Alex talks with Peter McCormack (What Bitcoin Did / Real Bedford FC) about running the biggest bitcoin podcast and being the ‘Ted Lasso’ of Bitcoin. Alex also talks with Beimnet Abebe (Galaxy Trading) about markets and macro.
This episode was recorded on Wednesday, January 12, 2024.
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Welcome to Galaxy brains the weekly podcast from Galaxy research it’s another day pushing for another way to elevate levitate heaven sent me to celebrate verbal demonstrate until it resonates cuz I never knew what trouble was stayed inside the lines of a bubble Buzz try to tell the truth with A Touch
Of Love utilize the words to do what subtle does but now I see it fully life can be a bully battles are a force turning veteran from Rookie purely I got to keep it real no matter what the format talking with my friends like Peter mccormac tell me where the corn at
Heading into the moon I’ll bring a couple friends that are with me in the room whether in the street or on 50 zooms yo I always kill a beat like the studios a tomb here on Galaxy brains as always I’m your host Alex Thorne head of firmwide research at
Galaxy digital thank you so much for listening to Galaxy brains we have a great show for you today Peter McCormack host of what Bitcoin did Chairman of real Bedford football club is our guest we’re going to talk with Peter about owning a football team a soccer team for
Our American listeners in the UK what it is like he’s kind of like a modern-day Ted lasso and also what Bitcoin did one of my favorite podcasts in Bitcoin I think the largest podcast we’ll talk to Pete about what it’s like to run such a large media organization of course we’ll
Check in with our friend Bim nettab BB from Galaxy trading as always to talk markets fomc meeting today and before we get to that I need to remind you to please refer to link to disclaimer in the podcast notes and note that none of the information this podcast constitutes investment advice or
An offer recommendation or solicitation by Galaxy digital any of its Affiliates to buy or sell any Securities Phineas we have a podcaster on the podcast I was very excited for this episode he he’s somebody we look up to in the space you know and and his story it’s kind of shocking it’s far
More interesting than he maybe even gets credit for I mean you you know he purchased a football club in the town he grew up in and he’s trying to infuse Bitcoin culture into this town yeah and become sort of like a global leader and it’s working that’s the crazy thing he’s
Telling people that run businesses that are not related to bitcoin that adding a Bitcoin feature can be a cheat code as he calls it because you tap into a global Community a global audience and literally Global money uh that can help jump and add more you know do to your
Business and bottom line revenue by the way something that happened since we recorded with Pete uh the there is a dispute in the town of Bedford there is actually another football club in Bedford uh that apparently it appears may have an improper relationship with the town’s government and the town’s
Government is effectively threatening or or has threatened to pull the lease for real bedford’s pitch for their football field and it’s very improper as far as we can tell documentary coming soon I I hope I mean truly wild stuff in the world of football I I think it’s one one
Thing I wanted to call that I think is so fascinating is one of the biggest challenges in crypto over the years has been practical application uh culture change right merging cultures and what he’s done is he’s taken Bitcoin and crypto in in large degree and and merged
It with cultures that we know so well and we feel so nostalgic for small town football you know all these things you know he was talking on the show and about like after the games they all go to the pub and you know it’s merging in
The same way you know that that other places like Bitcoin Park and pubkey are doing as well this is just a totally different spin on it so anyway it’s amazing um when pubkey uh football club uh Thomas get on that let’s get right to our friend bimet ABB from Galaxy
Trading let’s go now to our friend bimet abibe from Galaxy trading as always bimet welcome to Galaxy BR thanks for having me big day today fed day huge day yeah basically the Super Bowl and it was a big day right because unbelievable day tell us what happened so we started the
Day with uh ADP uh which came in softer than expected around 100,000 jobs employment data that was soft the employment cost index came in at 0.9 uh versus expectations of of of 1% uh so a a notable measure for wages that Powell specifically tracks and loves uh came in
Soft um in addition you had a uh Regional Bank that was experiencing uh you know pretty significant draw down in its share price as a function of uh loan loss provisions and so we’re seeing some weakness in finance although it does seem um a little bit idiosyncratic you had the um
You know uh refunding announcement um also uh in the morning but that didn’t you know really move markets um but that kind of gave a really aggressive bid to fixed income in a in advance of the fed and we saw you know two-year treasuries and all the short data fomc pricing move
Super aggressively almost as if pal had happened at 8:30 um and and then we got to pal yeah um and the statement read you know more hawkish than you know I think most Mark participants expected right um and really U during the pressure uh the key takeaway and the key statement was March
Is not likely yeah for cuts for cuts y but the pricing is still uh at you know call it 35% you know call it 89 bips or some somewhere around there could cut could cut and the logic the essentially that he gave out in terms of the fed’s
Response function that would get them to cut was like continued progress on inflation um and so basically you know they’ve had six months in a row of really good inflation data and that’s why you know the run the six-month run rate for core PC is below 2% which their
