Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. (BBBY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. We will go ahead and get started. As everybody would imagine, before we get started into a more casual discussion because Beyond is a public company, and we're going to be discussing various topics tonight, I'm going to read a safe harbor. Today's discussion and our responses to questions reflect our view as of today and may include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our business objectives, strategies and any results, opportunities and timing of such. Actual results could differ materially from such statements. Additional information about risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could impact our actual results is included in our Form 10-K for the year-ended December 31, 2023, and our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, and on our subsequent filings with the SEC. As many of you could imagine, in addition to reading that, I've had several calls with several lawyers all week. Obviously, all the noise around meme coins and crypto and all of the things that you're seeing on the internet have really raised the level of what I would call regulation around these things. Everything that I'm going to discuss tonight is hypothetical and conceptual. And for illustrative purposes, we may, from time to time, use examples. As many of you could imagine, the lawyers were very concerned about this call tonight. So I will be very cautious not to put myself, any of you, or most importantly, the Company in harm's way. As we discuss tokenization, for those that are new to the concept, it is a form of security where you are creating an offering. So tonight is not an offering. It's not an outline of an offering. It's not an intent to offer. It's largely a discussion around the conceptual nature of what we would like to do. And as we think about our business going forward, how those things will interplay. If I use numbers or any percentages, they are for illustrative purposes only. I'll clarify and be very careful to tell you what our real thoughts are about specific issues. If there's a time line, I'll disclose that as well. I don't want anybody on the call thinking we're being evasive, but we're a public company, this is a security, and we want to ensure, unlike how other people are operating in the space today, that we take tokenization, cryptocurrency, all digital assets so seriously because we believe that it is part of the future of our general economy that we want to be on the right side all the time from the beginning on how to execute this process. That includes how the documents are going to be created, what registrations need to be previewed with lawyers or the SEC, how the reporting structure works on any token that you may have that could have potential cash flow, how auditors are able to look at everything, so that when people spend their hard-earned money, they can rest assured that there are no surprises. Obviously, like investing in anything, it is a speculative game, whether you're buying a stock on the New York Stock Exchange or buying a coin, you do so at your own risk. What's important to me as an operator and as an investor is that potential investors have the ability to see and truly understand what they're doing. I guess, in short order, transparency must be at the forefront of everything. In addition to that, being conservative about what you think results could be or what yields could be or what cash flow could be isn't to down-sell or downplay the offer. It's to ensure that everybody comes in and ends up being pleasantly surprised. Before we also get started, I want to give a brief overview of why our company has reached this point. If you take a look at the history of the business, a lot of unbelievable work was done in the decades ago and up to now, by Patrick Byrne, when he created Overstock. And I would say he's one of the great thinkers of our time in terms of seeing what the future could look like. Over the years, Overstock and all the blockchain crypto assets known as the Medici portfolio, they operated in silos. And over time, Overstock evolved to not be the place that we all wanted it to be, which is a place to get a spectacular deal on a great brand, it became more of a competitor to Wayfair. Everybody knows the history of what happened after that when the company acquired the Bed Bath & Beyond asset. Next week, next Tuesday morning, in fact, Monday night, we'll be releasing our results. And then on Tuesday morning, we'll be discussing not only what exciting news we have about the future of the business, but we'll be discussing our core business, which is Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, et cetera. We'll also be breaking the call out to discuss what we know about GrainChain, what we've learned about tZERO, we'll be addressing all of these topics in more formality, and we'll also be discussing what has been teased out there is a blockchain around an individual's home. Part of the reason why this has become so exciting for me of late is as I started to study over the last 12 months what the benefits were of having this investment. It became clear to me that while it was an unbelievable think tank that created all the businesses that Overstock birth, there was never a direct connection to its core business. It was like you were running 2 separate companies. And if I had any criticism, and it isn't one, but if I had any criticism, it was the lack of foresight in understanding how to have the core business and the technology business interwoven. That's really what's taken me about 12 months to figure out. I know many people have been critical over the last 12 months of my lack of engagement prior to January 1, on all of the Medici portfolio and all the topics. And there's 2 primary reasons. I haven't been shy about my frustration with Pelion, who took over this portfolio in '21, and quite frankly, hasn't performed up to our standards. I'm sure they're wonderful people, but when you pay people a lot of money on an annual basis, you expect results. Secondarily, sometimes it's better to sit back and listen and study and read and educate yourself and learn. It was really important for me to really solve fixing the core business first, while at the same time understanding what the interdependency of all of these things could be. I had a chance to spend time with the tZERO management team, been very satisfied with what I've learned, satisfied with their answers, and think the future for them is very bright. As it relates to tZERO, the only comment that I've made publicly is I want to see real action. I want to see green shoots and results and tests. I want to see real examples of real assets being put on the platform and truly executing, both for the seller of the asset and for the investor of the token. They've done a great job building up a strong platform with regulatory compliance, and quite frankly, in my opinion, understand this market better than most. Not only are we significant shareholders in that business, but they've become good advisers to the company, lending their expertise and their experience, particularly when they saw things not work. The second portfolio company inside of Medici is GrainChain. And our relationship with Luis and Jaime and the rest of their management team has expanded rapidly over the last several months. In fact, I kid them often that I think they undersell the value of their business. Most people know that they're historically and traditionally in the farming and agriculture business. But truth be told, for me, as an outsider, looking in and understanding other types of industries, they look way more like a supply chain business, way more like a supply chain business. We're excited to continue to explore how we could work together and how we can make introductions not only to benefit GrainChain itself, but very selfishly and candidly, both with tZERO and GrainChain, I have one objective, and that's to deliver value to the shareholders of Beyond in a unique way for assets that were invested in years ago that have sat on a shelf, and candidly, have not been exploited or monetized to the level that we believe it should be. When I look at the market capitalization of our company, I understand that results drive share price. We'll talk about those on Tuesday. But I also know it's important for other assets on the balance sheet to also provide value to the share price. We think it is our obligation to extract as much value as we can into those companies by working on them, with them, by introducing them to other companies, and doing things like we're going to discuss tonight. tZERO is a big part of our company, and we hope to continue to be a big part of theirs. For those of you that don't know, our partner in tZERO is the New York Stock Exchange and ICE, one of the best partners one could ever imagine when you're operating in this space. They've committed a significant amount of capital over the last several years to really bolster and throttle the power of that business already, after we had deployed a significant amount of capital. When I think about our business today, I think about it in 2 distinct areas, the core operations of selling products and services online, either through Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, soon to be buybuy BABY. And as we expand into more of an omnichannel mindset, with our ownership of Kirkland, 40% and our ability to influence the outcome there with opening stores under that brand, I couldn't be more excited. I think what's been most interesting for me in the last 45 days is thinking about how to unlock the value of what I call intangible assets on our balance sheet. I've been spending countless days and hours working with a significant number of lawyers and a few advisers to really frame up what this could look like. For tZERO to mean something to me, personally, I want to see real activity happen to get traded through that platform. And the best way to do that is to put your money where your mouth is by taking assets on your balance sheet and potentially tokenizing them. Previously, I had discussed the idea of buybuy BABY being one of the first things that we would do. The buybuy BABY transaction is scheduled to close in the next 72 hours, earlier than expected, crossing our fingers that all things go well. And then we'll take time, probably a month, maybe a little longer, to properly build the site as a subdomain, initially to Bed Bath & Beyond, to