Bitcoin is the NEW Gold: Donald Trump Jr. & ABTC Leaders Reveal the Future of Finance at KBW2025

What's up, Korea?

Everybody,

how's everyone? [applause]

Hey guys.

Hey. How are you?

How are you?

Sorry guys, I thought we were going on at 11, so this is a nice surprise. How are you? Good morning.

It's good to be here. It's great to have you. And I believe we have Donald Trump Jr. also joining us. Can we uh phone a friend?

Is he coming in?

Okay.

All right. Well, I guess we could get started, the the three of us here. I am Jaclyn Melnik. I am the founder and CEO of Token Relations. I also host a podcast called the Talking Tokens podcast as well as Crypto in America.

We actually had Asher on earlier this month when we were at the Salt Conference. So, it's great to see some familiar faces on stage today. I think we all know what American Bitcoin is, but I think providing value on what is the potential behind Bitcoin is a bigger conversation that needs to be had and I would love to ask both of you to start off kind of on the front of that. How do you really think about Bitcoin as a bigger store of value? Obviously, it is the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, by trading, etc.

But from your perspectives, how do you kind of see the value today and where is it going? I'll uh start off. Bitcoin is the one scarce asset in the world. Before Bitcoin, gold was the currency of all the previous generations. And gold's call to fame was an ounce of gold at any point of history could always buy you a really nice suit.

An ounce of gold a 100 years ago, $20 was a really nice suit. An ounce of gold today is still a really nice suit. But the hedge of gold is it's not finite. Gold, as the price of gold increases, there will always be more supply coming into the market. Mines have AS6, different AS6 than the servers we use, but in all in sustaining costs.

As the gold price goes up, 10,000 20,000 an ounce, I wouldn't be surprised if we were mining off the moon or meteorites at some point. Whereas Bitcoin will only ever have 21 million bitcoins in the world. Regardless of how many buyers out there, regardless of where the price of Bitcoin is, there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. Bitcoin is the one true scarcity asset. And when you look at the flows, stock to flow of Bitcoin, when you look at the ownership, when you look at the adoption, we are still so early out of the float today in Bitcoin, we're less than 20 million of the 21 total million.

But of the 20-ish million bitcoins out there in the public float, if you subtract how much Bitcoin in dormant wallets, ancient wallets that haven't moved, let's look at the wallets that haven't moved any Bitcoin in a year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. And what that will show you is 70% of the float hasn't moved. Those are coins that are not in the public float. And then contrast that with the adoption the institutions coming in in the US 6% 6% of the total Bitcoin float is owned by US ETFs with Black Rockck IBIT being one of the majors. Today that sits at around $90 billion.

Black Rockck's ETF on an average buys about $250 million of Bitcoin daily. stocks of flow, availability, those are all buyers. Those are all coins that are being taken out of the supply and put into cold storage. When we see the additional inflation of all central banks in the world, no one's immune to it. Everyone is inflating additional paper money.

Everyone wants Bitcoin. And I think that we are so early in the convergence and the price of Bitcoin really if you just look at the supply demand and do a sensitivity analysis it's only looking very very favorable. So Mike gave a great explanation for why Bitcoin and so now why American Bitcoin we designed a company that would take the best parts of a mining business and the best parts of a digital asset treasury a DAT business and we combine the two of them. So like the other miners traditionally we run enormous fleets of computers that are securing the blockchain. We're being paid for that in Bitcoin.

We do so all over North America but with a lot of machines in West Texas. What this does is this allows us to uh mine Bitcoin at like a 50% gross margin. So we're able to accumulate Bitcoin through the mining business uh more cheaply than just buying spot. But we also took the best parts of a treasury company. So these treasury companies are out there trying to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible.

Something that we want to do, but we're able to blend this with the mining business and compete as this very uh asset light. We only have the computers asset light business that is computers and Bitcoin and that's it. So when investors look at ABTC, what you're really seeing is the opportunity to invest in just the mining computers and just the Bitcoin stack with a very lean team in a very very accomplished, experienced mining operation.

