Hello, everybody. Welcome to NFA Live, and I'm joined as always with a bad throat and a guy from Coin Bureau and Ben from the Cryptiverse. Gentlemen, welcome back to episode number 32. Congratulations. We made it this far. Hey, how about that? Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. How about that? I got to tell you, last week we had Jessica on the show. That lady has a wealth of knowledge and the stories that she told us about being in the same room with the President of Malta and CZ Binance back in the day. I'm like, this lady's got a lot of information to put out. So thank you, Jessica, for coming on, and then maybe depending on what happens with me next week in Korea, you might be back again. So today, everybody, we've got a couple of different things to go over. It should be pretty light considering, but of course, if you haven't already subscribed, Ben's channel into the Cryptiverse is doing pretty well. I got to tell you. And then the latest video on Job Support was pretty interesting. And then the dubious speculation, 77K view. And of course, if you're looking for this thing called Bitcoin Dominance, he just did one eight days ago. Pretty good stuff. And of course, guys on his regular channel. And then this is one of my favorite shows to watch, actually, the live stream. It's like Regis and Kelly Lee. It's you and Jessica going back and forth. And I must say, if you haven't checked out into the Cryptiverse, the actual website, there's this thing called Social Metrics of all the different metrics. And I think Guy and Ben are keeping the YouTube views up to the 0.2 level as time has gone on. So congratulations, everybody. You guys are going to stop making videos then you got it. Yeah, let it all just crash and die. Come on.  So let's get into it. Magic level of 0.2. Exactly. So here's the questions we got today. So we're looking at the good news. And there was some pretty good news recently, right?  And Gary looks like he is on the ropes. We just had the win with Ripple about a month ago, and Graysco came out. And that was pretty huge news. The SEC loses two different cases back to back. And the market did not too much. Let's just be honest. We saw a big pump for a day and then it retraced, which is kind of interesting because it didn't do that with the Ripple decision. So I just want to get your feedback on what do you think this is. And then the second one is since the news, this news didn't push in the promised land, we've got three spot ETFs that are coming up for approval next week. So let's say that one of those gets approved. Is this going to move the needle? We're just going to be just another like pump and retracement again, as we just saw with the SEC. And then the third question I want to ask you is we're on the precipice of a bull run. We got to get to this junk right now, but it's going to come. Bear runs don't last forever and bull runs are inevitable. But if I gave you $10,000, which I think would be like $64 billion pepe coin. If I gave you $10,000 to invest today, what would you invest in? And then when would you invest into it? And of course, you can take your time with that. And of course, the last question I want to ask you is the next bull run, what do you actually miss besides the obvious of the debauchery and your portfolio going up tens of thousands of percentage. So first things first, this good news guy, let's start with you. It's a weird thing because we just had this this great stuff and there was like a pump and a retracement and just couldn't really didn't do too much. So give us your thoughts on why this is because I know you've been covering a lot of the macro factors. You did a great video on Jackson Hole and Jay Powell, where you actually sounded like like cowboy. And yeah, it was like I was just going down in Lubbock, Texas. It was great. So what do you think what happened here? Yeah. Yeah, apologies to everyone who had to had to endure that opening to the Jackson Hole video. I just wanted to sort of call back to those those intros we used to do on the channel way back when back in the last bull market. And yeah, so obviously, yeah, I mean, obviously, this was this was great news from grayscale. It opens the door to it opens the door, I think a little bit more to these ETFs. I think there were some wise heads on Twitter and elsewhere yesterday, or in the wake of the news, you know, in the last couple of days, sort of saying, yes, this is good, but it doesn't automatically mean that GBTC is going to convert into an ETF. It doesn't automatically mean that all these other ETF applications are going to get waved through all of a sudden. But what I think it does is certainly make that a lot more likely and looking at the statistics. I think it was Bloomberg had some statistics about it. I think I think there's a sort of 75% consensus now, isn't it that that one will get one at least will get approved by the end of this year. And I think a 95% consensus by the end of next year. So I mean, you know, they're they're a maker that make it that what you will it sounds certainly positive. But I mean, we just don't know do we just don't know. And I think this being the SEC, they may well still have something up their sleeve in that regard. So I'm cautiously optimistic. I think this is this has moved us on ever so slightly. But I mean, let's face it, a lot of the same a lot of the same things apply that apply or most of the same things applied that applied before the grayscale ruling came through. We are not going to have a bull run, we're not going to have a bull market without new buyers. And I don't think grayscale recording a good win against the SEC, I don't think that is going to be enough to alter the outlook of anyone who's who's not already invested in crypto. So I don't think this is, I don't think this alone is going to be is going to be a catalyst to attracting new buyers into the market. And then of course, yeah, you referenced Jackson Hole, Rob obviously Jerome was kind of hawkish there wasn't he didn't he said rates are likely to remain where they are and he left the door open to further rate hikes down the line if necessary. So we can't rule that out either. And you know, these long term rates, I think especially are the ones that we the ones that we need to keep an eye on these seem to be hurting the markets the most these days. So yeah, it was great news. It moves us on a little bit further. It's it seems like a game of snakes and ladders we've just we've just gone up a ladder here. But we're not we're not at the end yet. And there are plenty of snakes kind of waiting to waiting to take us lower. And before I before I shut up and before I let before we get Ben's perspective, I think one of the things that sticks out to me at the moment in terms of the overall landscape and this doesn't just apply to crypto I think this applies to you know the macro picture as well. There just seems to be a lot of uncertainty around at the moment.  And I think there's a sense to me that people are very much kind of waiting on the sidelines waiting to see what's going to happen how the how these next few months are going to play out. Obviously, we've had that we should be coming out of that kind of, you know, summer slump where everyone kind of goes away and forgets about it. Mind you, you know, as we've as I think you guys discussed maybe last week or the week before, September is historically kind of red for crypto. So there is that to consider. But it brings me back to something Simon Dixon was saying where he said, you know, we are living through these some of the most interesting economic times in living memory really. And I just wonder how much that is weighing on the psyche of investors everywhere, you know, and I think I think that translates into uncertainty, which is not good for markets and not the sort of thing that we that we can have if we want to if we want to a bull market. Perfect. And you know what? So everybody, if you want to watch that video, there's Guy in all his glory looks again, looks like he's right out of Texas. But he also talked, it wasn't just Jerome Powell, he also had Lagarde, and you talked about what her response was. And it was kind of like a behind the scenes type of thing. It was very interesting. But you know what you just said, I think I'm going to bring this over to Ben, because then you talk a lot about liquidity. And then what Guy just said about the sentiment, is there enough