Wealth is being redefined, and your portfolio might be dangerously outdated. In this insightful episode of Speak Up, Anthony Scaramucci sits down with early Bitcoin adopter and WindRock Wealth founder Brett Rentmeester to unpack what comes after the collapse of the 60/40 portfolio. From the inflation crisis to the Fourth Turning, from blockchain to AI, this is a must-watch for anyone serious about future-proofing their investments.
Key Topics:
- Why Bitcoin could 10x, and a credible path to $1M
- The psychology of holding through extreme volatility
- How governments and institutions are changing the Bitcoin game
- Why the 60/40 portfolio is obsolete in today’s macro environment
- Investing in crypto with a framework: BTC, Ethereum, Solana, AI tokens
- The coming AI revolution and how crypto and AI will merge
Brett lays out a clear, practical investment philosophy grounded in macro realities, risk management, and asymmetric opportunities.
Volatility got you concerned? Get a free portfolio review with Brett Rentmeester and WindRock at https://bit.ly/4jjTrUA
Hard Assets Alliance – The Best Way to Invest in Gold and Silver: https://www.hardassetsalliance.com/?aff=WTH
Brett Rentmeester 0:00
If you look to a cycle where it rivals gold, it’s probably pushing a 10x from here, it’s probably pushing a million dollars, right? If you look to a world where governments are settling big trades in Bitcoin, who knows?
Anthony Scaramucci 0:20
Hello and welcome to speak up. I am your host. Anthony Scaramucci, thanks for joining us today. Our guest is a friend of wealthion. Brent rentmeester. He is the founder and managing director of Winrock wealth management, but famous in my mind, okay, Brett, primarily because of the Bitcoin exposure. You got there way early. You got there way before me. When I was doing my research, I stumbled upon you. So how the hell did you get there so early?
Brett Rentmeester 0:53
Yeah, I mean, we got there early, but, you know, like early, like in $3 early, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, we, we didn’t invest at $3 but we were aware of Bitcoin at $3 which is pretty shocking. You know, it’s one of these things, Anthony, it’s like luck, but also kind of a prepared mind looking for something. And this was, you know, coming out of the oh eight crisis. Was this period of money printing, and we thought unsustainability, so we were already predisposed to wanting to hold gold and silver, and we’re thinking about, how do you own stores of value that are going to protect you? And we happened to meet some early tech people that were working on Bitcoin, you know, some of them mining it. One of the guys helped build one of the first exchanges. And, you know, it struck us as an experiment, but one that was worth digging into. And the more we learned about it, the more it fit this definition of maybe a store of value. It was still a big unknown. As you remember, there were a lot of failed experiments before Bitcoin. You know, there’s e cash and E gold and all these other things. So most people that had sought that path for the prior 30 years, before that had actually lost all their money. So it was, it wasn’t like it was a no brainer, but it was something that had some appeal.
Anthony Scaramucci 2:06
Why, though? Why?
Brett Rentmeester 2:09
Well, I mean, gold and silver are great, but, you know, we felt like the system is always against gold and silver, right? And so Bitcoin was interesting, because it looked like it was gathering some critical mass to act like a store of value as an alternative to fiat currencies. But it also had this dynamic of like a new technology blockchain. So it wasn’t all just about hedging the risk of fiat currency. It was also about, Hey, there’s this new trustless kind of algorithm system. And, you know, the system basically manages itself. So, you know, back in the day, we used to say, hey, what if a system could do trillions of dollars in transactions? But it had no CEO, no employees. Was borderless, and no country could stop it. So there was this unknown. And clearly, in the early days, it was kind of like a venture capital risk, right? It was far from certain, but it had these dual elements that we felt like, hey, on one hand, if this works, it’s a great hedge. On the other hand, there’s huge upside here, if this technology, Blockchain, on a broader context, blossoms, all
Anthony Scaramucci 3:19
right, I want to play client. Okay, I’m your client. I come to you, but I’m old, you know, I’m 61 I’m a miserable, middle aged man, you know, bitter with life and so forth. And I hate Bitcoin, all right? I show up at your office miserable and bitter, yeah. And I say, Brett, what the hell is it with this Bitcoin? Go ahead. Give me the tell me, am I you putting it in my portfolio? Is this something that, or you don’t put it in my portfolio? Give me, give me the pitch.