So beyond just buying and holding, which is something people have historically done, how do you kind of see institutions being able to extract more and find new use cases or unique ones through American Bitcoin or other avenues that you're exploring? Well, the difference between American Bitcoin and buying an ETF. When you buy an ETF, your ownership ratio will only represent one less the fees that the ETF charges. When you buy a company like American Bitcoin, an actively managed accumulator, you're betting on the management team that based on the tools that are made available to us, the ability to monetize liquidity, the ability to monetize volatility, the ability to use our stack, use our collateral to drive additional value to our shareholders, ultimately increasing the Bitcoin per share ownership. That is the one metric that is most important for every investor.

When you buy an ETF, your ratio of ownership will always be one. When you buy an accumulator, an actively managed accumulator, when done right, your ownership per share in Bitcoin should increase over time. And we do that with, for example, Converts. Converts is a tool where it allows us to monetize our volatility. An ETF won't do this.

Bitcoin is innately very volatile. A stock that tracks Bitcoin is even more volatile. We're able to issue very low price converts that convert at a premium to our share price and buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin, an asset class that has been increasing between 50 and 70% a year for the last decade. and we're able to take in converts near 0% interest that convert at a premium of 30 to 50.

These this is just only one mechanism of the tools that we can use as an actively managed treasury company to increase the value and the Bitcoin ownership per share for our shareholders.

So on that note, I'm curious as well, how do you kind of think about the institutions that are standing out right now? what are they doing right compared to those that are kind of just idally waiting aside and watching from the sidelines.

So there's a few lenses to that question. So first there's institutions on the buy side that finally want to get into crypto and into Bitcoin. So for a long time we would come to conferences and everyone would ask where are the institutions? It's now very clear that the institutions are here. We've spoken to sovereign wealth funds.

We've spoken to hedge funds. We've spoken to family offices. Crypto is now a part of the portfolio that uh traditional institutions and tradi want exposure to and so we're now at a a stage where there's enough maturity uh the payment rails are in place the the policy regimes in different countries are finally coming around to the crypto revolution and for many people the first uh place they want to go is Bitcoin right it's it's it's one of the the most seen as the most trustworthy among among cryptocurrencies and once you're in Bitcoin now you're onto the blockchain right and On top of that, now with the stable coins, uh I people ask if you know as Bitcoin guys, do we do we like stable coins? I love stable coins because stable coins get people onto a blockchain. And once you're in the digital world, your ability to enter into Bitcoin and related currencies is now much easier and also to work with companies like American Bitcoin to accumulate as much as possible.

So how are they managing their Bitcoin exposure or how you advising them to manage it? institutions specifically.

It's really the allocation. It's it's just starting with any type of allocation, any type of purchase. Uh we've been very pleased to see in the US pensions, institutions, endowments moving off zero. Uh we've seen Harvard start taking allocation into into Bitcoin. We're seeing local pensions, local states taking ownerships and positions in Bitcoin.

It's never too late. It's it's it's really just starting with that initial purchase. We're seeing sovereign wealth funds out of the Middle East, some of the largest starting to take large 9 figure size positions. And this is really just the beginning. When we looked at the previous cycles, it was primarily driven by retail.

This is the first cycle that we've seen that we're really starting to see institutions just to really start dipping their toes in and the amount of capital out there when the rest of the flow of institutions come in relative to the available supply that I outlined earlier. It's incredible exciting market dynamics for Bitcoin.

Yeah. How much has it changed would you say from like maybe a quarter ago, two quarters ago to where we are today? I would imagine the current administration in the US has a lot of positive effect on that front. But what are you guys seeing in the conversations that you're having on the front of exposure there?

So one of the big changes and I will speak to the American side is we finally have a regulatory uh framework that is in place. Right. It has been signaled uh we have the first Bitcoin president obviously that the first family is also very involved in Bitcoin. Eric Trump is our co-founder. We, you know, we've uh worked with folks who are are able to articulate the importance of crypto to the United States.

And now finally, the the lawmakers in America are very much in favor of doing more. Texas has a Bitcoin reserve that they're trying to fill. The US is deciding this fall what they want to do in terms of a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the United States. This is night and day from what it was a year ago. And so we hope obviously in the coming quarters there'll be even more clarity and there'll be even more uh sort of excitement from the lawmakers and supporting us as as innovators in the space to create jobs and and grow the Bitcoin economy.

Amazing. I believe we also have Donald Trump Jr. joining us in a moment. But before we get to that, I want to talk to you guys a little bit more about the long-term value side of things when it comes to uh Bitcoin and generation for American Bitcoin. How do you kind of think about that in a strategic way that makes people more, you know, long-term thinking on this front?

