You guys have a few events a year, right?

We do, yeah.

So we do our flagship event in the U.S.

This year it's in Vegas.

Last year, it was in Nashville.

Previous to that, it was in Miami.

And we also have our international events coming up in Hong Kong later this year, as well as Abu Dhabi in December.

And

yeah, always looking to add more.

We're in conversations right now with

Tokyo,

Philippines, all these different places.

Should be a Bitcoin conference on every continent for sure.

That's exciting because governments, a lot of governments were opposed to Bitcoin for a while.

Yeah, and I think a lot of them still are, but they're becoming wise to the fact that this, you know, the game theory is playing out.

So especially because now the U.S.

has made the move.

Once the U.S.

signals that it's safe, every other government is going to start FOMOing in, especially the superpowers.

Like you're going to see China, you're going to see Russia.

You're going to see big players in the Middle East start changing policies.

And so all of this is very imminent.

It's right around the corner and it's going to happen in different ways.

Some countries are going to focus on how they're going to add Bitcoin to their own treasury, to their own balance sheet as a nation state.

Some are going to focus on regulations and how to make it easier for corporations to adopt, for individuals, for companies to start businesses.

So it's going to look a little bit different in every location.

I think it's smart no matter what country, because if you look at fiat currencies, all of them fail over time.

I don't think crypto has ever, I mean, it's pretty new, but it doesn't seem to have failed with Bitcoin at least.

Yeah,

that's what's unique about Bitcoin is all you can really point to is the pullbacks as like any sort of criticism.

It's like, yeah, it's volatile.

yeah price goes down but if you bought at any point and held for you know i think it's i think now the stat is like at any point if you bought and you held for at least 13 or 14 months you're in the money damn i think don't necessarily go me on that but it's something crazy like there's like the status like that so uh it's very hard to criticize uh anything beyond that so and even that's like okay well take any other asset literally like take the s p 500 you're not going to perform that well And so,

yeah,

there's definitely something happening that's very unique.

And again, we're just getting started, right?

And so if we've reached sort of this escape velocity where at this point, what you're seeing is corporations in particular FOMOing in, CEOs and CFOs at these major companies are basically starting to weigh the career risk of doing nothing, right?

Like you don't want to be the guy that could have bought Bitcoin at 100K while all your peers are doing it.

And now you have to explain to your shareholders why you didn't.

And so kind of the narrative is starting to flip.

It used to be a career risk to even talk about Bitcoin in a boardroom or you get kicked out.

Exactly.

You get laughed at like your buddy who is mining on his laptop.

But now it's kind of the script is being flipped.

And so

as more corporations FOMO in, as the price keeps going up, you know,

the next shoe that's going to drop is probably going to be retail.

People are just going to be like, okay, well, I need to get my piece of this too.

Yeah.

It's definitely a digital gold rush that's taking place right now.

Yeah, because there still is a lot of restrictions.

Like if you want to just log in Coinbase, you can't deposit a certain amount of money.

Right.

I think the limit is like 10K, 25K or something.

Yeah, I think it depends on kind of your financial profile.

And, you know, there's, there's different exchanges that have different limits and things like that, but there are definitely limitations.

So hopefully those can become easier to navigate.

But,

you know, in the U.S., we're fortunate that we have a lot of access, a lot of on-ramps.

Yeah.

So.

I like what you said about the 13, 14 months.

Cause when you do see people talking negatively about Bitcoin, it's a lot of these day traders or people trying to make a quick flip.

Right.

They hold it for like a month and then the market cracks and then they start talking shit about Bitcoin.

Right.

Exactly.

You know?

Yeah.

Or, you know, i hope you guys are enjoying the show please don't forget to like and subscribe it helps the show a lot with the algorithm thank you

they wrote down their keys wrong that's the other one so you know i'm sure you've heard the story of the guy who had like a hundred or a thousand bitcoin or something on a hardware device or a laptop or something and his girlfriend threw it out and now it's in a landfill oh yeah i saw that one bulldozers yeah he's been spending a ton of money trying to recover it and it's like in the news it's like some sob story it's like i you know

what do you want me to say to the guy like you lost it's like losing your you know bars of gold or losing a briefcase of cash.

Yeah.

It's like take better care of it.

That's on you.

You can't blame the currency for that.

