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Chat for more information. Tasty Trade Inc. is a registered broker dealer and member of FINRA, NFA, and SIPC. Podcast. Hey ladies, hey gents, Aaron here and thank you for tuning in to episode 179. I have a special guest on this episode and that is Mike Komaransky. For many, I'm sure this will be the first time hearing about Komoransky, but those who know him already know him as a Bitcoin OG and deservedly so as he began accumulating the cryptocurrency around 2010.
Though Mike has been a professional trader of fixed income derivatives since two thousand and one, when he joined powerhouse trading firm DRW. Mike later became a partner at DRW and in twenty fourteen he launched its crypto trading business, Cumberland. Over the next few years, Mike and his team, including Bobby Cho who's appeared on previous episodes, they grew Cumberland to become one of the world's largest cryptocurrency market makers.
Then in twenty seventeen Mike left the company to spend some time overseas. but he has returned and he's again active in the market. His new firm is Grapefruit Trading. Over the course of our conversation we chat about Mike's distinguished trading career, the strange ways that Mike has bought Bitcoin in the past when it was far less accessible. Cumberland's participation in the auction of seized Bitcoin from the Silk Road bus.
Mike's disdain for technical analysis, which I'm sure some of you will get a kick out of this bit. And in between all of this, Lots more. The last thing I would like to point out is that Mike is an investor or a partner in CoinFlex who have been a sponsor recently. However, this interview is entirely separate from my sponsorship agreement with CoinFlex. And actually, I first made an attempt to get Mike on the podcast almost two years ago. And now, here he is, Mike Komaransky folks, episode 179.
Well, I wanted to say it was cool that you had a chance to check out uh the the interview I did with uh Sam from Alameda. I mean, what were your thoughts on that? Uh Sam's a a very bright person. He came from Jane Street, so that tells you something. Um their th in Alameda, they've they've gone from zero to like a very significant player in And cryptocurrency trading in the course of two years. That's really impressive. And the only way you can do that.
is just by working hard. W when you asked him, uh, you know, what's your secret? And it was really just hard work. So congrats to them. Uh I think they'll be around for a while. It was a great podcast and you know, I we're we're in similar we're in a similar trading category. So like many of the questions that you you've asked him, I w I would respond similarly. Like how do you
How do you differentiate between market taking and market making? Uh what do you do when you have a big position? How do you get out of your trades? How do you approach the market? Um he's answered a lot of that. So I don't have to. Yeah. Where there's some parts you know, they've been going close to two years you've been around in this space for a lot longer. Where there's some parts
Like could you relate to where they were on some level? Um, you know, like thinking about your early days starting Cumberland. Yeah, I think it's uh the opportunities when you when you looked at them, you'd say there's no reason this should exist. Like this arbitrage, it's so simple.
And uh i if it were really there then someone else would have done it. Uh but it's just not the case. It uh And immediately you say, Okay, well, take everything you've learned from traditional trading and just multiply the the spreads, the margins by a hundred, maybe even maybe a thousand. No, I was in fixed income for from two thousand one until two thousand seventeen, with a little bit of overlap of crypto in between.
And when you're trading fixed income derivatives, you're you're dealing with quarters of basis points, not even quarters of basis points. You're dealing in thirty seconds of basis points, uh the thinnest of margins. And then you're introduced to Bitcoin and you've got one exchange trading six percent higher than another one, which was the case in you know twenty thirteen.
you say, This is this is just amazing. So you you kinda drop everything and um and focus on on crypto. That was sort of the genesis of of Cumberland. Yeah, well that's one of the things which I think is so interesting about you because I've had crypto traders on the podcast in the past and I've been like
Yeah, I used to trade stocks or I used to trade futures and now I trade crypto. Whereas you, you know, that's that's still true in your case. You used to trade uh futures and fixed income derivatives. But you actually started as a pit trader, uh, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I think more technically, I was a pit clerk. So in two thousand one I was graduating the University of Chicago.
And uh someone from DRW came to do an interview on campus. I had trouble getting investment banking interviews because maybe I wasn't strong enough or wasn't prepared enough or even driven enough. Um but here comes these trading these trading companies. They come after the investment bank. And they say they sit you down for half an hour and they just pummel you with like two digit by two digit multiplication questions. I'm like, really? That's uh that's why I got a math degree? Just to multiply?
So you sit there and you do your best you can. Um and it also helped that uh they were looking someone from from athletics too. So I was I was a soccer player. And the reason they do that Once you go into the pits inside the the C M E or the C B O T Uh like a physical presence actually matters.
where like some of the best traders weren't the brightest people, but they could they could physically push you. Not push you around with like big trades. They could actually just elbow you out of the way in order to get onto a trade. So I think um that was like the ideal candidate in two thousand one was somebody who could multiply and and push people. The lifestyle or the um the the typical job candidate has changed since then, obviously.
Um so I so I I multiplied I got a job and then I went down to the CME and I was a clerk behind Don Wilson. in two thousand one and I learned a lot in that first year. Stood behind him, um, learned how we traded options, learned a bit about the futures market, and uh th my career kinda took off from there. What sort of trader was Don at that time? Obviously Don's a a a pretty big name. Um well that's a bit of an understatement, isn't it?
Um, but I mean, was he a significant trader at that point in time or was he still sort of coming up as well? No, at that time he'd already made uh a name for himself. The company was DRW was probably forty people, I'd say. And um the type of trader he was was uh He was a a risk taker, but at the same time he Uh he had a very strong grasp of the theoretical value of the things he was trading. Um that's
You know, it's sort of a a broad statement. Yeah. But you can you can trade with bigger size if you're leaning on mathematics or finance or or some reason to to take the risks that you're taking. Um tha that's one thing that I carried with me through my time at DOW. Would you be able to just elaborate on that a little bit? You're talking about like when you know you have maybe a mathematical edge or a quantitative edge.
Or yeah, can you just expand on that a little bit? Sure. Um mathematical edge is something that um you can gain in in the markets, especially especially derivatives markets. Where uh you apply some sort of financial model to a problem or uh something from not from finance, like you apply uh Like the Black Shoals equation, kind of it it didn't develop directly from finance, but it was applicable to finance.
And then with time you can you can develop a theoretical price for the thing that you're trading, and if you can buy lower than that price and sell above that price and do it many times, eventually you will you'll come out ahead. Uh the the important thing to know is um with efficient markets, your ability to capture that edge will will decrease rapidly over time. So one important thing that that Sam talked about in the Alameda interview was that you have to constantly innovate.
