Bitcoin: The Big Move Nobody is Expecting

0:00Like the Latin America crypto adoption is growing 3x faster than in the U.S. as an example. The supply will reduce over time so that million gets stretched out but there will continue to be more demand than supply with the trends that we're seeing today. We're seeing the retail side of Bitcoin opening up and that's going to be great for just total volumes, total awareness and ultimately total interest. If you're enjoying my content, it will mean the world to me if you could subscribe to the channel and like my video to support my journey. Thank you. Hey guys, welcome back to another show today. I'm joined by Hunter which is CRO at Salt Landing and Professor at University of Colorado and today we're going to dive deep into the macro of Bitcoin. Hunter, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. It's great to be back Maurizio. You prepare the fantastic power point for us so really appreciate your time in putting into this. There was a hit on the price due to Trump's tariffs and obviously due to the start off of the war which you personally are greatly impacted by and we're glad you're safe

1:04and making your way through that but at the same time the network in the Bitcoin as an asset has showed resiliency bouncing up to here we have sort of 73 to $1,000 per Bitcoin on March 5th and so it has made a great rebound and I think that is great news as we look at just the transition and the continued show of strength of the asset despite all of the recent price movements. I don't think I remember such a painful period of constriation so far and you can see that through the hearing grade which even though we pushed a little bit I think it's 22 now I mean we've seen numbers I haven't seen in forever. Yeah and we'll get into some more of the details as we go to some of the stories we're going to focus on but you know the ETF accumulation in terms of the 87 billion is a big deal right this is both showing more inflows coming into Bitcoin from a sort of a macro level and also really starting to give some signals that the demand is outpacing supply

2:07at a great extent which is good for the sustained value of Bitcoin long term. When you put in consideration the fact that this asset is capped with a limited supply at some point all those OTC desks are going to dry out and I believe if the adoption continues as is continuing now the miners are not going to produce enough Bitcoin for where once acquire them so then the demand and supply the price has to react right has to go up. And just as a reminder on that we're forecasted to mine the 20 millionth Bitcoin this month and so you know with less than 1 million Bitcoin or just over 1 million Bitcoin to be mined as we're talking today that supply is going to run out right and we know that the supply will reduce you know over time so that million gets stretched out but there will continue to be more demand than supply with the trends that we're seeing today. You know to be honest I think the amount of green on this really surprised me over the past week

3:08over you know when we look back to the time frame that we're in both in terms of where all the price movement has been but even the more recent sort of turmoil that we're seeing globally with the conflicts and so I think I mean my takeaway on this is that it is a reinforcement of people looking to leverage Bitcoin for why it was built right both in terms of store of value but also as a means of exchange like when you were in a highly sort of risk oriented environment a environment and an environment with a lot of tension being able to move millions of dollars worth of value via Bitcoin anywhere around the world when you need to move quickly has a lot of value and I think some we're seeing some of that come through in the indicators that we're starting to look at and how people are starting to use and appreciate Bitcoin. When I was in London I wanted to move to Dubai which was five years ago I actually had some gold like I had a gold position. I couldn't show up to the airport with two bags full of gold and say hello a baby I'm going to

4:13Dubai they wouldn't let me they were confiscated my gold in fact I know stories of some of my friends here in Dubai they flew from other countries and they've been stopped at custom because they had a bunch of coins gold coins right so again this shows how strong Bitcoin is because you don't even have to have anything you can just take your entire wealth with you by moving from one place to another so Bitcoin I mean at least this is my opinion it's way more superior than gold for many other aspects. Yeah it's it's the portability right I mean we're going to get to a place where the portability and the divisibility and the resilience of the asset really well I think will demand a lot of value. Last week we ended with the story on Jane Street in terms of whether there was market manipulation whether they had an influence you know I think once the lawsuit was filed it's been amazingly quiet from both sort of the Jane Street activity as well as the posting so you know the answer may lie in sort of the the absence of activity since it happened but I do

5:18think a lot of the trends that we're seeing is starting to really show the resiliency of the network as we start to expand the adoption and the use cases which will make it harder for any one participant to sort of put their thumb on the scale if you will. We had a couple records over the last week one is the amount of total inflows I have it sort of you know just under 1.5 billion over sort of five days in that period we had one day where there was nearly 500 million that had come in with zero outflows in the day so there was a lot of activity and I do think that that's starting to signal both institutional buying as well as the retail buying and I know from sort of the work that we're doing at salt we're seeing more companies look to put Bitcoin on their treasury and using ETFs as a first step is a common approach to help people get more comfortable to having some of the volatility a Bitcoin on their balance sheet as they start to think about how do I really want to be managing my treasury and getting that exposure you know we have microstrategy

