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River's data reveals business Bitcoin purchases doubled during the bear market, a pattern never seen in previous cycles
Despite Bitcoin being in a bear market with prices down significantly from highs, adoption has fundamentally diverged from previous cycles. River's data shows business Bitcoin purchases doubled over the past year even as prices fell, a pattern never seen in previous downturns. The ownership distribution of Bitcoin is shifting dramatically from individuals to businesses and institutions, with individuals losing share while entities from summer camps to Catholic organizations to construction companies accumulate. Leishman argues the price downturn is partially a byproduct of institutional adoption itself, as early whales diversify and large institutions use Bitcoin as a liquid asset to sell during fear events. On AI, both Leishman and Marty agree the tools are accelerating productivity but haven't replaced human taste and decision-making. River is building toward a "dual money future" where people save in Bitcoin but continue to spend in dollars, positioning itself as the banking alternative to legacy institutions paying 0.01% interest.
"We saw record growth in the amount of businesses buying Bitcoin despite the flat and down market."
"Adoption hasn't really been slowing down in this bear market. Historically, we saw capital flee. We saw adoption really come to a halt during previous bear markets. That's not really happening right now."
"The percent held by individuals has gone down and the percent held by businesses has increased substantially."
"We see summer camps putting their excess cash in Bitcoin... construction companies, real estate companies, restaurant chains, food manufacturers."
"The price downturn is the result also of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin. But I think long-term this is bullish."
"Your checking and savings accounts at the largest banks, JP Morgan, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, they're paying like 0.01%. They're just eating all of that money for free."
"What a lot of these AI tools are surfacing to people is the hard part was never really writing the code for most things anyways."
"I don't see a future where JP Morgan is putting Bitcoin side by side in your checking account in the near future. They just don't actually believe that. The organization and its DNA does not believe this is the future."
"A white pill scenario would be these AIs allow us to get out of the email jobs. The email jobs go away and everyone actually has to go back to doing real things."
"There's something fundamental missing in our understanding of building intelligence. A human doesn't need all the information on the internet to be able to be useful."
This episode captures a pivotal shift in Bitcoin's maturation: for the first time, a bear market isn't scaring away capital, it's accelerating the transfer from individuals to institutions and main street businesses. Leishman's River data provides rare behind-the-scenes evidence that the adoption thesis remains intact despite price weakness, and his "dual money future" vision offers a clear roadmap for how Bitcoin-native financial institutions will eventually displace legacy banks still extracting value from their customers through negligible interest rates.
0:00 - Intro
0:44 - The Files
2:37 - Adoption & distribution of ownership
12:54 - Asset maturity
17:11 - LN network effect
24:00 - Crypto distractions
29:00 - Yield products
33:20 - Banks will play catch-up
35:29 - AI revolution
41:38 - Prediction markets
44:47 - Navigating the change
51:39 - Quantum computing
59:23 - Looking forward at 2026
(00:00) We saw record growth in the amount of businesses buying Bitcoin despite the flat down market. Adoption hasn't really been slowing down in this bare market. Historically, we saw capital flee adoption really come to a halt during previous bare markets. That's not really happening right now.
(00:15) The price downturn is the result also of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin. But I think long-term this is bullish. The percent held by individuals has gone down and the percent held by businesses has increased substantially. Sup freaks. Before we get into the show, I just want to send a heartfelt thank you.
(00:37) Thank you for joining us and ask for one quick thing. Could you like this episode, subscribe to the channel, and if you like the conversation, join us in the comment section. Alex Leechman, CEO and CTO of River, one of the best and most focused Bitcoin financial institution now. How are we describing ourselves? Yeah, you call us a financial institution.
(00:58) Can't say bank yet, but >> yet interesting interesting uh characterization there, but one of the best in the world. Uh good friend. Been on the show many times, but it's time to catch up. The world is chaotic out there. Many people are worried Bitcoin is at $67,000. Uh it's it's detached from the NASDAQ.
(01:20) Gold and silver are pumping. Uh Epstein files have been released. It's It's all over, sir. >> Yeah. You know, apparently Epstein's Satoshi uh >> it has uh it's been a combination of hilarious and tiresome watching the narrative slow through over the last few weeks. But >> yeah, um there's been a lot of new information.
(01:47) Uh you know, I think the one of the problems with the whole Epstein thing is sort of, you know, it's like the ultimate boogeyman, right? And uh this guy who was very rich and connected for uh a long time emailed people in all walks of life all over the world and unfortunately some of those people were working on Bitcoin and so any everything seems to get sucked into his orbit.
(02:10) Um unfortunately it's sort of like a like Wikipedia you you know how many uh how many hops does it take to connect two things? It's sort of like what's the hop between anything important and Jeffrey Epste? It's basically like, you know, one or two. Uh, and so I think everything, you know, not just Bitcoin is getting pulled into all of that.
(02:29) >> Yeah. It's almost like it was a concerted effort to to wrap uh almost everything in his web. Um, >> yeah, exactly. But we don't have to uh belabor the Epstein files. I think uh why I love catching up with you is cuz you have some deep behind-the-scen knowledge of what's actually happen happening uh in terms of adoption of Bitcoin.
(02:53) I mean, you interact with your clients with individuals and businesses every day. uh your research team. Shout out to Sam and everybody um putting putting a lot of effort into your research reports uh trying to figure out what's actually happening on the network. And um this morning you released your uh your basically state of of Bitcoin adoption light and uh reports and there was a lightning network report that went out yesterday.
(03:23) Um, and so I think it'll be good to start there. Like what what are you guys seeing behind the scenes in terms of Bitcoin adoption in this? Are we calling it a bare market or is this a bull market correction right now? >> Um, I would call it a bare market. I think it's a bare market. Um, yeah, we gave a little taste of our adoption research and we're going to have a much more thorough report coming out uh next next week.