Target and 3 months actually won six um but specifically they probably need to see a couple more months of that and if you got something even lower than that then you know you could potentially be talking about earlier or bigger Cuts but it basically set the stage for the FED
To begin cutting um around the spring of this year um I would say most analytics back you know May June um September cuts um you know to the tune of you for the calendar year 2024 anywhere from like 100 to 150 basis points um is kind of
Where the range of expectations are and you know that is it’s going to hold um you know I would say equities did not like the uh uh the pressure they they traded down S&P was you know was off a percent and a half and NASDAQ you know
Was off you know close to 2% um some of that was based on on on earnings that that we had but a lot of it is just you know fed’s not cutting in March um and then lastly you know there was i’ would say minimal talk of the balance sheet
And and normalizing um you know the the the the runoff um but that’s going to come into Focus you know around the same time when when when Cuts start get going I’m in the camp that they need to be cutting already yeah I think the way
We’re looking at data now is is entirely not representative of of like the data set in the sense that like I’ll give you one example there’s the establishment survey for non-farm perils and then there’s the households survey the disparity between the two it just keeps on growing um and it shows a totally
Different picture and if you look at more qualitative things like how many people have two jobs right what are the kind the kind of work that people are doing is it white collar work that is increasing or is it you know more blue collar and when you start to look at the
Qualitative measures of things the employment picture doesn’t look great and then you know more and more people like every podcast that I listen to nowadays you know obviously ours is the best yeah but more and more people just highlight the fact that these surveys are just not that reliable the response
Rates on these economic surveys are abysmal wow right um and you know another thing I mean there was an analyst on TV talking about it today but when you look at like state level employment data like state-by-state level employment data and then compare it to the national average you’re like
Wait 2 plus two is equaling five right now I see and so there’s just so such weird distortions that I think you need to rely on um you know other things and you need to look at things you know more realistically and realistically we have core PC at you know that’s around 2%
Likely going to be around 2% and you’ve got a Fed funds rate that’s at 530 that means you have 300 plus basis points of restriction in the economy and I think the main thing that I know for sure is that the business cycle has not gone
Away and that it kind of seems like things are shifting in the sense that you know companies are more comfortable laying off people like you’re seeing more more layoff headlines Etc um I think you know you’re starting to see a normalization of Supply chains po postco
Right and so I think the world is becoming much more normal and therefore monetary policy needs to be much more normal and we’re about 300 basic points away from normal right now Y and I think reinflation risk is a little uh overhyped um and I think some people
Lean on Commodities and stuff but like you look at China they’re having like a financial like a GFC type of event in in their markets right now and oil even with all this stuff in the Red Sea is barely reacting right and so I think you’re you’re at a point where you
Know the commod complex is healthy I think uh in terms of not that much upside risks and the global economy is slowing that’s why other central banks are are cutting you had surprises in UK CPI you’ve had you know ecbs expected to cut in April like it’s all going that
Way and the FED I think is a little behind the curve at this point yeah it’s interesting they’re just they just want to hang on they don’t want to do it just yet you had said maybe a few episodes ago if you’re going to do it in March
Which now they now he’s saying they won’t to do it in May might as well start in March and and you kind of like theoretically they could have already done it like I mean it it’s sort of it’s just laying the inevitable for and you were also making the point about the the
Politics point which is if you’re going to be cutting you you want to have been cutting by the time if you’re the fed by the time elction you don’t want to like wait wait wait and then just cut rates right before the election andow again that destabilizes the economy um and then be
Perceived as to being unfair and whatnot I just want to throw out one more thing uh the so now you know now we’re thinking what between March and may maybe they cut or on March or May and that’s the current thinking in the market right May so in April uh Bitcoin
Will automatically tighten its monetary policy with no involvement from humans so we’re saying then maybe then the arbitrary uh human intervention in markets in May will give us some respite from these high rates I just want to point out that contrast because I think this is a year of clash you’ve got the
Bitcoin market and phenomenon smashing on Wall Street like a wave uh generational Clash happening between young you know Bitcoin people and older Generations that now have access they’re they’re calling up to learn about it gold bugs um and and you’ve got the the the the the Clash happening between traditional Market structure and
Infrastructure and Bitcoin infrastructure which are now combining in some ways but you’ve also got the clash between predictable programmable money and unpredictable arbitrary money which is going to play out again in the spring of an election year just like it did in 2020 what do you think about that
