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Building Wealth in the Bitcoin Era | All Roads LTR Podcast | Ep. 57
24 Plays18 days ago
In this episode Matt its down with entrepreneur and Bitcoin miner Neil Roseman to unpack what makes Bitcoin unique—its 21 million cap, blockchain security, and growing role as “hard money.” They discuss why adoption is accelerating, how to start small with dollar-cost averaging or ETFs, and why the biggest mistake might be owning none at all.
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Transcript
Introduction & Bitcoin Debate
00:00:00
Speaker
The space that I want to discuss today is all about Bitcoin. You're knowledgeable, not just as someone who just buys it. There's plenty of those folks. yep But you're also involved in the mining correct side of things.
00:00:11
Speaker
Is it a scam? it is it like i Even my family think I'm crazy because I'm dipping my toes in the water here. It's certainly not a scam. And it's definitely an asset. The government labels it a commodity.
00:00:23
Speaker
Bitcoin is censure resistant, decentralized, rules based, hard money. it's gonna 10X in five years. And so if you really believe that, why why am I gonna pay my mortgage off early instead of just buying a couple of Bitcoin?
Guest Introduction & FOMO in Crypto
00:00:48
Speaker
Hello and welcome everyone to All Roads Lead to Real Estate. My name is Matt Ryan. I'm your host and I am here on a slightly different, a divergent, if you will, a tangent, adjacent concept here to real estate, but something my investor friends um certainly will appreciate and something I feel, and I'll get into this in a moment with my guest here, Neil, but I feel kind of like some FOMO going on, and I think this is pretty common for a lot of folks that probably have not invested in the space that we're about to discuss. But the the space that I want to discuss today is all about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Now, don't turn this off immediately for those that think that's crazy. That's, you know, what in the world? You know, that I just I think there's so much talk about it from people that might not understand it, including honestly half myself.
00:01:37
Speaker
I am no expert yet. um However, I'm fascinated by it and I know it is here to stay and we're going to discuss why it's going to be here to stay. And I think there's certainly enough conversation on the Internet around you know Bitcoin. But I think they're typically from these talking heads, not necessarily from someone with my perspective.
00:01:57
Speaker
I'm a real estate investor. I'm someone who has quite a few assets. have a lot of stock, a big stock portfolio. I have a big real estate portfolio, relatively speaking, and I want to know this space. So I think it's best, in my opinion, to be interviewed. but You know, you are really a subject matter expert and I'll discuss your bio in a minute, Neil. But this is this is really what this is designed for, to give you an idea at home.
00:02:22
Speaker
What is this? Do you also suffer from FOMO? Are you wondering what in the world, you know, is it too late? Because, you know, Bitcoin has just exploded lately. And what is it? Is it a scam? it Is it it like even my family think I'm crazy because I'm dipping my toes in the water here.
00:02:39
Speaker
And so I want to get right to it and and and introduce Neil Roseman. He is ah really an associate of mine that I've known. adjacently for years and so he has graced me with his presence and he's a serial entrepreneur.
00:02:56
Speaker
He is someone who's wildly successful in variety of um arenas but the one I wanna speak to you today about is really because you're into Bitcoin specifically, you're passionate about it,
00:03:06
Speaker
You're knowledgeable, not just as someone who just buys it. There's plenty of those folks. yep But you're also involved in the mining correct side of things. So if you don't even know what that means, buckle up. You're going to get an education here.
Understanding Bitcoin: Basics & History
00:03:18
Speaker
So um first off, Neil, thank you for joining me.
00:03:21
Speaker
Oh, thanks for having me. This is great. And ah yes, well, thanks for joining us. And so this is a new setup for us. We have a desk. It's it's looking so official. It's incredible. Yes. So it's looking great. And I need to turn you up, actually. All this new technology. Let me make sure I can actually hear you.
00:03:36
Speaker
All right, I think I can hear you now. um All right, so Neil, help everybody understand a little bit about your experience. Why should they you know take for you know what you're what you have to say here seriously?
00:03:48
Speaker
I don't know if why why they should take it seriously, but you know it started for me, I guess it started back, I think everybody has a story where they were exposed to Bitcoin at some earlier time sure and blew it off. right So in 2017-ish, it started getting really popular on CNBC.