If you have an edge in the marketplace, you should not expect to hold it for a long time. And while you have the edge over the marketplace, you should exploit it as much as possible. So, you know, two thousand one you've got uh you've got some people who know how to price a call option Um you know how to price perhaps uh a butterfly better than your competitor.
you know that they're gonna catch up with that mathematical um formulation. So w while you can price calls better than your neighbor, you should you should trade for large size and Uh get as much volume as possible. Helm And if you can't if you can't describe your edge. in the marketplace with a single sentence.
or maybe two sentences, then it's probably not an edge you have. You you're just you're trading, maybe getting maybe making money because you're lucky, or you you maybe you're not trading enough to realize whether uh you're a good trader or a bad trader, but you should be able to identify the edge that you have in two sentences.
Do you feel as though the way that you're trading today, which we'll get to later on in this conversation, but um, you know, you could sum that up in two sentences easy enough? For any individual trade where I expect to make money, yes, that's true. Unfortunately I I might not be able to tell you those two sentences because I want to I want to capture the edge while it's still there. How long did you stick around for on the floor? Like how long was it until you moved onto screens?
Uh it was about a year and a half I was down in the pit and then uh the futures market slowly started moving over to uh electronic. And it was after my first year that I started doing the the night shift. And um as stupid as it sounds, there was uh the CME features which tr uh which had maybe one percent of the volume trading electronically. They were priced differently than a completely fungible contract in Singapore at the CyMex exchange.
Um so I w I would sit there on the phone with someone in the Singapore exchange and and just do arbitrage with the screen at the CME. Um that was like It's silly, it doesn't exist anymore. It couldn't exist anymore. Um everything's electronic, everything's bots, everything's computers. But there was a time when you could talk to a person and uh and just make money. Man, that's uh that's a pretty crazy time. Um wow.
So let's let's, you know, fast forward a few years. I think it was probably around about 2010, uh when you began to get involved or at least interested in Bitcoin. So Uh let me ask you, what did it mean to what did it mean to be involved in Bitcoin in two thousand and ten and how'd you get interested? Like how'd you even hear about this this magic internet money?
Yeah, so twenty ten I came across uh well I was reading a website called Marginal Revolution. Still exists today. I bet some of your listeners frequent that website. Uh it's just a collection a a well curated collection of of interesting takes on economics and it has a very uh libertarian or Austrian view on certain subjects. So Uh Margin Revolution one day just posted a link to something that said Bitcoin P2P currency for the internet or something like that.
And uh I I clicked on that and it it brought you to the white paper, the Bitcoin white paper. And I'm like, whoa, this is this is something special. This has potential. I didn't understand it completely, but from what I understood, I thought uh we should devote a lot of time and perhaps money to this. So uh Bitcoin twenty ten, there were maybe, I don't know, two hundred people on the Bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk.org.
Uh I joined and at the time there was maybe one message posted a day by one of the members. That's it. There wasn't a lot of there wasn't a lot of reading up to do about it. Sort of all the information was was there in the white paper, um a little bit on the forum. And then a small IRC community popped up, you know, like a like a old school chatroom where where people talked about it.
And the the community back then of the two hundred and quickly increasing to, you know, a thousand, two thousand a day people, they were mostly uh libertarians or anarchists. Um maybe a couple of computer developers, but they were all like, This is going to end the state. This is the money's gonna change forever. You know, I get excited about that thing too. Uh I was I was one of them. Uh the community has changed since then. I think there's a lot of speculators and traders and uh who knows?
But Bitcoin Bitcoin's for everyone now. But but at the time it was for these really fringe anarchists. Uh what that also meant in two thousand ten is that uh there was a a tremendous opportunity to um to invest in Bitcoin. Because the people that you're the other people that know about Bitcoin, they didn't have a lot of money in two thousand ten. These are people these are anarchists living in their parents' basement and uh you know their mining their mining rigs are in their garages.
So in twenty ten, uh it was like, okay, how do I how do I accumulate Bitcoin as as quickly as possible? And then basically that that became an obsession, or at first it was a hobby, then it was an obsession. And then twenty fourteen, we fast forward, uh it became a career. How did you begin accumulating Bitcoin back then? Like how were you even buying it? I presume it was much more difficult than it is today. Yeah, the first way you could get it was by mining it.
But that just didn't come quickly enough. You know, y you could mine on a laptop, which is what I did, and you get fifty coins a day, maybe fifty coins every other day. And if you know Bitcoin, um you know that mining gets more and more difficult as people uh get interested in it. So mining just wasn't the right option. So th the best way to do it back in two thousand ten, twenty eleven was uh the well the best way for me at least.
was to meet people in the in the street and uh hand them envelopes full of cash And have them give you bitcoins. What do you mean give you bitcoins? What would they give you in return for your envelope of cash? Imagine you're a programmer in London who knows how Bitcoin works and you know how to mine it better than the average person. You set out and sh you start mining thousands of bitcoins a day. Well
Y you might not necessarily be interested in Bitcoin, but you know that you can sell it on the street to somebody like me and you can pay your rent. So You go online and you look for the Bitcoin marketplace. This is before Bitcoin exchanges existed. Th that's why um a lot of people forget that in twenty ten uh there was really no exchange.
So y the only way to do it is go online, find somebody and say, I agree to meet you at at Starbucks and uh you give me a thousand pounds and I will give you I dunno. Four thousand bitcoins. But how did they give them to you? So y I hand them the envelope, they count the money there on the spot, and then they they take their uh laptop or their phone, probably laptop at the time.
And they'd send to to my address. Okay. An address that I gave them ahead of time. So then all I have to do is check the blockchain that the bitcoins have arrived. Maybe you wait ten minutes or twenty minutes to make sure that you're not getting screwed on the on the Bitcoin transaction. And then the and then you walk away. So is that something you really did? So you did so you were mining some Bitcoin and then you were meeting people with envelopes of cash to get more.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that that really happened. And the reason I stopped doing that was it had nothing to do with the price because, you know, if you if you believe Bitcoin is going to re you know, i if there's a chance of it replacing world currency, which I did believe, then you wouldn't stop buying just because it's gone from from one cent to a hundred dollars, right? You y you have the dreams that it's going to go up to to where it is today and even beyond to the point where it replaces. So
What stopped me was the I was afraid of uh my bank. I was afraid of the government. Bitcoin is so new, uh And it had such a bad reputation that I d I don't know what's gonna happen. I thought there's no way that I can keep all this quiet from from the government. And what happens in in ten years if
If they come after you with like guns at your door. Give me all your bitcoins. We know about you. So the the first thing that happened was yeah, I'm getting envelopes full of cash in London from my bank. And and giving them to people. But that activity at the bank, like where you withdraw one thousand pounds or three thousand pounds at a time, that that raises red flags for that.