liquidity in this market to make this happen? Because we just saw one of the lowest time points for over a year now of the amount of liquidity in the interest and it's kind of falling off a cliff. So is that the case? It's not the sentiment. It is not the news. It is the liquidity and the amount of moving volume. What do you got for us? Yeah, I mean, first of all, the, you know, the news in and of itself, I think is is relatively good news over over the long haul, sort of affirmation that there is a future for crypto and then for Bitcoin, you know, just in the United States, which, you know, I think earlier this year, it seemed like everything was against Bitcoin and crypto in general. But it seems like, you know, a lot of court cases have actually been going against the SEC, which was definitely a different sentiment at the beginning of the year. Like at the beginning of the year, it was more so like, you know, the SEC never loses type mentality, right? But now, I mean, it seems like they're actually pretty good at losing court cases. So in the short term, though, I don't really think this stuff makes a whole lot of a difference. I still think that, yeah, like liquidity, the macro headwinds are more likely going to to sort of temper expectations, I think, at least for the rest of this year. My expectations are that, you know, maybe, maybe we'll see that liquidity come back in maybe like mid 2024 or something like that, which could be also in line with just shifting with the Fed shifting back to quantitative easing and perhaps lowering interest rates. But, you know, with inflation where it is, and which, by the way, I mean, we should be getting some more inflation numbers relatively soon. But with inflation where it is and the unemployment rate where it is, the Fed, they have to stay hawkish, right? I mean, they're more or less forced to until the labor market starts to soften up, then they don't really have much of a choice. I will say, you know, if you look at the chart, I don't know if you can see my screen, but we had a very similar type move with XRP a month ago or so.  So where the news came out, that move was entirely faded. So then today, with Bitcoin, right, we have this massive move up. Again, for Bitcoin, it doesn't move up as much because the market cap is a lot higher. It takes a lot more, you know, liquidity to move the market. But you could almost argue that it looks, it still actually looks very similar to XRP, right, where you get that, you get that first day pullback, then sort of a second day. And then if it does follow what XRP did, it could come back up, you know, to sort of sweep these highs or maybe put in a slightly lower high, maybe perhaps around that 20 week moving average, right? As it sort of rolls over. I think that, you know, in 2019, we had a very similar move where after going below the 20 week SMA, we then went back up to sort of back test it. As you can see right here, we sort of went back up to back test it. I don't remember what the narrative was associated with that move up, but I guarantee there was one, right? Just like, you know, in four years, no one's going to remember, you know, why this candle was here. But it could easily just sort of mimic what happened back over here in 2019, where, you know, you do get these positive news events and it can lead to higher prices for a short period of time. But it doesn't mean that it will be sustained. Remember, we talked about how in Q3, stocks normally get a correction and it knocks Bitcoin off the 20 week. And that if the SMP bounces off its 20 week, which it has, it could lead to Bitcoin backtesting its own 20 week. Just like when Bitcoin bounced off its 20 week, it led to total three sort of backtesting its own 20 week, right? So you go further up the risk curve and these things show weakness, you know, the assets show weakness sooner. So I kind of think we're in that. And I suppose one level to watch for, you know, potential invalidation of this idea is the one thing about 2019, I talked about this a little bit before. Once we fell below the 20 week, we did not get a single daily close above the 100 day until the having year. Okay. So, right. So like after we had this massive drop below the 20 week, let me just remove it, right? But you can see where it happened. It happened right here in September. Every single daily close for the rest of the year was below the 100 day moving average. And we didn't get back above it until the having year, right? So I would be looking to that. I mean, if that plays out in the same way, so the one under day is around 28.5K. So if we don't get daily closes above that, then it could just simply be sort of a, just the same thing we saw back in 2019. And I mean, you can see how there's still some wiggle room here. It's all the way up at 28.5. It would leave room for Bitcoin to sweep the highs again if it wants to. But I think, Rob, I think you're right in the sense that liquidity I think is ultimately going to be more important. It doesn't mean that these things aren't wins for crypto. I mean, I think they are, but there was plenty of bad news. There's plenty of bad news for crypto during these moves higher, like tons of bad news. People didn't care. Just like sometimes we can go lower on good news, right? So yeah, I would be looking for within a month, I wouldn't be that surprised if Bitcoin sort of pulls an XRP and completely retraces all of these gains. And do note that it could come back up and sweep the highs before it does that. Yeah. I think, and just like what, well, I'll marry between what you guys both said. So everything is being tested for what you talked about in the charts. And then the sentiment is just not, the sentiment is there. We like the wins and it's great, but it's just not good enough because I think everybody's waiting for this mythical shoe to drop at some point. Everybody's worried about a recession. Everybody's worried about what's going to happen in China and Evergrande and their appending collapse. And everybody's worried about Ukraine and what's going to happen with Russia. And everybody's worried about, there's so many things that different worry about. So it's kind of like the investors like, which way are things going to go? And they're waiting for some type of indicator to give them a sign. And I don't think like right now, like in 2021, when we had any good news and that monstrous bullish year, it would just catapult everything. So bullish news or great news right now only gets us so far. And then there's a retracement. So I know people are like, this is it. This is the big one. I don't know if you ever have been on Twitter. Let me tell you, crypto Twitter has an amazing ability to blow things out of proportion. It's awesome. You guys should check it out. So there is that liquidity. Who knows? And if we're going to talk about this, let's just go full force. So we're looking at the actual ETFs. Now, since this news didn't push us forward, right? And it could be liquidity, it could be sentiment, all this stuff. But we got three spot ETFs that are up for approval, actually this week, and yeah, up to tomorrow. And I think even Saturday. So let's say they do get approved. So even though the sentiment is weak and people are like, well, we're looking for an indicator, even though it's not that liquidity, could this be the deciding factor of where we start to go? I got to tell you me personally, I think we have a long way to go until 2024. But here is that list of those ETFs that are pending. And it looks like this. And this is no small change. Look, ARC already got furloughed. They're June, they're August, then they're third, which I always think this is funny. They have deadlines, but they're like a first or second or third deadline. It's like we're playing with kids or something. Here's your third deadline. But then you got BlackRock, theirs is coming up. September 2nd, Bitwise, VanEck, Wisdomtree, and Best Go Wise, and everybody else. September 2nd, which I believe is Saturday. It's kind of weird. But then September 4th, there's Valkyrie. So I'll just start again with Ben. What do you think we're here for? Is this going to, if it does get approved? Let's just say it, let's just go crazy. Let's just say one of these gets approved. Would this change the whole narrative? Could we move forward? Or does it really not matter because the liquidity is not there anyhow? So I mean, I do think it would bring some liquidity