00:04:05
Speaker
You'd see the little bug and I saw it go up to 18,000 and i and i it was all about gambling and just about number go up. right And i said, well, I'll buy it when it goes back down.
00:04:16
Speaker
course, it went back down to like under $3,000 and I never bought it. Yeah. So that was my first exposure to it. And then in in probably late 2021 or early 2022, I listened to a podcast called Radical Personal Finance.
00:04:30
Speaker
And ah Joshua Sheets, and he had a one of the episodes was called Why I Was Wrong About Bitcoin. And anytime somebody is going to like tell you why they were wrong in a public fashion, I listen maybe even more intently. And everything he said made sense.
00:04:46
Speaker
And that's when I started doing my own due diligence. So you know to understand Bitcoin beyond just a speculation or some kind of gambling or even just an investment, you've got to put some work in.
00:04:58
Speaker
You have to listen to podcasts like this. There's lots of other better podcasts for Bitcoin you know out there. You've got to put some work in probably about 200 hours. to really start to, and it doesn't mean you have to study, like a book study, but you know be on Twitter, ah listen to podcasts, read blogs, and start to understand why Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It's not just about making money.
00:05:21
Speaker
Well, and so I want to start you because I truly am in my understanding phase. So I've been I've first heard about blockchain and I understood enough of it to say i have no idea what it like when sometimes when you start there are certain even real estate. I could teach someone most the the fundamentals of real estate.
00:05:40
Speaker
in ah in a pretty, and I don't need 200 hours to teach them real estate. I really don't. right And you also have a lot of experience in real estate. So that's something that's a whole part of your world. So it's not like you're you know not aware of the other side of what other people can place their money. but But specifically, it's like, what is Bitcoin? I wanna start there because is it scam? Is an asset? Explain folks what and why is it here?
00:06:03
Speaker
asset is it explain folks what it is and why it's why is it here It's certainly not a scam and it's definitely an asset. The government labels it a commodity.
00:06:14
Speaker
Okay. And what makes Bitcoin special for the new people that are listening? Probably the number one thing I could say is that there's a cap on the total number of Bitcoin that will ever be produced.
00:06:25
Speaker
And that cap is 21 million. So a lot of people refer to Bitcoin as like the hardest asset out there because you can't go above 21 million ever. and But yet, if you any kind of fiat currency, and when say fiat, we're talking pay you know paper currency, whether it be the the dollar, the euro, the yen, the ruble, the yuan,
00:06:45
Speaker
All that. All that is just getting, there's more and more getting produced. Right. Right. So every year we we just print more money. Sure. And so what happens if you kind of look at the, one of the reasons why you have to spend so much time to understand Bitcoin is you have to kind of understand money first. And it and we in America live in a in us in a in a country with, obviously we do really well, and we are also the reserve currency of the world.
00:07:12
Speaker
we have that kind of ah strategic advantage right but if you look but i can guarantee you the us dollar i'm going to guarantee it to you is going to is going to zero and so is every other currency paper currency now is that going to happen in three years or what what's your prediction on that i don't know but might not it probably won't happen in my lifetime okay okay but if you look back in 1950 here's how here's how i'd prove it to you if you look back in 1950 a big mac was five cents And now it's $5 more. sure So in the in those years, the dollar lost of its
00:07:46
Speaker
right Well, let's go back because this is this and i and I'm going to try to keep this honest here in terms of because I've done hours of research now online on YouTube. I've listened to the experts, the experts like yourself, you own tens of millions. I don't put your stuff out on blast, but you own tens of millions of dollars of this of of Bitcoin like you are. You own mining facilities. You are you are a subject matter expert.
00:08:08
Speaker
And some folks that are so. deep down that rabbit hole that have this knowledge have a tendency to speak in terms because it's just because you're so you know knowledgeable that you go right past the basics. I want to stop and go right back to the original question.
00:08:22
Speaker
What is Bitcoin? So Bitcoin is, it was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto, which is a pseudonym. Nobody knows who this person is. It was designed to be peer-to-peer money.
00:08:33
Speaker
that's fundamentally what was designed it kind of came out of the ashes of the financial crisis and there was such a and when when was this like 0809 okay so i think bitcoin started in about uh late 09 or 10 okay and um he know prior to if i want to give you money the only way i can give you money realistically without a third party is i either give you cash or i give you bitcoin See, every other, whether it be a credit card, a check. Gold.
