"Bitcoin Is the Hurdle Rate": How Strive Stacked 14,000 BTC w/ Matt Cole | Bitcoin Backstage

**Matt Cole** (0:00)
The Fed and the Treasury are adamant that they have never printed money in the QE era. Why are they gaslighting you? Because there's a debt crisis, and they don't want the dollar to go bankrupt and stop being the reserve currency, and so they're figuring out a narrative to get institutions behind it to ultimately finance trillions of dollars of new debt into the system. Obviously, then it's like, how high could Bitcoin go? It could literally go to infinity.

**Isabella Santos** (0:27)
We're here with Matt Cole. Known as the Black Horse of the Bitcoin Treasury Company.
How are you, Matt?

**Matt Cole** (0:34)
I'm doing great. How are you?

**Isabella Santos** (0:36)
I'm good. I want you to tell me more, like, about your story and how you guys are positioned to be one of, like, the top Bitcoin Treasury Companies.

**Matt Cole** (0:46)
Yeah, so currently, we're the ninth largest global corporate holder of Bitcoin. We are one of, if not the fastest, movers up the ladder.
And the reason that we've had such high success is that we have really simplified our corporate strategy and we're doing something very similar to strategy, micro strategy themselves, right? And that's focusing on digital credit. So we were the second issuer after strategy to launch a preferred equity instrument in SADA. And that has fueled exponential growth for our company. And so when we, last September, closed our Bitcoin Treasury merger, which is after we talked last year, we started with about 5,000 Bitcoins. And since then, we acquired another Bitcoin Treasury company, Semler, which added another 5,000.

**Isabella Santos** (1:34)
From Semler Scientific?

**Matt Cole** (1:36)
Yep. So we acquired them. We merged them into our business.
So that was a big boost to our Bitcoin holdings. And we did it in a way that was accretive. It added value. And then we launched a PREF and SADA. And we're now up to over 14,000 Bitcoin. Quickly stacking our stock is trading off the charts, very liquid, which is allowing us to continue to buy Bitcoin. So yesterday, we announced a purchase of another 789 Bitcoin, which is large. You might say that's small versus strategy. But if you were to equivalently size it to a strategy buy, it'd be like strategy buying 44,000 Bitcoin in a week, which would be a jaw-dropping number. So we're rocking and rolling.

**Isabella Santos** (2:17)
So I'm sort of a foreigner to the Bitcoin treasuries. And you said something very interesting that you acquired Semler.
So what's the move for Bitcoin treasury companies? Acquiring other Bitcoin treasury companies or stacking your own Bitcoin? Like at the end of the day, which one will help you boost and become one of the top five Bitcoin treasury companies?

**Matt Cole** (2:39)
So the most sustainable model is to buy new Bitcoin.
When you first launch, there can be some economies of scale of combining together, where two companies can be stronger together than they are separately. So this is partially a game of scale. So we combine together to push us over 10,000 Bitcoin, which allowed us to really turn the burners on our preferred equity. At this point, I would say we're less likely to do more acquiring of other Bitcoin treasury companies. But it wouldn't surprise me to see other Bitcoin treasury companies combine forces, kind of in a similar way to what we did to kind of boost them up and really get that flywheel going. But at this point, it's net new Bitcoin buys, Stacks, Gats, that way.

**Isabella Santos** (3:22)
I like that. You went from one of the biggest pension funds in the world to running the first publicly traded asset management Bitcoin treasury company.
What was the moment Bitcoin stopped being something you're aware of and became something you're staking your whole career?

**Matt Cole** (3:40)
Yeah. So it started with staking my entire net worth on it before my career.
Like most Bitcoiners, in 2016, after being a Bitcoin skeptic for a few years, I was running a large fixed income fund and I was talking to the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, and I became very convicted about the problems with debasement of fiat currency, something that all Bitcoiners talk about. I was talking directly to the Fed and the Treasury and seeing the issues with money printing and the debt crisis.
That, I would say, was the primary factor. The second factor was fixing the money, freedom money and opt out from the system that had me move literally all of my money and to put it into Bitcoin on a personal basis in late 2016 and early 2017 I feel like that's not an OG, but maybe it's getting more closer to an OG as more time goes on. So that was on a personal basis and then when Strive had the opportunity to become a Bitcoin treasury company, that just became a dream job that on a corporate level, I could be a massive stacker of Bitcoin and even further, my own personal all in nature to Bitcoin. Now my career is tied to Bitcoin, all my networks tied to Bitcoin and I love it. You're obviously a Bitcoiner that when you understand Bitcoin, I sleep really well with that risk because I'm so comfortable where this is ultimately going.