into the space. I mean, there are people out there that don't buy Bitcoin because they don't want to deal with dealing with the private keys, right? So like having a spot ETF in the United States, I'm sure would open up the doors for some people to get into the market. But with that said, again, I don't necessarily think it would overpower any of the immediate macro headwinds. But there's a path that I could sort of see this take. So do you remember last cycle, and maybe you can show my screen again, but do you remember last cycle when we got into the halving year? And what happened in the halving year was that we saw Bitcoin rally up, so it rallied sort of pre halving. And then in March, everything rolled over and we went and put in our sort of our final low before we really went on our real bull market. I kind of wonder if, because markets do like to sort of rally into a recession. And again, I don't really think we're in a recession now. I could certainly see one coming at the end of the business cycle. But wouldn't it be interesting if like the spot ETF gets approved, let's say the end of the year or early next year, we rally on it because it's a game changer, and then the unemployment rate spikes up in Q1 or Q2, we get a sell off to sort of mark the end of the secondary scare, and then we go up, right? So like, I do think that a spot ETF will bring more liquidity into the space, but we still need to get the Fed back on the side of markets for it to have a lasting impact, I think. So just over here, right? Bitcoin rallied and people were loving it, right? The halving was coming up, everyone was excited, and then recession hit, right?  So I was wondering something like that would play out where you get the spot ETF approval at some time, like let's say late this year, early next year, we rally on the news, recession hits, Fed pivots back to QE, and then we go up almost exactly like we did last cycle. It's just something I've thought about, because I keep looking at this chart, and I remind myself that you typically rally into a recession, is what we saw last cycle, you rally into the recession, and then you sort of find your low, and this low, by the way, is sort of dependent on the Fed. How aggressive are they going to be? I mean, back in March of 2020, they came to the rescue immediately, right? And they just turned the money printer on and said, all right, let's put a band-aid on this and deal with our problems in two years. I don't think they're going to be as quick to pivot this time. But who knows? With enough pressure, with enough political pressure, maybe they would. I don't really know. And also, I think at this point, they have no reason to pivot, because the S&P is near its all-time highs, and inflation is high. But let's imagine eight months from now, what if inflation is at 2% or trending to 2% and what if the unemployment rate is at 5%. Then there's going to be a lot of pressure for them to pivot their stance, especially in an election year, because the people that are in power are going to want to remain in power, so they don't want to just watch the whole economy crumble while the Fed just pushes us deep into our recession. So I do wonder if we could see something like that play out. So I think to answer your question, I think it would bring liquidity into the space. It would bring some liquidity into the space. I don't think that liquidity, even in and of itself, would be sufficient to push Bitcoin to new highs. You also need to get the Fed back on the side of risk assets in general. And that's probably not going to happen until mid to late 2024. It could happen sooner if we have a massive windfall event or something, but people go crazy trying to predict massive congratulations. They hardly ever happen. So when they do happen, the Fed is quick to respond. So that's more or less my view. That's a pretty good view. My favorite thing is you talked about the predictions that people go crazy. Just do what everybody else does, which is just predict doom and gloom for 10, 20 years, like Peter Schiff. And then just kind of go with that. And then when it hits, you're like, see, I told you, but yeah, it only took you 11 years. But just to piggyback on what you said about the only that dark horse is the presidential election. And when you talk about, like, it's amazing how Satoshi just kind of lined everything up if he did or didn't want to do this exactly. But these four-year cycles go right perfectly lockstep and tandem with our presidential election. And people during those years in 2020, 2024, 2016, the market does not like ambiguity. And when they see something like that, they get a little bit shaky. But then towards the next year, it's like we rally. So if we see it in 2020, I think it's just guy and help me with this one. I think it's kind of lining up perfectly.  And then we'll have the Bitcoin having an April, what a 16th or whatever people talk about. And then we go into 2025. Would that be it, even though we have ETFs on the horizon? Or what do you think with this one? I think that's a pretty realistic scenario. I think that could well play out. Talking of things lining up, I think if you've got that chart handy again of the ETF approvals and the deadlines, I think if I was talking about this yesterday as well, but just looking ahead to the final deadline, the final, final deadline, they all seem to, all those final deadlines are sort of coming up in Q1 of 2024, nicely before the halving, which I think is quite interesting. So make it that what you will if there is anything to be made of it. But yeah, okay. Let's think about what your hypothetical scenario, this idea that some of these ETFs get approved this week or next in the very near future, what that could possibly mean. And I agree with Ben to an extent. I think there would definitely be people who would be interested in investing in those. But I still think these ETFs at the moment, they're going to be more about giving the means to invest in Bitcoin, but without necessarily very much of the incentive. And that kind of goes back to what we were discussing a little earlier on. And what Ben quite rightly said about, we need the Fed on side for any sort of real pump to happen. And I was thinking, yeah, I was thinking sort of, there's a good analog to this to be like, we were getting or some of us were getting quite excited earlier this year about exchanges in Hong Kong, Hong Kong opening up to crypto, legalizing retail trading. We've seen exchanges there being given permission to provide services to retail crypto traders. And what's happened? What effect has it had on the market? Absolutely nothing. So I think that's a good, obviously Hong Kong is a different story to the US. ETF approvals would have a markedly more pronounced effect than anything happening in Hong Kong. But I still think it's a good sort of example in microcosm, if you like. We can't move forward until the Fed has, well, at the very least, pivoted, which Jerome has kind of indicated he's in no hurry to do. Well, until they've at very least paused, I should say. He hasn't even said they're going to pause yet. He hasn't confirmed that they're going to pause. So a pivot is still, I think, quite a way away. When you factor in what Ben and you were both saying about the presidential election, there's going to be so much pressure on the Fed. No one wants to be going into an election with people losing their jobs left, right and center. So yeah, what would some recent, some approvals in the very near future mean? I think we definitely see a pump. It would definitely be good for the markets. I think we definitely get a sense of euphoria. Crypto Twitter would go absolutely bananas, as it always does. Blow things out of all proportion. It'll be an absolutely insane place to be for a few days. And I think that pump, I don't necessarily think that would be a pump and then kind of pretty quickly back down to the level that we're at now, for instance. I think that could be a pump to take us up to a new level, maybe to around 30K perhaps. That's not a prediction. That's just a possible level that I think that sort of pump could take us to. And then I can quite easily see us staying there for quite a long period of time afterwards, not necessarily going back down because we would have these ETFs. There would be these vehicles for institutions and new retail investors to get a so-called, if you like, safe access to Bitcoin where they don't have to go to an exchange. They don't have to custody it themselves. So there would be that. But I'm not sure there would be the fundamentals in place to take us any higher than that new level. So I think it is a fairly big assumption that an ETF approval will suddenly result in massive inflows. And everyone who's been kind of waiting on the sidelines will go, ah, finally we can go in and invest in Bitcoin like we've always wanted to do. Obviously, institutions are the big ones. They're going to be the ones that really feed this pump, really feed any future bull market. I think a lot of them will be more interested in an ETF, but let's face it, if they were really that keen on getting indirect exposures to Bitcoin, there are already futures ETFs. Now I know those are very different, but still, institutions do still have these vehicles available. And if they were really that keen, then they could have used them. So I think, you know, to put it in a nutshell, I think if we saw an ETF approval tomorrow, for instance, I think we could definitely say, with fair confidence, that we'd completed a level of the game. Do you know what I mean? We'd level up onto the next level.  