00:09:03
Speaker
I could give you gold, but how do I give you $300 worth of gold? So you can't, I have to can't shave it off, right? I mean, theoretically you can, but it's not realistic, right? So you could do that.
00:09:15
Speaker
um But any other any other money, well like I said, Venmo, Cash App, credit cards, a check, a wire, has to go through a third party. And so you have counterparty risk.
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay? So you have the risk, you know, and lot of people don't take this for grant take this for granted, but if you have your money in a bank, the bank owes you that money. They don't have that money. as we all know, is that there's a run in the bank, then they have to go to the government.
00:09:38
Speaker
Well, if there's a run on the financial system, the government is, yes, they're going to insure you for your 250,000 and probably more, but they're going to but just think how much money they're to print to do that. for Okay, so Bitcoin is the only money, know, we call it sovereign money. I'm not going to say it's the only money, but you can hold it yourself.
00:09:57
Speaker
And I can send it to you, and it doesn't have to go through a third party. Got Okay. And these 21 million Bitcoin live on the blockchain. So even when I say it's my money, like I have it, I really don't. And the blockchain is what exactly?
00:10:13
Speaker
So the blockchain is like a ledger for Bitcoin. It's one ledger for all of Bitcoin. and what's And that's transformational and itself. You've heard a lot of people say, I don't believe in Bitcoin, but I i believe in the blockchain.
00:10:26
Speaker
So you ah you have a ledger at your bank. I have a ledger at my bank. If you write me a check, it debits your bank and it credits my ledger, right? Like that? Everything in Bitcoin is on one giant blockchain that's public.
00:10:39
Speaker
So you're you're you know your blockchain is private, right? You know it, the bank knows it, and that's about it, right? But in Bitcoin, all the transactions are public. If I send you a Bitcoin, you could they won't know who you are and they won't know who I am, but they can see that Bitcoin moving from my wallet from a wallet, they don't know who it is, to another wallet.
Security & Risks of Bitcoin
00:10:59
Speaker
Correct. And anybody can see that. And you can see every transaction since the beginning of Bitcoin back in late 2000. Is that why today the big, big players, when they buy big hunks of Bitcoin these days, everyone knows that someone just bought a billion dollars with a Bitcoin yesterday or whatever. That's one of the ways they know. Yes.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's public. It's public. Well, mean, you can't really tell. Like you just say somebody bought a, somebody moved a billion dollars worth Bitcoin. but Now you don't know who that person is unless they make it public. But sometimes you can guess and you can you know try to relate. Like some of the big players.
00:11:30
Speaker
Exactly. Interesting. And so, and the scale of Bitcoin, so the whole, well, let me get back into, before I get to the scale of it currently, it started off more almost as an idea. what It wasn't the first pizza with the first transactional, you know, this like tell me the story about the pizza, the most expensive pizza ever sold.
00:11:47
Speaker
Ever sold. So it was a, um I think it was, it's it's been labeled as the first transaction that anybody knows about. A guy ah or paid for two Papa John's pizzas $33, and was about 10,000 Bitcoin. and that was about ten thousand bitcoin And today, Bitcoin's worth? That ten that would be worth $1.1 billion, $1.2 billion today. And that's certainly an expensive Papa John pizza. Wow. Yes, it is.
00:12:09
Speaker
That's crazy. So, and and fundamentally, is it more secure than money because it's on this blockchain rather than ah specific currency? Or what's the advantages additionally other than transparency for for blockchain? Yeah, I don't know if it's secure because it's on the blockchain. Because if you have your, see, there's an old saying in Bitcoin, not your keys, not your coins.
00:12:30
Speaker
Okay? if you keep that If you keep your Bitcoin at an exchange like Coinbase or Kraken or some of the other ones, you're giving them your keys. Got it. Okay. If they go under, your Bitcoin could be lost. That's what happened with FTX and all those other ones that went under, you know, three years ago. Right.
00:12:47
Speaker
So if you keep it in cold storage, which means I have the keys, then it's safe because there's no counterparty risk. I control 100% Bitcoin. I don't to worry about a bank giving it to me. i don't have to worry about a brokerage company saying yes, trying to make a wire and it gets held up. Everything goes through.