Brett Rentmeester 3:48
Yeah, yeah. Are you saying today or at the beginning? No, today, today? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the short answer is, our belief is it’s a critical asset for almost every portfolio. So sure, if you’re retired and living off a portfolio, it’s going to be a smaller piece, right? And if you’re young, it’s a bigger piece. If you have higher risk tolerance, you know, etc. But you know, 20 or 2012 to 2015 we got all this pushback about, well, it’s used for money laundering. It’s Monopoly money. But that attitude is changing now, and even though people, a lot of people, don’t totally understand it, I think what has become known is that the Fiat debt problem of the world is mushrooming, and people do understand that, and they’re increasingly viewing fiat currencies as the bubble in the Monopoly money. So I think we have a receptive audience, and it’s always been about sizing a position that you can afford to lose, but it’s also something that can be up multiples of most other investments. So I think most people are looking for a piece of that in their portfolio. Okay,
Anthony Scaramucci 4:55
you know, I don’t know. I’m upset with the world. Let me tell you why. Okay, I grew up in the world where. Where somebody told me that US debt was risk free, and when I took on my corporate finance class, I was told that’s the risk free rate of return. I told that the Fed does certain things a certain way, that when the markets go down, the interest rates are going to go down. I was told that the US was the Sentinel beacon of free market activity, and the Fed was, you know, generally friendly to capital markets and capitalism. And now I feel like, you know, and I know you write about this stuff, we’re in the fourth turning we’ve got four generations since the Second World War, and the people below 40 don’t like the World War Two. Order, the post World War Two. Order, things seem to be upside down. The we got a president puts tariffs on, tariffs off. He’s like the guy from Karate Kid, wax on, wax off. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing. So what? What do I have to do? Coach me for this new world, be my Sherpa for the new world that I’m living in. Because I know you have you have a lot of great thoughts
Brett Rentmeester 6:04
on all this. Yeah, thank you. Well, I’d say one, the reason we’re in a different world how we invest, versus most of modern history, is because we’ve cranked up the printing presses and we basically printed money to cover the debt problem. And so far so good, right? We’ve kicked the can of having to deal with all these problems. But we all know when we all sit back, you know, with our favorite drink on a Friday night and are looking at the numbers, if we do that, you know, how can you pay this stuff back? It’s a real problem. And it’s not just the US. We’re talking Europe, China, you know, the whole Japan, the whole developed world. And like you mentioned, fourth turning great work by Neil Howe, is an insight that about every 100 years there’s a generational loss of faith in the institutions that have served us in the past. And I’d say the loss of faith in the institutions is going to be centered on the Federal Reserve and money and the financial system. So you’ve got to, I think, prepare for a world that you describe stocks and bonds like, oh, the world things are going down, but bonds are doing okay because rates are coming down. I think we have to prepare for a world of, what if rates go up? What if bonds and stocks are overvalued because we’ve printed so much money and set a high bar on all valuation? What if we’re not going to make money? What if we’re if we’re sitting here in, you know, 1520, years, just getting back to even, what other assets are going to give us a chance to, not only, you know, keep up, but get ahead? And I think that’s where you look at some of these cryptocurrencies, you know, Bitcoin and beyond, and you kind of ration that I’ve got to take that kind of chance, because if I just sit here, you know, like a deer in headlights, I’m probably not going to keep up. It’s
Anthony Scaramucci 7:46
interesting, because I get so horrifically criticized, you know, I, I moved into Bitcoin. I was way later than you, sir. I mean, God bless you for being so early. But I, I got there in October of 2020 and I started buying, and then I was so hit, so criticized, and people told me how misguided I was and how stupid I was. And, you know, I got sold out by some of the wire houses and sell ratings on my fund and so forth. And people have a tendency not to want to embrace the future. You know, our brains are interesting. We like sort of constancy. We don’t really love change. Yet. We’re very neurally plastic. If you teach your brain something, you can learn it. You know, we just like to stay in our little hovel. Why are we like that? Like, what do you say to your clients? Like, what do you say to your clients to bust out of the 6040, portfolio, or to bust out of the old thinking that I’m describing.