allow it really to get nurtured and grow. We believe that business has a great future, and it is our hope and plan as we work through the lawyers and the regulators to tokenize that business. But I tend to not be a very patient person. And when the auditors told me and the lawyers told me that it would take several months to tokenize buybuy BABY, I got frustrated. I understand that we have to follow a process and we have to have the proper reporting, and I want to be compliant. And as you can imagine, I rolled my eyes over and over again, but I have to rely on the subject matter experts to protect not only the company, but everybody that owns the company. So I gave everybody, what if we did this? So tonight's discussion is around looking around Beyond's total portfolio and trying to understand what could be tokenized possibly first. I'm going to use the word possibly and potentially over and over again for all the reasons that you would imagine. I had my training session with the lawyers over and over and over again. So forgive me when I qualify things, but I want to be clear that tonight's call is not an offering. It's not a pricing matrix. There's not going to be shares or tokens available tomorrow. So we want to be very careful. It is our goal that the first asset that is tokenized in very short order is Bed Bath & Beyond, a business that we know is doing hundreds, if not $1 billion in revenue, something that everybody is familiar with. And what's exciting about it is, with our partnership with Kirkland, we hope to see store development here in the middle to back half of 2025. We want to be smart and prudent and patient. There are no -- there is no room for footfalls or errors. As we think about tokenizing Bed Bath & Beyond, I've discussed with the lawyers my goal and my hope to create a very simple model where the intellectual property of Bed Bath & Beyond could be monetized for token holders. And we would use the original acquisition price as a general sort of rule of thumb around value. That's my goal, to try to figure out how people can see transparently what the value of assets are in the balance sheet, so they know what they're buying, and they never feel like there's something behind the curtain. It's the same model we're going to use with buybuy BABY. Our final acquisition price, which will be disclosed all over our SEC filings, will be the basis of which I hope to be able to do the transaction. That's my goal. As I think about Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY and a number of other assets that are in our portfolio and other assets that we could potentially buy, I'd love this idea of giving people an opportunity to buy into parts and pieces of things they're interested in. Who knows, someday we may even want to tokenize something like a small percentage of our direct interest in GrainChain. It's very important to me, though, however, that there's really 2 sets of constituents that I'm serving. The first and most important set are the existing holders who have put their money into Beyond stock. It's important for me that they understand our appreciation of their loyalty and their commitment to our business vision. So as we think about the tranches or ideas around the different offerings, we would want to start by investigating the pathway with the lawyers and the SEC around what it could look like if it was available to existing holders. Now, as anybody would imagine, it would be my hope that investing -- existing holders would get a different deal, a more favorable deal as they should. I would expect all of that to come together in short order. The second group of constituents would be a private offering. And I use that word offering because that's what it is. So we're going to work with lawyers and regulators and accountants to make sure that all the belts and suspenders are everywhere they need to be, so that you have confidence, the regulators have confidence, and we set the table the right way the first time. Let me be clear. This isn't a matter of if it works. This is really a matter of when we do it? And I'm committed to doing it as fast as I possibly can, under the guys that ultimately the lawyers and the regulators and the accountants have to have the proper timing in place to make sure that everything is there. It's also important for you to know that it is my goal to have Beyond be an unbelievable marketplace of ideas like this. I love to buy things, solve -- with the buybuy BABY acquisition. When we close on that transaction, we are going to be the sole owner of the buybuy BABY intellectual property across the globe. It's not a license from anybody else, we're not partnering with anybody else, and nobody else has any claim or rights to that asset. For those folks that are interested in participating in that asset, they'll have opportunities either by buying Beyond stock or participating in a potential tokenization through the private offering. The one thing about tokenization that has become clear to me is as I look around and I look at all these coins that are out there, to be honest, I kind of chuckle. I get frustrated by the idea of buying things with a lot of speculation in mind or no asset value in mind or no monetization in mind or no additional benefits in mind. I like things that have real value to them that you can stand behind, you can see the numbers, you can get excited. When I think about the possibility of Bed Bath & Beyond, for me, it's a business that's up and running. And I always have dreamed over the last 45 days, night after night after night, what if I could give people an opportunity to invest in a token and own a small piece of the monetization of Bed Bath & Beyond's intellectual property, essentially trying to figure out how to give somebody a rev share off of the total revenue. Multiple reasons why I want to do it. One, I want to build the community of drivers, people that are incentivized to own the token to wake up every day and want to promote it, no differently than Mary Kay Cosmetics and Avon did and Tupperware did in the '70s and '80s. I want to build an environment where people feel like they belong to something like an owner's club, where they receive different benefits, both on the loyalty side, the purchasing side, a variety of things where they can participate even in an affiliate program and make money that way. Now in order to participate in all those things, I would expect people to make a meaningful investment in coins, like buying 1 coin for $5 or $20, probably won't get you put in the owner's club. It's my hope that it's a little bit more than that, just so that I know that people are really, really committed to the idea. I think we'll be the first company, I don't have any research, and I'm happy to be taught otherwise, that will actually potentially tokenize intellectual property, that will actually hope and plan and speculate to put real cash flow behind that by creating some sort of revenue model sharing model that would work. I know that when I put my money in my checking account, I don't like the interest rate that I get. And I look at my savings account, I don't like the interest rate that I get. So I want to make sure that I myself as an investor would find this attractive. So as we're building it out, I told the team, I don't want to see any nonsensical 1%, 2% sort of model. If I'm going to put my money in something, I want to know I'm going to get a return. I want to believe that, that asset can improve and increase in value because I believe in the brand and where it's going. And I hope to get in on the ground floor because I love annuities. People need regular cash flow on a regular basis to live their life. And as I think about finding assets on our balance sheet or going out and acquiring other ones, I would love to be known as the place where you could buy a piece of something and enjoy consistent cash flow. Now consistent cash flow is like a relative term because when we live in a crazy economy, inflation comes and weird things happen and businesses go up and down, but there should be some knowledge of some range where you have some level of comfort. There'll be moments where it's a little less than you thought and you may want to sell it and out of it. And there'll be moments where the thing is rocketing and you're going to want to buy more and other people are going to want to buy more or you may choose to take your profits and go home. You'll be walking away from cash flow with no idea if you'll ever be able to get in at that point again, but so be it. It's also my hope that we really, really regulate the amount of tokens that we issue in the open market. So if you could just kind of imagine hypothetically, you would establish the value of a single asset, you would then decide how much of it you want to tokenize and then you would create a very, very small offering, looking for high demand and solid execution, rewarding those people who showed up first. All of this is anticipated to be done inside of a company that we have a sizable ownership stake in, and that's tZERO. We're working with the tZERO team to make opening up a new account easier. We think there's opportunities to improve. And we want to open up different ways to learn from other companies who are doing it well on the best practice side about how to open up brokerage accounts. There have been a lot of discussions around other types of coins that we should look at or coins that are invested on our balance sheet. I want to be clear about a couple of things. We own 100% of Bed Bath. We will own 100% of buybuy BABY. We own 100% of Overstock. Between our indirect through Pelion and Medici and our direct directly on our balance sheet, we own approximately 50% of tZERO. We also own 3 million tZERO ROP preferred shares. We're very happy that we're in that position. Secondarily, we have a sizable stake in GrainChain. We have a direct interest convertible note that now has a value of about $11 million that we may or may not convert here in short order. And then we have our interest through the Medici portfolio. There are a number of other companies in that portfolio that we love. And over time, we may look to tokenize all of them, some of them, the portfolio by itself, some of our IP, a future acquisition, the list goes on and on. But in order to provide our shareholders and our Board comfort, we needed to prove that we can execute a few basic transactions and do it the right way the first time and do it flawlessly. I'm going to open it up for questions. One moment.