But we've still got many, many levels to go. And I think they probably get harder as you go along. I got it. Yeah. I think it's gonna get harder. You know what I'm just thinking about? Not this. I mean, so Guy just touched your point. As far as like pivoting, this is for the next meeting for the Fed in 20 September. The target rate, the current rate is 525 to 550, and no one thinks that they're gonna raise it as of now. And then we take a look at November. It's 50%. People think it's not gonna get raised. Look at December. People don't think they're gonna raise even then. In January, same thing in March of 2024, 40%. And then it just kind of keeps going. The only thing I can see here is that they think that right now that they're gonna pivot somewhere around May, maybe June, going back to 500 that mark. But just the thing that you talked about as far as like with BlackRock, it makes me think about one thing, which is people always tell me that, you know, like, there's this dark shadowy conspiracy going on behind the scenes. And maybe BlackRock is working with the SEC. I don't want to get in that. But I will tell you, though, if it was Larry Fink and BlackRock, do you think they'd want this to be approved right now as far as the ETF? Or maybe they think to themselves, you know what, in 2024, it might be actually a better time to do that. Because maybe we get a recession rolling and people figure it out. The price drops. We can get in more into it. And then the really, really smart people, the one that really want to invest, are going to get some really low Bitcoin, because people are going to say recession, it goes down, they buy into the into their ETF, then it rallies up. It's all speculation, but who knows. But what's not speculation is this. This will be the next one. I'm going to give you $10,000 today, guy. Or like I said, $50 billion Pepe coin. And if you had a chance to invest into a crypto project, what would it be? And when would you do it? And this will go for both of you. But I'll start with the guy, because he just left off. Okay. Can we just clarify, Rob? Is it a choice between $10,000 and $50 billion Pepe, or just the $10 billion? Yeah, yeah. I mean, whichever one you want. I have both. So, you know, I yell it in hard on Pepe. So whichever one you want. So let's just say like $10,000 and and stable. Okay. Sure. I'd rather have the dollars. Yeah. Yeah, it's that's that's a good question. And it got me thinking a lot about about timing to invest as well. Because obviously, you know, we say, I think we've always said on this on this show and elsewhere, trying to time the market is is is a fool's game, you know, you'll never you'll never do it or very few people manage it. And if they do, it's probably mostly luck as much luck as anything else. And so that's I thought a lot about that. But I'll get back to that in a moment. So I guess in terms of, you know, in terms of sort of maximum returns, as you say, I mean, I would be looking, I think the biggest returns are going to be in in projects that are either sort of still in development or or even yet to be developed. Or so I guess on that theory, you'd want to get into something sort of very early stage that's kind of that's kind of just come out.  And I don't want to I don't want to dwell too much on Pepe, because I think it probably gets more airtime than it deserves. But, you know, it is it has been a kind of fascinating thing to watch, especially in especially in the bear market. And the just, you know, just the power of the power of a meme, the power of something that people recognize, you know, no one is under any illusion that this thing has any fundamentals at all. I don't think I don't think anyone is, you know, and I don't I wonder how many people really considered themselves to be investing in Pepe when they did it. I mean, I think this was pure, this was pure speculation right from, you know, right from the word go, wasn't it? And it did get me, obviously, we had some there was some interesting news about Pepe earlier this week or last week, some of the developers, you know, three or four of the multi sig sent, you know, sent a whole sent half that sent $16 million or something worth of Pepe to exchanges and then started selling it. Basically, you know, pulled off this huge rug pull, which crashed the price of the token, obviously. And then I noticed, you know, at least, at least somewhat someone at least spent about half a million dollars buying the dip. And the cynic in me sort of thought maybe, maybe that's the time to buy, you know, maybe the time to buy is a shitcoin right after, right after half the developers just rug the project, you know, maybe that is how you call.  I want to clarify before I say a word more that I, this is none of this is financial advice, and I'm certainly not advocating that anyone invest in Pepe or any other meme coins for that matter. But it did, your question did kind of get me thinking, you know, the sort of the cynicism that seems to exist in the bear market now. So look, you know, people in terms of, I guess, let's move on to let's move on to when a good time to invest is because, you know, I don't know, I don't know what the, I don't know what asset is going to yield the most returns at the moment, you know, but like I say, I think it's probably something that's, that's relatively, relatively new and, you know, hasn't had much in the way of price discovery. But I think in terms of timing, you know, it comes down to the individual's case, I think, to the individual and their, I guess, their level of risk tolerance, because I mean, I think you could make a case perhaps that now is a time to invest in a particular project that you find interesting or that you think could have massive upside. If you are, you know, if you are prepared to potentially watch it go down by maybe, you know, maybe 80 or 90% and sit there in the red for however long it takes until the market as a whole picks up. Now, some people, some people are quite happy to do that, you know, D gens who have been in crypto for perhaps arguably too long, that's the sort of thing that's their bread and butter, they can deal with that. Other people I think can't and it's, I think it's very important for any, you know, every individual investor to consider their psyche, you know, consider how they would deal with potentially huge losses like that. And of course, consider their timeframe as well. How long have you got? Are you willing to kind of wait this out for months and maybe years for that return?  So that I think is the is the thing to be aware of in terms of timing. I would, I mean, I think there are sort of some other practical things that you can talk about. I mean, I remember Ben a couple of weeks ago said, you know, one of the things you should watch out for is if you're looking at an altcoin or, you know, something similar, you should look at it, we look for weakness in its BTC pair, which is, you know, I'm sure Ben can expand on that. But yeah, there's, I think a lot of it comes down to the individual, what you can, what you can stomach at times like this. Guy, I appreciate the of your, your unwavering perfection of keeping with the theme of not not financial advice by saying, look, it's all on you. This is you. But that was some amazing tap dancing. Now, before we go on to Ben, I give you 10,000 bucks today. Where are you putting it? And when are you putting it? You guy. Me? Where am I putting it and when? But I don't know. I don't know how long I could hold on to that $10,000 for. So I'd have to put it in, I guess I could put it in right now. Where would I put it in? But, but, but here's the thing. You don't have to, you could say, you know what, I'm waiting for this thing to happen, this indicator, this whatever, I'm waiting for the having or whatever. So it's not, it doesn't have to be now, it can be when and what? I think that 10, I think that 10K burning a hole in my pocket. No, I just, I just want to wait, then straight away.  