E175: Dan Tapiero: This Crypto Strategy is Boring, But It Will Make You Rich

**Dan Tapiero** (0:00)
Our space, it's the easiest space in the world to make money, but it is the most difficult space in the world to hold on to it. Because anybody can get lucky for a year or two, but to have a defined process, to be able to withstand the volatility, to believe a deep conviction in what you're doing, it's hard.

**Kevin Follonier** (0:15)
You don't tweet a lot, but when you tweet, you're always too pre-bullish and optimistic.

**Dan Tapiero** (0:19)
Why?

**Dan Tapiero** (0:20)
It's very funny.

**Dan Tapiero** (0:20)
I'm a Bitcoin maximalist and Dan Tapiero, the founder of 50T Funds, and digital asset fund manager built on a 50 trillion dollar crypto thesis. A macro investor backing Bitcoin infrastructure and AI blockchain innovation.

**Dan Tapiero** (0:35)
All value and money will be on change. There's no way that's not happening. And I think this RWA isn't tokenization. These are big themes. For me, I need to be able to say this is our view in the future, and they build revenue the way we expect. That revenue will accrue to the value of the equity.

**Kevin Follonier** (0:50)
Markets have a tendency to do the unexpected.

**Dan Tapiero** (0:53)
Gold never does what you expect it will do when you expect it to do it. Traditionally, it's been a very difficult asset to just hold as a result. There has to be uncertainty. It has to be something that you don't quite expect for it to work. So when you go into an investment and you have full conviction, you know it's a home run, it's probably wrong.

**Kevin Follonier** (1:13)
Last year, we branded your company 10 trillion fund to 50 trillion fund. What makes you so confident that the crypto industry is going to 50 trillion?

**Dan Tapiero** (1:20)
Blockchain is the money of the autonomous AI agent. AIs will not be calling up JP Morgan and doing a wire. We think that within the next 5 to 10 years...

**Kevin Follonier** (1:34)
Hi everyone. This is the little bit that I know none of you like that can help us make a huge difference for this show and we want to take it next. 71% of the people who regularly watch When Shift Happens have not subscribed. And so all I'd ask you if you want to make a huge difference is the following. If you've seen this show before and you like it, help me, help my team, hit the subscribe button and we'll continue to build this show for you. Thank you.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:00)
KAST is a sponsor?

**Kevin Follonier** (2:02)
Yes.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:03)
We kind of like KAST.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:05)
This is a KAST gold card.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:07)
Yeah, we kind of like KAST.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:10)
I wanted to say actually like it's an amazing business, fast growing.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:14)
You should.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:15)
I don't know enough about it to talk about it. Now we just started looking at it.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:19)
But you should.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:20)
I know.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:20)
They're a sponsor.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:21)
I know.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:22)
I get it.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:23)
So is Bitwise.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:25)
So is Bitwise.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:28)
Okay. Let me know when you want to go.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:29)
We're going.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:31)
We're going now?

**Kevin Follonier** (2:31)
Yeah.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:32)
Okay.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:32)
We like KAST. That's the beginning. They're going to be happy about it.

**Dan Tapiero** (2:36)
No, they know us. They know us. We like them.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:39)
How are you doing?

**Dan Tapiero** (2:41)
Good. Good. It's been very busy.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:43)
You said we like KAST. So I have to ask you why and explain with the KAST example, what framework you put when you look at businesses that you are interested to invest in terms of?

**Dan Tapiero** (2:55)
Yeah, but I also told you that I didn't have enough. We just started looking at it. I said we like them, but I don't have enough in depth. I have it on my phone. I have our little analysis. I could look and I could tell you, but the reality is that we are the, as far as I know, the only growth stage investor in the world exclusively focused on crypto, blockchain, Web3, digital assets. We don't do VC. We don't invest in cryptocurrency. It's very straightforward.
We have 22 investments. We had six realizations last year. We own companies like Circle, and we had Deribit that got bought by Coinbase and Figure, eToro, Cypher that is owned by Bitfury.
Unfortunately, we also had Gemini, which hasn't had a good run in the IPO market, but I think at this price is extremely cheap. But we look at companies roughly with 40-50 million in revenue, and we want to buy them for about five to 10 times revenue. Now, KAST is a little small. You know, the card, the very nice card you have there, the growth of the business has been tremendous in the last two years. It's a little small for us. It's not quite yet there. So it's on our radar. We think it's one of the higher quality businesses in doing what they do, but it wouldn't quite yet. I mean, maybe next year if they do, you know, we focus more on, I would say, BC round.