So they ask this is a a serious conversation I had with the teller th like well we've noticed that you've taken out a you know, many cash deposits and we have to ask you what this is for. And I I was ready for this question. And I told him that I was uh I played a lot of poker, like live poker games at tables. And the problem was that uh I'd never deposited dollars or pounds.
So they must have assumed I was perhaps the worst poker player in London. Sir you have a problem you might need to stop. Just losing money hand over fist. Yeah, and then when they started asking me uh too often, uh I I knew it was maybe time to to stop those types of transactions. Well, this is something I did want to ask you. Like, what opinions did you have about Bitcoin at this time? You said when you first came across the white paper that it was something
It seemed like it was something really special. So what what opinions did you have about it at the time? I'm very skeptical of government, um, especially even before Bitcoin. Uh I always thought that them being able to print more money. Um was a very uh it was a very special power the government had and it's susceptible to abuse. Maybe not in the United States m states, maybe not in the UK.
Um but at least in in other countries I could see people abusing that. So I always thought that the monopoly on on money issuance and money creation I thought that was an unfair tactic that the government had. And inflation, truly for me at the time and and now, is is a theft. So I was always looking for a replacement of like in electronic money. I I dabbled in um do you know the the game's Second Life? Um I know the name
It was a silly game popular in the mid two thousands. It wasn't really a game. It was just sort of an alternate universe where you could walk around and I don't know. Talk to other people. Make your avatar wear a funny t shirt, do a dance. You can even buy like property. So In that game there were things called Linden dollars. It was an in game currency. And you could the only way you could get Linden dollars was number one, when you signed up for the game.
They'd give you, I don't know, let's say ten dollars worth of of these Linden dollars. Uh or you could inside the game you could actually you could sell you could sell funny looking t-shirts and people would give you Linden dollars for it. So I'm thinking, Wow, okay, that's cool. In game currency, it only exists on the internet.
Uh that sounds good, but the problem is who who creates these? And the answer was it was Lyndon Labs, the creator of the game. Like, okay, well let's see what Lyndon Labs is. And Lyndon Labs was run by a a libertarian guy. And he's like, I Uh I am in charge of the issuance and And I won't create any more after uh after X number of years. Some something along those lines. Where y you're putting your faith uh in in Linden labs not to create more Linden dollars.
And I thought that was interesting, especially if it was libertarian, but man, wouldn't it be great if there was like an online currency that wasn't uh issued by uh like a central Linden Labs type person. Even even if they promise that they're going to do it. Or they're not going to the issue more. But it was it was controlled by by no one or uh by mathematics.
So that that's like the precursor for me to Bitcoin. That was maybe in the year two thousand six, two thousand seven. And my investment in Linden dollars failed. Uh I I guess maybe they printed more money in the in the end. They fell back in their word. I don't know why Linden dollars fell apart, but they just never took off. So, you know, when Bitcoin when the white paper came across my path.
Like, okay, this is this is what I was trying for and I sort of had a head start on the rest of the of the world. Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join Tasty Trade, Investopedia's best platform for options trading in twenty twenty six. Stocks, options, futures, and more. Tasty Trade has everything you trade all in one platform. Get low commissions, including zero commission on stocks.
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You mentioned something uh a little earlier which I found quite interesting and you said you were one of the first few hundred uh members or users on the uh the Bitcoin message board. Was that early enough when uh Satoshi, the creator of Bitcoin, when he was active on the message boards? Because I think No Yeah, he was he was responsible for some of the more interesting posts um on the forum. He was active when I was around. I think maybe we had two forum boards where
He was active and I was active at the same time, but uh we never like exchanged emails or messages. Okay. If you're listening to Toshi, like send me a Send me an email or something. And it's not by the way, it's not your countryman Craig Wright. I don't even know anything about that story. Let's um let's let's not even go there. Yeah. Waste of time. I know nothing on the subject. Neither does he. Okay.
Now you started uh Cumberland, uh so you you were at DRW from was it two thousand and one? So from two thousand and one and then Cumberland only came about uh in two thousand and fourteen. Um and you were the s the driving force behind that, right? That was your idea to start um you know, to to start this crypto trading desk. Yeah. I so from twenty ten to twenty fourteen, I was the annoying guy in the office who couldn't stop talking about Bitcoin. You might know one or two of them yourself.
Uh like wherever I went, I'm like, oh, it's gonna change the world. You guys gotta get some of this. And uh, you know, no matter what the conversation started off as, it could have been like a Chelsea Tottenham match, it would end up me talking about Bitcoin. And I was just I was just not a popular person for a long time, but at least they knew I was interested in it. Those people that did listen to me, by the way, they I think they did pretty well.
Um but I mean I understand I was I was annoying and uh I probably spent too much time talking about it. So in twenty fourteen, I think the the landscape of trading started changing for crypto. I you know, several several exchanges were getting more uh more volume, more traction. Uh there were even some derivatives popping up, which is sort of like the best of both worlds for me. I'm I was a derivatives trader.
And um and I love Bitcoin. So i it was an exciting time for me. I think there's not many people who who trade something that they truly love. Like if you If you're a corn options trader It's not because you love corn so much that you just want to spend your time trading corn options. Or maybe you are. I don't some weird people out there. But for me, like Bitcoin is something I truly loved and there was a a trading opportunity. So um that was very cool.
And you know, I could have continued that um in my own personal trading, but it started taking up more and more time and the opportunities themselves required more and more capital. So uh I approached uh Don at the time and I suggested that we should open up a like a real trading desk. for for Cumberland and he was on board because he was starting to get excited by crypto too.
And um I think some of the other partners at DRW were were skeptical. Remember at the time, twenty fourteen, we're coming off the the back of like Mount Gock. collapsing and losing uh hundreds of millions of of people's bitcoins. Um also I think Silk Road was making news. Like Bitcoin just had a really bad name. It wasn't just a bad idea. It was
it was a bad idea and there were crooks and money launderers and and drug users involved. It it was just not the right place for any institution to to pick up and say, Yeah, let's let's do this. But um DRW to their to their massive credit they said, Okay, let's Let's give Mike and um my partner at the time or my uh my trading partner at the time, Eric Saraniecki, who we call Wally
Okay so let's give him a chance and and see what we can do. And at at the time, like okay, we'll do it under one condition that you can't use DRW's name, or we can't use our banks. Uh Just, you know, do your thing and don't drag us into this this crazy world i if if you can avoid it. That was s that was a bit frustrating. Uh If you want to start an OTC desk, which I I think is what we wanted to do.