I think the benefit of an actively managed treasury accumulator like us is we we we unlock additional tools. The more scale, the more size that we get. And I'll give an example. We we touched on earlier on how to actively utilize collateral and a stack. As we grow our Bitcoin position, we can take low LTVs and tap into the fixed income market, fixed income market, which is extremely low cost of capital to bring on additional Bitcoin, increasing the Bitcoin per share.

Um, Michael Sailor, the godfather of treasuries, does this so well with the perpetual preferreds. But as we are able to grow our size, we're able to identify more demographics, more liquidity pools, and design new products and instruments to provide exposure to Bitcoin while increasing the Bitcoin ownership per share for American Bitcoin shareholders.

Amazing. Don, you there? I saw you pop up before. [laughter] And I I apologize. I've been trying to get in for a little while as I I promised Mike I would join, but I'm literally in a cabin in the Yukon about 300 miles from the nearest town.

So, uh, the Starlink is not working all that well because it's raining really hard and overcast, but I'm I'm doing my best. So, I'm having a little hard time hearing you guys. Hopefully, you're hearing me.

That's all good. We could hear you. We We got a phone in Elon. Tell him to fix Starlink for you.

Now, the Starlink is normally great. It allows me to do these sorts of things, but I think they brought the mini instead of the big one, so the bandwidth isn't quite what we'd want it to be.

There we go. All right. Well, we've been talking about institutional levers adoption on that front, but Don, before we go into that further, I'd love to zoom out with you and hear why do you kind of see Bitcoin as a once in a generation opportunity for global financial adoption?

Well, listen, I I think it's an incredible opportunity for global financial adoption. I think uh it's borderless, it's efficient, it has uh dis it has the potential to disrupt so many inefficient technologies. I sort of always tell the story about how we got into, you know, Bitcoin and crypto generally. And it was because we woke up one morning and we were totally debanked uh in an instant because I guess our politics didn't fit with the the powers that be and we we didn't realize for a long period of time that we were essentially just the top of the food chain in the Ponzi scheme. Uh that was the traditional, you know, financial markets.

There wasn't a time before that instance that we couldn't call any banker in the world get a loan. It was easy. Uh it wasn't so easy for everyone lower down in that pyramid. And we realized if we could be shut off, anyone could be shut off. And so I think the opportunity is so incredible to prevent those kinds of things to truly democratize finance uh to educate young people about finance.

I mean they're fascinated with Bitcoin and technology. Uh they're into that. uh these are people that uh are incredibly sophisticated in that manner but probably don't know how to get a basic loan through the trady system. So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of great opportunity to to financially educate people and I think you know as much as you know Matt and Mike have been in this as long as they have I I think we're still at the very beginning of this. We're in the infancy of of Bitcoin and crypto.

Yeah. On that front, Don, you talk about being at the beginning of this and obviously Bitcoin is around for over a decade now, but you guys have really got a foray into the space in the past couple years, I would argue. So, what do you see as like the biggest opportunity today?

Wow. Uh listen, I I I think it's creating uh the cliffhanger. [laughter]

All right, we'll give it a second. But

I think frankly, we're seeing it play out already. I mean, some of the biggest bankers in the world three months ago were saying that it's a scam. Uh it's this and that and the other. And now they're the institutions that they run are buying billions and billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. It uh you don't do that if you really think it's a scam.

I think they felt that they were leave being left behind and they realized they had to jump onto this. So uh what I'm really proud of what we're doing with American Bitcoin is I want to make sure that America is leading the way in Bitcoin infrastructure uh at home, that we're securing leadership for the next financial revolution, that we're doing that in America. Uh uh to you know places that don't exactly align with American values. So I think America has to lead from the front with this and I I I'm glad to see that that's really happening.

Yeah. I would argue not every country or market is ready for Bitcoin adoption yet. I'm curious to hear from your perspectives, Matt and Mike, how do you kind of think about approaching markets for entry beyond just the American market? And then Don, we'll get to you as well, but why do most markets today not really work for a Bitcoin first strategy? And what will it take to get them there?