I I love that ju the position thank you it is phenomenal and it’s so crazy the smartest people in macro they’re all saying you know in five 10 years time like the fiscal deficit is just going to be at the Forefront of like like every conversation every conversation and it’s
Like those guys like fully Embrace Bitcoin it’s game over they’re going to have a real leg up when it comes to that thing yes uh Bim nettab BB our friend from Galaxy trading thanks as always for coming on Galaxy brains thanks for having me let’s go now to Our Guest Peter
McCormack host of what Bitcoin did my friend Peter welcome to Galaxy brains thanks man dude I’ve been listening to your podcast for years it’s it’s always funny and surreal to have a podcaster on the podcast it’s always sural you go on podcasts not not often I think I’m a
Terrible guest I do like I get flustered I could talk about I’m a good guest about football well that’s what we’re going to talk about because obviously we could talk about Bitcoin I’m terrible both of us talk about Bitcoin for our day jobs yeah but I really want to talk
To Peter about running what Bitcoin did as far as I know the biggest Bitcoin podcast we we’ve gone off of YouTube subscribers um is because because there’s no public data on like Spotify and whatnot um huge podcast I’m a big fan of it um and yeah I continue to be a
Big fan one of the few that I listen to I tell our audience I basically listen to you and um Castle Island’s podcast I listen to Marty and mat Marty Ben mat Odell occasionally and look I mean there are other good ones but I don’t have a
Lot of time um but also um the Ted lasso of Bitcoin the uh the what do we call you the owner of real Bedford FC the chairman yeah chairman of real Bedford FC um we’re a big supporter of real Bedford here at Galaxy thank you um so I
Want to talk mostly about football and podcasting but we were just before we started recording we’re talking about Ireland yeah nicest people in the world great people I had great food in Ireland people get give Ireland a bad rap for food apparently well the so well because
They don’t like uh like shepherd’s pie I guess is what they are mad about so I think UK and irand are similar in that like our middle of the road food like just standard pub food uh it’s not great our top end is very good yeah whereas
You come to the US uh I think your top end is very good but your middle is is ex well it’s good but it’s like totally it’s just cheese it’s cheese and and have you seen those um videos where like uh like uh British folks come to the US
And they like find out about like Chick-fil-A or something if Chick-fil-A is oh my God it’s so good it’s so good shout out Bojangles also excellent chicken uh our my boss owns a lot of Bojangles people kept saying to me like for years have you had Chick-fil-A and
Like whatever it’s KFC it’s literally delicious the chicken’s so good but there’s some videos where like the like Europeans like find out about like American fast food and like it’s so good to be clear it’s very bad for you but it’s delicious so Pete um let’s we’ll get
Into real Bedford let’s talk about what Bitcoin did how many episodes have you guys done I don’t know 5 years four years nearly 800 maybe yeah that’s a lot a lot yeah is more than Danny is here off Danny’s 760 episodes um you you you guys do it well
They’re they’re excellent quality guests host production I’ve been on a couple times I’ve been fortunate to be on a couple times and you have um that’s the thing that as a podcaster I think about a lot is the quality of the production yeah literally you do you’re in New York
We’re in New York now and you come on location with a bunch of stuff by the way I should also sh out your your thing on Argentina was great you in person though you get it cuz you do it here I much prefer in person in person it’s got
It’s got like I hate remote interviews me too every time we do one i ph up there I’m like I hated it hated it I’m distracted I’m bored yeah you you need to be in the room I really believe that I think that you guys do a great job
With this you have to travel a lot though I think there’s three reasons for that right okay uh firstly you hang out before the interview so you settle uh the interview itself is a lot more real you don’t you have less talking over each other because like you
Get the visual cues that someone’s going to interrupt you you don’t have the latency and then thirdly you also hang out again and then you become friends with that person and so like future interviews become a lot easier yeah I agree so I’m I’m a in person Maxi now
You um what Bitcoin did is your primary job right no no not in terms of time money yeah in terms of time it’s the football club yeah I mean Danny Danny runs the podcast like he’s the secret source shout out to Danny it’s Danny’s birthday today Danny nolles happy
Birthday my friend yeah um so and by the way shout out to Phineas it was his birthday yesterday our guy fineas our audience knows Phineas um so again okay in terms of money though like like I want to ask you a little bit about the business of running a podcast I me you
You um we’re not going to get into the well I was going to ask about Bitcoin culture CU because you know you put yourself out there if you do media um and everyone’s got a say they all think something they think let’s take Bitcoin they think oh you’re you’re not
Sufficiently a bitcoiner oh you’re too you’re too much of a Maxine it’s one or the other yeah um how do you manage that I know people who know you like I do um and your guests they they know you it’s not no one’s no one’s like oh my God
Because let’s be real Bitcoin Twitter is not real life I had a good Mentor yeah yeah so uh my mentor when I launched a podcast a guy called Rich Roll very successful podcaster millions of down loads he’s he gets unbelievable guests now like you A-list celebrities his background’s like
