I park my excess cash in an instrument that pays 11% dividends monthly. And it’s the safest investment I’ve found.

What is my hurdle rate?

Take a look at the chart below. It shows the M2 money supply, a largely accepted measure of the amount of money in circulation.

Normalized to 100 10 years ago, we are now at 180. This translates to an increasing amount of dollars in circulation of about 6% per year.

M2 supply showing the growth in dollars in circulation

This is the debasement of our money.

Every year, we all lost 6% of the value in every single dollar.

This is what I am arbitraging.

Now 11% in dividends means 5% in real dividends. A well running business should be able to deliver 5-10% returns above and beyond inflation.

What is Credit?

A brief detour to the fundamentals so we can make sense of how this works.

Traditional corporate credit comes in the form of bonds. Generally issued my a large financial institution to a corporate entity who uses the funds to invest in their business or operate more efficiently.

There is a fixed payment that the company "guarantees", potentially secured against certain assets.

All that is then packaged and sold to retail investor, who have zero transparency on how funds are used or what assets are collateralized.

Historically, personal finance advisor would recommend that bonds represent up to 40% of your portfolio, depending on your age and other factors.

Average payouts have varied historically, but hovered around 5% in the last decade.

Most retail investors buy corporate bonds as part of a balanced portfolio, rarely if ever paying attention to risk, as the payout is "guaranteed", despite a 1% default rate.

The average credit instrument provides less return than the expansion of the US dollar! You lose purchasing power when you invest.

A thought experiment with Gold

One of the oldest stores of value is Gold. It has survived wars, famines and cataclysms.

For simplicity of math, let’s assume Gold appreciates at 20% per year (it averaged 13-15% over the last decade), can we engineer a product that is extremely stable and pays 10% in dividends over time? This would be a winning proposition for the buyers and seller of this product.

We can create a Gold treasury flywheel that uses this arbitrage to “amplify” Gold on one side and issue a stable yield product on the other.

These are the key steps:

  1. Raise capital via stock issuance

  2. Buy Gold

  3. Leverage Gold on Balance Sheet to issue Dividend Yield product

  4. Accumulate more Gold

A company operating this would see the Gold per share increase over time, while paying dividends on the other product.

Illustration of the Gold Flywheel

Digital Credit

This is the genius behind combining these concepts in the digital era. While it is possible to do with Gold, this formula is exceptionally powerful with Bitcoin.

Not only is Bitcoin a superior product to Gold from a store of value perspective, it is in particular fully auditable in real time.

The biggest challenge to Bitcoin adoption at a corporate scale has been volatility. While that is reducing with the growth of the asset, it is now possible to leverage the above strategy to build on Bitcoin while keeping assets within a VERY tight range.

In fact, over the last 30 days, by one key measure of volatility (Sharpe Ratio) Digital Credit has proven to be outperforming any historical asset. It is simply extremely stable.

Here’s how this works:

The Bitcoin Treasury Company Flywheel

Two key companies are running this operation in the United States:

While you can use the common stock ( $MSTR ( ▼ 5.11% ) , $ASST ( ▼ 5.2% ) ) to amplify your BTC exposure and take risk, the key product I use is the Digital Credit or Perpetual Preferred ( $STRC ( ▲ 0.15% ) , $SATA ( ▲ 0.08% ) ).

This is so predictable that it flows perfectly into my overall system. It’s so stable, that I park any excess cash into it while I decide what to do.

One note on risk: the common stock of both of these is highly volatile. The Perpetual Preferred is designed not to be and is proving itself every day. Review the additional resources for your own conclusions!

Additional resources

As I dive into this topic further, I also recommend the following resources to learn more:

Subscribe to see Digital Credit in action!

11% is just the start. Subscribe and I’ll share how I use STRC to get 20%+ yearly returns.

Disclaimer: All material is provided for educational purposes only and does not guarantee any financial results. This is not financial, legal, or tax advice. I am not a financial professional. Results vary and are dependent on individual effort, timing and circumstances. There is no solicitation to invest.

Reply

Avatar

or to participate

Keep Reading