That's your fault.

What's some tips for attending the conference for first-timers?

Yeah.

So if you're attending the conference, I mean, I would say figure out what your schedule is ahead of time because there's so much going on.

You're not going to be able to do everything.

You're not going to be able to see everything.

And, you know, make sure that you have all your tickets to the after parties.

A lot of things sell out pretty early.

Show up to big

speakers early so you can get good seats.

Definitely, you know, whale pass if you can afford a VIP experience, is the best way to do it.

If not, there's, you know, we have an industry pass if you're someone who's looking to get into the space, if you already work in the space.

If you're looking for a job in the space, industry, the industry pass is the way to go.

It extends the event to three days.

Everyone else, I mean, a festival pass gets you in the door for the two GA days, which is Wednesday and Thursday.

And

yeah, man, just get ready to have, you know, late nights, meet a lot of people.

You're going to be exhausted by the end of it, but it's going to be a great time.

I can't wait.

I got a will pass and I'm really excited.

Go big or go home.

Let's go.

Yeah, I'm pumped to see it in Vegas.

I mean, it's, you know, every city kind of brings its own flavor to it.

Vegas is obviously very unique in that it kind of,

I think, takes over a lot of the vibes in a lot of ways.

Like, you know, you're in Vegas.

And so I think that's going to be a really cool thing to kind of just walk through the Venetian, see Bitcoiners everywhere.

Yep.

It's going to feel like a big reunion.

So you guys picked the best hotel in Vegas.

Yes, Venetian's my favorite.

All right, it's not even close.

Shout out to our ops team for yeah,

whenever I do staycations, Venetian, man, really, yeah, it's a blast.

Have you been there yet?

I haven't, huh?

You're gonna love it.

I'm gonna check it out tonight.

Where are you staying at these days?

Um, I'm staying at the Venetian.

No, like, uh, where do you live at, I guess, or where are you based?

Uh, I am based in uh Phoenix, Arizona.

Oh, nice, similar environment to Vegas.

Yes, very hot all the time, uh, but I love it.

I love the heat.

Yeah, I was born in Egypt, so like my skin is like like Arizona is like the closest thing to Egypt in the U.S.

I i feel like wow you were born in egypt yeah oh we got to talk i've always wanted to go there oh man it's beautiful yeah you definitely got to go yeah i have some syrian lineage so oh really i want to explore it oh cool have you been into the middle east at all no oh man not at all dude you got to go i feel like that's a really up-and-coming market yeah the middle east absolutely i mean i just got back from saudi uh a few weeks ago incredible place uh you know definitely recommend going if you get a chance

And then Abu Dhabi in December, join us.

Bitcoin conference.

Yeah, no capital gains tax over there, right?

Yeah.

And I think they just announced today, actually, that their sovereign wealth fund is buying Bitcoin.

So really?

Wow.

Are there really big hedge funds buying Bitcoin yet?

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Big hedge funds.

I mean, big hedge funds, big corporations

investing into Bitcoin companies, adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet,

issuing debt to buy more Bitcoin.

You name it.

Everything corporate adoption is happening at a very, very rapid pace.

I mean, it feels like every day there's a new company announcing a Bitcoin treasury strategy, which I think is interesting too, because if you think about,

you know, like what MicroStrategy has done, right?

They went from being a $1 billion software company to pivoting entirely into Bitcoin.

Now they're over $100 billion valuation.

They have

half a million Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

And all these copycats now

kind of following the same playbook.

But they have kind of this escape velocity of their own where it's like, no one's going to catch them.

unless like Apple or Microsoft comes in and is like, all right, we have that kind of cash to just throw out there.

But

I think what's interesting is you look at their stock and people are buying their stock because they have Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

Not just retail investors, but I think the bigger investors who

don't, who want to have Bitcoin exposure, but can't buy Bitcoin because of regulatory restrictions or whatever.

And so they're opening up these pools of capital that want Bitcoin.

There's demand for Bitcoin, but that can't be satisfied because of whatever restrictions.

But I think what's really fascinating is that their stock price is now being

more appropriately measured because they have Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

And same with these copycat companies.

Their stock prices are going up.

People are like, oh, this company is actually valuable.

It's holding Bitcoin.

Interesting.