Uh he’s a vegan Ultra athlete and at the time I launched my podcast my mom was sick she um she had cancer and I went vegan with her CU one of the things that uh people do when they have cancer is they stop drinking and they go vegan so
I did it with her was running loads and discovered his podcast and then ended up going he had a retreat on and I was like I’m going to go I don’t know why I just decided to go and became friends with him and I was just said look when what
Bitcoin did Retreat all right well well yeah we’ll get into that yeah uh so uh and I just said to him well he’s at the end of it I think he said to everyone like if you ever in La you know look me up yeah so I Lally booked a flight to La
I went I’m here yeah he’s like all right come over went over to his house I said look I’m level with you I want your job I want to do what you do how do you do it and he told me and I said like what’s your advice and he said
Look you don’t know how many people have come into to me and said yeah I want to start a podcast and 10 episodes in they’ve given up so you have to you have to accept this like years of hard work to make it work and he said don’t change
Like do not let the audience change you don’t let people shout it you change you you know avoid the audience capture just stay you so that’s what I’ve done I’ve just always like just been me which is sometimes a bit of a [ __ ] sometimes saying stupid [ __ ] but like I whenever I
Say something if I say something I definitely believe it I’m not saying it for anyone listening yeah well let me ask you about this because I I and and this may be totally unfair so correct me if it’s not but I I’ve thought of you in
Some cas cases as The Joe Rogan of Bitcoin W that’s a head of a compliment it is but but here’s the I’m going to let you down on this one um here’s what I mean and and now Joe has evolved over the over time but I used to think of his
His interview style as sort of like I don’t know anything please educate me yeah and I’m thinking about of the the the what was it it wasn’t um the the it was the not the pub key but um the U XB the X Pub yeah thing and I think of you
And this is sort of how I think of your interview style which is like let have on the experts let let let them educate me and therefore educate the audience and and it’s one reason I love your podcast too it’s one of the ones one of
The few that I and we don’t run this podcast our podcast is really for people that know about Bitcoin and crypto this is for I think our audience will know people that already know a lot about it right but but I yours is really good for bringing new people in because partly
Because of that interview style is that something you thought about specifically yeah I mean look like I have a thesis on this that there’s uh I’ve tweeted about this there’s three types of interview podcasts there is two smart people together yeah so that might be Eric Weinstein and I know some scientist and
Then you have a [ __ ] a smart person which is like Joe Rogan and right and then two morons which might be like Jake Paul and some other idiot right and and there is a place for all of them there was totally place for all of them but those are the three archetypes they’re
The three and so I’m like a Mor and a smart person and when I my previous career was um advertising I I originally started as a planner and I I always say to people the best book I ever read read was a book by Steve kug called don’t
Make me think yeah it’s all about like uh ux design it’s literally just do not make me think and so that influenced the podcast in that what what I’m trying to always do is help The Listener understand complex things and so occasionally you get somebody who’s listening they’re like oh you’re such a
[ __ ] it’s like yeah you listen to the wrong show right go go and listen to Stephan L with with more technical or whatever they’re to smart people and and so yeah I’ve always kept it that way just like and then look look sometimes now I’m asking them look can you explain
That and I know what the answer is sure but most of the time it’s just it’s just like yeah be curious and explain it like I’m five I I love this I’m not wrong this is this is a part of a strategy you think it’s part of the archetype no I I
Just think it’s who I am well I I okay I don’t mean to say that it’s like conniving or anything I just mean that um I apparently I’m not wrong to think of this podcast this way but so it comes through as my point I this is my
Organic thought of your podcast it’s by the way it’s been it’s one of the only podcasts that I send to like newbies in Bitcoin yeah because you it it’s very accessible um and and but I will say you’ve done a great job because I am a professional in Bitcoin and I also love
It I I think you also do a good job with it so yeah well my guy let’s not just let’s not be too too Pro Peter here thank you um but it is it is um it is interesting right because we we don’t for example this podcast as I said is
Primarily for Professionals in the space I mean that’s how we’ve done it I we could try to do it differently but um I can’t be the head of research at Galaxy and do the [ __ ] expert thing that doesn’t work no no you don’t but look a
Huge part of it I’ll say he’s in the room is is like is Danny I always I’m always very Pro Danny explaining it he he gets very shy and like humble about it but like Danny runs the Danny runs the Pod yeah if people want to come on
The show I’m like speak to Danny yeah uh you know he guides a lot of the topics I you know I’ll push back as well but Danny essentially runs it but he also runs it so I can run that can we talk about a couple that you’ve done that I
That come to mind I in particular and I don’t want to you know look we’re competitors now with ETF so I don’t want to talk too much smack it’s not it’s not it’s not polite but your podcast with Michael sonen shine Michael is that his
Name um in what like June of last year is yeah in Pub yeah at pubkey you had had him on in the past before and he agreed to come come on I don’t know why cuz you absolutely smoked this guy and there but anyway uh what was that like