Brett Rentmeester 8:45
Yeah, well, one I think we educate them on the state of the world as it relates to debt and money printing and kind of the predicament the world’s in. So that sways some people to want to think different. On the other hand, listen, the last 30 years have been a period of amazing technology evolution. You know, I say right now by adoption, I think Bitcoin is around where the internet was in 1997 I remember 1997 nobody thought you’d ever be making purchases with your credit card on the Internet. In 1997 nobody believed you’d be watching videos or streaming and downloading things, and you think of the power of where that’s all come so I think there’s another group of people that get the power of this, and then there’s probably a third camp, Anthony, and I’d say it’s people that view this as decentralization and blockchain as freedom, in a move away from the centralized, big governments, big companies that have kind of controlled everything in the past. This is really a vision of freedom if we can create decentralized business models where you don’t need normal companies in the middle as middlemen, and just let people contribute to projects, earn incentives based on their contributions. And that is really. What a lot of these cryptocurrency projects are. It’s a very empowering idea, okay,
Anthony Scaramucci 10:04
if somebody says the fourth turning, what does that mean to you? Yeah,
Brett Rentmeester 10:12
well, I’ll simplify in my layman’s terms, to me, it means fourth turning means we’re at a point where collective memory has been forgotten about the difficult decisions and periods in the past, and we’re about to relearn some valuable lessons. And you know, the theory is based on demographics and different, you know, different demographics through history, and we’re just at one of those points where, historically, the systems we’ve built, the world we knew yesterday. It’s not that it’s gone or will go away completely, but we’re at a real inflection point. And to me, the inflection point looks, of course, it’s geopolitical and all these other things, but to me it looks like it’s centered on this idea of money. You know, what is money. It’s become something that we can literally just print out of thin air, seemingly with no consequence in the past, but I think those consequences are starting to show up, and something we have to plan for.
Anthony Scaramucci 11:12
You have a price target for Bitcoin,
Brett Rentmeester 11:16
you know, we stray away from it, but, but let me just echo a couple people. We follow. One thing everybody’s got to understand, I think, about Bitcoin, is it is a technology, right? And it’s gone through a very distinct four year having cycle where every four years, the inflation rate of the remaining Bitcoin that are released get cut, gets cut in half. And that’s dictated a very distinct trading cycle and pattern. So I don’t know if that’ll break now that we’ve got, you know, kind of a land rush of sovereign governments and companies coming into the space. But normally, based on that cycle, we would be peaking in the near term, meaning sometime later this year, maybe into 2026 and the ranges, I think are credible, range from maybe, don’t hold me to this. It’s just 150,000 maybe on the low end to upwards of 350 400,000 that kind of band of possibility.
Anthony Scaramucci 12:10
But to your point, in past cycles, it could reach a peak like that, right? It went to 20,000 then went back to 4000 to 69,000, then went back to 16,000 Are you saying that past down cycles because of macro forces may be more muted? Is that possible?
Brett Rentmeester 12:30
Well, it’s a question I have in my mind. I’d love your opinion on it. I mean, clearly this not investment advice. I should throw that out there. You know, in the past, look who was in this is one of the rare investments in history where the individual investor has had a big edge over Wall Street and governments. They were the early people in right? So I think a lot of the cycles were behavioral and driven by individual investors. Now you’re getting institutions. Now you’re getting states. Now you’re getting sovereign governments, countries, so I don’t know it’s a question. I think you could end up seeing less volatility in the future due to that, but I wouldn’t bank on it yet. I’m still of the mindset I’m going to respect the four year cycle until there’s clear signs that’s not happening. I mean, I’d love your opinion on it.
