WEBVTT - Talking Crypto with the Financial Quarterback 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.680 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.920 Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.320 an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the Tech 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.040 Are You. Today, we have a very special guest joining 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.479 us on tech Stuff. He's a financial analyst extraordinaire. He 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.360 is the host of the Financial Quarterback. He is Josh Jaelinski. 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:32.280 Welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:34.920 Thanks for having me. It's gonna be a lot of fun. 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:36.960 Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you today. We're 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.080 gonna talk about crypto because obviously it's always been a 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.160 big topic in tech. We have covered it multiple times 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.240 on tech Stuff, but in the wake of the US elections, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:51.160 we've seen an incredible resurgence in the crypto space. And 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:53.279 while we've covered it from the tech side, I have 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.120 to be honest with you, Josh, when it comes to 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.520 financial analysis, that might as well be written in Klingon 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.680 for me, and I am not fluent in that. So 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:04.640 I'm glad to have you here. Can you tell our 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.840 listeners a little bit about your own background before we 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.720 kind of dive into the crypto space. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.360 I own an SEC registered RIA registered investment advisor firm 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.200 called Wealth Quarterback. I've been on the Financial Quarterback radio 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:22.360 show in war in New York. iHeart flagship station fifty thousand, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.720 Want Flamethrower, and we have a podcast, the Financial Quarterback, 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.759 and I help educate listeners each week on tax's, income planning, 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.360 retirement planning, and all things investing, including bitcoin. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.920 Yeah, it's one of those areas that I have tiptoed 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.399 around because, as I said, I've looked at the tech 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.240 side of cryptocurrency and we've talked about the differences in 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.960 the various cryptocurrencies out there, both from the brand to brand. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.200 You know, your bitcoins and your ethereums being the two 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.600 probably best well known. I would argue maybe dogecoin if 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.800 you're into the meme stocks. Beyond that, we've talked about 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.680 things like the proof of work versus the proof of 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.480 steak approach to the verifying transactions and the mining of 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.680 bitcoin being proof of work, Ethereum now being proof of steak, 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.240 although it was originally proof of work as well, and 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.000 so we kind of covered that. But when it comes 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.320 to investment, that's largely untapped territory for me. And part 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.720 of that is, first of all, I am no expert 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.120 on finances, but also there's certain elements of crypto that 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.600 I've always found daunting. The big one, I would argue 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.880 would be volatility. The fluctuating value of bitcoin in the 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:37.760 past has always been one of those things that has 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.840 given me pause because I think of it from a 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.079 currency perspective. If I have a note in my hand 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.320 that's worth one US dollar today and I spend it 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.720 and then I find out tomorrow it was worth ten 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.639 US dollars, it really makes me wonder is it right 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.720 to call bitcoin a currency at all? Or do you 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.520 think of it in terms of some other form of asset. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.560 I think it's more of the digital gold equivalent. I 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.400 think it's a hedge against the US dollar and the 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.600 Federal Reserve. So it's interesting. I'd love to hear your 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.680 tech side. I'm coming more from the macroeconomic outlook that 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.519 people for years and satoci in his white paper. You know, 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.200 I'm looking at the blocks and I get confused by 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.680 all the formulas, but I just remember I was actually 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.359 looking at it last night a little bit, and all 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.320 it is is peer to peer money transfers. I mean, 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.440 that's the fundamental, you know, basis of bitcoin. But it 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.320 really came in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.880 of two thousand and eight, where they were Satoci whoever 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.600 he is, basically Satoshi Nakamoto. If your listeners don't know, 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.080 founder of bitcoin wrote the famous Bitcoin White Paper, I 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.080 recommend everybody read it so they just kind of know 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:51.960 what bitcoin is. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:52.520 Yeah. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.680 Yeah, at its simplest form, it was an answer to 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:01.120 a problem from a programming side for years, but also 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.120 from a monetary perspective, where in the way of the 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:09.560 Great Financial Crisis, people began to distrust the government, they 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.080 began to distrust financial institutions. I mean, I remember when 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.120 I went independent as a financial advisor in two thousand 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.239 and six, and people would say, Josh, are you sure? 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.200 How could you not work for Merrill Lynch or Morgan 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:29.039 Stanley or bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or all these 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.440 companies that now don't exist. But back then, if people 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.640 were to trust you with your money, you know, you 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.040 had to have two first names, you know, something like that. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.839 So I remember that was the biggest knock I would 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.360 have when I started my company, was you know, who 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.680 were you? And we would use Fidelity as a custodian 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.480 or you know, a reputable third party canstodian like Schwaber Fidelity. 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.719 But still that was a big thing then it isn't 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.800 really now and we have bitcoin to thank for that. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.440 So really, bitcoin is the answer to a problem of 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.000 people having distrust in their government, distrust in the FED, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.560 distrust in financial institutions. 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.880 Yeah, when you had all these financial institutions, I mean 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.280 everyone who was around then can remember the outrage that 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.320 came with the bailout where you had these financial institutions 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.240 that had been issuing these incredibly risky mortgages, and ultimately 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.479 it became like a house of cards that collapsed in 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.080 on itself inevitably. I mean, in hindsight we say inevitably. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.680 At the time, I think everyone just thought number go up, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.440 and it turned out number does not always go up. 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.320 Sometimes number go down. And to your point, the idea 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:44.520 of a decentralized and untied to any particular fiat currency 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.760 alternative became really attractive to a lot of people where 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.880 they realized this would be an approach where you don't 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.760 have to worry about some institution making a bad call 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.919 and potentially putting not just your wealth, but like global 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.120 wealth and jeopardy as a result, and I think there 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.279 were really some noble intentions there. With all systems, I 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.120 would argue, we would see those intentions sometimes get a 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.120 little twisted along the way. And part of that is 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.920 because the digital currency opened up opportunities for things that 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.279 were outside the realms of the law, and that certainly 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.960 became a problem as well because it became associated with 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.280 the concept of digital currency. Overall, some of the problems 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.400 of digital currency have been brought about by some of 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.880 the biggest evangelists of digital currency, some of the people 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.400 who founded cryptocurrency exchanges, for example, I mean Sam Begman, 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.279 Freed being the obvious example of somebody who it turned out, 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:46.239 was grossly mismanaging customer wealth for the purposes of trying 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.800 to cover what essentially amounted to bad bets with his 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.880 hedge investment fund for Alameda Research, taking the money from 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.039 FTX and putting it into Alameda, and ultimately dooming both 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.200 of those organizations. So with all this in mind, I'm 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.440 curious as to what your general take on cryptocurrency is, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.160 because one, it's still a relatively young technology, a relatively 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.400 young investment opportunity. Two, a lot of the organizations surrounding 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.840 cryptocurrency are ones that have shaky reputations. You know, the 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:23.240 SEC is currently involved in investigating numerous cryptocurrency related companies 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.840 like Coinbase, I think is one of them. So with 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.000 all that in mind, how do you view crypto as 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.600 far as an investment opportunity. Is it something that you 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.720 think requires very careful analysis? Because to me, when I 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.240 look out there, it just looks like a minefield, or 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.960 at least a really complicated path to walk. 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.800 Yeah, I have to get my legal disclaimer. I'm not 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:50.520 recommending anyone invest in any particular cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is fraught 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.200 with risk. That being said, I think you need to 0:07:54.240 --> 0:08:00.680 distinguish bitcoin, which is a proven cryptocurrency with a very 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.360 valid use case as digital gold, from everything else. I mean, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.760 I even have problems with ethereum because I think proof 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.200 of steak has Although it has opportunities, I think that 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.520 it's fraught with peril. I don't like that we know 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.880 the founder. I don't know that there's a central actor risk. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:26.040 There's attributes to bitcoin fixed quantity, digital gold, uncoonfiscatable money 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:32.360 that I like as opposed to pretty much every other cryptocurrency. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.240 So although I guess i'd be a bitcoin maximalist or 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.280 foundationalist maybe, I mean, because certain things have certain use 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.280 cases and I'm not that big of a techie, you know. Yeah, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.120 so I can't tell you, okay, the use you know, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.800 but NFTs to me, you know, it was that was 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.319 like a scam for you know, you to have, you know, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.880 your favorite cup of coffee with Gary Vaynerchuk or something, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.920 and then you get the dumb looking cartoon. I mean, 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.040 there will definitely be certain use cases in the metaverse 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.960 or web three, but that really is not what I'm 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.240 interested in to me, And I think what you said 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.880 before a couple of things. You brought up volatility in bitcoin. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:13.600 Yeah, just because you. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.440 Believe in the use case doesn't mean it's going to 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.400 not be volatile. If you think about Amazon, for the 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:24.120 first twenty years of Amazon's existence, highly volatile. No one 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.560 would really question Amazon's viability now, same thing with apples. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.480 So I do bitcoin like an exponential technology, just like 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.840 Amazon or Tesla. I mean, it's far bigger than that. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.160 It is a far bigger potential market share. If it 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.920 just gets the market share gold gets, bitcoin could be 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.720 a million dollars of coin and as sovereign wealth funds 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.680 start to allocating. As an investment advisor start allocating. I mean, 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.640 we really don't even have clarity as an investment advisor. 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.720 I can't say, like if I was in an ideal 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.600 world diversification, right, you could say I'm going to allocate 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.959 one or two percent of all portfolio to bitcoin. That 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.400 would be a sensible thing, right. We can't do that 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.160 like you can with an SMP fund because we have 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:13.320 to get cryptocurrency disclosures, bitcoin disclosures. So once the regulatory 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:17.040 clarity comes that it's a respected asset classes, I think 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.199 it's just going to be even a greater amount per coin. 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.600 Now that being said, I think one hundred thousand bitcoin 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.880 is precisely because ETFs. Let's not forget this is the year. 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.080 You can now go in your brokerage fund and you 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.760 could buy a low cost bitcoin ETF like ibit or 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.600 GBTC or FBTC. And I'm not recommending you buy those, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.320 but they're like a fraction of what bitcoin used to cost. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.160 I mean, and I mean it's free theorey you know 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.600 with your money, you know, you pay fees on the network. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.880 But I do find that interesting that in the asset 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.440 class that was supposed to pride itself in not having 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.320 financial intermediaries. Now it does. But I guess it's a 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.520 part of it emerging from a very nascent technology. That's 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.520 the thing you need to make a lot of distinguishing. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.000 You brought up three big things that are you write 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.000 a book on this volatility and bitcoin FTX and bitcoin 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:15.120 criminals in bitcoin. But you have to distinguish Sambangmin Freed 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.280 FTX is not bitcoin, right, you know, sam Bangmin Freed 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.720 is a fraudster who convicted. It'd be like us saying 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.520 stocks have no merit because you know, I don't know 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:32.560 some stock broker was a fraud sight Trum, yeah, or 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.400 you know the Wolf of Wall Street. You know, like, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:39.840 it doesn't mean that stocks are not a viable asset class. 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.280 And then criminals in bitcoin just because criminals use it, 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.880 I mean criminals have used life insurance to wander money, 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.079 you know. So I think as it becomes a more 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.959 embraced technology, what's funny is it's getting embraced now by 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.200 firms like Fidelity and Schwab and the only firm I 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.520 think that didn't embrace it was Vanguard. And there's been 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.679 a lot of negative press that they've experienced because they 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:06.480 haven't embraced it. 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.840 We'll have more to say with Josh from the Financial 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.319 quarterback in just a moment, but first a quick break 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:24.040 to thank our sponsors. So, in the old, old old days, 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.160 a bitcoin, if you had just started back when, you 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.360 could actually have your PC potentially successfully mine a block 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.599 of bitcoin because it was idling and it solved the 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.600 really hard math problem first, which those days, y'all are 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.800 long gone. So don't think that you're old, like five 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.040 year old PC is going to mine some bitcoin for 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.680 you. You're up against some massive networks that are working on 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.160 those problems now. But back in the day, if you 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.679 didn't mind bitcoin, or if you had a transaction where 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.120 someone sent you bitcoin, you know, you had to put 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.400 those assets into a digital wallet, and more often than not, 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.600 that digital wallet would just live on a hard drive. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.680 I mean, there's the famous story about the guy who 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.960 ended up throwing out his PC without remembering to remove 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.600 the digital wallet from his PC and like scouring the 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.640 dump trying to find this thing because there were tens 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.000 of thousands of dollars just represented in that digital wallet 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.040 and he didn't have access to it. So you could 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.960 have your digital wallet stored on a local machine, or 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.240 you could be using a service kind of like what 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.720 FTX was, which was, you know, a cryptocurrency exchange, but 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.439 you could have an account with that and have your 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.560 holdings in that account. One of the problems is that 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.079 SBF was apparently taking money from customer accounts in order 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.240 to cover the investments of our at alimated research. That 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.200 to me is another one of those those hurdles. It's 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.360 not just an element of trust with knowing that there 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.840 are some bad actors out there, it's how do you 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.120 know like the right approach. Let's say that you are 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.040 interested in investing in crypto, and you've done your research 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.920 and you figured out which cryptocurrency is interesting to you, 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.840 figuring out where you're going to store that ends up 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.160 the coming an issue that I think most people don't 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.160 even otherwise think about, right like, it's going to have 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.480 to sit on a physical space somewhere, whether that's under 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.880 your control or in a cryptocurrency exchange or something similar. 