If you want to start an OTC desk, you want to be very vocal in public and say, Hey, you can trust us. There's not many people you can trust in crypto, but you can trust us because we're DRW and then they they take away your ability to do that by saying, No, you can't use our name. Um it was basically like starting from scratch. Um but the advantage is we had we had the capital to use. So that was the genesis of Cumberland. It was called Cumberland Mining at the time because Cumberland
Uh the very first project was going to be um an investment in in mining equipment. Uh that that fell through, but we kept the name Cumberland Mining. It's a bit confusing for everyone. We were called Cumberland Mining, but we were a a trading group. Yeah. Um was this something You know, you I I guess you kind of answered this right there. You said it was going to be some sort of mining operation but became a trading desk.
Was it something that got traction pretty quickly, or was that a while before you reached a point where you realized, hey, we're really on to something here? Well, I always thought we were onto something. I think it took a while for others to to come to that conclusion. Uh There were opportunities all around crypto in uh depending on what you wanted to do, it could have been exchange to exchange arbitrage, it could have been mining, it it could have been over the counter trading.
We wasn't we weren't quite sure. It could have been maybe even just accumulating Bitcoin and and sitting on it. Uh we weren't sure what the best approach was. Uh so it it did take some time. I it maybe a year before things really started.
Um cooking. Okay. One thing one thing that helped Cumberland at the time was uh we participated in uh a US Marshall's auction. So the Silk Road when it fell apart, the US Um like some FBI agents went in and then we're not going to be able and took Ross Ulbrick's laptop and on the laptop was one hundred forty thousand bitcoins.
And uh US government's like, Yeah, we got'em and they they put'em in prison. If you wanna read more about Ross's prison sentence, which I think is totally unfair, you should you should look at free Ross. You should put that in the comment section. Or the links or whatever. What's that? Freeross dot something? Is it I think it's free ros.org?
I don't know, the the right link will be down there. So now the the US government they have a bunch of bitcoins that they're sitting on, they don't want them. So the US Marshals held an auction maybe a year after they confiscated the coins. And uh the the auction was It was really hyped up at the time in the Bitcoin community. Like who's gonna who's gonna buy all these coins?
Um we ha at Cumberland have just started and we're like, We we can participate. There's not many people who can but we can. So we did we won a lot of coins uh in those auctions over the the next coming months. We lost the first auction to Tim Draper, but we we won the The majority of of coins after that. Who's Tim? Uh he's a Bitcoin enthusiast. He's a American uh entrepreneur, I guess, investor. Okay. So they sold off these bitcoins in several chunks.
Yeah. I think the first chunk went for around six hundred fifty dollars. Per Bitcoin. Per Bitcoin, yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I'm I'm glad you mentioned that actually. We w as soon as you said Silk Road before, I thought, Oh, I've got to ask you about that because um yeah, that's a good thing. I was not a customer. We just helped liquidate their coins. You know what's a another interesting fact about those auctions
Mm they they first they put Cumberland on the map. So I'm I look fondly on on those memories. Uh But you know, w I learned a lot about government auctions, how they work. y th they can auction off cars from criminals or houses and in the case of Bitcoins, uh it was um it was pretty straightforward. But then you think, okay, this is the government skeptic in me. Who's when we lost the first batch of Bitcoins to Tim Draper, they didn't announce that Tim Draper was the winner.
They didn't announce what price they were sold at. They didn't announce anything. So you're thinking, wow, if they wanted to, they could have sold it to their their buddies. their their nephews or something at a really cheap price. Cheaper than the the price that we bid for.
So I how do we prevent that from happening? Well the the answer is easy. It's a freedom of information request. So you as a American citizen, or maybe yeah, I think it's an American citizen, you have the right to ask the government Okay, what price did these clear at? You can also ask who is the buyer. They might not tell you that, but they should at least tell you the price they cleared at. And so we submitted a uh a request.
along with I think thirteen or fourteen other people in in America requested. At what price did these clear? And to this day the government has not answered those freedom of information requests. So that makes me pretty upset. Have they responded in in some form? No, just that they've received the request. That should make people mad if the government is auctioning off goods and they don't tell you at what price they clear.
Uh that's a very easy piece of information to release and I I don't see who are their who they are protecting by not giving up that information. Especially, you know, five years five years later. W you said before they auction off cars and all sorts of things. If you were to ask for that information about a car that got auctioned off, would you get that easy enough? Yeah. Yeah they would. Uh like you'll see if you look at the list of
of FOIA requests, freedom of information requests, you'll see that most of them have been answered, at least from two thousand and fourteen. And the ones that aren't are related to the Bitcoin auction. Like what is that about? I think we're far away from trading now, but it it it's at least interesting to know that uh there were known government agents
who are in jail right now for uh for f like planting evidence, stealing bitcoins w during the the investigation on Ross Olberg. Um and they're not they're not providing information on the FOIA request. Which is silly. Yeah, it's a very interesting case. Um i if someone did want to find out more about that, I know there's been um there's been like a documentary made. I know there's I think there's a book out. about him as well. Um, you know, where's a good place to learn a bit more about this?
I I'm sure that free Ross has all the uh the documentation of what's been happening. Okay. I mean a l a lot of it is run by Ross's mother. who who's seen her son locked away in a double life sentence. And you know, there's a petition to grant him clemency that's reached around two hundred thousand signatures. Um But I mean a double life sentence for running a
uh website seems harsh. Do you know if anything is gonna be done about that? I mean two hundred thousand signatures seems pretty significant. Um his really his best chance is uh like a presidential pardon or clemency, which seems unrealistic. Sure. But you know, keep your hopes up. Okay. Yeah. Just going back to uh winning these bitcoins in the the auction, you said you missed the first one but you got the rest. Maybe a
Bit of a dumb question, but why were you interested in participating in this auction? Because You know, you were a trading firm, whereas, you know, just accumulating a a lot of Bitcoin is almost like an investment, right? So it's Was that kind of in line with your approach to this market? Or yeah, like once you accumulated them, did you then have to try and sell them into the market or was it sort of a a longer term speculative uh trade? It was uh
it was not a long term trade, we'll we'll put it that way. And not All the Bitcoins we won were uh below the the current market price of Bitcoin. So whether you held onto it. Or you know, whether you held onto it for years or sold it at market rates, you were going to make money one way or the other. Mm. Okay. All right. Cool. Well let's uh let's let's keep things moving here. I did want to get into something uh with you, Mike.