Anthony Scaramucci 13:19
The reason I’m hesitating, Brett, is that when everybody says this time is different, it’s usually the time for, like, run for the woods, right? We all know that, right? And so I don’t necessarily think it’s this time. It’s different. I think this is either an asset class or it’s not an asset class. And so if it’s an asset class, it’ll move to $20 trillion over time. It’s not valued right at two, three, $4 trillion an asset class would be gold, 22, $23, trillion so, so that’s the binary decision. And so not saying it’s different. I say we won’t have cycles in Bitcoin and things like that, but the volatility on Apple, Amazon, Google, meta, you know, it muted over time. Now, you know, meta crash went down 50, 60% three years ago, but it rallied back. You know what my point is, is that I’m not, I’m not convinced that we’re going to see the same typical four year cycle. So yes, I’m probably a believer that things are changing, and that Bitcoin gets to asset class status inside of the next decade, you know could. And again, that’s $800,000 a coin, which is sort of a nine move eight move from here. So I don’t know. I mean, Nvidia did that, Apple did that, Google did that. It’s not like I’m talking about something that couldn’t happen based on what we’ve seen in the past.
Brett Rentmeester 14:43
Yeah, and, you know, just to add a thought to that, I mean, if you think of precious metals as an asset class, I think maybe, right now, gold is about 10x I think 10x the market cap of Bitcoin. So on that theory, your theory, kind of, at least advisors in the world think. Of it as an allocation and asset class, conceivably a 10x upside. But could it be something more than that? Anthony, could it be a currency substitute at some level? So, you know, we don’t think of the dollar, yen and euro as asset classes. We think of them as something much broader. So if, just hypothetically, if bitcoin became 10% of the, let’s call it money in the world. That’s probably even a lot bigger proposition than it becoming a distinct asset class that might compete with gold. So I think you’re right. We don’t know the answer to this, but it looks like the trajectory is going to be favorable in that we’re still, I don’t want to say we’re in the early innings, but we’re certainly not at the end of the story here. I think the premise of Bitcoin and the backdrop of kind of fourth turning, kind of events in a changing world order favors investments like this.
Anthony Scaramucci 15:54
Okay, well, I appreciate your evolution, your your neuroplasticity. You do sound a little bit like Michael Saylor. My buddy Michael Saylor wrote the forward of my book, because he’s in your camp, you know. If it’s trades to 7% of assets, you know, he’s, he’s richer than Bill Gates, you know. And he always wanted to compete against Bill Gates. Now he’s got a chance. So let’s talk about, talk about the macro environment, fed cuts rates anytime soon. What do you think happens in AI? Does AI just blow out pretty are we gonna have agents everywhere? Ai, agents everywhere? You and I are gonna be on a lounge chair sipping ice tea?
Brett Rentmeester 16:33
Well, you know, it’s one of those. It’s one of those thoughts with two different extreme outcomes. And you brought it up earlier, you know about not assuming it’s going to be different than the past. In the past, human evolution and technology, people were out of work when the whip and buggy went away, thinking their jobs were forever gone, but there are other roles for them. So the thing about AI, that’s a little different, though, is it does a lot of functions that are like thinking functions that humans are there to do. So I’ve gotten a little more on the side that it is much more of a massive disrupter coming. You know, there will clearly be, well, let’s take the CPA world. You know, AI should be able to complete every tax return. You probably need some people at the top of that pyramid, humans, verifying things, managing that system. But I also don’t think we need, you know however, many people are employed in the CPA Tax Preparation world, so I think it’s going to be massively disruptive. And I started out two years ago being a little bit of an AI skeptic, I’ll admit thinking things were overblown. And I’ve come to the other side of it, which is what you’re alluding to, that this thing is powerful. Because not only is it right now, most people know it as I’m using AI for enhanced, you know, search engine and quicker information, but the minute you start letting AI go out and do things agentic, AI or agents out there, whatever you want to call them bots, doing things on your behalf, like could be Your Personal Travel Planner that knows everything you like, what you’re looking for, deals and 24/7 it’s working on stuff for you that’s really powerful. And I think there is a connection between AI and crypto. These are two powerful forces moving forward, and I think they’re starting to come together. I
Anthony Scaramucci 18:16
i Not only agree with everything that you say, but how do I play it like? What do you recommend? What do I buy? Take advantage of it? Well, you
Brett Rentmeester 18:27
