This was probably one of the more surprising parts of my conversation with Jed. St. Cloud Financial plans to begin lending against Bitcoin in the first quarter of next year.

Jed said something in this conversation that I wish more people believed before they saw the numbers: culture is not the soft stuff.

A few years ago, St. Cloud Financial was tracking about $1 million leaving for digital assets. Then it was $5 million. Last year, it was around $15 million.

One thing I liked about this conversation with Jed is how quickly he cuts through the “someday” language around this stuff.

We’ve all heard the stories about people losing access to Bitcoin because a computer disappeared, a key got lost, or a wallet became impossible to recover.

There is something powerful about watching an idea become bigger than the person who started it.

Can a pizza place get away with not serving pepperoni?

Dave Rauschkolb tells new managers they cannot expect respect just because they have the title. They have to earn it. One night, he left his dinner table, put on an apron, and helped an overwhelmed dishwasher catch up.

Dave Rauschkolb never planned on becoming an activist. Then Deepwater Horizon happened. Watching oil pour into the Gulf for months while coastal communities faced an uncertain future changed everything for him.

Dave Rauschkolb was one semester away from graduating when someone asked if he wanted to open a restaurant. He had never planned on it. His mom told him college would still be there, but the opportunity might not. A few months later, Bud & Alley’s opened.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Ja'Baree Allen makes an interesting point that the same thing applies to AI.

It’s pretty incredible how much AI has changed the way we work. What a copywriting workflow looked like a few years ago is completely different today. AI is a great tool, but it still needs the human touch.

Ja'Baree Allen is working with AI agents that can handle 10,000 inbound calls simultaneously, authenticate patients, and manage appointments. The entire process can happen automatically. AI is really changing healthcare.

A bank, Venmo, and Cash App could all support the same stablecoin and allow money to move seamlessly between them. That kind of interoperability could completely change payments.

Stablecoins and digital assets will continue to grow, but real adoption is going to need traditional financial institutions. The questions bankers started asking after the GENIUS Act passed tell you where this is headed.

Whether Bitcoin or Ethereum goes up or down isn’t really the point. If customers are moving money from your institution to another platform to trade crypto, that money is leaving your ecosystem.

Blockchain, stablecoins, digital assets, and tokenization are going to change financial services. The next 10 years are going to move fast. The opportunity is figuring out how to be part of it.

Bitcoin could be $62,000, $100,000, or a dollar. If customers have to leave your institution to access crypto, you’re giving someone else the opportunity to win the rest of their financial relationship too.

A Sergeant Major told Mark Casper, "I’m afraid. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get out." Mark’s response was simple, "I gotcha." He connected him with a career coach and today he’s doing great.