Ian? Ian, your mic has been opened up.

I'm sorry, I think there must have been a delay at the very end. What was the last thing you said there?

I was just -- I was opening up the mic for you.

Awesome. No, I love what I heard. I think you said everything the right way. And I have been having these conversations for a while. And I think what a lot of companies that I see come in or 2, 3 years old, they come in to just kind of like a money grab. Like they -- the token doesn't really make sense. Like the example I would give would be everybody, I think, sees like if Starlink tokenize their system to make it basically you wouldn't have a direct payment every month and there would be a reward system for their token. And it sounds great like on paper, but the problem is when there's no incentivization to actually hold it, those people that are getting rewarded through that is just going to sell it.

Yes.

So I just think -- I think you said everything correctly there.

I think, Ian, the way we're thinking about it, right, is if I'm going to invest in something, I want to know what the purpose is. And I want to know that there is something substantive behind it. I want to know that there's going to be some sort of cash flow on a regular basis. And I want to know that the possibility of that cash flow increasing, thus giving me an appreciation in my token is going to allow me to actually double stack my return, one through my cash flow and second through my potential exit. So I think, for me, that's a really, really important piece that people feel confident and comfortable when they do business with us that we're going to do things the right way from the beginning. So thank you for your comment. [ Evolution ]? If you are interested in asking a question, please? I see there's a number of requests. You can actually hit request to ask the question. Evolution.

Marcus, no question here, but I do have a suggestion, which is I think tZERO should release a mobile app. I think that the main issue with tZERO is the illiquidity of all the tokens and there are very few users on the platform. And I know that retail traders, especially in the crypto space, predominantly trade on apps, whether that be Robinhood, Coinbase, Phantom, et cetera. And I think if you really believe in tZERO in the long-term, an app is a must-have. And I'm just hoping maybe you could relay this message over to the tZERO team and kind of shoot the idea over.

I think it's more than just relaying it over. I think we're going to have to partner with them to see the benefit. And because we have a vested interest in that business, I would imagine that it's probably a 90 to a 120-day process to properly build the app because there's the authentication process that has to be incorporated in as well. But I'll take that as more of a to-do than a suggestion, and I appreciate you reminding all of us of the necessity for that to be out there. [ Humble ]?

I just wanted to sort of pitch an idea and I'm very excited that you are excited about tZERO. Obviously, you know all the stuff that you have within your corporation that you could tokenize. But I was thinking why not play with the idea of tokenizing a marketing campaign in the sense that like you could go out and sign an athlete on the college level or a young athlete or something of that sort and do a revenue share where you basically take a percentage of their future revenue endorsements and so forth and force them or not force them, but make them sign a contract that makes them advertise or be the official spokesperson for Overstock or one of the brands. And then…

Well, let me -- yes, let me separate that out. I think tZERO is a wonderful place and David Goone, who's the spectacular leader of that business, I think, has already had many, many thoughts around the tokenization of NIL deals, artist, recording libraries, and things of that nature. For our company at Beyond, we are singularly focused on our core business and how blockchain and crypto can actually interweave into our core business. And we are a 4 corners of the property, 4 walls of the house business where it is our goal to build essentially a life chain around everything that you could think of, much like a picket fence would be around their home. We want to provide things that add value to their home, that drive our core business, that drive loyalty to our core business. But I believe that the usage of our assets on the tZERO platform proved the efficacy of it. And once people see the efficacy of it, particularly with big brands like Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY, that opportunity for other people who are in spaces that we're not, can see that as a platform to do all of those things because I know the platform is capable of doing it.

Right. I guess I was just angling at sort of like I know that you do NASCAR and you have an official car or you have official cars. So I was thinking like why not own an Overstock racecar team that you're basically marketing and rather than paying to be -- just sell it, own it, and possibly make money off of it and bring in others to help.

I would say to you that I am a capitalist through and through and keeping our capital that our shareholders put into our company purely directed at things that drive to profitability. That's the mandate. This company must be profitable at all costs. That getting distracted and invested and involved in things like that are good from a perspective of us advocating to tZERO, of me opening up my Rolodex to all my friends that are in that space and the TV space and the movie space and the music space to create a direct connection between them and tZERO. But I'm only doing that selfishly because of the vested interest that the business that I'm responsible to has a 50% stake in it. But for our company to get involved in those types of things at this juncture, I think takes away from our core responsibility of making money. Kevin? Kevin, your line has been opened up. I know there's the delay. Just wanted to let you know your line is opened up.

My name is Kevin. I'm from New York, nearby Kingston. So I was curious about the tZERO platform. I can see the possibility of like private equity really benefiting, for example, like a stabilized cash flowing real estate deal, maybe multifamily, and enabling those types of players access to liquidity and also investors an easy platform to invest. And I was just curious, do you see tZERO as like kind of a platform that will be a mix of nonpublic companies like smaller companies that can access liquidity and make offerings? And will it also involve public companies, tokenizing?