You know, if we look at your trading career, it it's pretty significant. You've been in the markets as a professional, as someone who's been actively trading for a good part of almost twenty years. I'd like to ask you like what Do you think you've done well? Like what skills have attributed most to your trading success? That's a good question. I think a lot of people are going to associate my trading success with just finding Bitcoin early and holding onto it and that's fine. Like if that's
If that's what people think makes me a good trader then that I'm okay with that.'Cause like you know, hold holding holding Bitcoin holding Bitcoin through through periods where it goes up very rapidly was it's hard. It's not an easy thing. But um
You know, my my trading success outside of Bitcoin or maybe you know at a higher frequency or higher volume level. I think the thing that makes me uh successful is Finding an edge, sort of the way Don would do it, by um evaluating the uh theoretical or mathematical value of a product. making a market around it, uh willing to take some positional risk. Uh uh
doing that until the the opportunity's not there. And really innovating to find the next opportunity is is important too. You you can't be a one trick pony and last twenty years. I'd say most most good trading opportunities, at least for like a Chicago style prop shop, most good opportunities last about nine months. And then and then they're done.
Nine months being the maximum. Some opportunities last a a day. Are you able to share an example of that? Like something which only lasted like nine months? Take uh Mount Gox was trading uh five percent above other exchanges. This is Bitcoin. And but one way you could exploit it was by trading Mount Gox versus let's say Bitfinex. Or Bitstamp. I think Bitstamp was the the one you would trademark Ox, I guess. Five percent for a single arbitrage is huge.
And the way you do it is uh by by buying on BitStamps, selling on Mount Gox. Sending Bitcoins to one exchange, sending dollars back to your bank from another. But the problem was at Mt. Gox, you ha you were started running into uh withdrawal limits. and One way to get around withdrawal limits is by uh being close with the exchange.
So if you actually went to if if you had a connection with the owner of the exchange, you could say, hey, I want to be first in line for for dollar withdrawals. Well, what's in it for them? Um I I don't know, maybe more volume, maybe uh a steak dinner. Who who knows? But y you know, that's a that's a type of trade where if you get first in line on a withdrawal
then you have a competitive advantage and you just use it until it goes away. Maybe that's a bad example because Mt. Gox ended up losing everyone's money, but I I'd say that's just an example. It's an interesting example though, because it it sort of goes one step beyond just having a um an edge in the actual market. It kind of taps into the the value of having certain relationships.
Yeah, that by no means was a mathematical advantage. I mean th the math there was one exchange is higher than the other. Can you can you do the subtraction? Yeah. Yeah, the the the advantage there was was getting first in line.
Yeah. And just sticking in line with, you know, this the fact that you've been able to survive and and do extremely well in markets over the past twenty years, um And I think this is even more applicable given your uh your interest in Bitcoin, you know, how volatile it is, how it's it's gone up so much and come down so much and um continues to do so. How have you dealt with challenging times and uncertainty? Because that's something that, you know, just every trader struggles with on some level.
Okay, so uncertainty I would say is more of something you look for in a market rather than uh you shy away from it. When there's uncertainty, there's there's opportunity. Uh if the market does not move then there will be no trading. If there's no trading then you don't make the money. Um so the uncertainty I'm okay with. Uh the hard part is is when you have a position that goes against you, not for five minutes or a day, but when it goes against you for for six months.
That's very difficult. It starts affecting you personally. Um and I think maybe with time, uh you just grow a thicker skin and you say, you know what? I didn't need that hundred grand anyways. Maybe there's a lot of justification you do after the fact. Maybe some sour grapes reasoning. Um but in the end, if you don't have a thick skin, I don't see how it's possible to even enter the the trading business.
I I've seen some people who come into the uh you know, some very, very bright, talented people. They're you know, maybe they're good at poker maybe they're good uh computer scientists. But after even after five to ten years, they're still slamming the desk. and breaking their monitors when a trade goes against them. And that's just never been my style. I I think if you get emotionally attached to a trade then the premise of your trade was wrong to begin with.
I you you should get into a trade because statistically it's going to make you money. Not because it's based on hope. Yeah. I if you do the trade a hundred times, you're going to make money sixty out of the hundred times. Doesn't mean that the forty times where it goes against you, you've done something wrong or uh you should hang up your boots. It it it's just a game of like put through some volume on on a a theoretical edge that you have and and don't get emotionally attached to the tree.
Do you feel as though Having been in the markets for You know, somewhere near twenty years now that you've got you're making me feel old every time you say that. But you're not old though, that's the thing. Is you've you've Oh oh in in trading I'm a dinosaur. Nah. Th there's no there's no way someone like me could get a job in the trading industry anymore. I I don't have the skills that that are required for an entry level trader.
Yeah, but you're in the position now where you just hire people like that. You are. You've uh you've climbed up the lad. I don't know what you're worried about that for. I think it's important. It's important to to have the skills, to develop the skills. Um you know, stay fresh. s stay relevant in the market. That I mean
Don is one of the Don Wilson at DRW. He's climbed up the ladder, but he's still extremely bright. He's one of the best traders in the world. Um and he's he's also running a an eight hundred person company. Do you feel as though having spent this time in the markets that you've developed somewhat of a unique perspective of how you look at markets and like how you look at risk now? Like compared to your average person who's maybe been trading, let's say, just a few years.
Do you feel like the way that you look at markets and and think about strategies and uh assess risk is different to, you know, someone like I just described? Yeah, I maybe. N not too much. I think one thing that's helped me along the way is number one, I like to have a small headcount. I like to have a small trading desk. Uh when you have a small trading desk and you feel understaffed, you can focus on the most important things at hand. It really makes you focus. Um, I don't think throwing
lots of people at a problem is is the right thing. I think you you start with a small group and uh and make them work hard. And and um the other thing that I I think I do differently than others is I try not to spend too much time on backtesting. So if you have a a model and you want to apply it to the market, A lot of people will say, okay, well let's do a couple of weeks worth of back testing, apply it to um market data that we have collected.
And we'll see if it makes money. If it doesn't make money, then we'll move on to the next thing. And if it does make money, great, we'll turn on. That's not my approach. My approach is uh I sense that there's a market opportunity. Let's just turn on. And we'll see what needs to change. Um and that way you save two weeks worth of of backtesting and development work. Maybe it comes from the the times where you you would buy like a Nintendo game and there would be a
Like an instruction manual. And the first thing you do when you get home is you put the game in and you throw the instruction manual away. You're like, let's just try this. That's the that's my approach to the market. So is there is there any like reason for that or is that that's just your preference? Like is there any reason why you you stare away from you know traditional forms of backtesting and just like to test in real time, if you will?