know, the hard part in this space is you need a framework. When we started getting into this, even over the last 10 years, it’s kind of the Wild West. You know, anybody with an idea could create a cryptocurrency. There is scams, there’s frauds, there’s all sorts of things, but there’s also some amazing teams of people building things. So I think you need a framework, and you bring on a lot of great guests, guys like Raul Paul and others that help people put a framework to the space versus how do I analyze the 100,000 coins that are out there? It’s overwhelming. I think, as a rule of thumb, you want to own a piece of global platforms where, if they win, it’s still an if it’s winner. Take all kind of, you know, economics and Bitcoin is a great example of that. I think, beyond Bitcoin, again, not investment advice. These are just illustrations of ideas. There are clearly cryptocurrency chains set up for more business applications. I mean, Ethereum has been the longest standing one, right? And that kicked off at one point in 2017 what was an initial coin offering craze which rivaled Wall Street’s IPOs. So you have things like that. That might be, you know, it’s criticized, but it also might be a settlement layer for a lot of financial things. So I think you stick with big platform plays, and then you sprinkle in some newcomers. There’s there’s coins that have a speed advantage, but maybe aren’t as secure, so people like Solana and Sui and some of these chains that are you see with you. Meme coins and nfts and other things. You know that those are areas. And I think one of the more interesting areas that’s developing right now is some of the AI related cryptocurrency plays. Because back to this whole freedom push, art of intelligence, human intelligence should not be owned by one company, right? It really should be decentralized. It should be people contribute to the greater human knowledge, and contributors get rewarded. And we’re starting to see a number of platforms out there in cryptocurrencies that almost are becoming coordination platforms with incentives to fund groups of entrepreneurs with ideas building AI, so I think that might be the next kind of big idea out there, and I’m sitting back to see how that plays out. Makes
Anthony Scaramucci 20:47
sense? All right, let’s take questions from the outside audience. I think it’s a brilliant assessment. Do you think Bitcoin will stop correlating with risk assets and become more aligned with gold? This is Andrew from California. It’s good
Brett Rentmeester 21:01
question. Yeah, it is. It is. Listen, a lot of people want to believe bitcoin is the anti dollar, right? It’s the hedge. But I’d say, I’d say, to date, it’s correlated, like a risk asset, and there’s a lot of speculation. You know, if money’s flowing, people are taking risk. Crypto is doing well in downturns, not so much. I think it might, in the future, become unhinged and not go down, say when the NASDAQ’s down. And I think part of that is governments are changing their stance on it. I’ve long thought that. You know, for a while, besides gold, Bitcoin was public enemy number one, because if five or 10% of the reserves and banks deposits came out and went to Bitcoin, the banking system is dead overnight, because five to 10% deposit holds up the whole system. So I think governments, smart governments. I think the US is heading down this path. Realize that, and it’s kind of like, if you can’t beat them, join them. Instead of trying to fight Bitcoin, they’re now going to say, okay, I get it. We’re going to put it on our balance sheet. We’re going to participate in the ride so I could see, you know, a different behavior pattern in the future. I don’t know if we’re there yet, though I’d be a little cautious still in the next couple of years. All right, let’s
Anthony Scaramucci 22:13
go to the next question. What’s your outlook for Bitcoin five years from now? All right, it’s a big question. It’s Mark from New York, yeah,
Brett Rentmeester 22:21
you know that that’s a hard that’s a really hard, hard one to answer. You know, again, I think as we talk just putting some framework to things, if we went through a cycle like we have in the past, somewhere in the neighborhood, again, that people say 150 to 350 that’s kind of a range a lot of credible people put on this cycle. If you look to a cycle where it rivals gold, it’s probably pushing a 10x from here, it’s probably pushing a million dollars, right? If you look to a world where governments are settling big trades in Bitcoin, who knows? So I say it’s more framework driven than like specific predictions per se, but those are the kind of ranges. And I think what happens, though, Anthony, is what’s unique to this asset class, it’s so different for people, is the volatility is just extreme. You people get in when it’s hyped, and then the thing things go down 70% and they think it’s over, and then before you know it, it’s back up. So I think it’s really hard behaviorally to get through this, and people have to either have a vision of where it could go and kind of close their eyes or not so that, I mean, the advice would be, kind of close your eyes through the volatility, and don’t put more in than you can afford to lose, but be part of it.