I'm not in any particular hurry. I, I kind of feel that we, that we have maybe not another shoe to drop, but I think we can certainly go lower in this market. I'd like to see a few more things play out. So I'm not in any hurry. I think maybe, I could see myself going in before the end of the year, if, if things start to, I'd like to, I think perhaps there's something to be said for getting in kind of ahead of the halving. True, that is true. Yeah, I'm not in a massive rush. Would it be just, would it be just Bitcoin or be some alts? Just like Bitcoin Ethereum, because you're super conservative. We'd be like, you know what, Bitcoin only, or you know what, YOLO, here we go, Sheeban. That's what I've been, that's what I've been trying to say. That's what that was being, I've been getting out. I mean, at the moment, it would be BTC and ETH, because I think it's just, I think it's just the wise strategy. But look, yeah, I wouldn't rule alts out either, but I think we'd have to see, I think we'd have to see quite a bleed for me to spot a buying opportunity at the moment. Perfect. Speaking of bleeds, let's talk about the head bleeder in charge. Ben and Bitcoin Domins, what do you got? I don't know, man. I'd probably, so I'd probably, I mean, I think we're likely in the secondary scare right now that we talked about, like I don't think it's over yet, although there's possibility that it is, but I don't think it is. So I'd probably, I'd probably, and I'll tell you how I'd do it, I'd probably first and just bear with me for a minute. Okay, I'd probably first ladder CDs, three months, six months, nine months and 12 months, 2500 each. Okay. Come do one, one comes out in Q4, one in Q1, one in Q2, one in Q3. The one in Q4, if I were to put it in the market, which I probably would put some in, you know, I would just put it into Bitcoin. The one in Q1, I would, I would probably put it into Bitcoin and ETH. The one that comes due in Q2, I would probably put it into Bitcoin ETH and alts, but only the alt coins that have, have held their lows on their Bitcoin pairs. And then in Q3 next year, I would probably put it mostly into, into ETH and alts at that point, because you guys, you get further along the alt coins that have gotten wrecked the most for the last, you know, two and a half, three years on their Bitcoin pairs because they got wrecked so hard, then they can go up a lot after, after QE returns, you know, it's sort of like they, they close the gap. And, and so I think that's what I do. I would just ladder, ladder CDs for a year and then just take them out. And the first one that comes out, put it into the lower risk stuff. And then the further out you go, you put it in the higher risk stuff. But I would also say it would sort of come with some caveats of wanting to see the Bitcoin dominance higher before getting into the alt coin market, wanting to see the ether Bitcoin pair lower before getting into, into Ethereum. But there's also seasonality, right? I mean, the dominance of Bitcoin normally heads up in bear market years and in pre-habin years. But the reality, the truth of the, of it sort of extended out is that in the early stage of the halving year, Bitcoin, Bitcoin dominance normally goes down in the first, in the first few months of the halving year. And then it normally goes back up in the, in sort of the latter part of the halving year.  But, you know, by the time you get out into, into mid 2024, a lot of the alt coins that will bottom on their Bitcoin pairs, or that can bottom on their Bitcoin pairs, and they're not just macro bleeders, they should have done so, you know, by mid next year at the latest. So that's what, that's what I do. You guys, it was a great answer. I mean, keeping with, with the theme of the show, NFA, that was pretty good. And it was the most conservative answers I possibly could have gotten. So perfect. Let's, we're kind of going a little bit long on this one. So I want to get some questions. But last thing is, and this is just a general question, is the next bull run, what do you miss?  But you know what I also miss is the, how unboring it actually is, and how people are, are a lot more cordial to each other on in the chats, because everybody's making money, when everybody's losing money, or they're just grinding, it gets so depressing. And I know because I read the chats and I read the crypto Twitter, but what do you guys miss for the bull run anything besides the obvious? Ben, you can go or a guy doesn't matter. Well, I'm missing. Yeah, I mean, I guess just more general interest in crypto, I guess. I mean, you showed the social risk earlier. It's, it's actually putting in a new low for the cycle today, even today's a new low. So like the, the apathy that everyone feels is quantifiable, like it really is that no one cares. This is true. Yeah. Like it really is that just simply, you know, the just simply no one cares right now. And like if you actually, can you click on the social risk since you have it up? Social metrics? Yeah, the social, yeah, that, that, yeah. So like in 2018 and in 2019, when we got down to these levels, there was a big drop coming in both cases when, when the social risk started to reach these levels, there was one final drop to come. Like you can see it happened at the end of 2018, when the social risk got this low, and it also happened in 2020, when the social risk got low again. So that's what I'm looking for. Because again, markets tend to bottom on apathy. So if there is, you know, like say some type of windfall event, a secondary scare, if you will, that could mark the, that could be the end of it. Right. And I don't, again, I don't know if it's a lower low. I don't know if it's a double bottom or a higher low. And then we should be open to all three scenarios. And it's going to be, I think it's going to be just due to the Fed's reaction function and how quick they are to react to the falling market. But yeah, I'd like to see the social risk go back up because, and actually if you look at 2019, the social risk was going up even while Bitcoin USD was going down. So there was like, you could tell that people in 2019, so in 2019, you can see, yeah, like, so basically, I would want to see people coming back in, like at the end of 2019, social risk was going up and the Bitcoin was in a downtrend. And there was that social divergence to the upside, right? Like people were coming in, but price hasn't, hadn't reflected it yet. Now people are still leaving. And I think price hasn't reflected that yet. So I'm sort of just looking for the reverse to happen. I'd like to, the nice thing about the social risk going to these levels is that kind of like once you hit rock bottom, there's only one line, there's theoretically only one direction left to go, right? And that's the social risk to go back to the upside because that, you know, after two and a half years, right? So like we're almost two and a half years out from that April peak, which is arguably when the mania hit its most extreme. And that was when the dot com, that's how long the dot com crash lasted was was about two and a half years. So I think like, you know, after two and a half years, whoever is still here, probably not going anywhere, right? Like if you, if you're still here in crypto in October of this year, that will have been two and a half years from that April peak. If you're still here in October, you're probably going to make it, you know, through 2024 and through 2025. But I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most. Just, just seeing people come back into crypto rather than, rather than that leaving crypto, because it feels like we're fighting almost like a, like a hard battle where people were trying to get people more