Yes. Honestly, this is -- Kevin, this is a spectacular question, and I know where you're going with this. So I want to give it to you in a couple of different ways. First of all, I've been really contemplating certain income-generating properties that I may have a connection to either in my own portfolio or in a business that I'm responsible for that can be used as a green shoot on the platform. Say there was a store of some kind and that store had a piece of property and that piece of property had a value of X and that store did a sale leaseback and paid an interest rate on that particular deal. I could see a company like that or a property owner like that using the tZERO platform. For example, if I owned Walgreens, rather than going into the open market all the time, I may want to take my Walgreens' location and you could see them available across the market if you're looking for a 1031 exchange or something like that, where you could actually buy a piece of owning the Walgreens in your local area. Now you're not buying it because you're a fan of Walgreens, you're buying it because you value the credit of the asset, you love the property itself, and you like the cap rate that the property is showing you. So I'm all in favor of stuff like that. I think the other side of my life in working with small businesses, in fact, I'm in the process of doing that right now, is that I come across businesses that are smaller. They're $4 million in revenue, $10 million in revenue, $2 million in revenue. They have a little bit of cash flow and they're looking for growth capital. They can get that growth capital from someone like me. But I've started to really think in the last 45 days as I'm deep into working with a number of them is that is one of these businesses that I'm working on for the show a perfect candidate to actually go on to the tZERO platform as well. Keep in mind that, again, it's an offering. So you have to be sure that the books are right and the numbers have been audited and the process is right and there's discipline inside of that and tZERO would mandate that. But tZERO for me is nothing more than an alternative way of either raising money or sharing money. And that's what I love about it the most is that it eliminates some of the regulated complexities of being on the NYSE or NASDAQ because your company is not big enough and it doesn't trade it enough and it's too small and nobody is going to cover it. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of businesses in America that I would love to personally recruit once I can be convinced of how well this is going to do to go out and to get them to raise capital or share the fruits of their labor, even if it's only 5% or 10% of their business in this sort of way. Because not only are they building token holders in, they're building a community of customers at the same time. So I think the possibilities are limitless. I will say, though, that I'm less keen on focusing on things that don't have real business cash flow behind them. Maybe it's just me and I'm selfish where I like cash flow and I like things to make money, and I think people should invest that way or at least have a path to profitability, they should invest. And so I want to be careful the types of things that I advocate for, but I wanted to share with you how broad my mind is going in terms of what's possible. Buy-side report?

I appreciate you taking the time to look at these assets and figure out a way to do something with them. My question comes from a basic equity perspective and looking at Beyond from that perspective. If you're looking at moving cash flow and revenue share is diverted from Beyond corporate to a token, it makes the metrics of Beyond and the equity valuation a little bit less and even from a competitor analysis, your ratios will look less. How do you balance that with kind of going -- and I understand why you're doing as a test on the token. I'd prefer you do it with, as you mentioned before, some de novo assets as opposed to something that's already owned and part of the corporate structure. And then I have perhaps a follow-up question.

Yes. So let me address the first one. My primary principle outside of seeing the efficacy on tZERO is to start to rebuild the loyalty program that the bankruptcy of Bed Bath & Beyond and quite frankly, the early days of Overstock destroyed. And any business that's operating in the marketplace has 2 choices. It can be the lowest priced all the time with margins that aren't sustainable or it can build a community of ambassadors and of holders who believe in the brand, who shop in the brand for their marriage, for their birth, for their going back to college, for their baby, et cetera, and enjoy the benefits that come with it. Many, many companies today offer memberships to clubs. And in those clubs, when you pay your fee, $29, $39, $59, you get benefits. You either get the right to enter the door, you get a right to a discount, and I have built one of the best clubs in our industry, in the recreational industry in Good Sam. And our job every single year when the customer pays their membership fee is to deliver them value. I think there's other ways that people should be able to become members of things. It shouldn't only have to be that you pay a fee and you get a discount. What if you actually bought a token and you owned a piece of it or at least a piece of the monetization and you were a heavy user of the asset and you became a heavy promoter of the asset, essentially influencers in the marketplace. One of the things that I have pointed out time and time again, and you'll hear me talk about it next week as well, is that we have to lower our cost of acquiring and retaining customers. The marketing expense cannot be north of 11% to 12%. In the last several quarters that we've reported, it's been 16%, 17%, 18%, 19%, cannot afford it. Many people still don't even know that Bed Bath & Beyond is open. So part of my strategy in tokenizing a very small portion is to reward the holders that are there today, so it acts as a virtual rev share, some could call it a dividend. And the other portion is to start to build a community of loyal followers who feel like this is their business, who shop at it like it's their business, who promote it like it's their business, and they are rewarded from that. Many people have said, oh, go out and hire these influencers on TikTok and go out and buy more commercials. There's different forms of building a community and different ways to actually activate your brand. For me, this particular way creates a beautiful halo over the business. It allows us to offer parts of the business, and it allows us to find people who are interested in supporting the business, both themselves and through their promotions, essentially influencers with ownership. So when you think about it, the goal is really to drive beyond the profitability. That's the metric that matters. We do that by improving our margins. We do that by lowering our SG&A, of which advertising is one of them. And we do that by continuing to improve the site experience, the vendor experience, and the conversion. One way you improve conversion is you build up a value base of customers, both through e-mail and through these kinds of clubs that are automatically going to come back to you time and time again. And when you add that revenue, when you add that low-cost acquisition to the portfolio, you start to really drive down your SG&A and drive up your revenue and expand your margin. So while I appreciate the idea that we're actually diverting cash, I don't see it that way because it is my job to go find the margin on the first cost of the product to ultimately fund -- to fund the very, very, very small portion of revenue that would exist through this tokenization. And I have run the models, and I appreciate you challenging them. I have run the models, and I know what it ultimately could do to the marketing expense. Anything else on that topic? Mr. [ Stubble ]?

So just 2 questions. The first one about regulatory environment with the new administration. Just curious if you've gotten any indication up to this point in the last few weeks of how supportive of this environment of tokenization that they might be. And then the other question, there's been some chatter on the internet about with the short interest being around 19% on the Beyond stock with it being a potential short squeeze candidate. And so if someone is looking at it as a 5-months trade, can you make a pitch as to why -- I mean, certainly, I feel like I'm hearing a lot from you as to why it's a 5-year investment, really probably one of the most innovative companies in the market right now, but you might have just some other quick points about that.