Well, there's two parts to that. First of all, Bitcoin is for everyone and we want to see worldwide adoption of Bitcoin. But when we look at treasury companies, accumulator companies in jurisdictions and markets outside of the US capital markets, there is a parameter set, there is a consideration list of what we believe contributes to the success or is best positioning a treasury company for success uh in the capital markets. And part of that part of that is regulation. uh regulation the the exchange the uh local regulators need to allow for this type of business.

They need to allow public companies to own crypto, be able to own underlying Bitcoin. Liquidity is very important. There are so many markets in the world where there simply the trading volume of the average stock is hundreds of thousands of dollars a day compared to let's say in the US it's hundreds of millions of dollars a day. And why that's important is your upper ceiling on your rate of expansion as a treasury company is really your liquidity. Uh liquidity is by far most important and you need to have a market that the the adoption of the retail market, the investors are ready for it.

There are a lot of markets where the institutions have mandates where they can't purchase Bitcoin yet, even Bitcoin tracking stocks. You have a retail market that isn't like South Korea where you have such an incredibly young tech-savvy population. Everyone's trading stocks. A lot of even our US flows, big US IPOs, Circle, Robin Hood. We were very surprised to see a lot of those flows are driven by retail Korean individuals.

Not every market has this. In short, to be successful, you need a culture that embraces crypto. And we love Korea because Korea understands uh the power of cryptocurrency and the power of Bitcoin. And so this is a relationship that we hope to continue.

Amazing. And then Don, from your vantage point, why do you think traditional finance is primed for disruption? And why is Bitcoin at the center of that story, especially with, you know, the Korean market in mind, too?

Well, listen, I I I echo certainly what Matt Micah said, but legacy systems are slow. They're costly. They're they're exclusionary. you know, the banks and the Swift systems can't keep up for, you know, where the world is going. Bitcoin's been transparent, resilient, it's borderless.

There's no central authority, no gatekeepers. And so I I think based on certainly what I've experienced, the the real distrust in centralized institution is rising. People want alternatives. They understand that if they can shut off Trump and the Trump organization and do it uh willy-nilly, they can really do that to anyone. And if they will do it to Trump with our platform to be able to push back, uh the soap box that we have to be able to stand on and scream about it, uh if they will do it to us, who won't they do it to?

So traditional finance uh in so many respects is broken. You know, Bitcoin faster, cheaper, fairer. Uh and that's really why this disruption is inevitable to me.

Yeah. down. On that note though, do you feel more secure and hopeful for the future with, you know, blockchain technology and Bitcoin at the forefront and the work that you guys are doing?

Oh, 100%. I mean, you know, just from my world where I was a real estate guy, right? I built buildings for the you know, 25 years in my career. That's what we did. We built hard assets.

Uh this is uh this is a very uh very different thing I think as people figure it out as the adaption as the use case starts getting better. uh as utility, you know, gets there, uh this is going to be where everything is going.

100%. Amazing. And, you know, as we've talked about throughout this conversation, Bitcoin isn't just about money. It's a tool for influence, institutions, and nations to use and also just like kind of a way to protect yourself uh depending on the topic and conversation as we've discussed throughout this conversation. Um, but when you think about Bitcoin diplomacy, I'm curious uh for Matt, Mike, and Don as well.

What does that really mean in practice? And how should institutions think about positioning Bitcoin in a global market? And then how do you guys think about it internally?

So, Bitcoin for us, I think it's a global opportunity which creates any anything that can create prosperity on a global scale is a form of diplomacy, right? So if you look at what Bitcoin is able to do, it's it's a means for people to transact value across borders and increasingly across time, right? So historically dollar bills if you held them in your bank account, they might still be there in 50 years, but you can't buy the suit the way that you could have 50 years ago. Maybe with gold you could have, but I mean it's a little bit cumbersome. The nice thing we believe about Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is a store of value that will stand the test of time.

And so if we look uh abroad as as we sit in the United States, this is a way for us to share value with people from other countries in a way that is not reliant in any one government's form of currency. So for us, this is this is an opportunity for global prosperity and by doing so this is a great way for diplomacy to occur.

What are your thoughts on this?

Bitcoin is empowerment and we want to advocate for the adoption of of of Bitcoin. Uh for so long crypto hasn't really had a voice and that is why Don Jr. and and Eric they're the best voices and they're the voices that crypto needed. They're the voices that actually encourages people to look at a new form of financial technology that isn't the inundated banking system. It is the future.