interested, but at the same time, like the macro headwinds are just not allowing for it. People are more concerned with how are they going to pay their mortgage, or how are they going to pay their student loans, or how are they going to pay this, and they are at all about investing in crypto, you know, but I think that'll change in 2024 and 2025. I mean, again, there could be hard times between now and then it will change in 2024 and 2025. And we'll start, we'll start seeing social interests return back to the cryptovers. Yeah. Yeah, well said. Guy, same thing. What do you miss about the good old days? Well, the good old days. Do you know what I'm, one of the things I miss particularly is my non-crypto friends texting me about crypto. Yeah. Remember that? I'm going, hey, Guy, so, Solana, what do you think? No, no, no, it usually starts like this, hey, Guy, sorry, I called you a loser and was making fun of you for all your choices in crypto, but now that it's going up and it's almost at an all-time high, what should I buy? I'm sure that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I've been ignoring you for so long, but you're still in crypto, right? You're still doing that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What should I buy? Yeah, I do miss that. I'll complain about it at the time and go, oh, my WhatsApp is just full of people ask me about crypto, but secretly I'll be loving it. So I miss feeling, I miss feeling quite smug. I'm looking forward to feeling smug again. I am, I miss, I'm looking forward, I can't wait to see Ben buying altcoins. I'm really looking forward to that. Oh my God. That's going to be crazy. Yeah. Do you know, I'm wondering whether Ben is going to, when everything goes crazy and Ben starts buying alts again, what's he going to do? Is he going to explore, lean into the sort of crazy thumbnails sort of thing? Are those chairs that are often behind him, are they going to be replaced with sort of diamond-studded thrones? Is he going to buy himself a new desk? I just, I really want to know. I can't wait for all that. I think the mysteries of the universe. Exactly, exactly. But going back to what you guys were saying, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to being, you know, I'm looking forward for sentiment to improve for people to care again. I'm also hoping that we'll see like less cynicism, like crypto Twitter, for instance, is a really cynical place right now, and I hope that changes, but I hope, I hope we have a sort of sense, I hope we have a kind of mood of skepticism, but not cynicism. You know, I, in other words, I hope like people have learned or people will have learned the lessons of this bear market and my word, there have been plenty of those, haven't there? So I hope we're kind of older and wiser. Do you know what I mean? That I think, and, you know, and better in a better position to sort of hopefully stop newcomers to the space making the same mistakes that we did. I'm not convinced that we'll plan out like that, but I really hope, I really hope we do. I really hope that does, you know, that does happen. And I'm looking forward to I miss, you know, I miss seeing that, you know, the mainstream media kind of having to scrub all their kind of Bitcoin obituaries, all their crypto is dead sort of things, and suddenly pivot to writing, you know, crypto is the new paradigm why, you know, why crypto is taking over the world again. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to all those things. And hopefully we see those sooner, sooner than later. Hopefully it's in 2024, maybe 20 or 25, 26, who knows. But gentlemen, thanks again for another great show. This is a lot of good information. Now, everybody, if you got questions, of course, we'll answer those. We got about five, 10 minutes or so, and then we'll go from there. So excellent points. The thing that I miss again is just is just the overall sentiment, because right now it's boring, but we'll see how it's how it goes moving forward. Asgar asks, what portfolio tracker are you using any recommendations? I use a spreadsheet right now. But I know that coin, coin tracker, they have one and but I haven't, it's supposed to be rolled out. But what do you guys use to track your portfolio just spreadsheet or some specific kind of like guy you put out a video where you said like it was like your top five or seven apps that you use anything out there. Yeah. Yeah, there are a couple I use a cointing, which is good. A cointing, basically accounting with coin. So that's a good one. Coinly is good as well. I think that may only be it. Coinly is sort of more geared towards tax, but I think they're both sort of good portfolio trackers as well. But yeah, a cointing is a good one.  I mean, I'd have to have a crypto portfolio to track it, right? You can travel. The only thing I bought, the only thing I bought was, was Bitcoin. And I, you know, I haven't like, I think, yeah, the only crypto I've bought since like 2021 has been Bitcoin. So I haven't really had to have like a huge accounting or like a tracker to really keep track of all that stuff. I mean, I do have an accountant who tracks like what I need to track. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure I'll start exploring the options again as I, as I get more back in, into the crypto verse in the coming months. Very nice. Yeah. And then for me, it's all, it's all coin ledger. And I just use that. I just kind of track it every, every quarter. And I just pass it off to my CPA because I have not that bright enough to do those things. And I just have them go for that. So that'll be it. Let's see. There's a good one here. Soft landing. Do you guys think it's actually possible for this, this recession coming in or hardline? That's a kind of a deep question. But do you still see a soft landing at some point? Or is it just like, yeah, it's going to be a tough one. It's just the, I think the issue is that like, you know, there's a chance it's a soft landing. It's just that the Fed doesn't really have a great track record of getting a soft landing. Like, and the path to a hard landing goes through thinking it's going to be a soft landing first. There have, there have been some cases, I think 1966 or 67, I don't know. I think in 1966 or something, they achieved a soft landing. We had an inverted yield curve and we didn't have an immediate recession, although we did get one just like a year or two later. But yeah, I mean, the track record isn't really that great. I mean, normally, and especially with this being one of the most aggressive rate hiking cycles, it seems like there is at least a good chance it could be a hard landing. And I think people should be prepared either way, right?  It's probably probably good to be hedged both ways. Yeah, and there's a point here, real rates is three of the last 14 recessions were soft landings. I don't have the data to back that up, but okay, sounds good. Guy, what do you think? Well, I mean, I think there's a chance of a soft land. I mean, the Fed have kind of steered you guys through fairly well so far. So let's not rule anything out. But it is kind of, it is hard to imagine it, I must say. But that's not to say it can't happen. But yeah, it does feel like that would be quite a feat to pull off. I think so. And then before we go, I just want to make mention of this important crypto space coming up on Twitter. This is a gentleman right there. Guy is going to be interviewing Charles Hoskinson from, what's it called? Oh yeah, Cardano. That'll be tomorrow, 4pm UTC. Just follow Guy at Twitter. And you'll be able to listen to Charles. That'll be pretty interesting, I think, Guy. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah, obviously we're going to talk about Cardano. But I'm going to try and, I'd love to hear also his kind of take on the market in general as well. And kind of the state of crypto. I think I'd be interested to hear from someone in his position about what he makes of the kind of sentiment in crypto at the moment. Because he has quite a unique sort of view from where he is, running one of the biggest or involved with one of the biggest projects out there. And I also want to talk to him about his herd of bison and his search for aliens as well. So I'm hoping it's going to be fairly wide-ranging. I can see that. That's a pretty good way to leave it. What I'm going to do, guys, is there is a link to that specific tweet. I just put that in the comment section for live. And I will also put that in the description so you guys can find it. I am going to be there because I would love to listen to what is going to be said on that one. So, guys, before we go, anything else that I missed? I think we covered a lot of stuff, but it's getting up on top of the hour. So are we good to go or any last words of wisdom? Wake me up when September ends. I got to tell you that's a good point. Guy, I will see you on Friday, my man. Yes, yeah, I'm all out of wisdom. Okay, I'll take it. Well, everybody, again, follow Ben, follow Guy, you know the channels, and that's it for today. So thanks so much for stopping by. We appreciate it, everybody. Like and subscribe on your way out, and we'll see you on the next one. Adios. Thanks, everyone.