Yes. Well, I unfortunately can never provide an opinion on whether I think somebody should buy it or not. And I'm not quite sure the short interest is 19%, it could be 28% or 18% or whatever it may be. But this in no way is an attempt for me to try to manipulate any sort of short interest. I'm aware of the short interest that's out there. I don't know what the exact amount is. But I know that 2 things create a short interest, a poor performance in the past, which we've had, and the speculation that the poor performance will continue, which is understandable. I can't tell you whether I think that those folks are right or wrong. I can tell you that I have a very clear mandate, and that is to get the company to profitability at all costs, to unpack the assets that I think have been shelved for several years, and to connect those 2 and drive value beyond maybe what anybody thinks is possible. I have a decent enough track record of getting those things done, but I understand that there's a lot of suspicion around that based on the last 12 months of the results not being good. I'll leave you with just this fact. It takes me a minute to learn something that I haven't necessarily been an expert in, in the past. And I'll meet a lot of people and I'll make a lot of mistakes and I'll ask a lot of questions. And then I'll figure it out. And once I figure it out, I become very much laser-focused on executing that plan, and it's really difficult to dissuade me from doing anything other than that. As a reminder, I'm the largest shareholder on the Board. I think I actually own more shares than the entire Board and the management team combined. It's my hope that I'll be given an opportunity to continue to buy, and I have a vested interest both with my options and other things. And as a reminder, I don't get paid, which is fine, but I also have reputational risk. And I rarely put myself in situations where I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to get it done. So I'll leave you with that. I wish all of the short sellers a lot of luck, and I'll leave it at that. Mr. [ Kylo ]. Your mic is open, sir.

So speaking of tokenized stocks. So I don't know if you're aware, but International Security Lending Association, they have what's called the synthetic token positions that they can create. What is your plan on that part of the synthetic side of the tokens?

That was actually one of the things that the lawyers advised me not to speak about any sort of derivative because it would really be part of some strategy or some offering. So unfortunately, I'm going to have to table that question until I'm given permission to discuss it. Jose?

So I'm looking at you as a small business champion, and I wanted to find out if you want to revitalize an area, is this something that we could do small SPACs to help small businesses that want to sell in a certain neighborhood? And what's your thought process on using this technology to take it to places where we need investments?

First of all, I think that's a spectacular and thoughtful question. There are a lot of people in the United States that feel very strongly about the gentrification of certain neighborhoods, the investment into underdeveloped areas. I'm one of them. It sounds like you're one too. I separate out really 2 of the questions that you had into 2 subsets. And the first is, do I believe that this could be a pathway for small business to raise money over time? I do, but I'm also probably more familiar with small businesses than most and know that they sometimes have a difficult time actually doing their books properly. The absolute mandate of tokenization is the absolute auditing and proof points of accuracy with every single number and every single asset on your balance sheet and in your P&L. I'm spending a lot of time with QuickBooks trying to develop global training programs so that small businesses understand that if they want to raise money from a bank, from a private investor, from a tokenized process, they have to put their books in a form and a fashion that is in compliance with GAAP and meets all the regulatory requirements so that nobody could ever come back and accuse them of anything. As it relates to underdeveloped areas, I can definitely see certain pieces of property or tracts of land or tracts of buildings being bundled and tokenized, but those holders of those assets would have to have a bit of a conscious capitalist mentality to them, where they're using their capital to make money, but they're also dealing with the social opportunity at the exact same time. There are many situations where people have exploited those situations. Obviously, I wouldn't want to be part of anything like that. In some cases, you may have to take a slower return, not a lower return, but a slower return, because it takes a minute for those areas to develop. I will tell you that I'll probably, Jose, steal your idea and maybe think about underserved communities that can use something like that. Again, once I can see Bed Bath & Beyond tokenized in short order and buybuy BABY tokenized in short order, my confidence level and our momentum will only grow from there, but I want to experience it for myself before I have anybody else try to experience it. [ Jake? Jake Press ]? Jake?

Okay. Yes. So I have a question about the tokenization for those that are new into this world. When you talk about Bed Bath & Beyond, you talk about buybuy BABY, what are some of the other brands that you would look to combine into the tokenization strategy?

Well, I can't really speculate on anything specifically, but what I love to do is make very strategic acquisitions or investments. And we just recently made a killer investment into Kirkland's Home with a spectacular management team there. And that's something that possibly we could potentially do over time, not today. But there are plenty of other deals that come across my desk. And I think the way that we're looking at it now is part of the investment thesis has to be, does it integrate into the 4 corners and 4 walls? Is it part of the overall structure of the company? Do I believe that tokenizing it will build the community? And how do we actually execute all of that for profit? And I think that's the biggest challenge. People have been pressing me in the last couple of weeks, why we're not doing Overstock. And I think the challenge is both with Bed Bath & Beyond as a possibility and buybuy BABY as the possibility that we know the marker on the value of that asset. We paid $20-some-odd million for Bed Bath, and we'll disclose the $5-some-odd million on buybuy BABY, but I'll be able to show people an asset purchase agreement with a dollar amount with an 8-K filing and all the SEC pieces. When you start to get into things that have not been bought or traded that don't truly have a value because they're not a pure play, you then get into questions around valuations and what's it really worth? And did you charge enough? Did you charge too much? And so what I'm really liking is we do a transaction, and we're essentially thinking about the idea of syndicating the transaction. But through syndicating it, the participant in that token is getting the benefit or at least they hope the benefit of what value got created when that management team negotiated for that asset? So in some sense, you're buying the token based on, do you believe the buyer of that asset got the best deal and struck the best deal? That's one. Do you believe that asset can perform over time? That's 2. And do you believe that you can make money owning a small piece of it? That's 3. And as you do your diligence, I think you have to ask yourself in every single case, those 3 questions. If it's good enough for us to do it with our money, it may or may not be good enough for you. And I think people have to make their own investment decisions. If they see a track record of things they like, yes, they may have more confidence. But early on, everybody should have eyes wide open to know what they're buying and selling. I see all these things on the internet of meme coins and fartcoins and all sorts of other things. I got to be honest, I have no idea what it is because I don't know what comes with it, which is why we want to be different than that. There are investors for every kind of thing you can think out that's out there. This is what we want to be a part of because we believe that good assets, with good value, with growth, with cash flow, that seems like good old-fashioned American investing.

No, that's -- obviously, it's a great answer. You're a brilliant mind. I love your show and I love what you've -- been following you for a while. When someone invests in this, is there a certain -- I didn't -- maybe I came in late here. Is there a certain amount that you have to make for the investment? Or how do you -- do you have to -- is there a hold period? What is the numbers on that?

We haven't really gotten permission from the lawyers to discuss that. But I can tell you is it my -- it is my goal, and I've been putting pressure on everybody to make sure that the entry point price for tokens is unbelievably affordable. I would be the kind of 12-year-old, who just got through selling Jolly Ranchers at school, who may have $5 or $10 in my wallet, and I happen to be on the internet, and I may want to even explore something like this. I don't want to build walls of resistance up. I want to allow people who are just learning, high school kids and college kids who are taking an economics class. I want to come up with something that keeps the barriers low and the possibilities high. [ O'Keefe ]?