Because this is this was a just for background and for the audience like so you had so he’s the president of grayscale um I guess he was like sure will come on this is right around this is before the they asked to come on yeah
They asked to come on yeah so I think they I think they screwed up so what happened is I think they wanted to go on a PR tour um this is just before they ended up winning the court case by the way yeah that’s where can hold two
Truths one truth is uh everything that uh Grace scale and Genesis and dcg did is is Shady to say the least and then they won a lawsuit which was brilliant for everyone in Bitcoin who wants ETFs you can hold both truths right you can say you screwed up there you did a good
Job there it’s not it’s not either or agreed but anyway so when we were we were planning to come to New York Danny was like should we try and get Michael sunshin on the show and I was like there’s no point he’s never going to come on the show let’s not bother uh
That’s right isn’t it yeah so anyway then an email comes from from their PR Company they’re like um can Michael come on the show I was like you know funny enough we’re in New York and they’re like great we’ll make it happen I I cannot believe it can’t be happening so
Then they reached out and said can we have top can we have the questions I said look we never give questions in advance because we don’t the the ifv go a normal flow we don’t know the questions you’re not reading off a script so here’s some topics so we did
So we gave him the topics and then David Bailey I spoke to him I said look I’ve got this coming up uh can we have a call we had a call and David Bailey went to all the detail of you know Genesis and great and this is David is the uh head
Of the owner chairman of Bitcoin Inc BTC Inc which owns Bitcoin magazine you T and he had he was leading at the time a redeemed gbdc movement right they they wanted to unlock the coins they wanted they were they own the coins David owned gbdc yes he wanted to redeem and I guess
Now that’s kind of mood cuz now anyone can redeem but well so there was so much detail in this in all this prep that he was telling me I was like like to to be a to do this Justice in an interview I need to spend a week on this with notes
Arrows drawings like fully mapping everything I like we’re in town to do 20 interviews I can’t I don’t have that so I was like I’m not going to do that um and so I didn’t actually know what I was going to do me and Danny talked about a
Bunch of things and what happened was I said look let’s let’s relax when he comes in the room so he comes in we’re like do you want a beer he’s like yeah so we all got three beers sat down out of a you’re at Pub Key at Pub Key his uh
Crisis Management ladyes in the room anyway we start the interview and Danny was like do not let him off the hook I was like no I’m not and honestly just as I sat down it came to me I was like I tell you what I’m going to get you just
To walk me through what you are and what you do and your responsibility and then I’m going to ask the big question it was great because it was about 30 or 45 minutes into the interview Danny was said afterward he was like looking in going like you’ve bottled this you
Botler oh my God it was I mean I I had to go so I listened to the audio of this interview then I was like when when so okay for the audience we’ll just say Pete you had a good normal friendly interview let him explain what Grace
Scale does and do all of his talking points and then about 30 or 45 minutes in I called him a liar yeah you called him a liar you pinned him on on what we now know which is that first first of all the next day you also
Tweeted um an image of a loone document from Genesis with Michael sonen shim’s signature on it because you were starting to pin him on the question of whether or not grayscale knew about I didn’t have that in advance by the way so it yeah somebody said to me some
Listen they’re like if you had had that you should have put it out in the INF I didn’t what happened was uh after I did the interview the next day he said oh by the way have you seen this because one of the big scandals I would say about
Grayscale was whether or not they were aware at grayscale that Genesis was accepting gbdc as collateral whether they were artificially creating gbdc shares because of the ARB right they knew if they like we know now that like block Five 3os Capital a bunch of people were borrowing from Genesis and and
Creating gbdc shares so so which goes to grayscale as fees right so there’s there’s a there’s a there was a a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle but my point to Sunshine was like you you had to know and if you you’re either lying or incompetent a and that that burned
Him but the I think it was a fair statement because I don’t think he’s incompetent I think he’s lying and I think he had to lie that was my view um and so the thing was I don’t like doing interviews like that I don’t want to do
Gotas I think you can you can literally get away with one or two a year yeah because otherwise people won’t come on the show and but but I knew with this one this deserved and needed to be asked but what was really weird at the time
When I was putting pressure on him he started looking across the room to his crisis management thinking what have you what have you put me in why am I here why am I here she yelled out during the interview yeah and I like hold on a second you’re in here by privilege who
Are you yeah you need to shut up you’re not part of this interview if you don’t like it so be it you know the you’ve you’ve gone on you’ve tried to use us for a PR tour and we’re not we’re not uh uh CNBC we’re going to ask you the the
Question it was really a great interview but at the end it was so awkward so it was like so what what did I say I don’t know yeah after after you did this thing I don’t think you’re going to come on again and like Daddy was like can we get