(03:46) Um, but but really I would call this a bare market. um you know the prices down over the last year when you know tech stocks, gold, other things have rallied a lot. Um and but what's different in this bare market and we've been through a lot of bare markets at River. I've been through even more just in personally um in my at this point 13 years working on Bitcoin is adoption hasn't really been slowing down in this bare market.
(04:16) Historically, we saw um capital flee. We saw adoption really come to a halt during previous bare markets when Bitcoin was in a much smaller era of its life. And that's not really happening right now. Um business adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow. Individual adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow. The smart money continues to allocate to Bitcoin.
(04:40) And so that's, you know, happy to dig into that. But, um, I think that's like what's what's really interesting here. Uh, and and and and so, you know, we detail a lot of those findings in in this report we're going to put out. >> Well, that's that's one of my favorite uh or periodic updates you give is the type of businesses that are uh on boarding to river and adopting Bitcoin.
(05:03) I think that is high on it and I think this could dubtail into um the adoption and distribution of ownership charts that you guys have been putting out uh over the last week. But um this is a signal that that I always look for is somebody runs a business. Yes, we're a media business focused on Bitcoin specifically.
(05:26) So, it makes sense that we would uh invest in Bitcoin as a treasury asset and use it for payroll and other things as well. Um, but I think I've always been waiting for that sort of mainstream breakthrough for business owners who have nothing to do with Bitcoin recognizing that it's worthwhile for them to hold some uh on their business balance sheet.
(05:48) And it seems like that's accelerating. >> Yeah. What we've seen in the last year is that the individual ownership of Bitcoin has decreased um or you know the net sort of the amount of Bitcoin in existence the percent held by individuals uh has gone down and the percent held by businesses uh has increased substantially.
(06:12) So um yeah, if you look at this chart, you know, you can see that um uh the basically the the Bitcoin held by individuals has been eaten up by by businesses. Now, it's important to point out, you know, individuals at the end of the day are still the owners of businesses and and and ETFs and things like this. Um but I think what this is showing is the like Bitcoin is maturing.
(06:37) Um it's now like this never would have happened in a previous bare market, right? In previous bare markets, who would have thought that um uh you know the the transfer of Bitcoin would be happening from individuals to to businesses and Wall Street. Um and on the business side, what we're seeing is this isn't all just financial institutions.
(06:58) This this is also main street businesses. um the businesses at RI the so in the last year right the Bitcoin prices went went down and the amount of businesses that accumulated Bitcoin with at River uh doubled. So um you know we saw record growth in the amount of businesses buying Bitcoin um despite the the flat and down market.
(07:26) So um uh I you know so so then you could ask then the obvious question is well well if all of this is happening then why is the price dropping? Um and I think that is actually like you know the the most interesting question there is and I don't think anyone knows the full answer. It's obviously a market full of millions of actors each making their own decisions.
(07:45) But I think what we're seeing is um while this transition is happening, there's some short-term price um you know downward price movement because some of the individual Bitcoin um being transfers like early whales selling. We're definitely seeing some of the early big holders selling uh and sort of estab you diversifying their wealth after holding Bitcoin for over a decade.
(08:11) Um, and but then we're also seeing, I think, the result of some of some more sophisticated uh maybe less ideological instant large institutions own Bitcoin. Um, using using it for leverage, trading it when needed, selling it because it's the most liquid asset out there on their balance sheet to sell when there's any sort of um scare or or fear in the market.
(08:37) And so um I think this basically like the price downturn is the result also of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin uh for various reasons. But I think long-term this is bullish. >> Yeah. As you see here on the chart too, you have the 2024 figure of net Bitcoin moving from individuals and it was negative I think 525,000 Bitcoin around there if I recall correctly.
(09:05) So around 1.2 to five well let's just say one and a quarter million bitcoin moving out of the hands of individuals towards the sort of entities on the left side of this uh chart here and that's what I think I think a lot of people look at businesses see plus 489,000 and they think oh this is the digital asset treasury companies scooping up all the bitcoin but and they're certainly getting a large amount of it but it's not just these types of businesses Right.
(09:35) >> Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we're also beyond just operating businesses. Well, actually, just to give you a taste of like who's buying, you know, Bitcoin at River, we really see it all. Um, >> we see, uh, summer camps, um, you know, putting their excess cash in Bitcoin or using our Bitcoin interest on cash product to earn to hold some cash but also earn Bitcoin on the interest.
(09:57) Um we see construction companies, real estate companies, restaurant change, um food manufacturers. Uh, a cool one, uh, a really cool one is, uh, there is this, um, there's a, uh, an order of, uh, uh, I won't be too specific, but sort of a a a, um, a Christian group, a Catholic group that has been saving in Bitcoin for a long time, and they're um they're they use the the capital gains on that to finance um, construction of new buildings.
(10:32) Um and uh so we we really see like a really broad array of uh of uh institutions and businesses buying and and using Bitcoin. And uh it's really really cool to see because all the news on Twitter you see is like this Bitcoin treasury company Black Rockck and everything we see behind the scenes is real main street institutions uh allocating to Bitcoin.
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(12:36) Listeners can get BitKey for $99 using the code TFTC99. Go to bit.world. That's bit ty.world. Use the code TFTC99 to get a BitKey for $99. You can go directly to the BitKey.orld site if you're watching on YouTube in our store below. Yeah. And I think the um the pumping of the treasury companies and Black Rockck and all that.
(13:00) And the Black Rockck stuff really grinds my gears cuz everybody's like Black Rockck bought this amount of Bitcoin today or Black Rockck sold that amount of Bitcoin today. It's like well actually like they have customers that are buying their ETF and then they have to go out there. So I think the um the I mean Black Rockck is buying it on behalf of their customers.
