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I'm Johny Fernandez, and welcome to deBankNews Live. So we're gonna just go
ahead and walk straight into it. Sean, let's go ahead and start talking

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about the big headline today. Specifically today Tesla announced that it
actually bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, it plans to take it as payment. So

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obviously Bitcoin has been the big story for the last couple of months,
actually. So when you heard this, let's walk me through what went through

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your mind. I mean, this is a big company taking this Bitcoin and
cryptocurrency into like a whole new level. And it's taking it as payment.

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So what goes through your mind?

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Sean Murray: Okay, well, you know, it's interesting, we talked probably
over the last few months about Bitcoin. And I had, I think I even told you

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that we were at at like, a market top. At like, 20,000, right?!

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Johny Fernandez: And I asked you if, what is the right time to pull out? Or
also, when is the right time to go out and start investing in Bitcoin.

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Sean Murray: Right. And, you know, and I also mentioned that I don't look
at Bitcoin as an investment. Right. And some of the warning signs and

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things to be cautious of that existed a few months ago, back when Bitcoin
was only 20,000. They still exist in the market. So that hasn't changed.

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The risk actually hasn't changed, even though it's now up to 43, some odd
1000 as of this morning. And so the the news came out, you just mentioned

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about Elon Musk, it was it was Tesla, that actually bought it back in
January. So they're not buying it today. There the market is reacting to

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what Tesla did back in January. So the increase in price is not due to the
purchase of Bitcoin happening right now. Because right, if you do a huge

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purchase, it sends the price up, right? It's the market reacting to Tesla's
confidence, and Elon Musk has confidence in Bitcoin. And it's interesting

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that he is so confident, and he's not alone. You also have Jack Dorsey from
Square, who is also very confidence and invested heavily in Bitcoin. And

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they have to be aware of what the risks are and the risk is that the
primary liquidity in the crypto market, and I won't name exactly what it

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is. But there's allegations that the whole thing is basically some kind of
scheme, right? That it's not really backed by real dollars. And it's so

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heavily used on all the cryptocurrency exchanges that it's really it's kind
of the glue that holds the crypto market together. And so that's like one

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of the things that people have to think about when they see Bitcoin going
up is like whatever happened if at some point, the liquidity the underlying

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glue of the market falls apart, then is the price of crypto going to remain
where it is. And if the popularity is going to remain where it is, you

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know, my thought on it is that it's not that the popularity and the price
is going to probably plummet. And again, I'm not looking at it from an

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investment standpoint, but I can't see how the thing that holds it together
if that collapses, that everything else just remains the same. But that

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brings me to the whole point of well, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, they've
invested heavily right. What do they know that? I don't know. I don't think

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they know, more than I don't know, I think everyone kind of knows the same
thing. And I think the reason that Bitcoin can still go up, despite knowing

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the risk is that one of the funny things about life is that you can be
right about something, but other people can just decide that you're wrong.

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Johny Fernandez: So let me ask you this because they've credited Elan Musk
for rising the price of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin through his

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messages on something as simple as Twitter, like he, you know, he's really
been pushing on it. So it goes back to what you were saying that, you know,

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he, at the end of the day, I mean, even though, you know, there's the
tethering situation, there's allegations of that, but, you know, he's still

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putting his value into it. And pretty much he's saying that, despite, you
know, what people were saying, through his messages, and through his

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actions with Tesla, that he believed in it.

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Sean Murray: yeah. And, I mean, he believes in it, but you know, people
believe in the housing market, even when they shouldn't have believed in

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it, right? If you watch the movie, The Big Short, you have this small hedge
fund that decided that housing was way overvalued. People weren't paying

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the underlying mortgages that were being packaged up into the bonds, and
they took a big short position on housing. They were right. But the market

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just decided they were wrong, even though they were technically right. And
this has happened several times in the history Wall Street you have a good

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example is Herbalife we have Bill Ackman, a billionaire who thought that
Herbalife was essentially a giant Ponzi scheme fraud and he took a short

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position on Herbalife and he thought it was gonna go down to zero the feds
gonna shut it down and what happened what the other people just took a

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different opinion and decided that Herbalife might have some problems but
that ultimately it was going to be successful company and Bill Ackman was

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right to an extent Herbalife did have to get I think they got to fine, they
had to make some changes, but they didn't go to zero and they didn't go out

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of business right, they survived. And Bill Ackman ended up taking a little
one on the chin a little bit from that whole experience. So it could be

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similar right to what you're what we're talking about Bitcoin is that Musk,
Dorsey, they I think they know what the risk is. And I think they probably

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view whatever ensuing damage is going to be limited. And that ultimately
long term that Bitcoin provides value. I mean, I've always thought Bitcoin

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provided value to not from a not from an investment standpoint, but just
from a utility standpoint. And perhaps that ultimately, that's the way

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they're looking at it as well, that's what I would have to say.