Just curious, should you guys tokenize a portion of the buybuy BABY? Is there a significant amount of incremental, call it, like accounting, back office, lawyers? I assume there's some sort of added cost of tokenizing an asset. Would Beyond be responsible for those added costs? And are they -- do you think they would be significant at all?

So I don't anticipate there to be -- as I've looked at all the models and we built the models, I don't anticipate that there's going to be ongoing costs, as in recurring expenses that are going to happen every single month or every single week. There are some initial what I call offering costs. You got to pay lawyers and accountants and auditors to sign off on stuff, much like we do inside of our public company today. But what I didn't want to do is enter into something that was going to create unusual streams of cash leaving to have a very small return on it. That's not something that I would advocate for. And I've been very tough in negotiating both with the auditors and the lawyers to ensure that we're going to build a template onetime. We're going to build the playbook onetime. And when that playbook is built, it will have the ability to be flexible inside of it, but I'm not going to go and pay these sorts of fees every single time. From a back-office standpoint, as my wonderful accounting team hit me over the head with a couple of hammers and said, whatever we do, there has to be a clear line of reporting. There has to be the ability for the token holder and the auditor to see clear lines of transparency around revenue and around all the things that are associated with the monetization. The auditors have to feel comfortable with it and the token holder does. By the way, we already do all of that. That's what the benefits of being a public company are. A private company would start to take on costs that they hadn't really considered. But if they went out and raised private money through an investment banker, they'd have to pay costs just the same. tZERO also has to make a little bit of money. And so they're going to charge us a small fee to set it up and then they charge a small fee for buyers and sellers, no different than any other trading platform. So I don't see this affecting our SG&A in any negative way on an ongoing basis. Yes, there are some small expenses to get it all set up and registered and processed and have the regulators bless it. But I think that's a onetime massive one, meaning massive in terms of its complexity, not dollars. And then the playbook is kind of set to rinse and repeat after that. John? John, your line is open. John [ Goci ]?

Yes, sir. I just want to say, first and foremost, I thank you for giving us the opportunity to communicate directly with you. That says a lot about you and your way you do business. I think you finally get the whole blockchain aspect of it. And I think you finally understand tZERO and what I heard tonight has basically impressed me more than I've ever been impressed by anybody within. You have a grasp and I think you have the talent and you're going to be amazing. One of the biggest mistakes I think tZERO made was shutting down their crypto wallet. I know why they did it. They wanted to comply with the SEC as they hadn't made a decision on the coins. And I think that was a big mistake. And is there any chance you can bring that back?

Well, unfortunately, I'm not the CEO of that business. So I don't have the ability to influence the outcome there. But what I will tell you is that if David is not wanting to do something, so that he could be compliant, we definitely want to respect that. I will mention it to him to find out if his position has changed. And if it has, I'll definitely come back to the group and let you know.

I really appreciate that. And I've been a long-time believer and I think you are the man and David to get us to the Promised Land. Thank you for all your hard work.

Well, I appreciate that. The Promised Land is based on results. And I think the one thing that everybody needs to start holding everybody accountable for, including myself, is that results are required when people invest. I hold people accountable when I invest. I expect to be held accountable to my investors. And any other company that we have an investment in, I expect to hold them accountable for their performance. And I think we've lost that a little bit in recent days where people think speculation is enough and words are enough. And unfortunately, they're not. Our goal at the company is to get profitable. And I've told people over and over again, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get profitable. And once we do, it will be off to the races from there. So thank you.

Thank you, and I think you're the man to get us there.

Thank you, buddy. [ Spidey ].

Really appreciate you taking the time to answer a few questions from some of the people here on X. So I do have a question in regards to the tokenization of buybuy BABY. And in the 8-K that came out filed by Beyond, you had mentioned this initiative, which we're calling the LifeChain and the integration, therefore, of the financial assets of the intellectual property of buybuy BABY. So a quick question for you. And I know in that last Spaces call, you talked about further on -- further along down the road, actually tokenizing everything that has to do with the home and maybe even births and different things in that regard. So for me, one of the questions that I do have is, are there going to be any partnerships with one particular company that I -- that hopefully you can shed some light on is MSP Recovery who owns the patents for LifeChain using the Palantir technology. So I just wanted to see if there is any partnerships that you may be able to allude to. Again, this is public information. You can see that in the SEC filings, that you'd be able to shed for me.

Yes. So let's take a step back for just a second, if we can. As I've mentioned, it is my goal in short order to work through the lawyers and the accountants and the regulators to be able to tokenize Bed Bath and buybuy BABY as the starting point. The tokenization of that is independent from the project that we hope to be able to discuss here in the next week or so around LifeChain. But when I came to the company, I really spent a lot of time thinking about how to make the company different. We're not Wayfair. We don't want to be Wayfair. They're an amazing company. They do a great job. I don't want their net income. We want to make money. We think that they're just a different animal. We want to be more of a life event company. And whether that's having a baby or buying your first home or going to college or getting married or anything that happens in between, renovating your kitchen, building a pool, bringing your mother-in-law in, whatever that may be, we want to be that company. And we want to be a part of that through the brands that we own and delivering products and services at a great value and great service. But we also think we have the unique ability when you take all of the assets that are inside of the blockchain and crypto world to do something even more special than that, to build a community and an opportunity for people to do something different with their asset. When I look at the devastation from the hurricanes in Florida and North Carolina and the fires in California, and I see people standing on the street with no records of anything they have. The first thing that comes to my mind and came to my mind is, holy crap, where is all that's stored? LifeChain is a general concept that we're developing that we'll discuss a little bit more next week, but it involves the 4 corners of the property, the 4 walls of the house, and all of the dwellers inside of it. I really believe over time that peer-to-peer transactions are the wave of the future. More cars are sold in this country peer-to-peer than are through auto dealerships. I believe there's an opportunity to create that same thing in the home space. The key to that is starting with the proper ledger of information that one would need to buy the home, survey, the title, the deed, the floor plan, the appraisal, all the home improvements, the maintenance records, et cetera, et cetera. But then you have to take another layer and you think about both the financial aspect of that home, either HELOCs or mortgages and having a product that's integrated right into that and then thinking about the protection that's needed inside of that, like the insurance and all the liability coverage that goes on and plugging in a product like that and then thinking about all the other things that could exist. By the way, things that are put in the chain don't all have to be financial in nature. It could be your wedding album. It could be your child's first birth. It's essentially a way for you as a homeowner or as a young couple to pass on from generation to generation everything about that home and your life. What I like about it from a transaction standpoint is that if you can solve the title piece, which we believe we can ultimately figure out inside of that LifeChain, and you have financial services partners and other technology third-party partners that are all vested in the same idea, you potentially can create a massive peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling homes. If anybody thinks that I'm in this business to sell a couch, long-term that's not something that -- that's exciting to me. The reason I want to sell the couch is I want to meet homeowners. The other piece around homeownership is that you have to think about it. There's 2 ways. There's full and there's fractional. And I could want to do that as a private homeowner with a vacation home with 5 of my friends. It happens all the time. It's also known as a timeshare. I could want to do it if I'm an Airbnb owner, and I'm looking for investment property. I could do it if I want to own a multiunit building or a commercial building of any kind. The ability to build information around real property and all the parts and pieces are consistent. They require the same things. Sounds good.