00:13:05
Speaker
I could tell you when I first started learning about Bitcoin, I'd have to write down and Raul is here in the studio. he but If he's not aware of these, the you're hearing these terms, cold storage, it's a lot worth throwing at you. If you're not super familiar with it, it can be extremely confusing. I think it's very intimidating for most people. And I think that's where people shut down.
00:13:22
Speaker
When it's just like, what is all this stuff you're speaking about? I'm just gonna go about my day job. Like this, it sounds complex. And I think with real estate, one of the advantages I have when I sell real estate, it's very simplistic.
00:13:33
Speaker
you have a house, you need to live somewhere, right? And so I can help you get a mortgage. It's much more, we're all used to it since we're children. And so, i you know, what my concern is, is now, you know, I'm in my 40s now, I'm just sitting here looking at my asset classes and I'm concerned, for example, I have an operating account in the business.
00:13:52
Speaker
I have ah too much money in the operating account, which is a bad thing from an investment standpoint. You don't want too much cash on hand. That's it just in the US dollar. Right. So, you know, one of the concerns, one of the things i want to talk to about later is what do you do?
00:14:06
Speaker
Do you transition that over to Bitcoin and create and your your own You know, um what do they call that? what what do if you If you keep a ledger for your company and you have it in Bitcoin for everything beyond, let's say, six months of reserves for the business, is that considered the new norm of what a lot of these larger corporations are going to start adopting?
00:14:26
Speaker
i ah It's certainly starting to take on those Bitcoin. There's there's kind of two types of Bitcoin treasury companies. That's the term I was thinking of. Yes, Bitcoin treasury. Right. They're the ones that go out and buy Bitcoin. Their sole reason to exist right is Bitcoin.
00:14:40
Speaker
But there's other companies that have a business and they keep ah some of their cash in Bitcoin. right right now it could be just a very small amount could be you know whatever so that's starting to pick up a little bit i think we'll start to see that accelerate i don't know how many more in america just bitcoin only companies but you can see a company if a company has makes money right profit and they don't they most most companies seem forced to do something with that money either buy back shares or declare dividends or reinvest it in the company well if you don't have any good options for that
00:15:16
Speaker
then Bitcoin becomes a really great option too to enhance your you know you're the net worth of the business while it while it sits around. And I encourage everyone, if you're new to this, look at someone like Michael Sawyer.
00:15:28
Speaker
Saylor. Saylor, I'm sorry. until i'm still new at it. Michael Saylor, because I think he is he's he's so such an advocate. He almost sounds like a nut job, quite frankly. And he might be. But he, I mean, tell tell everyone, because obviously you would know him better than I, a little bit about him and and what his fundamental beliefs are.
00:15:43
Speaker
Well, he was running a company that was, you know, i don't remember. He said he was sitting out, he was making money every year. He's in the technology space. He couldn't compete with Microsoft, couldn't compete with all the other companies, but he's making money and he, and almost like a zombie company.
00:15:58
Speaker
And he had $500 million dollars of cash on hand in like 19, in 2020. And finally, just he he was so fed up with being on the hamster wheel of 20 years trying to grow his company and failing and failing and failing.
00:16:12
Speaker
And at that point, i don't know what the number is, but let's just say he was a $500 billion dollar company. And now he's a, I don't know, $80, $90 billion dollar company. for Like it's, you know, just by buying Bitcoin, now he's- And that's a micro strategy. If you want to look it up on a ticker. Right now it's called strategy. They've changed the name. Just changed it.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, but everybody kind of refers to as MicroStrategy. Got it. now I think that was the original company named MicroStrategy. Correct. Because it was like a Microsoft, you know, one of those type of companies. Yep. that yep So he's been this incredible proponent of Bitcoin and how pristine the money is.
00:16:43
Speaker
Bitcoin is like perfect money. Right. You know, with a 21 million cap and how you can send the money to anybody in the world within 10 minutes. Right. i mean that's unbelievable. I mean, try sending an international wire yeah and see how long that takes to go through. Try going to your bank and pulling out $50,000 in cash and see see how that goes. A, they won't give it to you.
