Ahead of the Fed rate decision, Bitcoin breaking above $117,000 yesterday, and this does come amid expectations that the Fed will be cutting rates by 25 basis points later this afternoon.
And earlier this week, Strive and unveiling an ambitious plan to accumulate Bitcoin fresh from its merger with asset entities.
The company raised $750 million and the company also authorized a $500 million stock buyback and plans to issue a. preferred equity security to finance additional Bitcoin purchases.
Joining me live at the New York Stock Exchange this morning is Matt Cole, chairman and CEO of Striving.
Matt, great to have you back.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Yeah Remy, thanks for having me back.
Man, a lot of energy here today with the StubHub. absolutely.
So today is that day, and here we are waiting for StubHub to go public.
So a lot of activity.
But when it comes to price action for Bitcoin, long term, what are you paying attention to?
Yes, so a couple. first and foremost, what is happening with global liquidity conditions, interest rates, dollar strength or weakness.
So the dollar is super weak right now.
There's still devaluation going on in fiat currencies around the globe, which is going to be super supportive of Bitcoins.
But when you look at what I think is the most interesting chart is actually Bitcoin versus gold.
It has not broken to new all-time highs, but it's basically right there, and I think it will sometime over the next 12 months.
It might be next month.
It might be 9.
Months from now I don't know, but once it does, I think that's when the real bull market really picks up for Bitcoin, and I do think it goes substantially higher from here over the next year.
Yeah, Matt, for our viewers out there who may not be familiar with this relationship that you're talking about, gold has hit new record highs, and we have seen gold features rise above 3700.
So can you build on that?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think that there's a sentiment in Bitcoin that is not overly.
Euphoric at the moment.
It's almost like negative or concern, and I think it's because of the Bitcoin gold market because gold is done so well and Bitcoin's basically just kept up with gold.
So yes, if you look at Bitcoin versus dollars, it's up, it's holding right around all-time highs, but it hasn't broken out versus the next strongest commodity in gold, and I think it ultimately does, and I think that's where you get in markets.
There's long term fundamentals, and I think for both Bitcoin, it's extremely strong, the strongest for gold.
Also strong, but then there's near term technicals, and these near term technicals don't feel necessarily great for someone that's that's watching other asset classes relative to Bitcoin, but I do think that that will work itself through and change to the upside for Bitcoin.
Yeah, and of course, Matt, while I have you here, I do want to ask you about price targets because you mentioned cycle.
So it's been a while since we had the last Bitcoinh and of course we are approaching some key levels here.
So in terms of the medium term as well as Before year end, do you have any specific price targets?
Yeah, so not before year end, I would say over over this cycle, I think we're moving into a different era of cycles where the happenings become less relevant because the new Bitcoin supply is becoming lower and lower because of how hard of an asset it is.
And so I'm a fan of the super cycle mindset which is that I don't think we see 80% declines in Bitcoin for a long time in the future and that Bitcoin will perpetually rise ultimately over the.
The medium term 500k of millions in target, but that's not a top.
That's just a medium term target on an infinite rise relative to the dollar that gets perpetually debased.
Yeah, and of course while you're here I do have to ask you about Strive completing its merger.
So tell us a little bit more about this and also how you plan to manage some of the risks that are associated with managing such a large Bitcoin accumulation strategy.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think people are very concerned about the risk, but I Actually think that even when you look at a company like Strategy and Strive being kind of like a mini strategy, they overemphasize the risk and they actually don't see how strong it is to have a company with a balance sheet as permanent capital.
So most companies you're underwriting unknown future cash flows.
With the Bitcoin Treasury company, you have a balance sheet and you're underwriting the balance sheet growth, the ability to finance and get leverage and create additional Bitcoin per share, and that's really opportunity and I think that from like a debt.
I think these are A rated AAA rated securities when you actually get into the fundamentals and we'll release some of that over the coming months on how to actually evaluate this from a fixed income lens, but it's really about opportunity and then for newer treasury companies like Strive, there's short term fundamentals.
We have raised a large pipe.
There's a ton of new shares coming into the market, a lot of uncertainty in the near term, but when you zoom out and you look at the long term fundamentals, the team, the vision, the strategy, the ambitions to get a perpetual preferred equity security.
Out there this year, that's a lot of bullish momentum over the medium term.
And once those near term technicals kind of work through, I think you'll start to see a strong story emerge from Strive and other strong Bitcoin treasury companies.
Yeah, a lot of keywords you mentioned there, including strategy and vision.
So I understand your makeup of the board over at Strive.
Give us an understanding of who's who, and of course I understand you brought someone on from strategy too.
Yes, we brought Sharie, who's an executive over at.
Strategy.
He's our corporate treasurer, so he's been at the front lines of building their Bitcoin balance sheet, and I mean these guys at strategy, they've innovated, they built this plane as they're flying and almost they've almost made perfect decisions, but they've also had learnings and so we can leverage their learnings, what they've done well when they're looking around as we make our own decisions by having someone like that in our strategic conversations.
And so we have a super strong board.
I don't think I can cover all of the people, but if you look at our announcement and and you just look at their X profile is what they're talking about.
This is a smart group of people and most importantly, you can bring a smart group of people and they could have horrible chemistry.
We have great chemistry and we work really well together and we want to be in the room together and I think when that happens you can start to see true synergies of a group of people, a leadership team, a board to actually take their collective talents and achieve more than any of us could on our own.
And Matt, finally, before I let you go, we're keeping our eyes on the nation's capital for regulatory clarity when it comes to digital assets.
But I also understand you're here in New York and you'll be meeting with someone from strategy at an event later today.
So can you give us a sneak pee?
Yeah, so our VP of Bitcoin strategy, actually, new chief risk officer Jeff Walton and myself, will be doing a panel with Michael Saler going deep in Bitcoin treasury and fixed income instruments, and it'll be live streamed this afternoon around 1:30 p.m.
Eastern.
It's going to be a super interesting look into the risk and the opportunity of fixed income backed by Bitcoin.
So will you be competing with the Federal Reserve this afternoon?
We will be hopefully front running them into into their decision and ultimately, I mean, I think we'll probably reacting to that in real time, which is, which is fun.
I'll it'll it'll be an interactive thing.
It's not going to be a speech as they announce we'll bell be addressing what we think that means for Marcus.
OK, Matt, well thank you so much for joining me again here at the New York Stock Exchange, and we'll keep our eyes peeled for that as well later today.
Thank you so much.