Um probably because I'm not good at backtesting or programming. I'm also cheap. So maybe out of necessity I I just try to do that. To mess around with the markets, see see what they look like, see how they feel. I guess that's maybe a little bit controversial to some people, but I think there's some Oh it should be. I mean it should be. It like I'm sitting here on one hand saying that you should be able to to to define an edge.
um and then exploit it as much as possible. But then on the other hand I'm saying just go out and trade and and see what comes out of it. I don't though I don't think those two things are exclusive. Um I think if you if you fiddle around with the market, you will be able to find that edge. Um and that's just been my approach.
Uh exclusive of each other. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Um I mean you just you develop your model and then you run it in real time and you get your your metrics and your you assess, you know, how it performs over the next I think you said two weeks or whatever that period of time is.
Yeah. I I've had a few bosses in my time say, Hey, I heard uh you know I heard Company X was making money in product Y. Now go make some money. And all you have is product Y sitting in front of you on a trading ladder. And you're supposed to go make money on it and the and your boss expects results immediately. How do you deal with that? Well, I think the answer is you just you stare at the market. for twelve, thirteen hours a day and see what jumps out at you.
Now, speaking of uh things which perhaps could be a little controversial, uh, when we were exchanging messages on uh Telegram, uh it's you gave me the impression that you have uh A slight issue with uh f some forms of technical analysis. So um let's talk about this. Yeah, apparently you don't because on your website you've got uh a library where you can go purchase books. Now there's great books like Hull.
And I think maybe Natenberg's on there. But then you've got a whole section dedicated tech to technical analysis. And uh that irks me. Uh Well let me just explain. Not that I'm trying to stop you from calling me out here. Those books have been suggested by all the books on that page are suggested by guests who have been on this podcast. So it's a quick reference for people. But um yeah, continue.
Have you had any astrologists on your show?'Cause I mean, maybe you could put those books in the same section. There there isn't There is no science in technical analysis. I just don't think it works. Um and a lot of the reason uh a lot of the reason it's popular is because the people who trade with technical analysis they get away with using language that uh is unfalsifiable. Let me give you an example. Someone will say,
Bitcoin uh is going to test two Bitcoin is going to test ten thousand five hundred. And if we break through, then we're gonna trade eleven thousand. But if we don't break through, expect to trade back to ten thousand. Okay, there are many things wrong with the statement. One, he's not saying very much. Two, what does it mean to test a level? Does it mean to trade it? Does it mean to come near it? If it means to come near that level, like how near is it?
Um and if we break through, what does that mean to break through? If if we trade ten thousand five hundred and one? Uh but the thing is, no matter what happens, after this person says that, he he will come out and say, You see, I was right. We we tested it, we didn't break through, and we're and we're trading near ten thousand. So I think what you should do if if you hear people using unfalsifiable languages, you should call them out and say, Okay
What time frame are you talking about? What don't use the word test. Like give me a price. Are we going to trade 10,499? And if we touch it, are we going to trade eleven thousand? Okay, that's fine, that's a little better. Um I I think the language of technical analysts is very vague and intentionally vague. Um it makes their their charts with funny colors and lines and and Ichimoku clouds like come to life.
But I don't think it's real trading, no. Is your issue with people who are using technical analysis to create, you know, predictions? Like come up with prices. Like you said, Bitcoin might test ten thousand five hundred or might break through ten thousand five hundred. Like using it to uh like I said, predict a price. Or is your issue also with using it as sort of like, you know, chart patterns and that sort of thing?
Uh yeah, so I I have a problem with the language they use. Uh and then aside from that. I don't think that drawing a line on a chart is uh predictive of the direction of a market i i by any means. I I would like I would like to see some I would like to sit down to a a technical analyst for a month and and just see what kind of money he's capable of making or how how many trades he does. That's a challenge. I'm just gonna throw a
counter argument your way. I don't necessarily agree with this or disagree with it. You know, just so it's it's not a purely one sided conversation. I feel as though some people who use technical analysis probably would agree with you that it doesn't have predictive power, but they use it perhaps as a way to manage their risk. Okay. And in what way are they managing risk by looking at a chart? might have a a some sort of chart pattern which they use and they say, you know, if
pri if the price gets below this point, then that and that sort of breaks this pattern, it's a failed pattern. That's where I'm putting my stop loss. You know, that's where I admit I'm wrong on the trade and I take my loss and and move on. That's fine. I think that's setting like a stop loss that that's connected to a chart. The stop loss is proper risk management. And uh you shouldn't conflate proper risk management with uh With the the silly lines you draw on a chart.
Um uh so here let me give you another example of of where things can go wrong. Or where things have gone right for technical analysts. In in the Bitcoin world, in let's say twenty fifteen Number one, if you're a technical analyst, you're maybe connected to two or three different exchanges. And in Bitcoin in twenty sixteen, those exchanges could differ by like a percent.
So you you choose uh your favourite technical analysis graph, you draw a line on it, and you say, Okay, this is the level where I'm going to sell you draw a a a curved line with a a Fibonacci number attached to it, you say, Okay, this is where I'm going to buy. Now, okay, you've you've reached the the sell line in the market. You you put out an order and it executes. Now the thing is you're going to sell at one of the three exchanges with the highest price.
And if we come back down and we we trade on the curved line where your Fibonacci number is and you buy it, you're gonna buy at the exchange with the cheapest price. And if you do that many, many times, you might say, you know what, I'm a technical anal uh analyst wizard. But really, you're making your money over the long run because you're collecting the one percent bid ass.
of the the exchange arbitrage. You're just doing sort of a statistical arbitrage over time. It's not because you're a technical analyst guru that you're making money. So in in the end you're sort of missed attributing your skills to the charts when you're actually making money for a different reason. In the same way your example, uh risk management, you're you're managing risk well because you're putting in stop losses at levels, not because uh the levels you choose are are necessarily correct.
Okay. But when we talk about levels, like you know, Bitcoin is a great example of this. Um, I'm not sure when it was. Uh what do we end? Sort of Must have been towards the end of last year where Bitcoin held I think it was that six thousand dollar level for a pretty long period of time. Like That was a pretty significant level. Like things like levels and actual reference points like that are a are a real thing, right?
What do what do you mean by a significant level? Yeah, we were there for a long time. Does that make it significant? Uh uh I don't think so. It just means we were there. So if if big when Bitcoin broke below that six thousand dollar level that had no significance to you? No, not really. No I think the the explanation of significance has to come from the person who says it's significant.
Well it's a major support level. What is it? There's no Dying that was a major support level, that six thousand dollar level. And when that level breaks, then you know, there's some information there. What's the information? That's what I'm challenging here. That yeah, we've broken through six thousand. So what's next, I guess, is the question.