I'll try and keep my talk to about 20 minutes and then open up at the end for questions. I inserted a little being because the learning is still on. It's not lessons learned. It's lessons being learned. In building Plum, we're still building. We're still quite small in the world of beauty and personal care. For those of you who don't know about the brand, we are India's first digital brand in beauty personal care. We launched in 2014. It's our 10th year. Now in July, we'll be celebrating our 10th birthday, as we call it. So this is a sort of a summary of an entrepreneur's view of what it takes to build a business. As much as it is about building a brand, I am a self-taught marketer. I say, I don't, I didn't have a formal career in marketing before I started Plum. So most of my lessons here will be common, sensical business related stuff rather than pure brand related stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed Deepak's session where there's a pure brand view of life and what we're also realizing as we build Plum is the brand view of life is so, so, so important in a crowded marketplace. And I'm sure I'm taking away lots of learnings from what Deepak said in the previous session. So I'll just add to that basket of learnings. And this is a very different perspective of a startup in a space which is sort of hot and happening in the country. So we have six key takeaways with examples and I'll just summarize the takeaways for you. We have eight ways of working at Plum and the first one says customer view is the only view that matters. And I'll give you examples of how it manifested itself in our small journey so far. The second one is it's easy to spot fakes and we should be real, sort of resonated with what we saw in the previous session. In the world of social media, when you're thousands of miles away from your audience, I'm amazed that the ability of the human mind to spot fakes. I'll give you examples of these two. The third one is something that's a topic that's discussed a lot. Did you raise money? What's your valuation? Whenever you're going, I always believed and I continue to believe that raising money is a means to the end. It is not the end. And I'll see some examples there. This is a very business building thing that I am myself learning, which is people process planning, repeat, go forward. We have to balance short-term, long-term. We always have sales pressure this month, this quarter. I have to run performance ads. I have to run brand building ads. That debate is endless. So how do you balance out short-term and long-term? And last but not the least, no matter what you do, speak numbers because numbers speak. If you don't speak the numbers, they'll speak. So I might have to speak the numbers. Is that where I see it? Let me give some examples of our learnings on how customer view is the only view that matters. It's a very simple example. For those of you who use a kajal or know how to use, it comes in the form of a pencil. When we first launched our kajal pencil, it was a PVC-free barrel. What we did not realize when we launched a PVC-free barrel is when you sharpen the pencil, the wood, the casing, the PVC-free plastic that was being used was too hard for the sharpeners that this market had. We started receiving complaints from the market saying, your kajal is awesome, but you know what? Once I use the first bit that is exposed, I can't sharpen it anymore. So we had to actually go to consumers' homes, sharpen the pencil with them and understand where the problem is with the sharpening. We launched a great kajal, but we didn't have a great sharpener. So when we launched the right sharpener with the kajal, the sales actually took off of that kajal. And to this day, we give a free sharpener with the kajal because we don't know how the sharpener works with it. So just the simple thing of not being able to sharpen a pencil can lead to your customer experience being completely ruined. And that's a lesson that we learned the hard way. The second example that I give is a very technical example of SLS and SLES. I don't expect any of you to know this difference. SLS is an old surfactant. SLES is a new surfactant which is used, for example, in a face wash or a shampoo. It sounds very similar for most people. Those who have done their chemistry will understand that one is an ethoxylated, one is not ethoxylated. What we realize is, we as chemists am myself a chemical engineer. I love chemistry, so I love talking about all of this. What I realize is my customer is not getting it.  It should be sulfate-free is what we realize, this is what people understand. It's either sulfate-free, which I'm sure a lot of people have heard of, or it is not. If I try and get a further differentiation into it, you're saying it's SLS or SLDS, people are not going to get it. So it took us quite a bit of iteration to realize that we either talk sulfate-free or we don't talk sulfate-free. The third example is with respect to products that we want to discontinue. Now, I have a CFO, I have a Chief Supplation Officer. Both of you say you have too many SKUs, lots of small tail SKUs, which are occupying a lot of space in the warehouse. Why don't you chop the tail and focus on the core of your brand? That's an ongoing debate. When we chop the tail, what we realize is we're actually alienating a bunch of customers. So where we had to draw the line of where the tail starts was a thing that we learned the hard way. We discontinued certain products. People came back to us saying, when are you getting it back? When are you getting it back?  It didn't die down after a year. So we had to get some of our products back. And then we realized that as a brand, we probably are known for offering that variety. People love the variety that we offer. So we can't take a playbook that some other brand is using and then say, I want to chop the tail and just have fewer SKUs. So one brand has to decide what works for the customer. Just three examples, and there are countless others that I can go on about. I just thought I'd call out three examples to tell you that in a world of crowded brands, there's one truth, and that truth comes from the customer all the time. Sort of obvious, but we forget. The second one is also obvious that you should be real. But we have marketing to do. I loved what Deepak said, which is marketing versus mattering. I think it's the same sort of spirit here. When you have marketing to do, when X brand is saying 99% people agreed and 4x, whatever, brighter and whatnot, you start getting into that FOMO. Then I have to also start saying big bombastic things in order to matter to people. And that's when you start treading on the line of being real versus being fake. One thing is for sure, it's so easy for people to spot fakes. And our customer support and customer service ethos is something that we are very proud of. To this day, every mail that is escalated to Graven's officer comes to me. Every resolution goes with a cc to me. And there are people who write directly to me saying, my parcel did not reach from plumbgoodness.com. I'm very, very happy to answer that. I don't say I don't have a team to handle it. Because the team down below needs to know that a customer is a true owner of the business. And therefore, even the smallest of issues that customer faces is not okay for somebody who's a founder in the CEO has to be looked at. So even a single customer today matters to me. I make sure it is closed. And that ethos has stayed from day one when I used to handle customer support myself to this day when I have 15 members from customer support team. The second bit is being good. Being good is the same sort of philosophy as the do good that we saw in the previous presentation. For plumb, being good has manifested itself in a lot of ways. Whether it is the empties we take back. Whether it is the fairness cream that we did not do in 2014. Or whether it's the 1% for the planet that we started off. So there's a lot of stuff that plumb does, which is being good. But I really, again, would like to call out what we saw in the previous. You have to first do good, and then you have to talk about being good and saying good. If you don't support it with doing, then people easily spot that you're just talking nice things, but not really doing anything about it. So it's very important for us to be real as we go through the whole journey of building a brand. This is my favorite topic. I was bootstrap for the first five and a half years. I came from a PE world before I started, so it was not impossible for me to raise capital. But for some reason, I must admit that I tried to raise capital and did not. And I ended up being bootstrap for five and a half years. Post that, and after that, I'm now a series C pundit startup.  