This allows everyone to take financial freedom by their hands, by their phone, be able to control their transfers without middlemen siphoning off their hard-earned dollars. We want to play our part in advocating for global Bitcoin.

Yeah. Following that, uh, Don Jr., from what Matt said, like you and Eric are a voice for this space and you guys definitely have, you know, the influence, the the brand equity and other aspects. How do you kind of think about that when it comes to spreading Bitcoin diplomacy and making sure that this is something that doesn't just last for four years, but for eternity essentially?

Well, you know, I think we're way past the point of talking about it whether it's going to last or not. I think we you see that every day with the adaption from a from a deployment diplomacy standpoint from a uh the global perspective. I think just the the natur the natural hedge against inflation and centralization in so many of these countries that you know many would think hey they may not be ready but I think their people are and I think that's a huge aspect of that to so many people around the world they I've been everywhere everyone's got smartphone everyone's got this and yet they have thousand% daily inflation I think this is a natural hedge against that for people to maintain their value and I think uh a a prosperous world is good for the world a prosperous world is a peaceful world it's a safe world if you incorporate sort of to the last question to follow up a little bit what I was talking about. I mean the efficiencies and taking out the middleman like Mike was talking about of blockchain technology again the hard asset guy you know why were we paying points on a deal uh to get loans uh so that a banker can push a piece of paper from one side of the desk to the other. Why were we paying points on a deal for title insurance that could so easily be on the blockchain?

you could have instant information uh know your deal is secure without paying guys in a market where you know the the rates were statutory you couldn't compete you're just paying this so you gave it to one guy because he took you to the basketball game as opposed to another guy who didn't uh it didn't make any sense so I think that efficiency also creates prosperity for so many other people that are getting feed to death for the last few years in the regular banking system

right then I want to really look to the future with the three of you looking ahead if you were to design a Bitcoin institution utional strategy from scratch starting all over. What would you do differently from the conventional models that you see today?

I mean, I would say we have I think I think American Bitcoin is is right out of the box. So, we we launched this company April 1st. We took this company public in the United States on September 3rd. This is basically a record for companies getting to the public markets. And getting to the public markets was so important for us so that we were able to really run our strategy and allow the shareholders to participate in the strategy with us.

Taking the best parts of mining, no people basically just the machines and then the best parts of a treasury which again is just a very lean operation focused on these cool technologies that Mike was referring to uh that allow us to really grow the stack of Bitcoin. This is to me this is what would the best of both worlds and that's why we're so excited to be here. Matt,

to what Matt just covered, just to put this into perspective, American Bitcoin is a six-month-old company. It's just been 6 months and we are already public on the NASDAQ. We're already here being able to share this conversation with all of you in South Korea. To the question, it's really just the suggestion would be to start yesterday and obviously we can't travel back in time. It's just starting anywhere, starting today.

Um, we're super excited for what we're going to accomplish over the next six months given that it's only been six to get here today and uh there is a lot on the horizon. We think South Korea is an incredible market. I think it the new administration is is is so progressive and crypto has very bright days ahead in South Korea. It's such an incredible demographic. Everyone loves trading crypto here.

your your retail flows are incredible. Uh for just retail flows, I think you're 25% of global uh token exchange volumes. Uh there's very bright days ahead for the crypto markets in South Korea.

And Don, we'll finish with you. Let's bring it home. From your perspective, why do you see Bitcoin as not just an investment, but an opportunity for the future of money and markets? And we're 6 months in on American Bitcoin. What else does the future look like?

Wow. Uh listen, I I think the future looks very bright. Uh I I think we haven't even scratched the surface of what I think what we can accomplish for so many people. And I think everything that we've discussed about that might not have uh you know really addressed really creates you know the democratization of finance which is something that has been lacking for so long. Uh again so many people at the top they want to stay there.

I don't think anyone fully realized uh just how unfair those systems were for so long. And so we're incredibly excited to be in there. Uh we're we're honored to be able to be uh a voice for that. Uh the potential for South Korea over there for for crypto and Bitcoin in general uh is absolutely spectacular. So we're just excited excited to be a part of it and excited to be able to lend our voice and our soap box to it so that everyone else understands and is able to adapt quicker uh and and get on the train.

Amazing. Well, Matt, Mike, Don, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today and thank you everyone for listening in.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you guys. Sorry for the background. It's a little bit rustic here. [applause]

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