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Johny Fernandez: So and the big thing is that they're accepting it as
payment. So obviously, they're not only putting money into it, they're

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allowing other people to use the money to, you know, pretty much buy their
inventory. So what would you say regarding that? Like, is that a move we

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can see other companies also kind of going towards that that believe in
Bitcoin? Or is that something that would typically just stay within the

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people? Like we were talking about, like Elon Musk is that you know,
believe in it, and they want to use it?

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Sean Murray: I think it's a gimmick, to be honest with you. Okay. I think
the Bitcoin community is not about using it. The Bitcoin community

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currently is not about using the money to spend it. They're about holding
it to become rich, the whole in a huddle, you know, forever.

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Johny Fernandez: So, so when would one I guess what advice do you have for
people that are kind of in the holding pattern that they want? Like, when

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is it time to pull out? When is it time to, you know, figure out like, what
to do with it?

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Sean Murray: Yeah, well, I mean, I, and I don't want to speculate on that,
because I don't look at it from an investment standpoint. But in terms of

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Tesla accepting Bitcoin as payment, I think it's a gimmick, I don't think I
don't wanna say nobody. But I think that the Bitcoin mindset at current is

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to hold and to think that they're going to use that money to buy Tesla's I
don't think is going to happen. At least not in the short term. I think that

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Tesla needs to accept it, or say they accept it to be consistent with why
they're making an investment in Bitcoin itself, right? I think if you're

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gonna make a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin, but you don't accept it as
payment, that would be pretty hypocritical. So I think it's something they

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had to do for PR reasons, but I don't really think it's that revolutionary
that they would accept it as payment. other vendors around the world.

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Overstock, for example, has accepted a lot they still accept it, but they
did accept Bitcoin. You know, as long as 5, 6, 7 years ago, they were

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accepting Bitcoin for computer technology. I even bought a monitor here in
the office in this, you know, right outside the studio, in Bitcoin on

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overstock years ago. So I don't think it's revolutionary that they would
accept Bitcoin. I think that part is pretty normal. I just think that

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people's behavior is not totally spend Bitcoin.

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Johny Fernandez: Cool. Awesome. So let's move on to the next topic. We did
find out that Enova is pleased with the OnDeck acquisition, that's

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something that we have been talking about. And now it's looking to divest
ODX, OnDeck Canada, and OnDeck Australia. So these are big moves, obviously

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with Enova making. So making this move. So go ahead and walk us through
like, number one, like the why it's doing this, why it's doing something,

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you know, obviously, it looks like they're going to go ahead and kind of
split things.

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Sean Murray: Sure, yeah. And I haven't talked to Enova or OnDeck about
this. I learned the way that many other people learn, I learned through

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their earnings call, which was last week. And they kind of just mentioned
it, they probably said two sentences about each. They said they wanted to

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divest ODX that that OnDeck had some pretty important bank clients that
they signed up. But that ultimately it wasn't really a moneymaker, it

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seemed more like a vanity play and a PR stunt than it was a real business.
And then they also mentioned that they wanted to, quote unquote, monetize

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OnDeck Canada and onDeck, Australia. And they did it in the same breath as
talking about divesting ODX. So I took that to mean that they also want to

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sell OnDeck Canada and Australia. And but what they explained, it's not
that those branches didn't make money or weren't viable. I think they

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actually said that they were viable in their respective markets, but that
they were too small. And Enova, such a big company that I think that it

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would be a distraction to manage a market that is too small for them. I was
kind of surprised to hear that Canada would be considered a distraction or

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too small for them. Australia, I totally understood. And that's because
Australia is so far away. It's a very small market, Australia. Tiny. And

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it's so far away. And it takes a lot of time and effort to really manage
that market. But if you're going to manage it remotely from the US, or at

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least oversee it, you're going to have to spend time in Australia, it's
like a whole day flight, you lose a day just by going two days, it costs a

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whole lot of money to go there. I'm sure Enova could afford it. But the
market is so small to spend all this time and all this energy and resources

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on that market, I can understand why they would want to split that off.
Canada was I was kind of surprised about but this is all part of the the

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post acquisition kind of phase of a deal. And so it really doesn't really
send any signal about you know, what they think about OnDeck, I think

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ultimately this was going to be their plan anyway, they acquired OnDeck,
they're looking to shed the parts that don't really fit into their model.

