00:00So I want to bring in now David Marcus. He is a former president of PayPal, a senior former senior executive at Meta as well.
00:06Currently the CEO and co-founder of the payments platform LightSpark. And David says he is still bullish on Bitcoin.
00:13So, David, let me start there on the price action that we've been seeing.
00:16Crypto has had this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 2026 ever since the events of October 10th.
00:22What do you chalk up this weakness to, this volatility to?
00:25Well, I think there's a lot of structural pressure on Bitcoin that's been happening after 10-10.
00:34And I think your guests on the show have spoken at length about this.
00:40And I think, you know, it's just a change of who's holding Bitcoin.
00:44And you're moving from people who had long-term belief and were holding Bitcoin directly to just access to Bitcoin being wired up to our financial system and markets in ways that didn't happen before.
00:58So the combination of what happened on 10-10 plus the mixed shift change of who's holding changes the dynamic of price action.
01:08But I think, look, at the end of the day, as far as Bitcoin is concerned, this is not, you know, a short-term market play.
01:17You have to have long-term belief and vision of, you know, what it does in terms of an edge to everything else that's happening on the market.
01:26And I think that for those people who have that long-term belief, they'll be fine.
01:30So I want to talk to you about your view of Bitcoin's role, because one thing that we've been discussing since last week is sort of this, you know, what critics call an identity crisis for the cryptocurrency.
01:43And we didn't see it really as a safe haven, you know, with the debasement trade.
01:48We saw gold actually move higher last year and this year, David.
01:53But Bitcoin didn't perform like, you know, quote-unquote digital gold.
01:57What is the use case for it?
01:59I mean, look, I think the problem is if you're looking at it in timeframes that are fairly short, then you'll have moments where it does that.
02:08But, like, I think that over the very long run, if you're holding Bitcoin for, say, the next 10 years, you'll probably do better than holding almost any other asset for the purpose of actually being a hedge to, like, everything else that's happening and debasement and money printing and all these things.
02:27And I still stand by that.
02:29I think that in short periods of time, you'll see volatility and all kinds of different things playing into the price.
02:35In the long run, I think we'll all be better off holding Bitcoin versus any other asset, frankly.
02:39What I found interesting about what you said regarding the holders of Bitcoin now is kind of how it's now institutional investors.
02:46It's kind of like the financialization of Bitcoin.
02:49And that brings me to something else that you've written about lately, which is PayPal, the company that you were formerly affiliated with.
02:56You shared your thoughts on the company some 12 years after you left.
02:59Obviously, there was some frustration there.
03:01We talked about how over time the company had every advantage and could have become the most consequential and relevant payments company of our time.
03:09But it lost its mojo, its product edge, its ability to compete in a market that's being rewired and reinvented in front of our eyes.
03:17I guess the question here is, can it be fixed?
03:20And is blockchain, is crypto realist the way to do that?
03:26Well, it's definitely one of the ways to do that.
03:28I think the company still has formidable assets.
03:32But I think there's not a lot of time to actually fix whatever is left there.
03:38And yes, you sense frustration because there was a tremendous amount and there is a tremendous amount of frustration because this was kind of a crown jewel of this whole industry and clearly mismanaged for way too long.
03:52So, look, I think there's still a way to save the company, so to speak.
03:58I think Venmo is a phenomenal asset.
04:00I think branded checkout is a phenomenal asset.
04:02I think they have better data than almost anyone else to underwrite credit better and change the funding mix of transactions for e-commerce.
04:12But, look, the displacement has happened at a very large scale.
04:16Like, you know, think about, like, the last time you used PayPal to pay for something on your mobile phone versus Apple Pay or ShopPay, for that matter.
04:24And you'd be hard-pressed to remember that, that it used to be that, like, everyone used to pay with PayPal.
04:31So I think, you know, share of checkout, getting back in those checkout flows, using new rails like, you know, blockchains, stable coins, and others to actually expand globally definitely are all part of the solution here.
04:44Should it be broken up in any way?
04:46Should they start to shed assets in your view, David?
04:49I mean, I don't know.
04:51I feel like there are definitely, like, bad assets in there.
04:54You know, I named a few in the post.
04:56I think, you know, acquisitions that didn't really make sense for the company.
05:00But is that going to move the needle if you're trying to focus on what matters or not?
05:05You know, maybe at a marginal level, but it's just not going to affect the change you want.
05:11You really have to, you know, really blow up the way that they operate in a pretty profound way, I think.
05:17Does all of this present an opportunity for LightSpark, your company that you have now?
05:22Well, I think it presents an opportunity for a lot of the companies and clients that are using LightSpark for money movement globally to enable businesses to accept payments from anywhere in the world in real time, 24-7.
05:36And, you know, we have lots of clients that are actually eating into market share of PayPal right now, leveraging our network and our capabilities of global money movement.
05:47So it's indirectly an opportunity for us that newer players leveraging newer rails and newer capabilities are actually eating into PayPal's market share.
05:57I want to ask you about your move to support President Trump.
06:00In July 2024, you posted something on X saying that you're crossing the Rubicon and backing the Republican Party and President Trump,
06:07saying that you believe we need a president who is unequivocally pro-America, pro-Constitution.
06:11And you've cited Bitcoin and crypto in there more than a year into his term.
06:16Do you believe President Trump has delivered on the things you were looking for from him as a pro-crypto president?
06:22Well, I mean, it definitely beat the alternative by a long, long margin.
06:27I think that, you know, if you look at where we were under the Biden administration where you literally had a government that was trying to kill an entire industry and actively kill an entire industry
06:39to a government and administration that is setting up the rules of the road for crypto, for stable coins, for digital assets to actually be innovated on in America instead of abroad.
06:55I think the outcome is really clear and we're much better off.
07:01And I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the industry that feels differently.
07:06Should the U.S. government buy Bitcoin?
07:09There's been some discussion lately about back at the Reserve.
07:12The Reserve right now is just seized assets.
07:16Should the U.S. actually spend taxpayer money to buy assets?
07:20No, I don't think it should spend taxpayer money to buy assets.
07:23I think rotating off other assets into Bitcoin in a very cautious way and slow, slowly, I think potentially makes sense.
07:33But I mean, like gold, like selling gold to buy Bitcoin.
07:36I mean, Bitcoin is so much better than gold.
07:38Come on.
07:39Like, it's like it's a no brainer.
07:40But like I do think that we need to be cautious about this, because if a government actually buys into Bitcoin at a very large scale and then you have another administration that comes in and changes their minds, long term, it could have like very negative impact on Bitcoin.
07:57So that's why I'm saying the government should potentially rotate a very, very tiny slice of its gold reserves into Bitcoin reserves, but do it very slowly and deliberately and not like rush into it.
08:11I think, you know, that that would be my preference, you know, or don't do it at all.
08:16But but I think, you know, being too bold here might fire back long term.
08:21David, don't be a stranger.
08:23Come join us again soon.
08:25Appreciate it.
08:25Light sparks.
08:26David.
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