Parker Lewis: Digital Credit, Bitcoin Treasury Companies, and Where We Disagree

**Parker Lewis** (0:00)
He talks about how Bitcoin is too volatile for 99% of people, and what they need is stability and income. I was like, what are we talking about here? You need Bitcoin to go up, to pay the 13%, because Bitcoin has no yield. If you invest in it, somebody's gonna be left holding the bag.

**Natalie Brunell** (0:17)
But you really believe that someone's better at holding cash?

**Parker Lewis** (0:20)
You can show up to your bank tomorrow and demand the deposit. This is a perpetual loan, effectively, with fewer rights.

**Natalie Brunell** (0:26)
Why decide to direct your energy toward criticizing that as opposed to all the other bad investments out there outside of Bitcoin? Parker, it's so great to see you. First time recording in person together.

**Parker Lewis** (0:43)
I know.

**Natalie Brunell** (0:43)
It's great.

**Parker Lewis** (0:44)
Great to be here. Returning to the scene of the crime, 2021

**Natalie Brunell** (0:47)
2021, my first Bitcoin conference where Parker rejected me from the unchained party.

**Parker Lewis** (0:52)
We didn't know each other at the time. It's fine. Paula and I have forgiven you. It was a mistake. I've pled forgiveness for a long time. That's so funny.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:00)
At first, I forgot what you were talking about because I clearly have moved past that stage of my life where I was rejected from every Bitcoin conference party that first year. But no, maybe we'll circle back to that story because it is a funny one. How have you been since writing Gradually, Then Suddenly?

**Parker Lewis** (1:15)
Been good. I've been working on Bitcoin payments, getting the book out there, and just- Zaprite. Traveling all over the place, explaining Bitcoin to people.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:22)
How's Zaprite going?

**Parker Lewis** (1:24)
Zaprite is going great. We are in the process of actually launching a closed beta for our P2P app that we've been working on for the past nine months. It's been what we've been working on most strategically. It will fit in with our B2C commerce payments as well.
So that's been a long push and the closed beta will start tomorrow.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:44)
Well, you recently made waves on Twitter. You've been critical of the Bitcoin treasury companies. I've been fascinated to read the back and forth. And so I wanted to hear just from you.
You seem very passionate about this. And so let's just zoom out and talk to me about why you wanted to take part in that conversation in general.

**Parker Lewis** (2:03)
Sure, and I think one thing to zoom all the way out is some context that this has been going on for a long time and I've never said anything, right?

**Natalie Brunell** (2:16)
Like as far as Bitcoin treasuries being out there? Okay.

**Parker Lewis** (2:18)
Right.
Never critical, staying in my lane, and I think that's important context because it was something that seemed to shift more recently in terms of how they were being marketed. And in ways that in my own words, I would say amounts to gaslighting, distorting people's perceptions of their own reality. And that ultimately confuses people about Bitcoin. I have a lot of interests tied to Bitcoin. And that when I started to become critical or say things about what I viewed to be misleading, a lot of the commentary back from both operators of the businesses, shareholders online, people that I know in private, looking entirely past it in very unprincipled ways. And that's what led me to then dig into the economic incentives to go through all the financial statements, look at the numbers, get my head around what was actually happening, because I literally was not paying attention. Knew it was out there. Knew people were raising a bunch of money to buy Bitcoin. But it was just, I haven't looked at a public company stock from an investment perspective since I left Heyman Capital in 2017
I don't want to think about public company stocks. I didn't for a while.
I did occasionally dig into Marathon because of the whole slipstream, op return stuff, but I just wanted to lay that as background context.
And then to get specifically to your question, when people talk about store of value versus payments, just like setting all the Bitcoin treasury company in debate aside, I think that those two things themselves are confused. It's like there's nothing inconsistent with Bitcoin as a means of payment or Bitcoin as a store of value. Someone's always storing all the value of Bitcoin. If there are 19.9 million Bitcoin or 20 million Bitcoin in circulation today, if you are selling it for fiat to a Bitcoin treasury company, and then the Bitcoin treasury company is saving it, if you are paying that Bitcoin to a business, and that business is saving it, that Bitcoin's ability to store value is predicated on its ability to be easily exchanged.