(13:17) So technically they are buying it but there's a bunch of individuals um driving those flows in and out of that IBIT ETF. But I think one thing cuz we did it was funny you guys dropped this chart last week the same day here at TFTC. We made this um ownership distribution sort of in or um infographic video for lack of a better description on the go here and many people are looking at this chart watch that video and said oh my gosh like the individuals are giving up their sovereignty and it's true obviously to an extent it's ob undeniable from the
(13:53) chart more individuals are selling their Bitcoin as you said earlier a lot of whales um but I think getting into the sort sort of the the nature of this rotation and is it okay? Is Bitcoin losing its ethos as this is peer-to-peer digital cash system for for individuals to to leverage or is this just uh the product of of maturation and should this be expected? >> I think that it's a it's to be expected.
(14:25) If you look at any mature asset um there's a lot of institutional involvement, right? uh no asset can hit maturity and be globally important and have no major institutional involvement. It just I don't see how that could possibly work. With that said, I do think it's important that as actors in the Bitcoin community, if you want to call it a community or just in the Bitcoin network, we we recognize that, you know, there's an increasing amount of actors in this network who are less principled and less and um and and sort of don't
(15:03) really share the early ethos of Bitcoin. And so we need to make sure that the governance and uh um uh the governance of the protocol uh can't doesn't get taken over too much by people who don't actually follow the ethos. So um you know exactly how to accomplish that. I think it's you know it's going to be something we have to sort out over the coming years.
(15:30) Um and I'm not actually too worried about it, but it is something we should be thoughtful about. >> Yeah. No, I think people look at this this chart right here. Institutions may own a majority of Bitcoin within a decade and shriek, but it's something I mean I think MVK made this clear to me many years ago. It's like, hey, if Bitcoin's successful, everybody's going to want a piece.
(15:48) And >> whether we like it or not, these institutions have way more firepower in terms of capital >> uh to deploy into this. And as I was mentioning earlier, I think it's also important to recognize that many of these institutions represent thousands, sometimes millions of people as well. >> Yep. >> Exactly.
(16:09) And so this chart is really just like if we linearly extrapolate what we're seeing, which may or may not happen. Um but I do think it's illustrative of if this trend continues, here's what it looks like in 10 years. >> Yeah. Which is is wild to think. And I I think I'm a big fan. I've been reading a lot of Scott Adams books and a big uh big fan of reframing.
(16:31) And I think reframing this is like, wow, it's been incredible that individuals have been the largest adopters up to this point 17 years in. I think we should be incredibly thankful um that we were crazy enough to take the risk before any of these institutions did. >> Yeah. Um, I mean this is you you had a lot of pioneering crazy individuals uh you know driving this thing forward and risking sometimes risking it all uh for over a decade to make this thing to make Bitcoin important and yeah I love that reframing. Um wow how incredible.
(17:08) >> Yeah we're going to win. We're going to win. >> And then I mean it's uh again going back to like we're in a bare market price is down. People are >> freaking out wondering oh are we going to lower? or is it over? Uh stuff that both you and I have seen throughout our uh our more than a decade of experience in in Bitcoin.
(17:28) And I I find it funny when we get to these points, especially now that we're above a trillion dollar market cap and we have all these institutions adopting Bitcoin, it's like it's never been more de-risked and if the price goes to these levels, you should view it as an incredible opportunity. But this is just on the um sort of adoption of Bitcoin as a as a store value asset.
(17:52) But the other um research that you guys released yesterday that I was mentioning earlier on Lightning Network too and Lightning's had um this I think Lightning has been bismerched and sort of thrown to the wayside particularly by those in broader crypto who think there's better ways to do things.
(18:13) But uh last year was a banner year for Lightning. I think uh in November alone Sam's data and again you have to sort of guesstimate uh because you guys I think it would be helpful you helpful for you to describe how you guys actually go about that lightning research specifically. Um but what was it $1.1 billion in in volume in November 2025 alone.
(18:35) >> Yeah. Um exactly. And you know, one of the cool things about Lightning is um it's you know, it's built the Bitcoin way. Um it's built in a decentralized it's a decentralized L2. So unlike a lot of the um you know, Ethereum or other L2 networks that just are basically just databases, centralized databases, um uh light the lightning network has no central place where you can observe all of the payments happening.
(19:03) So you have to kind of triangulate the metrics and we're in a pretty good place to do this because we've been a pretty sizable node on the lightning network for um since we've started really so for seven years almost seven years now. Um and what we do is we look at our own data and then we partner with other big uh participants in the lightning network, other node providers, um other exchanges and node operators and we uh we info share with them.
(19:33) We have them share their data and then from that we sort of extrapolate and make an estimate of what we think at least a a lower bound is on the uh on the transaction volumes happening in the network. So um so yeah uh it's it's great to see uh it's nice to see the growth and I think what we're seeing is a lot of this is driven by more and more exchanges having adopted Bitcoin.
(19:58) I mean, Coinbase, sorry, having adopted Lightning, Coinbase, I believe the latest is like around 10% of their Bitcoin transactions are on the Lightning network. Um, which is pretty good. Um, I think where we see where the challenge still is for Lightning is self-custody consumer Lightning wallets. Um, because of the way the Lightning network works, it's challenging to get those functioning really effectively.
(20:24) there's some cool companies really trying to, you know, level things up there. Um, and you know, I think like let's see, it's a hard technical problem. It's a hard economic problem. So, let's see what progress those companies can make in the coming years. Companies like Moon Wallet, um, Async, um, Light Sparks kind of got its own L2 Lightning hybrid, uh, called Spark.
(20:47) So, >> well, pulling on that thread, I think 2025 was another banner year for Lightning in terms of um having a clear product market fit. And the meme has been like its best product market fit is this connective tissue between all these disperate um subprotocols that exist outside of Lightning like Spark, Liquid, um Chomian, Mints, ARC, the ARC protocol.
(21:14) uh and what what are your ideas about around that and particularly when it comes to like scaling and creating these um consumer consumer apps to make it easy to use Bitcoin like you have Bull Bitcoin with their um liquid uh liquid to lightning sort of op uh functionality breeze I believe they're leveraging spark in their SDK and so you're beginning to all these different sort of implementations of um of of wallet infrastructure uh that that leverages multiple protocols to to provide um different trade-offs for end users.