Does it mean we're going to trade to fi five thousand two hundred or five thousand five hundred? Do you need to say what's next? Do you need to say we're getting a five year old? Well sort of when you say something is significant, you you you want to say R I I assume you're making some sort of prediction about what's happening next. Uh yeah, well probably lower prices, but then if it depends what sort of trader you are. You know, if you've if you're a swing trader th
I I'm not trying to s I'm not trying to make a prediction about what price it's gonna go to. I d I didn't even trade this event. I'm just using it as an example. So And I'm just trying to understand how you think about things. I I don't know. If first of all I wouldn't I wouldn't declare anything as supportive or resistance. The the fact that we're even talking about levels is is cringy for me.
Um, but like, you know, if we if we go below six thousand, does that mean we should sell five thousand nine ninety nine? I I don't know. You tell me. Well, it depends what your strategy is, I guess, and what sort of opportunities you want to go after as a trader. But here, th let me let me ask you this question. So As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are gonna be new traders.
And one of the things that you come across as a brand new trader in a retail um as a retail trader. Um, you know, not coming up through DRW. Technical analysis is one of the first things you kind of get introduced to. Um, so as you're very opposed to this someone who's only been trading for, let's say, six months, twelve months, might be wondering, well
How are you trading? Like what are the sort of the signals and and what sort of factors are you using to drive your decisions? Like what sort of things do you think are important? Sure. It's a good question and to all the new traders, um, I w I wish you luck. Um I'd I would go away from technical analysis because it's a very easy way to convince yourself that you're doing things right. Um That's a trap that you shouldn't fall in.
You should be looking for an edge in the marketplace, as I've said a couple times already in the interview. And just because you've made money on a trade doesn't necessarily mean you've done something right. It requires many, many trades over a longer period of time to suggest that you're you may be doing something right. Uh I know it's broad and you you're looking for something more concrete, but you should be able to identify an edge. And maybe you're looking for another example.
If you want to trade uh a future You should be able to build a futures curve and compare it to spot pricing, compare it to a forward curve. If there's swaps you should compare it to a swap curve. And if if one curve gets out of line relative to the other, you should ask yourself, Well why is this curve out of line? Maybe I'm out of line, maybe my model's out of line.
And if you if you fully exhaust all the reasons that something shouldn't be out of line, but it still is, then you could say, okay, theoretically I think that this price is is incorrect. Um and that's just tools of of finance and and math. It has nothing to do with charting. Are you able to give like that example, you're talking about trading spreads across the yield curve, correct?
Mm-hmm. So again, that's probably I'm just trying to think for the brand new trader, right? Just trying not to lose them on this conversation. So uh let's just think about maybe just trading equities. So trading a stock. Let's say trading maybe I was gonna say trading Apple stock, but maybe that's not a great example. Okay, let's just think about the US equities market, like Wha what what could be an example of an edge there? I am not an equities trader. You're gonna stump me on this.
But like you know, i if you if you if you look at dividends and projected dividends, you could probably come up with a a theoretical price of a stock. And if it's trading different than that, then you you should You should exploit it. I don't know, that's such a bad example. That's all right. Uh you're not an equities guy, so um yeah. Uh maybe maybe a poor question on my part.
There's here's a here's a silly here's a silly, easy to understand example of of things that have worked for me in the past. Many exchanges have a matching algorithm that is FIFO, first in, first out. So if you're in the front of the queue, you have an advantage over the person that's behind you. If uh if there's people if the offer size is one hundred and you're the first ten
And five trades up, then you get the first five. So how do you take advantage of that? You sell the five and then you and you buy five somewhere else. Uh how do you maintain your advantage? Well, you want to study them the the exchange and find out what's the best way to be first in on an offer.
Because other people are gonna look at the same thing. And then you say, Okay, well maybe I could co locate my servers at the exchange. That way I can I can put in my orders before everyone else. Well everyone's gonna try to do that too. Maybe there's a nuance at the exchange where uh you can kind of sneak in on the open and be first. You know, that's that's type of advantage that I look for. It it's much different than like than trading equities on your e trade account.
It's it's almost a different world. Yeah. No, it is. It is a hundred percent. I guess my question was around, you know, just trying to not lose any new traders who are gonna be hearing, you know, someone like yourself come on, a very experienced trader, been in the market twenty years. I don't mean to repeat that again.
It's gonna be twenty one by the end of the interview. You know, Harry and you just tear apart technical analysis, it might sort of take them back a little bit. So Yeah, it's it's interesting to get your take on things and where you might look for an edge in the market.
So yeah, you left uh Cumberland I think it was around two thousand seventeen and then uh did you you moved back to France or you had a bit of a break from trading and now you've come back with with grapefruit? Like what's the story there? Yep, that's right. Uh I left Cumberland at sort of a a unique time. The the desk was doing well, but so was Bitcoin. And uh I wanted to take a break and
uh spend more time with the family so went back to France and France was great and everything, but uh I was still spending all my time staring at Bitcoin markets. So uh I said let's move back to the States. um did that and started grapefruit trading. So Grapefruit Trading, very simply put, is a cryptocurrency trading company. We do over-the-counter trades. We do uh exchange trades uh W it's principal money, so you know it we're not a fund.
We we take partnership money and invest it in trading opportunities. Um one good thing about running an OTC company is that because I've known people in the crypto community since two thousand ten I know a lot of people who are holders of coins that that are looking to sell and at the same time I know a lot of buyers. Um so you know, standing in between, matching those two people, it's it's been a lot of fun and I think the advantage is the the network that we have.
What would you say is like the breakup between volume that you do OTC and volume that you do um like on exchange? Uh algorithmically it's very easy to to put put through large numbers. So I'll say that. seventy percent of our our volume is algorithmic on exchange and then thirty percent but still not a small number is done OTC. The landscape of OTC trading is different too.
Um before at Cumberland the the spreads were wide. There weren't many um choices of of people to trade with. And the exchanges were all still kind of a bit. a bit shady, less institutional than they are now. Um now the the landscape has changed. People uh it's much more institutional based, uh spreads are are very thin. And really the some of the best opportunities in OTC trading for us has been the ability to match um the not Bitcoin but all the altcoins, buyers and sellers.
Right. Would you be able to walk through an example of how an OTC trade actually takes place?'Cause it's something very new to a lot of people. Yeah, so you're interested in buying Bitcoin Cash, let's say, because it's the best cryptocurrency on the market. Because it is the one true Bitcoin. Uh you you don't want to deal with exchanges because uh exchanges require uh a lot of time, effort, and deposits before you do the trade. And you hear about grapefruit trading, you say
Great, I'll sign up with them. So you send us your KYC information, we get to know who you are, make sure that you're not a a terrorist or money launderer. And now, okay, you're you're onboarded as a client. Then you can either do it through an API or you can do it over chat or over phone. You say, okay, I'd like your offer on a million dollars worth of Bitcoin cash. We show you an offer of uh I don't know, three hundred and you say, Okay, I'll buy that.