Your photo he was like we’ll send you one and he just like got up and left and and they in the car outside the thing for about 10 to 15 minutes oh man probably having another discussion yeah and then do you know what happened the next day they emailed us and they were
Like basically telling me to cut bit saying you’ve got to cut this I’m like not cutting anything not cutting anything I’m sure I know which part they want to cut yeah um it was a really good interview um it it it I think it matters
A lot it by the way nobody has gotten them on the record like you did in that interiew I tried to get Barry I asked Barry three four times I even after I said Barry where is Barry all right big week Barry where is he um yeah I asked him Barry should have
Spoke but you know what it is he still should speak um there’s a lot going on yeah um he’s been in this industry for 10 plus years he knows a lot and he should be out here you know he emailed me after that he said interesting interview you know yeah he said
Interesting interview uh I uh I think this some things you don’t know have some alternative thoughts happy to chat but it won’t be an interview Barry will engage yeah well let’s get Barry on the record you know record some CEOs Mike novag Gratz go out and talk a
Lot where is Barry um would love to see him all right let’s shift gears I’m a big fan of what Bitcoin did by the way as I’ve said um let’s talk about real Bedford yes right um you’ve got the Pirates logo on your chest right now we’ve got we’re we’re big supporters
Here at Galaxy uh we sponsor the women’s yeah uh Team um one every game the season let’s go um let’s talk about first of all why did you decide to buy a football club yeah so look this is a this is a a situation where everything has the stars have aligned perfectly I
Want to buy my local football team right because you’re from Bedford up yeah and I think we should have we should have a team in the football league the first four professional divisions um I don’t have the money to do it um but but I so
The first time I looked at it years ago I just couldn’t do it I didn’t have the money and then that hit me I was like well hold on a second if I make us the Bitcoin team then cuz like football teams are just a business if I make us
The Bitcoin Team all the bitcoiners around the world will back us they’ll buy our stuff I’ll get the sponsors economically I can make it work and so once I realized I was like oh you’ve got to be the first right I was like if if I
Don’t do this someone else will so I literally went straight out I tried to buy another local team they said no our rivals hate us um and so I bought the team next door in the 10th tier and I I had uh I had a uh drink in Austin with
The Winkle V I said listen I’ve got this idea I want to take our team into the football league and I think it was Ty went how do you get in the Premier League I was like oh okay I’ll come back to you on that but anyway got to win
Like six leagues or something no nine nine n but anyway I said will you sponsor me and they they went absolutely will sponsor you and then I got five or six other sponsors like okay we can do this some some that I really like Gemini obviously they sponsored I I have the
Original jersey yeah Kasa um Luxor um who else was original throw them out there Ledger yeah BCB Bank y yeah I mean a bunch of people like this only works with sponsors it’s well I mean but you it’s easy though right it’s not easy no
Okay fair but I mean the cheat code and we’re going to get to cheat code because yes uh people like me buy the Jersey because it’s got Bitcoin companies all over it it’s a cool Jersey it’s a great logo but you can feel like it’s your
Team it’s like it’s my team but it’s all like sounds cringey it’s our team but it is our team it like I know as we go up the leagues and we get bigger and bigger all the Bitcoins are going to be like this is team this is our team screw you
This is our team right but look the the the math of uh football is really simple it’s 60 70% of your chance of winning a league is your playing budget 20% is your manager but that’s an important 20% 10% luck and so you could have if you’ve
Got the best team and the best manager and you could have that 10% is bad luck you’re going to win that League y if you have a mid-budget and a mid manager and good luck you might get promoted right it’s that’s my thing but you can have no budget best
Manager all the luck you’re not going any but you have a much bigger budget than everyone else in that first League not necessarily so I the way I Target is I try and have I try and know what I think the biggest budget is and either
Match or would be just above and that’s a strategic thing but that doesn’t guarantee success so the first I know plenty of teams who’ve got the best budget and they don’t win things right man city have the best budget Liverpool top of the league at the moment I think
Most divisions if you line up the teams into their order and then line them up in terms of budget most teams will be in four or five spaces of where they are right it’s just a reality yeah budget gets you the players but you have to
Have a manager who can shape them to win yeah and and consistently and relentlessly win you have to do that and then I don’t want to rely on luck okay so if I had to rely on but you you know for example this weekend we’re playing
The only team that we’ve lost to simp on our midfielder Lee Watkins unbelievable players injured that’s bad luck and we could go into that game and we could be two1 up and they get a penalty they shouldn’t get it’s two so there is a bit
Of luck mhm but the goal is to get this team into the professional leagues ultimately the Premier League now everyone laughs at me for this everyone laughs at me because they think it’s ridiculous you you’ll say you’re taking a team that 40 fans three years ago to