6:22listed here they are buying more Bitcoin but also as part of an overall strategy of treasury strategy we're seeing companies buy the digital credit products of microstrategy if they don't want Bitcoin itself again so I think it's exciting to see the diversification of exposure to Bitcoin allowing companies to find the right balance between wanting all of the upside and being willing to absorb the risk because of their time horizon or making other trade-offs but in terms of how they get started but knowing they need to get started I mean all those products built on Bitcoin sailor has a few but they're just going to accelerate adoption super fast in fact we can see here that the supply cannot keep up but it's clear that at some point it's going to be that you know omega candle that everyone is talking about yeah it will as there's fewer you know new Bitcoin flowing in and people are more comfortable holding it as part of a proactive strategy I think

7:26that's something important to remind everybody whether you're a company or individual like if you really are proactive understanding about your time horizon how long you can hold it how long you want to hold it how you want to partition your Bitcoin for different personal liquidity strategies then you know that's going to influence the market and you know one of the things I think is exciting about the ETF inflows really in terms of I would say more from a systems perspective looking at the impact is that as there's more flow to the inflows inevitably right the RIAs and sort of the wealth advisors and the brokers talk about Bitcoin through that vehicle more so that means more people are getting educated more people are starting to consider how to leverage it in a rebalancing or a distribution of how and where they are invested and again some of the conflict that's happening around the world today and the uncertainty seems to be continuing to push money into those places now that we're getting some of the regulatory stuff feels like it's

8:31again moving forwarding and stabilizing speaking of which you can see companies like Biko Revolut kind of starting to offer services they couldn't have done it a few months ago right so I can't be bullish enough looking into what's happening in Europe and in the US and it's just incredible I would agree I mean out of all the regulatory events I don't think the importance of this can really be understated or overstated I should say because when we think about Mika and the European region has really I would say been lagging where everything else has been across a lot of the other regions in the US when you and I were together in Amsterdam at towards the end the last year in Q4 right that conference really was a lot about businesses starting to use Bitcoin and that conference had a very different feel from sort of Hong Kong and the United States but what I think you're seeing happening with this ruling about allowing Biko to go into 30 countries we're seeing the retail side of Bitcoin opening up and that's going to be great for just total volumes

9:34total awareness and ultimately total interest across the region and I think we'll we'll look back and see 2026 from a European from a Mika perspective is being a real step forward takes a long time to prepare all the framework all the low the legislations but then once they are in place you'll see the flooding coming in right because now they have a clear strategy and they can do whatever they wish same goes for evolution right so they're filing for a banking license they're going to allow the new fintech to come up with products and services they're going to support of course Bitcoin and crypto there's been a lot of work behind and now finally they have the green light right to offer services on this yeah and I just think the overall awareness for a company like Revolut and for those that aren't familiar about it you know Revolut really I would say made their name and helping people manage their money across multiple currencies and sort of ease a lot of the foreign exchange hassle in Europe in particular from where they originally launched

10:35and so how cool is that to just have more people start to have an app where they have wallets with different collateral and currency types for me it's it's exciting to see that right it's really elevating Bitcoin to be on the level we wanted to be on both from a means of exchange but then if we think about it helping people easily swap their fiat currencies into Bitcoin all on one platform and so you know that ease of use that ease of access and ease of transaction I think will continue to start to drive more adoption and understanding the regulatory landscape is going to be important for companies to feel like they can make investment into those initiatives and products imagine for someone who has Revolut for I don't know the past few years and now out of a sudden they'll see a button saying do you want to buy Bitcoin so it's going to be interesting to see if exchanges are going to become banks or banks are going to become exchanges or maybe both yeah well and think of the power of just like the daily cost averaging into Bitcoin

11:39with those type of activities whether you're a business or an individual being able to move a percentage of your Bitcoin for your I'm sorry you move a percentage of your revenue into Bitcoin or just have a daily daily weekly allocation it will help people be more disciplined with the approach of accumulation and their approach of managing it I would say the downside is it probably makes it too easy to look at the price and the variability of it but if you can get yourself away and just like get in the routine of stacking the sats consistently because of your proactive and longer-term strategy then that that's advantageous we can see the cracking becomes the first company to secure the Fed master account access exchanges to work with banks this is massive I agree I mean again the acceptance of the exchanges and the integration of exchanges into the larger banking system is a real positive signal I think for where we're going and what is going

12:41ahead and we still have to see the Genius Act passed in Congress in the US to sort of give some of that additional market structure but I think all of these things both in terms of the regulatory environment as well as then approvals like this are strong signals that stuff is going to continue happen positively in the regulatory environment as we go forward in 2026 so we would see hopefully maybe even the resolution over there and when the clarity act is going to pass I am expecting some price appreciation there well yeah the regulation is important because it takes away risk it takes away uncertainty and that will help attract more investment into the space it will attract more competition it will attract more investment I think that's good for the participants and and ultimately good for you know the ecosystem and the consumers so that you get a better product and you get a better price for any of the activities that you need to be doing with Bitcoin but in