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.160 With the failure of FTX, I think that had brought 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.080 into question how much can you trust these other third 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.920 party entities? And it's interesting to me to see that 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.120 issue unfold, because it kind of makes me think back 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.720 to the two thousand and eight crisis, where again, there 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.320 you didn't know who to trust with these institutionalized financial systems. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.840 It's a different flavor but a similar story. And now, 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:36.760 like the question is how do you figure out who 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.280 to trust in the digital landscape so that you can 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.000 feel confident, Like even if you made a bad bet 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.760 with backing a cryptocurrency that's just not doing well, at 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.880 least you would still be able to access those assets. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.560 Well, I mean they're the old not your keys, not 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.880 your bitcoin, you know, have have your bigcoin or cryptocurrency. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.840 I'm a big believer in cold storage if you can 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:03.320 learn how to use it. Their companies like Ledger, Treasure 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:09.240 cold wallet where you can google or YouTube videos on 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.120 how to do your own cold storage for people don't know. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.240 You know, you can hold your bitcoin right in a 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.280 little device. The cold wallet's like a little calculator looking thing. 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.800 You can have it on an exchange like Coinbase. One 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.720 method is you can also have it through a more 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:34.160 traditional financial institution now like Fidelity, which has way more 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:39.200 price controls and they're even holding people's bitcoin. In some 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.960 cases they have bitcoin custody for people who it's too 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.360 difficult for. So it used to be you had to 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.760 really know what you were doing. Now you can actually 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.520 hold the physical bitcoin and you don't have to be 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.280 an expert. Their company is like Unchained and Kaso, where 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:59.720 you know, you can have multi signature wallets where if 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.200 you don't trust yourself and you think you might lose 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.560 your bitcoin or you might lose your crypto. I mean 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.600 generally though, if you if you're owning bitcoin, start with 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.360 whether it's if you if it's bitcoin, start with a 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.720 few satoshi's, see if you have the wherewithal to do 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.680 cold storage on your own. But then there are reputable 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.040 exchanges where they subject themselves to audits, you know, like 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.680 New York has a Department of Cryptocurrency. It's a little 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.680 more stringent than others, right, but to me, you know, 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.520 I liked it. A company like fidelities into it, you know, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.760 so you know they have certain controls in place that 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.800 were made with regulatory oversight in potential purview. You know, 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.359 you got a roase. A lot of these companies, like Fidelity, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.040 we're doing it. Everybody's bullsh on bitcoin and crypto now 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.120 because they're thinking, hey, Trump's in his sec is going 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.360 to be a little easier on bitcoin and crypto. Gary 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.560 Gensler just announced that he was stepping down. Although Gary Gensler, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.880 people forget this. He has an excellent video of his 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:00.760 MIT You ever see tho as the MIT lectures? Yeah, 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.840 those were excellent. I mean he had a deep knowledge 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:05.600 of it, and I think he was trying to embrace 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.480 the technology but root out the criminals. Right, So there's 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.280 a distinction there. But you know, sadly, I don't think 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.200 all of his things which got a bad rap for 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.119 were bad. Yeah, And I think he had a deep 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:24.399 knowledge of cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in particular, where you know, 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.320 it's the wild West some of these cryptocurrencies. That's why 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.120 to me, if you're just starting out, buy a few 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.400 setoci's by you know, to me, bitcoin is the more 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:39.040 proven method ethereums you're number two the rest. I mean, 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.520 you know, a lot of what I find too is 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.560 people are just trying to find the next big thing 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.480 to feel like, oh I missed out on bitcoin, right, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:53.360 so I want to buy some alt coin that may 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.240 have the potential of an epic rhyme. But what is 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.480 the utility of these tokens, what's the purpose, Like, has 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.560 no purpose. I would not put my money in Doze, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.119 just as a principle, Like, just on principle. 