And then you send a million dollars and then we send you uh X number of Bitcoin Cash. Okay, so it's for people who have large holdings. Uh in general we we're aiming for uh For trades over twenty five thousand dollars. Oh okay. Um yeah no it's not it's not huge. Altcoins are great because it's hard to find exchanges that might list your favorite altcoin. Um so OTC is a great option for you for that.
So when someone calls you up and they say, I want to uh you know, sell a million dollars in Bitcoin, how do you decide what prices to quote in an OTC transaction? Sure. It depends on a couple of things. Like how eager are you to to sell the coins? Do you need it immediately? Or if you give us a day, let's say, then we can go and ask our network, uh
if there's a a person who who will buy those. Um that would be the best, you know, if we found a buyer and seller. Uh at times at times we might not be able to do that and we'll have to go to the exchanges and and sell the million dollars. So first thing we find out is like, okay, how much time do we have to work with? Um The second is how liquid is the market? Do we have uh do we have coins on the exchanges in order to hedge ourselves?
Um because that's another thing. If you say I wanna sell uh a million dollars of some really s you know, number two hundred coin on the coin market cap list Th there's a good chance that we don't have that coin just sitting on an exchange and we'll have to go and and and like somehow create those coins or borrow those coins, uh get those coins onto an exchange. So uh you know, liquidity is a factor, your your time preference is a factor. Um
the volatility of the market is a factor and then we kind of throw those things into a model and come out with a price. Okay. Yeah. I presume that time factor would be really important to some people because as we know, crypto can move so quickly. Um that, you know, if it's gonna take a day to get the transaction through, um, you know, that's can be more risky to to I guess both parties. Yeah, that no that's that's correct.
I think what's important is for for OTC and one of the reasons it's so appealing to people is that there's the concept of post trade settlement. Which is you and I agree to a price now. Like that can happen right now. And the money moves, like the dollars for coins that moves T plus one. It'll you can move tomorrow. The most important thing is that you set a price. If you try to do that on exchange and you don't have your coins on the exchange, you have to go to your wallet, unlock it.
uh send it to the exchange, wait for those coins to be confirmed, and then when you sell it, you might even have withdrawal limits so that you can't really get your dollars out for another month. So there's there is appeal to to trading O T C and I think one of the biggest gains is that you can just lock in a price immediately. Just look you know. Hit us up on Telegram, boom, you you've got a price right there, ready. Right.
So you've got grapefruit trading and I know you've also got interest in um some exchanges. Um obviously you're a uh you're a partner of um CoinFlex who have been a a sponsor of the podcast recently. Um, but you're also uh an investor, I believe, in Uh I saw somewhere you're an investor in a an exchange in the Middle East. Um, and I don't know. There's maybe others that I don't know about as well. What's uh what's attractive to you about being an investor in exchanges.
Uh well exchanges are great because they uh they work well on down swings as well as upswings. I feel like so much of my exposure to to cryptocurrency is just if the price goes up and that's not That's not great. You know, you're not completely hedged there. So um I liked the the Middle Eastern Exchange was really nice because I felt Two thousand ten to two thousand seventeen, even through today, the Middle East has really been left out of uh of crypto. I I can say that confidently because
I've I've been on the OTC side of things since twenty fourteen and I just never ever see um Middle East buyers. Maybe it's because our sales team or biz dev team just had no way to get there. But I really think that um There's money there waiting to be put into crypto. So uh I like the guys behind rain. I I hope that does well. And CoinFlex, CoinFlex is good, it's not American, it it's uh it's Hong Kong. Um and all crypto is sort of moving away from from US trading to places where the
the regulatory bodies aren't as strict as the C F T C or SEC. So uh Coinflex is doing some really cool things too. Yeah. Yeah. All right Mike. Well we should probably uh bring this to a close. Uh we've gone a little bit longer than anticipated, uh, which is totally okay for me. I know you've probably got uh things you need to uh get on with, but Um I just wanna say it's been a real honor to speak with you, Michael. I
I truly mean that. I um I reached out to uh Bobby, Bobby Cho. Uh listeners will be familiar with who he is. He's been on the podcast twice, who and used to work with him at Cumberland. Um, I I reached out to him I think about two years ago to try and get him to make an intro and um see if you'd have any interest in doing a podcast then. Um I don't know if word got through but anyway
We made it happen and it's it's just really nice when these things um come together. Some listeners Yeah, I'm I I'm glad to be on the show. I'm sorry I disappointed uh half your Half your user base with the technical analysis rant. Maybe you have me back, I can redeem myself. No, no, no stress at all.
Um, no, uh that was that was a fun bit of conversation there. I I liked having the debate. And I'm I'm not disagreeing with you by the way, um, or or agreeing with everything you said. Um I just sort of wanted to throw some counter arguments your way, so that was a bit of fun.
If someone wants to find out more, uh, obviously you're on Twitter. Uh there's the Grapefruit website and you've also got a little project that you've put together is Mike uh Komoransky Dead. So you might as well give that a mention. Plus please share your uh Twitter handle. Sure. The Twitter handle is M. Kromaransky. And the project is is Mike Komaransky Dead dot com.
I'm wearing a Fitbit and the Fitbit measures my heart rate. That's nothing new. Everyone has a a watch that probably measures your heart rate. But what makes my watch different is that it sends my heart rate to The blockchain as a Bitcoin cash transaction. So every hundred heartbeats, my watch sends. uh a tr a very, very, very tiny transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain with the data of uh how many beats per minute my my heart is going.
And then the website takes that information and uh it tells you tells the user whether or not I am dead. And right now if you go there it should probably say no. If uh if I am dead, it will say maybe. Um and if I take my watch off, it will also say maybe. But uh it's sort of a proof of concept of using the blockchain.
Uh you can obviously no one really cares that much if if I'm dead or alive. Some people do greatly, but most people don't. Um but it is a proof of concept that you can you can store some Information on the blockchain, do it cheaply. Um and again, you can only do it with Bitcoin Cash. You can't do it with Bitcoin. Of course, of course. Um, and the grapefruit website, just in case someone wants to find out more information about grapefruit trading. You can go to Gfruit G Fru dot IT.
That's a very cool uh domain, I must say. Except some people say like are you Italian? And no, it's just a cool website. Oh okay, okay. All right, Mike, let's uh let's bring this to a close. Again, really appreciate it, man. Thank you very much for doing the podcast. Thanks for having me. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more episodes. if you leave a race