The Premier League what do you what do you want about you [ __ ] but what they don’t understand is the cheat cat yeah yeah I got it it clipped me straight away what I realized is during this journey everyone who supports us every four years is going to
Get richer and richer and richer to the point whereby every time we hit a certain ceiling there’s going to be people that can go and say look we’ve hit a ceiling do you want to get involved do you want to support this do you want to and so I also know if our
Bitcoin team keeps winning and winning and winning and we get up into the leagues we become like the W the next rexim everyone’s going to be excited by this yeah it is a cheat code it is and and most people can apply to their business
And it’s gone so well look we won the league in our first year the men this year we’re now top of the league again seven points clear and our ladies are top of theirs they’ve won every game it the the project is working yeah it is it is working and it’s also revitalizing
The town of Bedford right well look look again early days but every game every home game there will always be someone who comes in like hey I’m from Arkansas or hey I’m from Miami or I’m from Slovakia the people were con constantly coming in and we now put in on the
Conference which we’ll talk about y you know I’ve I’ve worked out I think the economic inflow to Bedford for that will be2 to3 million pound which is a lot of money yeah bedford’s now on the map no one had heard of Bedford before Bedford is what 45 minutes or so north of London
Uh on a train an hour in the car um it it’s historically a deprived Town um you know it does have certain areas of poverty like I don’t know what it’s like here in the US but High Street the Town Center’s dying because you most people
Shop online so it’s a lot of Charity shops or uh betting shops or parts there a lot of clothes shops I’m trying to take over so i’ I’ve open one place I’m trying to open two more so I’m trying to revitalize it and I’m trying to make
Bedford like the Bitcoin Hub of Europe right because if I do that then it it will Revitalize the it we’ve just had the announcement that we’re getting a Universal Studios in Bedford which is utterly insane what is that yeah it doesn’t make any sense what is that like
Universal Studios have bought 500 Acres on what so they’re building a theme park Yes W they picked Bedford they didn’t pick London Manchester Le incredible they went Bedford that’s incredible the only thing the only reason I think it might have happened is we’ve got the right near our football ground literally
Five minutes we’ve got two air uh air blimps you know the blimps the airships air hangers old hangers they’re the largest indoor structure in the UK Batman was filmed there wow yeah because they built Gotham City in there so when you watch Batman that’s that’s in Bedford 50 minutes from my house let’s
Go bford yeah so uh so I think that might be the connection but the town is definitely just doing this shift now it’s on the map everyone is backing us apart from our next door neighbors bever toown football club they hate us because they’ve had the Monopoly for you know
Decades they literally hate us they’re doing everything to uh cause US problems I don’t know who those guys are they’re not on any podcast I don’t know who those guys are but yeah no look the whole thing’s just working it’s really really interesting and we’ve seen now um
Like what there’s um there’s four teams now yeah like in the Czech Republic maybe or Bulgaria Bulgaria yeah Bulgaria is the one I’m thinking Hawaii and Austria I think people are realizing that there’s a global movement in favor of Bitcoin hundreds of millions of people love Bitcoin around the world and
They also like football Y and and wasabi have just sponsored another club coin Corner was sponsoring oxa City like this cheat code is spreading through Football let’s talk about cheat code yes sir it is a cheat code yes um that you’ve unlocked and it’s working and we’re like
As I said I mean I what do we care in New York about you know north of London football clubs well we care a lot turns out um but you have a conference yes called cheat code yes it’s what in April yes so we did we did it last year but
What we did it was like a live podcast like this 150 people sold out sold out on the final week and then everybody we took them to the game uh and everyone had a great time Jeff Booth loved it I mean he had a great time everyone just
Had such a good time and so going around to these conferences uh it’s come it’s become really clear to me what works and what doesn’t right um and so we decided we would want we wanted to do another one and the things that stand out to me
About conferences is that if you’re in Industry you want to see your mates hang out and get drunk if you’re not in Industry you want to see the people you see on podcasts get a photo uh everyone cares about the first day of the conference second day is always a
Disaster because people hung over and don’t turn up and the room’s half empty and then you always have like this weird expo hall where it’s like youve sold like space loads of like shitty companies because you need to bring the money in right and so like we flipped it
We’re go okay we’re going to change the economics of this and the the way it’s going to function we’re going to have it two days but the first day is the conference where everyone’s like ready and fresh yeah I’m up for excited to be there yeah yes do it and then second day
There’s no point because no one cares starts in the afternoon yeah we’re g to well no still starts in the morning but what we’re going to do is we’re going to get a bunch of buses we’re going to bust everyone down to our Stadium we’re going
To have a barbecue Marquee a party and a football match sick and I swear I swear to you everyone’s going to go this was brilliant they all love it I’m excited yeah it’s I it will work it’s a it’s we’re flipping the conference on its head we’re not having an expo hall five