00:17:03
Speaker
B, if they do give it to you, you have to wait till the truck comes in with the cash and see they're going to ask you a bunch of questions about what you're going to use the money for. And then you're going to have to fill out forms because it's over $10,000. Like you start to really get that your money is not really yours.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's fascinating. So I think there's such, because over the last year, it's been a learning curve. So one of the reasons I want to have you in is because if you're super knowledgeable about Bitcoin, you sound almost like a nut job. someone So I'm a big proponent of a company called Tesla. Ignore the political statement that is, but I'm just referring to the company itself, the technology itself.
00:17:40
Speaker
And i have done so much research in that company that if anyone were to ask me on the street about the company, I sound like a nut job because I'm so well researched.
Bitcoin's Growth Potential & Skepticism
00:17:48
Speaker
And for those that are well researched on average, they're going to be very big. There'll be very big bulls on Tesla on average.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so the folks that I see that I think are very well researched in Bitcoin sound equally nutty because they seem like if you don't understand it, you're going to be behind. And I think we're at an inflection point. One of the reasons I want to get more knowledgeable about it, I believe firmly that what I think we're at at what a 2% adoption rate so far, what 2% of the population has ah any Bitcoin exposure.
00:18:17
Speaker
that about right? Yeah, about right. About right. So, and there's only 21 million. And so how many millionaires are there in the world? There's 60 million millionaires. Yeah. And there's 21 million Bitcoin.
00:18:27
Speaker
So even to have a one full Bitcoin that's now currently valued, fluctuates daily, but maybe 114, 115,000, somewhere in that ballpark currently, it it it's so been so volatile that most people are terrified to put it in, in because it it seems speculative. And so there it just seems wacky.
00:18:45
Speaker
And I talked to so many financial advisors that I represent in real estate And I talk to them about Bitcoin and they don't agree with it. They manage, I have a couple clients that manage hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money and they won't touch it because they think it's speculative and they have no place for that, Matt.
00:19:02
Speaker
And they just, they have zero. They don't want to have any exposure. yep And I ask them more questions about what is it, what about it? They can't answer me. I don't know anyone that is in that space that's super knowledgeable that calls themselves a financial advisor.
00:19:16
Speaker
I haven't met one yet. They're hard to find, for sure. There's definitely, so like my financial advisor will buy up to 3% of your portfolio in Bitcoin if you ask them to.
00:19:27
Speaker
ah okay Can they get paid on that? Yeah. Yeah. So they buy it through the ETF. Okay. So a year and a half and ago. Exchange traded fund, guys. Correct. yeahp Almost like a mutual fund, right? Right. So they buy it. So that's part of that was the part of the problem before the ETFs came out is that the the financial advisors didn't have any way...
00:19:45
Speaker
to hold bitcoin right you need a whole i can't even tell you how difficult it is to be managing other other people's coins and see the when you when you hold your own bitcoin i referred to it earlier as sovereign money but with sovereign money comes sovereign security meaning there's no 800 number to call. Yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
Right? You lose it, you lose it. You lose it, you lose it. Now, you shouldn't lose it. There's lots of ways to prevent you losing it. And I know you've heard, everybody's heard the stories of so many people that have lost their Bitcoin, but...
00:20:17
Speaker
It's not a but. And what there is to realize is they lost $500 of Bitcoin because they didn't follow the, because who follows very in tight security when it's $500? The problem is that $500 turned into $500,000 $5 million. Sure.
00:20:31
Speaker
turn into five hundred thousand dollars or five million dollarss And now they can't now they lost it. So it's not that they lost $5 million. dollars They lost 500 because it was on an old hard drive. you're saying at today's prices, if I put a million bucks in, I'm going to take extra precaution. I'm going to know exactly how to take care of it and access it and keep it secure. How many times you get a gift card and you lose it? Right.
00:20:52
Speaker
Because it's 25 bucks. Yeah. like It was in my wallet. I could have sworn. Yeah. But if that gift card was a million dollars, you would take care of it. Yes. You would. Right. So I think that was the issue that it, you know, Bitcoin has gone up, you know, from basically one cent to, you know, the high last week was one hundred and twenty four thousand. Right.