(21:59) >> Yeah. Um, I think I I think really the the the the bigger question is um what is Bitcoin's short to medium-term potential as a medium of exchange? Um because I think that if Bitcoin is highly desired as a medium of exchange, that economic force will pull forward all of this innovation and we'll just figure it out.
(22:30) Um, I think the actual biggest headwind to these technologies really getting in the hands of consumers, the self-custody payment network type scaling technologies is just there isn't that big of a demand for Bitcoin as a medium of exchange today. Um, it's growing. Um, uh, but it's not like, you know, Tether is still far more popular than Bitcoin, for example, right? the global demand for a medium of exchange is um still overwhelmingly dollars and and I think that's actually like the biggest thing and I don't know that any technological
(23:05) innovation solves that. I think you could say let's say we develop the perfect scaling technology that was perfectly decentralized, perfectly censorship resistant, perfectly private, infinitely scalable for Bitcoin tomorrow. Um I don't know how much that actually moves the needle in people using Bitcoin as money.
(23:23) Um, I think that's like the right thought experiment. And so I think like there's a, you know, until like the inflation really starts getting crazy with the dollar, I don't think we'll see Bitcoin widely used as a medium of exchange. >> I think I would agree there. Unless you're like die hard like living on a Bitcoin standard >> or demand it like it's the other thing like merchants need to demand it, employees need to demand it.
(23:49) um we have many at TFTC that do and so just be a nature of those demands that get paid in Bitcoin. We have to use it as a medium of exchange to make sure we can make payroll for them. >> Uh but yeah, I mean bringing this to stable coins like and obviously I think we can combine a bunch of things here. You got stable coins, you got the political environment here in the United States, particularly around crypto and with a very specific focus on stable coins.
(24:17) And at the same time, we've got this emergence of this AI the gentic economy and everybody's racing to give these agents different types of wallets. And um it seems like this administration has been overly favorable towards the uh crypto lobby because they threw a lot of money at the administration during the election uh and now they're getting a lot of influence on on Capitol Hill.
(24:42) How do how do you um what do what are your thoughts on this sort of nature of we're sort of in the room now but crypto is in the room as well and a lot of uh what I would deem to be idiotic ideas are being taken seriously and maybe some distractions away from the signal that is Bitcoin. Yeah, I think um you know the unfortunate reality of you know the confluence of politics and capitalism is that sort of short-term money um even if it's coming from bad ideas or scammy things can get a lot of influence in politics. And I think
(25:23) that's what we're seeing a lot of. Um, and you know, I think that it's overall probably good that they're just like chilling out a bit. Um, from a regulatory perspective, the real challenge for all of us was getting debanked and the fact that that risk is basically is is, you know, a fraction of what it was is, you know, better for everybody in this industry.
(25:48) Um, I also Yeah. So, you know, as it relates to all the legislation being debated, yeah, it is kind of interesting, right? Because you have there's a small group of the the Bitcoin crowd like us that are just sitting there watching all these other people debate in DC about things we really don't care about.
(26:05) um uh all the debates are around the things that are going to make the big guys the big crypto casinos a lot of money and that's stable coins and um uh moving tokens away from the SEC as the regulator into the CFTC and uh and so yeah it's kind of like I watch it I watch the debates but I also don't really care about what what they're talking about because it just like you know it's just none of it's about Bitcoin So, that's how I feel.
(26:36) I think stable coins are like I think they're interesting if you live in a country that has capital controls and you want dollars. Other than that, I have a hard time seeing where they're really going to take off. Um, I could be totally wrong, but it just doesn't seem like for for a domestic use case in the United States, stable coins just don't seem that compelling. Sup, freaks.
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(28:57) Our boys drink it. Stay hydrated. It's a beautiful thing. >> Well, hey, they're going to get this yield on our savings now. >> You hear that? >> Yeah. It's like I mean I I could already have get that, right? Uh so it's it's kind of just like this weird abstraction in the bank account that is unclear anyone really needs.
(29:16) Uh >> well, it seems to be a big uh big topic of contention right now on Capitol Hill between the banks and Coinbase specifically. I mean this whole and then that's another interesting sort of sub theme this sort of clash or intersection. Who knows ultimately what it will prove to be but it seems like the ratfi guys are looking at um Bitcoin and crypto becoming more prominent and um clutching their pearls a bit.
(29:44) This this fight over sharing the yield on stable coin is very interesting. >> Yes. The banks don't want the stable coin issuers to be able to pay back interest to the holders because then they're worried that that will put that will give them competition because these big banks are scamming everyone basically.
(30:04) Like you're check your your checking and savings accounts if you just have like the default ones at the largest banks JP Morgan, uh Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, they're paying like 0.01%. Like most of their account holders and they're just eating all of that money for free. Um, and so they don't really want super consumer-friendly ways to earn actual market interest rates.
(30:29) Um, so, uh, you know, they're they're fighting that. Um, but I mean, we already offer a high yield interest rate at River. Like if you have cash from River, you earn 3.3% and you earn it in Bitcoin. So, you know, fintexs are already competing with them. Um, but uh I think like just bank accounts are so sticky in general that you know you get so many people that they've just had a Chase account their whole life and they're okay just with Chase basically taking all of their interest.
(31:00) Um >> taking it putting it in a carry trade, levering it up like 10x more so they can profit. >> Yeah, >> that's the interesting I talked to some guys at a Treasury. I was at a BPI event in DC and they're saying the banks are worried because they have to unwind all that and it makes them have to have a much more narrow focus.
(31:18) But to your point, these >> um alternatives already exist. They exist at River with cash in uh get yield. It's automatically converted into Bitcoin. And I think this gets to an interesting point because like um the again the big clash right now on Capitol Hill is Coinbase versus the banks like we want to share the yield and the market's treating this like the banks are withholding this innovation from the market like if Coinbase wins we'll be able to get our yield.