Basically if we sell 300 tickets and five sponsors we we don’t lose money if we sell 500 tickets and three sponsors we don’t lose money if we sell both we make a little bit of money right we don’t need it’s this for me Isn’t about making money um it’s not worth the
Effort and stress even even if you make a 100,000 profit it’s not worth the effort and stress but What It’s Worth to me is Bedford again on the map economic inflow into Bedford like two3 million pound recognition from the local Council oh somebody’s doing something here we
Should support them right and then great for the football club that I think once you go you you really you really get it because when you go you realize I mean our ground is a [ __ ] hole it is a crappy little ground uh with a porter cabin for
A bar but you get there and you see everyone has fun it’s a really good day out and you you feel what’s being built there is a community being built here and so for me it’s sometimes you do things in life not for the money for the
For the for the goal and that’s what we’re doing for the goal it’s a longer term play yeah no don’t get me wrong like if we can make this a regular every year and it sudden there’s a thousand people coming in and we do you know we
Will do cheat code Australia and maybe uh and America if we can do that have maybe three and rotate them each to a thousand people it’s it’s a revenue line and it’s worth it for sure but the one right now is really like you know a lot
Of my attention is now focused on my town yeah you know this what can I do to rejuvenate Bedford make it a better place uh improve opportunity for people there with there’s little things like we have a £12,000 a year budget within the football team so that any kid boy or
Girl if their parents cannot afford a pair of football boots they can’t afford the subs we will pay it for them so no kid so every kid who wants to play football can yeah that’s a small start we’re opening a a rail bed for shop and
Cafe in in the town that’s the start you know my my dream is I want to build a stadium in that Stadium we have a co-working space we have uh classrooms to teach people at economics and finance we have a football Academy so kids who
Want to uh who because at the moment if you’re a good footballer you get a Milton Kings Cambridge stevenage and go and play for one of the big clubs we want to keep them in Bedford so my dream is is that I can centralize this all around Bedford with Bitcoin as the cheat
Code it’s brilliant and it’s also let me ask you before WAP too about like uh the Bitcoin third places right we’re in New York we have pubkey there’s Bitcoin Park in Nashville there’s Bitcoin Commons and in Austin um there’s one in Lisbon um La needs one yeah there’s Bedford in the UK
Yeah la does need one uh somebody was saying actually on Twitter they said uh um we need a Bitcoin we need a pub key in Austin I was like you absolutely do I said um woke is uh hosting a Bitcoin meet up at a bar bespoke is buying the
Bar and making every day a Bitcoin meet up there you go but Bedford is also one of these things uh uh uh now uh what I don’t we call I call I like the third place thing right spes yeah but what I I I think of them as pilgrimages right
Yeah um a lot of people made their you really can’t be a bitcoiner and have not gone to pubkey in New York at this point and if you if you go to well look let me go back a step when I first did the podcast right first couple of years in
What used to be very Co is I would go to a city I could be in I don’t know Nashville or I could be in San Diego and say I’m in town who wants a beer go to a pub 20 people will turn up bitcoiners want to hang with bitcoiners yeah they
Do bunch of weirdos we’re all psychos want to hang out together now what people have done is they’ve monetized that by creating these these spaces and and it’s very cool but they it becomes a destination and it becomes a magnet and it becomes a pilgrimage yeah so if I’m
In New York Pub Key is a magnet but actually when we’re planning a trip uh you know we’re here now we’re going to Nashville those two places are magnets they draw Us in Bedford El Salvador they’re they’re pilgrimages I think of that as like most bitcoiners eventually
Want to go to elante and see what that is about some want to come to Bedford and watch roal Bedford and it happens so this is only going to expand yeah you know and again it’s kind of like a cheat code again the cheat Thomas has a bar right yeah if
There’s no Bitcoin that bar probably does okay but that extra 10 20% because of Bitcoin that makes the difference and I think there needs to be a lot more people not thinking about just making Bitcoin businesses making normal businesses part Bitcoin because that extra 10 20% means makes it means you’re
Going to do that little bit better MH you know if you got a hotel in Berlin we accept Bitcoin yes that’s extra 10% of people coming in so yes it’s just the cheat code love it uh my friend Peter McCormack host of what Bitcoin did Chairman of real Bedford FC thank you so
Much Pete for coming on Galaxy brins thank you man appreciate you that’s it for this week’s episode of Galaxy brins thanks to Our Guest Peter McCormack uh from what Bitcoin dead and our friend Danny nolles from what Bitcoin did too to help make that happen and our friend
Bimet abibe from Galaxy trading as always um I loved this episode again I’m a huge fan of Pete’s podcast check out real Bedford FC my favorite football club in the world and we’ll catch you next week on Galaxy brins thanks for listening to Galaxy brains the weekly podcast from Galaxy
Research if you enjoy the show please like rate review And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to follow Galaxy research sign up for our Weekly Newsletter at gdr doil read our content at galaxy.com resesarch and follow us on Twitter at glxy resarch see you next week
1 Comment
If your going to wear a black hoodie, i suggest Head & Shoulders.