00:21:10
Speaker
So is whatever that is, that's, you know, hundreds of thousands of percent return, which is just incredible. So. And what's what sounds so nutty when I was talking about the folks that are crazy about Tesla and also many of the folks that are that are I consider like the raging bulls for for Bitcoin, you hear these estimates that sound that it can't be true.
00:21:30
Speaker
You hear people say, oh, yeah, within the next five years, it'll be at least a million dollars of Bitcoin. and or more and you hear these things, you're like, oh my God. So it's gonna 10X in five years.
00:21:41
Speaker
And so if you really believe that, why or why am gonna pay my mortgage off early instead of just buying a couple Bitcoin? Exactly. Or like you start looking at these up, but then it's like, well, there's no guarantees in any of this and couldn't it go to zero?
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah, I don't. i Look, when I started buying in 2022, there was a risk I could go to zero. The government, you know, the it for lots of reasons. The government didn't like it.
00:22:05
Speaker
Now, Bitcoin won't go to zero because the government bans it. it, and didn't go to zero. Okay? The U.S. government bans it. So I was a citizen in China... there's no way I can buy Bitcoin directly? You couldn't buy it, hold it, or mine it. back Now, I'm not sure what the current rules are.
00:22:22
Speaker
I've heard they loosened up a little bit. But see, remember, Bitcoin, China wants to control everything you do. And they've got these phones, if you don't pay your bills, there are certain hotels you can't stay in.
00:22:34
Speaker
It's like your phone, they won't check you in on your phone. it like Even if you have if you're gonna pay for it. like so that It's a true surveillance state. right So they've got what they call a CBDC, which is a central bank digital currency, and they can control everything. If they want to cut off all, you know, if America wanted to cut off all gun stores from selling guns and we havet and we had a central bank digital currency, with one push of a button, nobody could buy a gun.
00:22:57
Speaker
Right. That's the danger of of that system. Well, you definitely, as a country, if you're in the government, if you're in power, if you're currently in power, this is a threat. I can't imagine how it's not a threat.
00:23:08
Speaker
there are two it's They're to actually see as threat yet.
00:23:13
Speaker
confident or they're too confident to actually see it as a threat yet I mean, when you listen, there a lot of them are older people that don't understand it. You know, they're in their 60s and 70s that are people in the higher levels of pick of the of government.
00:23:25
Speaker
there We have people from the Trump administration that are very pro-Bitcoin. Most of his whole his cabinet owns Bitcoin. Right. Okay, so that's like a win. in You know, in Biden's administration, it was really anti-Bitcoin. So going back to what I was saying in 2022, it was of ways it could to zero. Right.
00:23:39
Speaker
it was not it was lots of ways it could go to zero And I had like a list of like eight of them, you know, type of thing. Now I feel like there's almost zero chance of it going to zero.
00:23:49
Speaker
And I've heard the expression, and maybe you can elaborate, if it doesn't go to zero, it's going to the moon. Yeah. So one way to look at it, Matt, is if price is a function of supply and demand, okay, and you have fixed supply of Bitcoin, it makes it so easy, then price is just a function of demand. So as long as adoption keeps going up, the price has to go up.
00:24:12
Speaker
Well, tell me what fundamentally is unique about Bitcoin, because from my understanding, Bitcoin was created by an individual that we don't know. That's part of the blessing of this because of of the the, almost the the nature of how it was originated is one of the blessings of Bitcoin. Correct. Not, not yes. And not only that, he mined the first, you know, he was like the only miner, right?
00:24:35
Speaker
So he mined today $10 billion dollars with a Bitcoin and has never touched it. It's just been sitting there on the blockchain. Everybody knows which blocks are his. Right. So he walked, he invented it, walked away and never spent a nickel that we know of.
00:24:49
Speaker
And is it true that if he one day all those blocks that have been sitting there magically start moving or selling or transacting, that it's going to fundamentally shake the market? It would shake the market for sure.
00:25:00
Speaker
I mean, I don't know, 30%. thirty percent I mean, that I'm not saying it's going to zero. it Either means he decided to move them or he was hacked or he died. Maybe some, you know, maybe an heir got them and one doesn't want to maintain, who knows, right? Right.
00:25:12
Speaker
So now what what is keeping the next quote unquote Bitcoin from happening and replacing Bitcoin? What is protecting it? If I decided to invest a portion of my net worth into this, this you know,
00:25:25
Speaker
It's not an asset, you corrected me earlier, it's a commodity.