(31:46) It's like hey it already exists which points to maybe a positioning and narrative problem that we have in Bitcoin. Like these these things already exist you just need to find you just need to go out and find them. >> Yeah. You know, I do wonder if the stable coin debate is more around the international uh like opportunity.
(32:03) Um >> but it's also like Coinbase and Circle see what Tether's doing. They're like, I want to box them out. >> Totally. Um I I do think that really, you know, we're still in this this build mode and then when the economic forces that are basically um set in stone really start to hit inflation um and de continue to devalue pe like people's saving their dollar savings, we'll we'll see an like in the future we'll see a large exodus from these these big banks.
(32:36) um you know, River, we're building, you know, the financial institution for a future that's where the dollar is still um you know, you're still stuck using the dollar as a medium of exchange because of the network effect, but you it's not something you want to be saving in. And so um you know, we we we envision a future, we call it like a dual money future where people save in Bitcoin, but they continue to primarily still spend and earn in dollars.
(33:00) And we think that that type of account is going to is going to replace the the traditional bank accounts. Um, and that's what we're building towards. And you know, that's there it's pretty compelling today for people who actually believe in Bitcoin. But the real unlock is when people really start to see that saving in dollars just isn't going to work.
(33:20) >> Yeah. What what would you say to people who are looking at the banks racing to integrate Bitcoin and crypto and saying that all these Bitcoin startups that are Bitcoin first, Bitcoin only, they're going to get blown out by these institutions because they're going to have the capital, the scale, the network effect of a client base already to just implement this overnight.
(33:43) Yeah, I think that um I'm not really worried at all about that because I like you know I don't see a future where JP Morgan is putting Bitcoin side by side in your checking account um in the near future. They just don't actually they don't believe that. They don't believe in that future.
(34:01) it'll always be this like side thing that uses a third party that's kind of a crappy user experience and like we'll get some people using it but like you're not they're not actually gonna build a competitive product because the organization and its DNA does not believe this is the future. Um and so and if it is and if they eventually like realize that and they catch up well you know the markets move like you know a rising tide lifts all ships.
(34:27) If JP Morgan eventually integrates Bitcoin as a first class citizen, we will have grown tremendously as a business as well. Um, and it's it will because like a company like River has taken market share. That's why they would start doing it. And the the inertia that they have is so large. Um, it's it's it's not like they're going to die, but we al it's it wouldn't be like a they would just be trying to catch up with us.
(34:52) >> Yeah, I'm a big believer of that, too. This is like a Bitcoiner and who knows we're early adopters and who knows if the later waves later adoption waves and the people come on those waves care at all that I would find it very hard to believe to trust JP Morg Bitcoin. >> Yeah.
(35:11) I mean at the end of the day they'll care about user experience um and they'll care about what they're getting right uh and I think that that's where you compete. They'll care about service, user experience and economics. >> Yeah. And I think the upstart's definitely beat on UX and it's easier. >> Yeah. >> Well, that's like that's another interesting topic we dive into like with this wave of AI tools coming to market.
(35:37) Uh I I don't think I've talked to you directly about this like like are you guys leveraging these tools at River and if so has it changed your perspective on what the future trajectory of the growth of your business from a revenue profitability standpoint but uh more importantly from like a headcount standpoint uh has it has it affected your views on this at all? I have kind of a two competing thoughts in my head at the same time about these things.
(36:08) Um, on one hand, I do believe that as these tools continue to accelerate in their capabilities, it'll unlock tremendous potential to move faster for our business. Um, it's already, you know, pretty heavily improved the productivity for our engineering team in a in a number of places, but not every place.
(36:32) And I think that really what a lot of these tools are surfacing to people is the hard part was never really writing the code for most things anyways. Um uh there are certain like tasks and aspects of building an application or a tech company where just like writing the code and getting this thing done is is like just a lot easier now.
(36:54) But all of the consequential things that you do are usually not that. The consequential things that you do are usually require humans to synthesize the complexity um and apply taste and their understanding of their client base to prioritize and make changes to the product. And AI is accelerating like subsets of tasks that allow you to do that, but it doesn't really accelerate a lot of the human decision-m bottleneck there.
(37:23) And I'm I don't see a short-term future where it does. So, but there are some areas where it it really accelerates things like yesterday for example like when we generate account statements for our uh for our customers, right? We we had historically we had to use this like PDF tool where we like generate the data and then like we use this other system that like generates the PDF because PDFs are like super complicated to understand how to make them.
(37:48) But with AI, I I you know, I was like, "Hey guys, like try and just make the PDF directly now from and write the code to just generate the PDF directly because these AIs understand how to make PDFs, you know, and they have all that information." And they were like, you know, they were like a little hesitant cuz like no one ever no one really does this.
(38:04) Um it's very unusual to do something like this. And I was like, "Hey guys, like look, it's a different world right now. Let's just try it." And we experimented for like half a day yesterday and it actually worked beautifully. And so we're able to delete like this whole, you know, subsystem that we just don't need anymore.
(38:21) Um, and so there are things like that where it's really like magical. Um, but I don't think like it isn't unlocking us like making better product decisions or it's not prevent it's not like saving us time sitting in a room and debating like the right, you know, design decisions. Uh, so that those are like my two sort of competing takes.
(38:40) >> No, and I I I would completely agree. I mean, it's been we've been leaning in heavily over the last month and a half. I mean, we've been leaning in heavily for the last two years really, but now like the the open claw um phenomena, we've been using that for like a 6 weeks now or five or 6 weeks and it's really extended what we can do.
(39:02) And to your point about taste, like there's a ton of ideas I've had was like, okay, I would love to do this, but we're bootstrapped. We run lean. we only have so much capacity to try these things. And now with OpenClaw, like it's allowing us to like sprint towards a lot of the the goals, but taste is like we revamped our uh morning newsletter 5 days a week and it's pretty much not automated, but the the AI our little clanker builds it.