And the reason that's interesting, I think, is because if you just think about stocks in general, like, why do you buy a stock?

You buy a stock because you believe in the company, you believe in its business model, you believe in its founders, and you're like, I'm going to buy this stock because I think it's going to perform well.

And we know how the stock market actually works.

It doesn't necessarily correlate with the performance of the company.

But I think what's happening is these companies add Bitcoin Bitcoin to the balance sheet is everything is kind of being repriced in Bitcoin.

And so it's not just going to be these corporate, you know, treasury companies, these Bitcoin treasury companies.

It's going to be every company.

Every company is going to put Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

And then you're going to look at the market.

And it's not just going to be how much Bitcoin do you have

to figure out the value.

Then you're going to actually start looking at the company's performance again.

So it's almost like everything is being

like

there's a new baseline being set, right?

And Bitcoin's at the the foundation i don't know if that made sense maybe no it does that's really interesting i didn't even connect the the two dots on that yeah i didn't realize it was affecting stock prices oh yeah i mean that's the that's the big play is like their stock goes up they issue more debt uh they buy more bitcoin and they just keep repeating the circle it's like an infinite money glitch i mean logically it makes sense because us dollars going down every day so if i'm investing in a stock i'd prefer a company that had bitcoin over dollars right at least some percentage right

makes sense yeah like why wouldn't you yeah i always tell my friends this michael sailor he might go down as the goat of investing in like 10, 20 years.

We'll see how it plays out.

Maybe even sooner.

I mean, I think strategy is going to be, they rebranded.

They're not MicroStrategy, more their strategy.

I think they might become the most valuable company on planet Earth.

Like,

that's what their base is right now.

I mean, it might.

If Bitcoin hits a million,

they might be, right?

Yeah.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

And he used to get a lot of hate when he first started investing in Bitcoin.

He still gets hate, but.

He still gets hate.

But it's quieting down.

It's hard to criticize

that success story.

There's a new era.

Warren Buffett just retired yesterday.

I saw that.

Yeah, the older heads, Charlie Munger.

They were all against crypto.

I think it's a new era, right?

Yeah.

People are starting to capitulate.

Longtime critics.

Who's the one?

Oh, Dave Ramsey.

I just saw this.

No.

Financial guru.

He's been hating on Bitcoin for a long time.

Just recently started changing his stance.

No way.

That's the anti-deck guy, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can't, but I've never seen him change his stance.

So I'm so surprised with that.

Yeah, it's huge.

So,

you know, hopefully,

you know, the Thanksgiving conversations become a little bit more tolerable when you're talking to your family members about it.

You guys got some great faces now.

I think Robert Kiyosaki is big on Bitcoin.

There's a few guys that are pushing it.

Yeah.

Brian Johnson is over there.

He's on the conference.

Yeah.

So a lot of just like mainstream celebrities.

We had Russell Brand last year.

Nice.

So it's happening, man.

That's cool, man.

Well, what's next for you?

What's next for BTC Inc?

Where can people keep up with everything?

So what's next for me?

I'm going to keep focusing on corporate adoption.

I think that's the narrative of this cycle.

I mean, when I got in this space and I kind of became convinced that Bitcoin is the future, I basically just started telling everyone that I could in, you know, whatever way I could.

Written a couple of books.

Thank God for Bitcoin was one.

That's the subtitle is The Creation, Corruption, and Redemption of Money.

So it kind of follows the story of like what even is money.

And then wrote a parenting book that's targeted at Bitcoiners.

It's like now that Bitcoin is talked about so much, it's like, how do Bitcoin, how do Bitcoiners parent?

And, you know, I'm kind of coming from a place of parenting in the 21st century has become kind of weak.

It's become just like kind of this, like passive.

And so I'm trying to restore just like the being an authority figure in your kids' life.

Love it.

And so it's called I'm Not Your Brah,

21 Keys to Sound Parenting.

And so it just kind of follows what my wife and I did through our parenting journey of our two kids.

And then, yeah, BTC Inc., we are, we're going to continue to keep building.

We're going to keep launching conferences and Bitcoin magazine media in different markets.

And we keep growing corporate Bitcoin adoption, keep accelerating.

So, yeah, this is definitely happening.

We'll link everything below.

We'll link the books.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'll see you at the conference.

See you guys.