Energy Security & Mining Challenges
00:25:28
Speaker
And we should explain the difference for folks. What is the difference? That's more of a governmental- ah that It's important though. Yeah, like you know the s in terms of taxation and whatnot, that it doesn't really affect anything.
00:25:38
Speaker
It just means it's not a security. Right. So does it because there's no there's no like one one people one thing people don't get about Bitcoin is there's no president of Bitcoin. There's no Bitcoin for the company. There's no Bitcoin, the foundation foundation.
00:25:50
Speaker
It just lives on tens of thousands, not millions of computers around the world, almost like a virus. You can't shut it down. You can make it illegal in a country, but it doesn't shut it down. but just It just keeps going.
00:26:02
Speaker
All right. So I want to step back. Well, there's a couple ways I got to take it. um But first, you had mentioned earlier about how you kind of protect yourself. So you talked about self storage and cold storage. Right. So.
00:26:14
Speaker
So if I have my so this is true. So I have um I use ah ah an app called Coinbase and it's one it's publicly traded. It's big. It's US based. It's one of the ways to access and purchase Bitcoin for us.
00:26:27
Speaker
x So I bought it and now it's just sitting there. correct And I think you've advised me privately that I should consider getting it off of Coinbase, correct? Correct. And so what do you do? What's the risk inherent with keeping it there and what could people consider doing?
00:26:41
Speaker
So the risk inherent is that you don't own the keys to the Bitcoin that's on Coinbase. If Coinbase goes bankrupt, you're actually an unsecured creditor. They say that in there, you sign the dot, you know, when you sign the dotted you click the button, that's one of them. All this stuff you didn't read. yeah It says that, right? So it's unlike unlike, you know, Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, where if they go under, your your stocks are still okay because they're custodying in a different way.
00:27:08
Speaker
Coinbase isn't. You're trusting them that they're going to maintain and hold, you know, your keys correctly. So you have two you have two risks. One is you have the risk of the exchange going under, wait a third party risk. right The other risk you have is the government. The government could come in and take the Bitcoin.
00:27:25
Speaker
They could freeze your account personally, or they could take all the Bitcoin. You might say, Neil, you sound really weird saying that, like one of those prepper guys. yeah But they did that back in 1939 with gold. It was illegal to, they made it illegal to own gold and the government bought the gold from you at the, you know, they bought it from you in, but you had to give up your gold if you're going follow the law. So there are, there is precedent that that's, that could happen at some point time. But it does, I will, it kind of, you'll wander into, if my wife was here, she'd roll her eyes because it sounds like we're wandering into the prepper space, right? It's the, ah you know, ah conspiracies and it's, it it sounds like, oh, that'll never happen, right? So,
00:28:03
Speaker
But I think people that don't roll their eyes. Can I give can i give you an example of where I thought it almost happened? Sure. Yeah. So remember when Silicon Valley Bank went under about a year, and about almost a year and a half ago. Okay.
00:28:14
Speaker
Okay. we We had that little mini banking crisis about a year and a half ago. Silicon Valley family Bank went under and there was billions and billions of dollars in this bank and several companies had billions of dollars and they're only insured up to 250,000.
00:28:28
Speaker
Per account. or Per account. And the difference nowadays versus in the past is you have to get into a line at a bank to take your money out. We can now move billions of dollars of money with our phones. So I was very clear after those banks went not that bank went under and there was there was also Silvergate that was that that the the Fed shut down and then there was that bank in um ah in New York.
00:28:48
Speaker
It was really clear to me that the entire financial system was going to collapse on Monday. Why? Because everybody with more than $250,000 would have pulled their money out. but to protect Because it was only insured up to $250,000, right?
00:29:02
Speaker
if If the government didn't come out and say, we're going to insure all the deposits, that would i'm I'm confident that would have happened. Okay? Now, Janet Yellen at 5 o'clock on Sunday did come out and say that, that they would insure all the deposits.
00:29:14
Speaker
Big sigh of relief. But knowing that i had much I had Bitcoin in cold storage means that I didn't have to worry about that. I could still pay my employees in Bitcoin. And there's no banking hours for Bitcoin. There's no 24 hours a day.