Anthony Scaramucci 23:37
Next question, good one. As a 50 year old, how much of my investment portfolio should I allocate to Bitcoin and crypto?
Brett Rentmeester 23:50
Yeah, well, I’d say most people in the advisory industry would probably say zero. I mean, the advisor industry has been very slow moving on this, and quite honestly, follows the herd, so they’ll probably be recommending things in mass if it ever hits like 350,000 but the reality is, I think it deserves a place in every portfolio. It might be small, you know, it depends on someone’s situation. Are you living off your portfolio, or is this generational wealth and you’re thinking about your kids and grandkids? I think in general, we’re doing ranges of, you know, maybe two to 6% in portfolios, depending on a situation. Some people have none, some people have more. But I mean, I think if you have anything less than just a couple percent, it probably doesn’t move the needle enough. And if you start pushing past, say, 10% in any investment, it becomes a relatively big bet. So I think that’s the framework I would focus on.
Anthony Scaramucci 24:45
All right, let’s keep going. We’re moving along here. Well, how do you say informed? How do you stay informed and up to date on the latest happenings in the crypto space? Alan from Canada, yeah.
Brett Rentmeester 24:55
I mean, there’s no shortage of information out there. What I’ve found is you’ve got to find. Credible sources and follow them and understand their thinking. So, Anthony, you do a great job on your show. The whole wealthion platform does a lot cryptocurrencies. I like people like Raul Paul and others that have looked at the space and put a framework to it. So I would say, you know, find a couple voices, maybe starting with wealthion, if you don’t have other access, and try to follow what they say, follow them on acts, follow their writings and educate yourself. And that will branch off into other things.
Anthony Scaramucci 25:31
All right, my friend, we are at a question. So that gives me the last question I want you to again, not investment advice. I’m just talking academically. Now I have a million dollars. Is the 6040, portfolio alive and cooking? Do you recommend something different? And if so, what would you hypothetically recommend? Not investment advice, just talking very academically. Let’s say I was your student in a classroom.
Brett Rentmeester 26:02
Sure. I mean, academically, here’s what we’re telling people, it’s not to abandon stocks and bonds, but it’s a recognition that the valuations are high in both, and we might be in a an interest rate cycle that goes higher for many years ahead. So I think hypothetically, you want a good allocation, maybe 50% or more that’s divvied outside of traditional stocks and bonds. It can certainly include cryptocurrency. We like a lot of other hard assets. It might range from gold and silver, precious metals to farmland to rental real estate, hard assets that can’t be printed out of thin air, that are defensive if the world goes off the rails, and combine that with some risk taking, venture capital, AI exposure, private lending, lending money in areas where you can afford to be a little illiquid relative to, say, a treasury bond, but you’re going to get a higher compensation. You know, I think that is kind of a gamut of things that people should be thinking about.
Anthony Scaramucci 27:04
I think it’s so well said. I mean, and I would just recommend to people, the reason why they need people like you and your firm, because you have, you know, it’s very hard to do that stuff on your own. You have a whole sophisticated approach. You’ve got weapons in your arsenal, relationships that go back multiple decades. And you know, people could go to you and avail themselves of that type of service and and I just think the world has changed so much Brett that that people need sophisticated people to help them. And by the way, myself included, even though I’m in the space, you know, the shoemaker shoes is always the ones that are like, have the most wear and tear on them, you know what I mean. So I appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much for joining us on speak up. And where can people find you? Sir, like, what is your website, Instagram, etc. Yeah.
Brett Rentmeester 27:59
I mean, best place, a website, windrock wealth.com, we post all our research interviews we’re on x under windrock wealth, those two areas are probably the best place to get a flavor of what we’re doing and where you can contact
Anthony Scaramucci 28:14
us. All right. Really appreciate it. So have an awesome week ahead. Awesome weekend. Thank you, brother.