(39:32) But, uh, there's a lot of taste and it's collaborative sort of endeavor between myself and, uh, my agent Martin, who's a more sophisticated version of Marty, um, throughout the day to sort of just get the get the, um, uh, the stories that we're going to include in the newsletter and the structure.
(39:52) uh but there's a lot of taste like curating but now I have the ability instead of spending two 3 hours actually formatting and uh putting putting things into the newsletter I can just throughout the day put links in a Google sheet with some notes voice to text notes about what I want to touch on with a particular topic and then at the end of the day hit up Martin be like okay go to the Google sheet look at what I put in there and let's put together the newsletter and 30 minutes later it's ready to go um like that the taste is extremely important, but in terms of
(40:25) being able to get stuff done, particularly with small teams, it's accelerating that. And I think there's a misnomer going around out there, too, which is h you're not going to have to work more, but if you have high agency and willpower, it's just like I've I've had more 1 a.m. nights over the last four weeks than I have in like the last two years because I'm just like, "Oh, we can go after these ideas now.
(40:47) " >> Absolutely. And I I think what it does and from a hiring perspective and headcount perspective is um it it honestly hasn't changed our headcount projections um it's just solidified and hammered home the qualifiers that we have for who we hire. Um like we just will only hire people we think are high agency who have taste who can synthesize and understand the business problems.
(41:16) Um, and uh, like act like hire people who have the qualities that we need to solve the real human bottlenecks that still exist that these AIs aren't solving. Um, and you can still get more done by hiring more of those people. You just don't need the the people who are doing busy work and the code monkeys who aren't thinking from first principles and understanding the business. So, that's my take.
(41:38) >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a brave new world. It's so funny because there. >> I get the sense that we're just like teetering. Like the world right now is like equally exhilarating and um completely uh unnerving cuz it's like we can go many different directions. Obviously geopolitically everybody's meeting the straight Hermuz right now to figure out what we're going to do with Iran.
(42:03) We got uh like we said the Epstein files here. We got this AI explosion. You've got the high velocity trash economy just accelerating. had a crazy pace with prediction markets. Uh now we have attention markets that just dropped on Zora. >> What is attention markets? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Remember Zora was like a >> coin base.
(42:26) They they pivoted and they're on Salana now, but you can >> coin your content kind of thing. >> It's like Well, not only that, but people can um can bet on trends can can basically ride trends and monetize it somehow. I don't understand >> how it works or why you would want to do it, but >> Well, I think I think there is this thing where, you know, what we've seen in the last 10 years, especially in our industry, um, and what we're seeing now leaving crypto and just moving elsewhere with prediction markets, is um, you just have this like class of people that
(42:55) chases financialization and new games they can convince normies to to play because they can just extract. Um, and I think that's like we're just seeing that now. Like I think prediction markets is a big example of that. It has like some really legitimate cool use cases like trying to just understand what's going to happen with the truth.
(43:15) Um, I which I think is actually very cool and innovative. Um, but actually like 90 something% of the volume just sports betting. Um and so it's like you know uh at the end of the day like you take these this technology and then it's just like oh let's just yeah like extract from uh a subset of the population who we can farm. >> Well I will say is like sports betting is um especially if you're spending all your money on it or all your time on it.
(43:45) You shouldn't be doing that. But if you're trying to compare it to like DraftKings or like the big books, it's like okay, I can see the argument like prediction markets um make more sense because there's no house to take it big and to play both sides like it's peerto-peer if you want to take that risk. >> Uh you get in and out of a position >> which is interesting.
(44:04) You can like get out, right? >> Yeah. So like compared to the status quo, I think it is net benefit for consumers from a fairness perspective. But if you don't have impulse control, you can still lose all your money um in these prediction markets. >> I mean, the real fight is the states the state level where you had Texas and California just sports betting was illegal and now the prediction markets are going, "Oh, well, we're federally, you know, regulated.
(44:33) We're allowed to do this everywhere." And then and then all of a sudden everyone in California and Texas can now sports bet when they couldn't before. And it's like this big states rights question. Uh which is also like kind of an interesting thing. We'll see how that might end up in the Supreme Court. >> Yeah.
(44:49) I feel like we're fighting all these battles and I think the core of the battle is the uh the essence of our humanity as we transition to the digital age. Like what are we going to get? Are we gonna get like a Bitcoin standard with lower time preference and better capital allocation and better incentive alignment or do we just steamroll into Wimar version two for the 21st century? >> It's unclear. Um it's unclear.
(45:15) I mean, we might get a it might allow us to go back to focusing on real things like >> I don't know a bull, you know, a a white pill scenario would be these AIs allow us to get out of the email jobs like the email jobs go away and everyone actually has to go back to doing real things. Um and uh this like you know the last few decades where everything was just an financial abstraction and um um you know like fewer and fewer people did like real things uh in in the real world.
(45:52) um you know maybe that gets reversed because like a lot of that can just be done by AIs and we all go back to you know manufacturing or farming or I don't know or maybe all of that just also gets automated with robotics because the AI advances so fast that and then we're all like well what do we even do now? Um and there's actually just like a thousand people who are like high agency and high IQ enough to actually be valuable and everyone else is just like you know >> permanent underclass.
(46:17) >> Right. Exactly. Like I don't know. I honestly don't know. I had a conversation with Justin Moon last week about this and it's something I've been trying to grapple with in my head. So I think um particularly our generation I think we broke out of it but there's a ton of like preconceived notions of how the world works and how humans operate.
(46:38) And I think one of those is that there's just like a natural distribution of people who are high agency and those who have the uh the fluoride stare if you will. And I I don't know. I've been trying to think like is there a way that you can instill and engender a culture of high agency. Um if we recognize that it is what you're going to need to have to be successful in this new age.