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:12.080 Yeah, Doge was founded as a joke, and sometimes people 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.960 remember that and they still put their money in, which 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:16.680 to the point where like the creator of doge is 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.679 like I thought I was making satire and it turns 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.920 out that I made something that despite people's better judgment, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.160 they believe in it, and you know that makes that 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.240 value fluctuate wildly as well. But ultimately you need to 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.520 remember Doze was created as a joke. But to your point, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.119 a lot of these alt coins, I think they're meant 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:44.000 to be a way to fund some other venture that 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.640 is related to the blockchain, and the token is kind 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.520 of their way of getting investment rounds to fund whatever 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.119 that venture is. And like I said, the best organizations 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.080 are really transparent about it. The danger I see is 0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.720 that a lot of people look at that as saying, oh, 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.040 that's going to be the next bitcoin, and even the 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.600 organizations around those ventures are like, that's not what we're 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.280 saying at all. Don't assume that we're like poised to 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.040 become the next bitcoin. We're trying to fund something we 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:12.920 believe in. And then of course you have your other 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.840 groups where it's like much more shady, where they're looking 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.440 at any opportunity and maybe even a rug pull situation 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.439 down the line. But I think you're absolutely right in 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.119 that if you are interested in looking at at cryptocurrency 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.280 from an investment perspective, going with the more established ones 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:35.880 makes far more sense than just hoping that some fly 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.880 by night alt coin that launched in the last three 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.480 months is going to repeat the success of even Ethereum. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.760 Like Ethereum alone is pretty darn successful. It's not stratospheric 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.919 like Bitcoin became. But you know that's just the to me, like, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.159 that's just foolish. If you're doing now, if you believe 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.560 in whatever the organization is doing, that's different. Like if 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.919 you think I'm investing and I'm supporting something I believe in, 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.360 I feel a lot more comfortable about that rather than 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.040 just man, I wish i'd bought bitcoin back when it 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.959 was you know, ten thousand to a dollar. Yeah, we 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:12.000 all do, so, I agree one hundred percent. The other 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.199 thing that always gives me pause the steps beyond the 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.440 financial aspect, is that because bitcoin is proof of work, 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.800 that does mean that in order for systems to be 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.159 able to mine a block of bitcoin, they have to 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.679 dedicate a truly tremendous amount of compute power to do that, 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.600 because when you're up to like one hundred thousand dollars 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.720 per coin, then there's a huge incentive to be the 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.919 first to solve that next block of transactions. And so 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.720 we're starting to see not starting, we have seen these 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.920 large networks form where they're even taking over old defunct 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.840 electric power plants in order to be able to get 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.760 enough electricity to do this, because at scale it makes 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:54.560 sense like if you are able to mine enough bitcoin, 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.120 you can actually pay for that level of operation, which 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.359 then brings in the concern about how much electric is 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.119 being consumed. Ultimately that comes that also goes down to 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.639 where's the electricity coming from? How is this contributing to 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.320 other factors like carbon footprint. To me, that's another one 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.000 of those things that I think people need to look 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.919 into and understand before they get in and just to 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.920 be able to answer the question is am I okay 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.399 with entering into this world? I think being informed is 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.119 the most important part rather than jumping in because you 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.679 just you think that there's an opportunity there, and you're 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:28.760 worried you're going to miss out. 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.359 Yeah, I've thought deeply about the use of power and electricity. 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.520 I mean, I think from a fundamental perspective, right, if 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:42.399 government no longer has the monopoly on money, right like 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.600 at its core. Not to get too out in left field, 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.840 but if we didn't have governments fight about money, think 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.680 about how many wars were fought over gold. Sure there 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.040 could be wars fought over bitcoin in the future. And 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.359 I think it's very good develop that the US is 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.400 embracing it and the US government's embracing it, because if 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.520 we embrace it, we can focus on clean energy. A 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.480 lot of bitcoin minors, you know, they're big in clean 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:17.600 energy in places like Washington, and they're they're providing jobs, 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:22.280 and they're they're they're kind of retooling things in a way. 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:26.840 But I think if you had no more wars about money, 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.000 I'm not saying we won't have any more wars. You know, 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.560 here's some of these bitcoin people. They you know, bitcoin 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:36.679 solves everything, you know, bitcoin fixes every problem in the world. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.280 That can be ridiculous, But what they mean is an 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.280 honest person who might use that kind of phrase say, 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.359 if we have think about this, If we have a government, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.639 let's say the US, I fundamentally think whether it's Trump 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.720 Elon Vivic in this next administration wherever you kind of fall, 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.080 I think Elon On. I know, I think deeply about this. 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:07.680 The US is losing its strength in the world because 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:10.880 other countries don't trust that we will manage our own 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.240 finance as well. And bitcoin just the act of a 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.520 competitor to the dollar, even though it's just such a 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.440