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I've seen numerous former employees of OnDeck announced their their
departures from OnDeck on on LinkedIn. And, you know, the fact that they're

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going to divest what doesn't make sense, is just, you know, a normal part
of the business.

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Johny Fernandez: Awesome. So like in for futures, you know, when do you
think this kind of will fully take place? Like how long do you think the

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process is gonna be for them to actually fulfill this?

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Sean Murray: Um, you know, that's a great question. If I was an investment
banker, I'd probably have a better answer for you on that, you know, I'm

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not privy to any of the conversations. And then revealing that in their
earnings call may suggest that they've been talking about it for quite a

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while. And you know, nobody had been pursuing it that it wasn't like they
just started. These things could take a while to do. I think that there's

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going to be a lot of interested buyers, at least for OnDeck. Canada, I
don't know about ODX and I don't really know about Australia, but I know

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that there was a pretty strong interest in acquiring OnDeck Canada's
operations just from feedback I've gotten on our announcement of our story

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about OnDeck or that move. So possibly by the end of the year, but it's
really hard to say.

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Johny Fernandez: Awesome, and the next thing Super Bowl, obviously, I know,
you know, unfortunately, Tom took it home again. Something we talked about

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Friday.

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Sean Murray: Tom Brady, the robot. He has to be robot.

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Johny Fernandez: And he pretty much gave like a little announcement
yesterday that he's not stopping like you know, he's I

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Speakers: [cross-talk]

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Johny Fernandez: Well, you know, probably next year take number 11 home
or...

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Sean Murray: That's absurd.

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Johny Fernandez: He played well, though. He definitely played well. But it
was also a big, big, big night for Rocket Mortgage. Rocket Mortgage was

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everywhere yesterday. I mean, you can literally like little like
sponsorships. It was great. And it was also interesting to see that they

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actually won USA Today's ad meter. And they kind of made history for the
first time in 10, almost a decade and the company won two 60 seconds

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Superbowl ad placement they placed first and second in the ad meter. And
the big thing Tracy Morgan was pretty much in both commercials and the

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commercials pretty much the illustrated the distinction between pretty sure
and certain. So pretty much a commercial one of the commercials, a couple

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they were trying to like, Look, they were looking through the Rocket
Mortgage app. And then they're like oh, we're pretty sure about going with

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this. And then Tracy came out and said, All right, like here's what pretty
sure it looks like. And he gave them different scenarios of what pretty

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sure would look like. And so pretty much walk them through like pretty
ridiculous, like scenarios, and it was hilarious. And so yeah, they ended

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up winning. For the first time a company won first and second place in the
ad meter in USA Today's ad meter commercial for the Super Bowl. So

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Sean Murray: So I guess that means that Rocket Mortgage, won the brokers
are better than the competition. Competition they had. Yeah, it sounds like

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they, they kind of stole the show.

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Johny Fernandez: They did. He definitely did steal the show. And the last
time something like this happened was actually in 2007. Budweiser did

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something similar, but I mean, it's been a while and yeah, they took it
home. They definitely It was exciting to see kind of how they promoted

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everything. And they were just like, pretty much everywhere last night.

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Sean Murray: Yeah, it's, it's interesting to see that. FinTech is kind of
front and center. Right? Yeah. Even in the Super Bowl.

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Johny Fernandez: Yeah. And like they were, and just the amount of like
promotion and advertising that they did last night. It was everywhere, like

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every time, like a commercial pop up, you know, it remind you like, oh,
like if I need like, you know to use Rocket Mortgage like Oh, let me

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download the app and they pretty much sneaked into it everywhere they
could. It was funny cuz when the announcers and the commentaries and the

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correspondents were on the field, like, you can see like little icon like
just reminding us like, hey, like we're here. Don't forget us, so...

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Sean Murray: It's incredible. Yeah. And one thing I don't think a lot of
people know is that the parent company of Rocket Mortgage, Quicken. Yeah,

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they also own a Rapid Finance, a small business lender, based in Bethesda,
Maryland. And it's all connected. Right? So it's not, you know, people

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might see Rocket Mortgage and use them for their mortgage. But that also
brings them into the Quicken family, and it gives them exposure. I would

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think Yeah, to business lending options if you're a business owner. So
that's kind of kind of a big, big news.

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Johny Fernandez: Yeah, it is. Exciting news. So.

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Sean Murray: All right, so. Okay, well, thank you everybody, for joining us
today. I'm Sean Murray with dBanked

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Johny Fernandez: and Johnny Fernandez with deBanked and we'll see you next time.