(47:02) >> Cool. >> I go back and forth like I can totally and I probably lean actually towards there's just a natural distribution of people who have it and people who don't. Um, but I'm curious like is there like a Spartan like culture you could uh you could put out there to convince people that you need to develop the skills to have agency? >> I think I think there'll also, you know, be more and more interesting conversations around collectivism or I think I think people like might start thinking about collectivism a little bit
(47:33) differently as the technology progresses if it really does truly begin to advance. Um and and you know I think there is like this like in the last sort of 30 years or or so or maybe even 50 years you could say like Americans like frowned upon collectivism because everything was just working really well for us and like being individual being independent and high agency just like made you wealthy.
(48:00) Um and if that stops being the case then all of a sudden collectivism might start being viewed differently. Like hold on a second. Like we need to all like who is my group who I band together with to make sure that like we all benefit and we protect ourselves um and put oursel our group first because being a being alone you know just doesn't work anymore.
(48:21) Um and maybe like the fact that you know we were able to be h have this ethos at all was just because the US just worked so well. Um uh and you know what's the future of that? just some unformed thoughts. >> Yeah. >> Well, because it's all I mean I seen it up close and personal like it's definitely massively beneficial but it's still it's still not perfect.
(48:48) Like I had to slap my clanker around every once in a while like, "Hey, you did that wrong. Uh you're not autonomous yet." >> They don't learn. Um, and I I think there's still some major like break there's still some major breakthroughs before these things are actually changing everything. Um, >> well that's the other thing I wonder like how much how much of like what's being put out there by Sam Alman, by Daario, others is just like them pushing their book and like trying to get their valuations up, raise another 100 bill.
(49:17) >> Exactly. It's hard to say. um it's hard to relate cuz obviously these things are revolutionary but at the same time um there's obviously something missing with them right um you know it's it's like that classical conversation of why does why do we need to train these things with gigawatts of compute or hundreds of mega you know megawatts of compute and all of the information on the internet um when a human doesn't need any of any of that um you know there there's something like fund a human doesn't need to all
(49:53) the information in the internet to be able to be useful. So like there's something fundamental missing in our understanding of int like building intelligence and the real maybe scary thing is if we figure that out that's when it gets scary and until then maybe it's actually just kind of like >> I don't know these things are just really smart but dumb at the same time.
(50:16) Yeah, that's yeah, I mean I think there's been more discussion arising around this too. I mean the just separating intelligence and consciousness like can you actually be um genuinely intelligent in the sense that you can learn new things and have creative thought if you're not conscious and can these things ever be conscious? If >> I think the answer is probably at some point we can get we'll get there, but I'm also not convinced it's like going to happen in the next few years.
(50:48) Um >> yeah, >> I'm not convinced this like I could be wrong. I I I don't have like you know I wouldn't have predicted how good these things are today um 5 years ago. So I want to like you know I I do think we should consider a world where extrapolating these things getting smarter and smarter and accelerating pace does happen.
(51:09) But at the same time I just like from a first principles perspective have a hard time seeing how throwing more energy at compute solves that fundamental problem of these things aren't learning. Um these things can't aren't like aren't handling novel tasks. Um, and you know, every time you send it something like it has a context window, it doesn't remember anything, right? And those are problems that that they're working on.
(51:35) The question is like how will they actually be solved in any near-term future? I don't know. >> Yeah. Is there a problem as uh insurmountable as scaling logical cubits for quantum computers? Who knows? >> Yeah. Um, that's a big uh been a big uh >> What are your thoughts on the whole quantum debate? You know, I hate I hate being in a position where you're where where or where an my argument is betting against humans figuring something out, right? So, like I hate sort of being somebody who sits there and says quantum computing will never work and here's why. And the
(52:18) problem I hate I hate being in that position because it um it's nonfalsifiable, right? you can't you can't ever prove like you can't prove they won't figure something out. Um and uh but at the same time like there's there is some truth to it. Like it's a really hard problem. I think it's probably overblown but like also what if it's not right um there's a lot of information asymmetry here like understanding quantum computing is not easy.
(52:50) It's a highly specialized field and um from what I can tell there is real progress happening and I don't think and and if if the you know the what makes Bitcoin great is that I know I have high confidence that it's going to be functioning effectively 10 20 30 years into the future. Um and so we always want that to be true. We've always want people to believe that Bitcoin will always function and be secure many many years into the future.
(53:20) So because of that I do think we do need to care about this. I do think we need to we we are I mean the there is a lot of development effort already going into post quantum um signature algorithms for Bitcoin and what transitioning to that could look like and I think that's important work and I think it should be done with conservatively but with some with some urgency.
(53:44) Um, but we we also don't want to rush something that makes that that creates a vulnerability. So that's my take >> that completely agree and that's I think that's been the most frustrating thing about the uh whole narrative around uh Bitcoin its relationship with potential quantum breakthroughs at some point in the future is that people are saying you're not doing anything.
(54:05) Will the dead do something? It's like well this has been an ongoing discussion for over a decade. There's a lot of research being done. There's a BIP out there that um could potentially be merged. If you want um to put your Bitcoin in a uh an address that's nested in a a tap leaf that is quantum resistant, you may be able to do that at some point soon.
(54:28) Um but then to your point, I mean, you don't want to rush it because you could um you could introduce some sort of critical vulnerability that destroys uh the network itself. But I think another interesting perspective that somebody like you could provide like what what would the logistics of your business like the transition to this for your business look like? Like like how many different sort of things would you have to change um if we were to transition to this? >> So there's a few components here.
(54:59) One is cold storage, one is a hot wallet, which is where you know most transactions are going in and out of every day. what we would probably do is um so let like let's just put totally aside how do we handle like the lost coins or you know the the coins that don't get moved over to a new quantum secure signature.
(55:21) Um let's just assume you know okay we have a soft fork it introduces a quantum secure signature um like sphinx plus like something like you know Jonas Nick is working on what we would probably do is move all cold storage coins over to that once it was you know once we felt really really confident about it um we wouldn't do it like right away um because presumably this would be this upgrade would happen many years before a viable quantum computer actually existed So, we would, you know, let it run its course, you know, test, do a lot of
(55:54) testing, have it live on the network for hopefully a year or two. We move all cold storage coins over to this new um new signature scheme. Um, and the hot wallet we probably still keep running with the old signature scheme, but we'd start building and getting the, you know, getting things in place to to support this new signature scheme.