And the first advice I have for anybody who's looking to start a brand is bootstrap if you can. Why do I say that it's not that the funding is bad? Funding is good. Funding has helped us do a lot of things that we have not dreamt of otherwise. But why bootstrapping is good is it helps you set your brand in the direction that you want without being forced or let's say taken in a very different direction from what your heart and your gut says. So it's very important to focus on the customer, build something of value, and then scale it rather than trying to scale as you build. My view is bootstrap if you can for as long as you can. And then raise capital from the right sources that support the right way of working for your brand. And one answer doesn't fit for everyone. The second thing is understand why you need capital. It's a very simple statement to make. But a lot of people think capital is for, actually, building a brand. Capital is for, I don't know, developing distribution, building products. But you really, really get down into what you really need money for and how much you need for. And make sure you take only that money that you need and put it to the use that you think you're going to put it to. I have made those mistakes when I raised a lot of capital after having been starved for capital. That suddenly the gate opens and then you have tons of requests for all kinds of nice, shiny things, including office, this, that, whatnot from people. This is only one lakh a month. This is only two lakhs a month. This is only five lakhs a month. Ends up being crores a month of spends, which you should not be. So you have to be very clear as to why you need capital and make sure you stick to the discipline of rising capital. Valuation is something, thankfully, the hype is somewhat quietened over the last 6, 9, 12 months. This whole talk about valuation, unicorns, unicorn, decacon, et cetera, is slightly distracting from the core task of building a business. It's important because your investors need to make money. But you also have to understand for your business, your money needs to come from a source that you value. And where they value your business and your brand, as much as they value the numbers behind it. So it's important to look at the source of money as much as it is. Look at what valuation you're being offered. This is a very sort of boring slide. But it is the task of an entrepreneur, the task of a guy who's building a business, I realize, can be summarized in these three words. Maybe not in the same order, but perhaps people, processors, planning. And it's sort of a circular loop. You can't scale without being process driven. That's something I'm realizing in the hard way. There was a time when I used to know everything. In my series, A diligence, I remember, when the guys came for due diligence, I remembered invoice level data. I used to tell them this invoices for this item, this invoices for that item. That time we were small, I could look at invoice level data. Today, we have SAP running, which needs a team to run SAP. I cannot run my business today without SAP, right? So, and we moved from being Excel to Tali to SAP. Being process driven, if you sort of move without the processes, while scaling, if you move without the processes being in place, you're for sure going to be slowed down at some point in time. It's sort of an effort to invest in process, but invest in process. Even if it's marketing, there is always a process to being done. But you can't build processes without people. That's the other thing. And you can't have people joining you without having the right processes to hire, retain them. So it's sort of a circular loop. And it sort of get confusing at times. And therefore, to do all of this, you have to have the right plan in place where I'm able to get the right people, put the right processes in place, and run the planning cycle so that, and this is very important as you scale, may not be so important when you're starting out. When you're starting out, it's just important to hustle and get the revenues going. Balance short term and long term. What's sweet in the short term is not definitely not going to be, may not be so in the long term. It's so easy to chase the fad, the revenue, the sale, the discount, the offer, the influencer, the celebrity who you think is hard short term. What I really was moved by in the previous presentation was how self-excel has remained consistent from 2004 to 2024. The ads actually looked almost the same. It is just updated to the reality of today. And that's why the brand endures. And for us, that's holy grail. To be solving for the short term, but in the short term, we're all dead, as people say, and the market can stay rational for longer than you can stay solvent. So if you're only solving for the long term, you say, I don't care about short term, you're probably not going to be in business. So it's very, very important to balance out the short term and the long term. And it is a long-term endeavor to keep balancing it. You just have to make sure you survive. I've always believed that this journey that we are on is a marathon. I should tell my team when they used to fight with me, why are we not getting funded? Why are we not getting funded? I said, we're running a marathon. We'll get funded when you have to get funded. Just be patient. Somewhere having the patience to run it as a long-term endeavor is important. And keep in mind that you have to balance out the short term and the long term. Most consumer build-outs are built for the long term. I'm again so glad for Deepak to have come in before me because that tells you that these brands have been built over decades rather than over a quarter or over two quarters or over a year. So it is always important to pace yourself when you're running this marathon. And the last bit is about speaking numbers. A lot of us end up making a mistake. That's the idea that matters. It is the thought that matters. It is the plan that matters. But you don't realize that unless and until you do the numbers that you are talking about, the numbers will someday come and speak louder than you at the meeting. And that's not a good place to be, trust me. So it's very, very important to make numbers a habit. It almost sounds obviously why you're talking about it. But I've seen a lot of people just bring a lot of concepts and photos in the presentation without putting numbers into it. Please make it a habit. I almost forced myself. This is one of the few decks where I don't have a single number on any slide. And I'm sort of feeling bad about it. I make it a habit. Forced myself to put some number somewhere. It sounds almost right when I say it, but it's actually true. When you start thinking, forcing yourself to talk numbers, everybody around you starts talking numbers. So make sure that you put numbers. And when your numbers are good, you need to speak less. That's an advantage. The numbers speak for themselves. And all activity is useless unless the outcome is measured. And outcome is always measured in numbers. So I always internally talk about activity versus outcome. That's really my very short talk to all of you. It's sort of a synthesis of all that I am learning as we build Plum. And today it's a team that learns with me. And I'm happy to take any questions you have.