Exclusive Interview With Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Full Special)

With us now and exclusive from the iConnections conference in Miami Beach is Adam Back. He's a co-founder and CEO of Blockstream and known for inventing Hashcash, the system that became the foundation for Bitcoin mining. Adam, great to have you with us. Thanks for having me on. I want to get your take on what's going on with Bitcoin. It seems like all the right things are happening for the Bitcoin story in terms of the legislative sort of arena, regulatory environment seems good for Bitcoin. The investment case is good for Bitcoin in terms of institutional investors coming in. There are all sorts of products tied to Bitcoin. Why is it down so much? Well, I mean, I think the markets generally have been off based on geopolitical uncertainty and news flow about tariffs and things like that. So Bitcoin has followed that. I think in a short term, Bitcoin follows along. In the long term, it's decorrelated, basically. So I think it's a longer term view. Blockstream is a treasury company, correct? BSTR, Bitcoin Standard Treasury, is a treasury company. Coming up for SPAC approval, we estimate about April. And depending on where the Bitcoin price is, if it holds at this level, that's actually to our advantage because we go out with a lower reference price and are able to buy more Bitcoin, making our way up the ranks, probably number three in the global ranks of Bitcoin treasury companies by holdings. Why do you think the role is of the Bitcoin treasury companies in sort of the burgeoning area in terms of how many have come onto the market recently and the decline in Bitcoin prices? Is there any correlation? It seems like that element of the story is a little bit different in terms of decline that we're seeing this time around. No, I mean, I think they are generally supportive for the Bitcoin price because for the most part, they try to hold, buy and accumulate as MicroStrategy started some years ago now. And so they're effectively taking Bitcoin off the market. They're generally able to do that in more bullish environments faster. But, you know, even today, they're buying Bitcoin. But even with all these treasury companies buying Bitcoin, you have these holders that should theoretically provide much more of a floor. Do you think that it does provide more of a floor for Bitcoin as we see prices decline? I mean, I think Bitcoin tends to be a little weak to the downside because many of the retail investors end up being all in, and so they don't have a lot of capital to buy Bitcoin. Whereas if you look at public company stocks or big mutual funds, looking at analyst reports, if they see the price of something come down, you know, they might sell some Microsoft and buy some Tesla if they think Tesla is cheaper at a given level. With Bitcoin, most of the investors are all in, so they don't have that ability to sell something else to reallocate. With more institutional investors coming in, I think you see more of that reallocation between other asset classes, but it also can bring with it some correlation short term. There's also the new element of being able to bet on the direction of Bitcoin in many different ways, whether it be in the futures market or now the predictions markets. I mean, on PolyMarket, you could bet on the direction of Bitcoin in every five minutes. And I'm wondering if that you think plays a role in terms of sapping away that retail, even the incremental retail trade away from actual Bitcoin to other sort of devices and instruments. I mean, there has been some discussion about so-called paper Bitcoin in derivatives, but I think it's mostly arbitraged out so that there's very little effects from paper in Bitcoin. Like in gold, there's a lot of synthetic gold. In Bitcoin, it's either physical or it's side contracts. And there's very few people that are long term short Bitcoin. So most of the Bitcoin that's margin long in CME futures, there are people doing basis trades who are buying physical Bitcoin to hedge. So I think it mostly offsets actually.