(56:15) There's a lot of open questions from a wallet experience perspective for both consumer self-custody and also uh businesses where some of the things that are make operating wallets very convenient today might not work. For example, like BIP 32 derivation, right? Um being able to derive addresses from a public key.
(56:41) um uh th like you know by just th those tools probably won't exist for postquantum algorithms and so things might get a little clunkier. Um >> we might see >> take longer >> signing. Yeah. Longer or like just the transaction might be bigger, right? The um you know the it might be more expensive and so it would be a it would be a um a hit to uh self-custody usability unfortunately.
(57:10) But you know if that's if that's where the tech goes it's we don't really have a choice. >> Yeah. No I had Jonas and male on. We talked about this. That's like what I think uh many people who are like pushing a rush to this don't realize is like hey we have a bunch of standards partially signed Bitcoin transactions lightning network you have the HTLC's all these things you can't just like upgrade now and bork all this stuff that's been built over the course of 17 years it's like you have to think through this strategically coordinate
(57:43) um across the Bitcoin network and all the individual actors within it and put a concerted effort forth Uh and then on the hardware wallet side like a like that's actually a business opportunity for somebody who can build a beefy hardware wallet um that is like high power can actually sign the signatures in a timely manner.
(58:03) Um I would think as well >> yeah um it will lead to opportunities. Uh like you like you said it's hard to sus out sort of the economic opportunist pushing the quantum fear versus the actual technical reality. And I think the I think that the at the end of the day really no one knows, right? You can't you don't know what's going to come out of the mind of some guy in the lab at Google.
(58:32) Um >> or some model maybe the models figure out how to learn actually and they're like, "Hey, guess what? >> Figured it out." >> I think what we do know for sure and we've known for Bitcoin's lifetime is theoretically like the laws of physics do not prohibit this. Um it is an engineering problem.
(58:49) It is not a does not require breaking the laws of physics. And you know at the end of the day that's the scary thing about cryptography in general is there's no law of physics that says a certain cryptographic primitive is secure. It's more like probabilistic. We haven't been able to prove it's not hard but we can't prove it is.
(59:14) Uh so you know that's this that's kind of the scary thing about math in general is it's not really constrained by physics. >> Yeah. Um just gave the 2025 retrospective. We're almost 2 months into 2026. What are you um excited about? What are you looking forward to? What are you focused on? Uh >> whether it's at River or Bitcoin generally right now.
(59:41) We're focused at River. We're focused on uh this dual money vision. We want to, you know, historically, we were this place where people came to buy Bitcoin. Um we want to be the central hub for people's money. We want to be that place where you bank. Um and so, you know, the future for us is this year like focusing on building the future of Bitcoin banking.
(1:00:05) Um having dollars and Bitcoin in one place. We are not a chartered bank. we partner with a a bank uh to provide dollar functionality. Um but you know I do believe that this is the future of money and uh and so that's our focus. So we're working on things like bill pay, you know, being able to pay your bills from your river account.
(1:00:27) Um uh making it just more and more compelling and easy to use Bitcoin and dollars in one place. For Bitcoin more broadly, I think the quantum stuff is going to be a big focus of conversation. Um, I think that we have a big opportunity there to show people that again, Bitcoin is the most secure and certain chain in the world and we think about the longtail risks.
(1:00:46) So, I do think that conversation will dominate over the over the coming year and I think every time a new blog post comes out from a quantum lab, it'll relame, you know, re reignite these conversations about Bitcoin and quantum. And I think every month that happens, we'll have better and better answers for people.
(1:01:07) Yeah, it's funny to the uh I think uh we caught at least some of the grifters yesterday um because two weeks ago we had a large downward difficulty adjustment. There are many people on the quantum side saying look the miners recognize the quantum risk. They're unplugging. They're giving up on their investment. Uh this was happening while a winter storm was was taking over most of the United States, right? And ash rate was either >> turning off because they were involved in demand response programs or the the actual data center had some disruptions
(1:01:39) due to uh inches of ice uh falling from the sky. Uh and then yesterday we had an upwards adjustment of 14.7% uh or above where we were before that. It's like well wasn't quantum. >> Yeah, exactly. Um, you there's always someone who's got a bad take that goes viral and all of a sudden, you know, everyone's texting you about it, unfortunately.
(1:02:01) >> Yeah. Just wait two weeks. Wait two weeks. Well, Alex, it's always great catching up, sir. Pleasure. Thanks for having me on. >> Honored to call you a friend and a colleague in this Bitcoin network. Are we colleagues? Colleagues in the network. Is that what we're going to call it? I don't like community either.
(1:02:16) I don't think we can call you. >> We're actors. >> Yeah, >> actors in the network. This is more of the mathematical term, I guess. Colleague is Yeah, I like I like colleague brothers. >> Yeah, >> brothers. Brothers. I like brothers. Brothers in arms here. Um >> we'll uh we'll link to these reports in the show notes.
(1:02:36) Keep crushing the research. It's highly valuable. And I think um it's it's great to be able to have this research to point to to be like, "Hey, Lightning's not dead. Actually, it's better than ever. Yes, individuals are losing um their share of Bitcoin overall, but businesses are adopting it uh alongside governments and institutions.
(1:03:00) It's not just uh these large actors that people don't like coming in. It's mom and pop main street businesses as well. Um I think it's very beneficial for the pitch to people who are skeptical. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Excited to share more there. >> All right. Well, all right. A little tease. Little tease to end it. We'll uh we'll uh we'll catch up again at some point soon.
(1:03:19) >> All right. Looking forward. >> All right. Peace, love, freaks. >> Okay. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show.
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