13:42particular I think it will be expanding what you can do with it and what the tools that you have at your disposal it will increase the tools that you have at your disposal which will be good for everybody sometimes when you price Bitcoin in dollars there's a lag right any direction maybe we are over excited or under excited but if you look about adoptions and regulations all the macro things we're covering here lightning network volume is going up so this is really healthy so the network itself is growing the number of participants are growing so all these things are signaling that there's going to be a point where I believe press can have to catch up with all those exciting numbers right I want to underscore this point because I think this is like another big signal over the past week and this data is a little you know from November 2025 but that said a lot of things are coming together around lightning which is really important I want to reinforce right one of the biggest criticisms of Bitcoin over the in the past has been you know the speed of

14:47transaction processing and the volume of transaction processing and lightning was developed to help be able to speed that up help be able sort of increase the capacity of transactions from a means of exchange from a payment perspective and so seeing the lightning volume go up and when you combine that with like the revolution announcement and revolution is working with like spark they've got 35 million users to really get help people get access to the lightning network we can start to see from an infrastructure perspective changes really starting to play out now that will make Bitcoin much more accessible to for smaller transactions you know for everybody globally I think the one thing in my mind that will have to catch up in this space is now going to be sort of the tax consequences and I know there's been proposals in different regions where transactions under certain amounts would be exempt from tax in terms of essentially exchanging or selling your Bitcoin when you're using it

15:50for a payment which would again help accelerate the amount of transactional volume of Bitcoin on the lightning network and others it's clear that the volume is going to grow and the user base is going to grow hence the value is going to follow now the cherry on the cake is this the white house has officially named the new Fed share I'm expecting a bunch of different things happening as it takes over and I think he will be less shy in printing more money maybe I'm wrong here I don't know but I have the feeling that he's going to follow what Trump wants more I mean I agree this is going to be another positive movement in terms of getting the ecosystem aligned for conditions that are favorable for the growth the adoption and the appreciation of Bitcoin and and you're right right we have talked about a number of events that are lining up not only in the US but globally in for 2026 now they're not all certain but I can't think of a previous time in history where

16:52at the highest levels of you know government at the highest levels of sort of the financial systems people are announcing Bitcoin forward plans and even if they don't all land even if there's a time delay we are elevating the conversation we're moving forward the development and it's attracting more interest and awareness and investment and so I think you know 2026 continues to be a very unexpected year for a lot of reasons but also one where as we look forward I think we're starting to see real light at the end of that tunnel in terms of both where the value of Bitcoin is at but but more importantly how it's being used globally and I think you know that's really one of the things that you and I are covering here is yes we will touch on the price and the movement of the value but some of these foundational adoption trends regulatory trends use cases expanding out Bitcoin is important to coverage because it's starting to move at a faster pace

17:55and in a different different ways globally it's going to be interesting for us to zoom out and observe how Bitcoin across the planet is going to not only become more popular but also how each country is going to perceive it while we're moving forward jump in on this for on a couple of things that we haven't yet talked about for the South and Central America region one of the things that I think is really interesting there for people to be aware of is that like the Latin America crypto adoption is growing 3x faster than in the US as an example so we are seeing pockets where sort of the marketing efforts the grassroots adoption that the policies that are being adopted in those regions are really driving things forward and so when we look at like Panama positioning itself as a BTC hub they're going to do zero cap gains on Bitcoin in the region you know El Salvador is elevating their Bitcoin diplomas and their educational aspects within the company so there's a lot of stuff that's happening in the in sort of globally that's continuing to drive the awareness

19:00the adoption of Bitcoin that we'll see the other thing that was interesting for me to hear about from the Mania region so to where you are is the sort of the exposure that Saudi is adopting from sort of a sovereign perspective in terms of Bitcoin so that is a recent development that again maybe it's being driven by some of the uncertainty in the region but that exposure from a sovereign perspective again will be something that continues to buoy the value and the appreciation of Bitcoin as an asset class I'm looking forward to dive deep more into the regional aspect of each of those items in the list I think it's going to give us a it's going to give us and it's going to give you guys watching a more global perspective which is one of the reasons why we wanted to show in the first place right it's super interesting to have a snapshot of not just about what happened but what is about to happen so what's coming in yeah I mean I again like Hong Kong I think the stablecoin licenses are really interesting we know that Asia Pacific is one of the fastest growing

20:05regions globally I do believe that stablecoins are a real gateway into Bitcoin it helps people understand wallets it helps people understand how to make transactions you know we had with the clarity act in the US as well as then other stablecoin license you know licenses and regulation really positive to bring people in and then just look at the diversity of events across those activities you know we've got South America we've got you know Australia Central America you know and I mean we're just starting to see more stuff happening and we've got Europe with Mika so I think it's going to be exciting to see how this continues to unfold and we'll come back and talk about some of these specifics when the milestones are reached out or the events transpire it's great to do a recap once a week to show how much the reason how much is going to come our way for sure yeah I'm looking forward to it continue the conversation courage everybody if you have questions or you're seeing trends that we're not talking about we'd love to highlight those so please

21:06add your questions and additional thoughts in the comments and we look forward to rejoining you so stay tuned and thank you so much for watching hunter thanks we'll see you guys next week