Thank you so much. Truly appreciate it.

[ Clug ]?

So I've been working on a self-custodial wallet for the past 2 years, and it's been a personal goal of mine to implement RWAs either through bonds or stocks. But specifically, I've really wanted to support tZERO. And since you are now approaching the point where you're going to actually launch this token, I was wondering if tZERO was going to be opening up the system beyond their walled garden to use open standards ERC 20, 1155, or Solana tokens. Is this something that self-custodial wallets can implement or do we need to rely on tZERO eventually releasing their app?

Well, that's a great question. I think there's a lot of things that have to happen, and I will make it a priority to get back with David. And I'm -- just so you know, everybody knows, I'm making notes on all the questions that are being asked. And when we have our next Spaces call, I'll provide what updates I'm able to. But David is a very thoughtful guy and a very proactive guy, and he wants to create a general marketplace. So he's been open to almost every idea that I've given him as long as the system and the regulators approve. I couldn't imagine that he would reject any idea that he thought was going to advance his business or the community that supports his business.

Just to say, there is definitely -- there is an open need for open source marketplaces and open source exchanges. And I do think there is a large amount of wallets in the crypto space specifically that would love to support assets like this.

That's great. I appreciate that. I have a couple of other lines open. I think it's hard to tell at this point. Everybody could just be patient, real quick. Let's see if I can open up Caroline. Caroline, your line is open. Well, thank you.

I'm actually -- you probably don't remember me, but I met you at Pace Morby's Owners Club meet-up over last summer. And I just saw that you [indiscernible] I got started in crypto. I'm in real estate as well, and I'm excited -- I'm excited because I've been really studying it in the last couple of months here. And it's cool to see that you're talking about small businesses get involved in the tokenization. So my question for you, I know you're really talking about, is it buy on right now? My question, I know you had your Profit TV show as well. Do you see with tokenization, is that something that can happen with all small businesses moving forward? Are you bullish on that in all of your businesses? Or is this just for buy on?

No, I'm bullish on any business participating in the tokenization, but I think you may have missed it earlier. The piece that's a mandate is that the small business has to have their books and records in order. And as you know, as a supporter of small business, we love them, but sometimes they tend to not have even a QuickBooks account. And they're not recording sales and recording expenses properly, and they don't have an auditor at least review and sign off on it. And so the key to tokenization is compliance and compliance requires reporting compliance and reporting compliance requires good solid numbers. So for me, that's something that definitely has to happen. But I appreciate that question. Thank you.

That's a good one. Thank you very much. And the last question before I bounce off here, Marcus. Are you bullish on other cryptos as well? Are you investing on your own?

I'm actually not. I try to not ever create conflicts of interest. I have a heavy investment in Beyond and all the things that it's doing and don't ever want to be misaligned with my shareholders. [ Will Dev ] ?

Will Dev, yes. So I've been waiting for this moment, right? I want to see this bridge happen. And I have to un-biasedly ask, why a token? So of course, that's in the back of my head. I want to hone in on kind of the tokenomics of what you kind a pitched of a small percentage being tokenized. With that thought, would it be an option for the other tokens to also be tokenized, but be passed or backed with a locked liquidity on the open market and give participants an option to either back it with Ethereum or Bitcoin or something on the open market to be able to get a piece of the LP from that side without actively holding the small allocation of tokens that you guys released to the public?

So I think that's probably more of a tZERO leadership question. But here's what I'll tell you about how I think about it. We want to teach people how to walk before we run, and I appreciate the intellect that you bring to the table on the complexities that you understand that most don't. Part of what I believe has hurt the crypto market and the blockchain idea for years is that it has to be relatable to people and understandable for people. People know what it means to buy a piece of something. They understand the stock market. Tokenization for me isn't really any different than that. It's just taking certain parts and pieces and allowing it to happen in a less complex way. And I want to be a big advocate for consumers of all kinds to be able to learn the idea, understand the basic principles. Sometimes when we know a lot about a topic, we talk over people or around people. And the only way this is going to gain mass adoption is with if we work through people. And when you do that and you think about the average investor, not the sophisticated investor who's knowledgeable like you are on this space, we have to dumb it down to something really simple. Would you like to buy a small piece of Bed Bath & Beyond? Are you familiar with that brand? Yes. Did you ever think you could be an owner? No. You can be. It could be as inexpensive as this. Great. What do I get for it? You get benefits and you get potential cash flow. That sounds good. When you oversimplify it like that, and I don't mean that to talk down to you, so I apologize if it comes off that way. You will gain adoption and adoption is the key to this actually working across the platform because with adoption comes trading volume. With trading volume comes confidence. With confidence comes more investment. Without all of those layers, people are going to dip their toe in the water and few are going to play instead of many.

I love that, and thank you. And I kind of struggle with this often because my take when I talk to people that are outside this market is exactly that of why a token, right? Once you realize you could buy 0.001 bitcoin, it kind of changes the perspective. And if you have an investor, let's say, 80% of one of these companies is not tokenized, but they see the tokenized group absolutely flourishing and earning 15 APY every month or whatever it may be because of these liquidity pools. Then that kind of starts onboarding people at a rate a lot more than the normal aspect just because people see the opportunity of something that could potentially rise at a very fast, rapid rate because they're doing something first to market. So I'm here for it. I'm here to support it. I can't wait to participate.

Yes, I appreciate that. I think, look, I probably have more excitement to launch this than I've had with a lot of ideas. And I'm pushing as fast as I can to make sure that we get this to market as fast as we can. I told the guys, is next week possible, and everybody kind of laughed at me. I can tell you that it will happen in short order. And I have surrounded ourselves with the team that I believe can execute this quickly. I think that talking about these 2 assets is the tip of the iceberg for us. We're going to do a lot, lot more of it. So I'm going to go to one more question before we end the night. [ Joe Kaplan ]. Joe, give me one second. I had somebody else jump in. No problem.

So I guess maybe this may be an under-simplification question considering I have the background in the equity markets. That's kind of where the tokenization may be misunderstood for me in a sense because everything that you're talking about, I seem to come to the conclusion, okay, well, that goes back to an equity, right? You go back to cash flows. You even used the word dividends yourself. So that's what I would look at it. You want to offer cash flow, you can offer a dividend. I guess my thing here is why would you go -- why you as a busy man, right, you have a company that you have to turn around. You yourself are a huge investor down roughly 63% on your holding. Why put all the effort into tokenization besides, to me, it looks like to open a new form of liquidity because you have that market or people or community, that like the tokenization? And please, by all means, let me know if I'm misunderstanding it, because I think I might be.

Are you saying that you think we're doing it to raise money?

No, I'm not necessarily saying you're doing it to raise money. I'm just saying why waste the time to do tokenization. Like what are you offering in that sense? You offer it to provide cash flow. You yourself even used the word sense dividend. Everything that you're offering, everything, the transparency, all of that is done within the equities, right? So I guess what I'm saying is what does tokenization offer that, that the equities don't? And why is it worth your time?

It offers -- well, first of all, I love to learn. And I think when people have their money invested in a business and they have an expectation that these things happen, I have a choice to either deliver what they're asking for or leave. So that's sort of the first thing. The second piece is that in a company like Beyond is being created, which is starting to look like a house of brands inside of one single space, not everybody wants to own the whole thing. Some people don't care about the Medici assets. Some people don't care about Overstock. They just like the baby piece. And giving people the ability to pop in and out of things that are interesting to them based on where they're at in their life matters. The cash flow piece is one of the components that I'm hoping to be able to deliver. The other piece is a set of loyalty standards that will give them preferential treatment over other people. The third is it is my hope and my desire to get through this process with the regulators and the lawyers so that our existing holders of our company can also receive a modified value or modified version of the same asset because they already own the equity. So I don't really feel like I'm wasting time by learning how to diversify the way people can participate in our company, the way we're building a community of ambassadors, the way we're building revenue or the way we're creating attention around our brand. Tokenization is also another form of marketing. It's the ability to give people a chance to get closer to your brand, and I love marketing, and we don't have a lot of money to market. So I'm always going to think about creative ways to bring the customer closer to me with the least amount of expense. This is one of those ways. If we end up being the first company to ever do something like this, we'll be remembered for that. We'll have set a trail. And those kinds of things matter when you're building something for the long run.

And I apologize if you misinterpreted what I meant by a waste of time.

No, brother. No, no, no. Listen, people ask me all the time why I spend time on s***. I usually don't know the answer, but this one I do.

I get that. And I guess I'll leave at one last question because I know you're a busy man. With that being said, I guess, to kind of put it in full circle, right? Let's say, hypothetically, I hold the equity, right, BYON. And I get the aspect of, hey, I only like the baby portion of the business. I want to be an owner of that, monetize ownership in that. As a stockholder, I should or will have the rights of all of them considering it's part of the business unless it goes otherwise, which I would be able to find out. But I guess my main question is, if -- let's just say hypothetically that, that token raises $1 billion worth of liquidity. It's a hypothetical. How does that affect shareholders of the equity?

Wouldn't they have $1 billion of cash in their pocket?

Understood. That's what I thought. I'm just double checking.

Okay. I mean, if a shareholder -- first of all, a shareholder should only hope that we can take an asset that we bought for $1 and at some point, get $10 or $12 or whatever. And if the tokenization of said assets ends up being equal to or greater than your market cap, then the shareholder not only has the equity in the business, but it has the proceeds from that. And for me, as a shareholder, I want you to monetize every darn thing you can find, including the broom in and the broom closet. You better make my assets work for me. My cash better work, the assets better work, and you better find multiple ways to generate cash flow. You better make money, you better not lose money, and you better figure out how to make more money. Joe, last question.

Yes. Thanks so much. And Marcus, I've been a fan for a very long time. And going last means that there's been some awesome speakers and they asked all the great questions. And once again, you've put on a master class. I just wanted to reiterate as an entrepreneur, as a chief marketing officer, I think you hit on some key points that I think are so critical here. And I was -- I might have missed one, and I want to ask it as a last question. But as far as simplifying, it's so critical to do that, right? And as far as democratizing all this, it's great. From a liquidity standpoint, if I missed it, because I'm involved in a project, and I think Kevin brought it up earlier, it's involved literally what's being discussed tonight. It's real estate, it's democratizing it. It's making it inexpensive to get in on it. The liquidity is critical, right, that you can sell and somebody else brought it up about involving other tokens or tokenization, so you can have the greatest amount of liquidity. I don't care if it's cash or credit card or whatever, it's bitcoin, it's a token, it's anything so that people can exchange payments and money for assets as easily as possible. And honestly, I love what you're doing, and this is -- for those on the phone, it's incredible how long it's been going on, but it's still early, early stages. But I'd be really curious to hear what you think about everything you're going after, even the homeownership standpoint, was involved in a project with the title, like you said? So where does that come from your standpoint with liquidity?

Joe, if you could help me, you covered a lot of topics. Can you be specific with the question just so I don't make a mistake?

Yes. Sorry about that. I was covering a lot of areas. So as far as being able to get involved in the token and being able to buy it, sell it, and exchange it, is there any restrictions on doing that instantaneously?

I don't think so. I mean, I think, take our company out of this equation, and I'm answering this question as a bystander, not a Beyond person. I look at property that I own or I look at property that any of my businesses own and I think about ways to generate liquidity for the business. And I look at all the different sources. I can get a mortgage, I could do a sale leaseback, I could tokenize it. I may want to make improvements to a property. I think what's interesting about the tokenization market is I think it appears to me, and I could be wrong, as a more friendly and flexible alternative, a more friendly and flexible alternative. It doesn't mean that you have to be less compliant. It doesn't mean that there's not regulations around it. But it seems to be like a more flexible piece. And for companies that think about doing stuff like that, there's the potential to dis-intermediate the process and really take a lot of layers of margin out of the equation. If I was going to tokenize a piece of property that I historically got a mortgage on or did a sale leaseback on, I would be looking to improve my cap rate. If the cap rate was in the mid-6s or the mid-7s, I'd be looking to do tokenization to see if I could shave off 0.5 point or a full point on a 5, 10, 20 year lease because that's real money over time. For me, it's very simple. Tokenization, I think, also takes layers of complexity and creates more of a general marketplace. It's kind of a silly example, but I look at what eBay did where buyers and sellers can interact on a platform. Isn't that really what tokenization is where buyers and sellers can actually trade things and buy things and sell things and monetize things. It's really creating a peer-to-peer marketplace that I'm fascinated by.

Yes. To your point, Marcus, I appreciate that very much. It was the -- I think there are some regulatory compliance issues with certain underlying assets with the instantaneous liquidity that you can have, but I definitely appreciate your point, and I think you're dead on.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody, tonight for joining us. Beyond will be releasing its fourth quarter results Monday night, and we'll have our call Tuesday morning to discuss the core business, and we'll cover a lot of this ground again then. Thanks so much.