00:29:27
Speaker
Exactly. So there there are, i think there's lots of reasons to own Bitcoin. I think when people start, when you you start with the the perfection of the money, being that it's 21 million, it's fixed.
00:29:41
Speaker
And people are so disempowered by the government just printing money. We're $36 trillion dollars in debt. We just keep spending money we don't have. And in Bitcoin, you can't do that.
00:29:52
Speaker
But the value inherent in Bitcoin is the value in which you and I agree it we place upon it. correct There's nothing inherently valuable about this space in the blockchain that we call Bitcoin. correct So what stops it from us just saying, it's not. So your question back then, a few minutes ago that we forgot, right, sure was why can't there be another Bitcoin that comes and takes its place? It's a real question. real It's a great question.
00:30:16
Speaker
What secures Bitcoin is energy. Okay, so the Bitcoin network uses about 0.45% of the entire world's electricity.
00:30:27
Speaker
Say that one more time. Yeah, but the Bitcoin network uses 0.45%. The mining operations. Half a percent. Which mining simply is the the computer algorithms, that computer that they're they're minding they're digging through the code to find a Bitcoin. Is that basically what that is? That's a piece of it. Piece But the other piece of it is to make sure you can't double spend your Bitcoin.
00:30:49
Speaker
So if I transfer 10,000 to you, you're saying that it takes this, it has it's duplicated over all these computers. Yeah, it starts it starts like a virus. It starts to spread within that 10, once the first transaction, once the block is mine that includes the transaction where you send me $10,000, then it spreads to all of hard explain, but so...
00:31:12
Speaker
okay so it's kind of hard to explain but it so Fundamentally, Bitcoin is hard money, not because it's it's hard. i mean, it's virtual. It's not even hard, right? But gold's hard money. But it's gold isn't hard money because it you it's hard.
00:31:27
Speaker
It's hard. They call gold hard money. Finite amount of it. Well, it's not so much that it's finite because it's more that it takes work to get it. Okay. You have to dig a mine. You have to buy equipment. You have to hire people. you have to send them a mile down into the earth.
00:31:43
Speaker
And they have to make, I mean, think about what it takes to mine gold, right? So it takes work. It doesn't take work to print money. It's just a printing machine. like a copier. Well, nowadays, do they don't they don't print it, do they? It's digital.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, and then they just credit the banks more money so they can lend more money out, right? So Bitcoin is secured by energy. So one of the one of the ways that Bitcoin um could have been attacked and gone to zero is if somebody got control of 51% of all the miners.
00:32:13
Speaker
And that's called a 51% attack. And they could have then changed the code. they you know They could have done a lot of nasty things and made Bitcoin go to zero. okay Today, that's basically impossible.
00:32:25
Speaker
Because there's not, in order to do that, you'd have to come up with 0.3% of the world's energy, and that doesn't exist. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't. And if you wanted to, you couldn't buy the transformers.
00:32:35
Speaker
And if you wanted to, you couldn't buy the miners to do it. You couldn't, the United States government, if they said tomorrow, I want to make this happen, I'm going to do anything unnecessary, what is you're saying that's impossible even for...
00:32:46
Speaker
The only way that the US government could possibly do that would be to take control over all the mining in the United States. so So in the United States, there's about 30% of the mining. So they couldn't create new mining. There's not electricity for that. okay they And there's not enough transformers. There's not enough mind actual computers to do that.
00:33:04
Speaker
They could maybe take control of, ah you know um com ah confiscate all of our stuff. yeah That would be one way that that could happen. But that would be... I mean, yeah that would be very difficult. And that would only be 30%. That would would not be 51%. Which is what you would need to change the algorithm and change.
00:33:22
Speaker
So getting back to the question, why isn't there another? So why can't you and I create something called a MAC coin? yeah And then I think that's what everyone should invest in. Because if we create a MAC coin and we we set up just like Bitcoin and you're mining MAC coin in your garage, then I can buy 50 miners and buy MAC coin and erase your transactions.
00:33:43
Speaker
Because i i own that I own the network because I have 90% of the network so I can do a lot of weird different things to the network. So i'm not I'm not like this technological expert to explain this to you you know because i don't I have a hard time getting myself.
00:33:56
Speaker
But it's secured by the energy. Okay, it takes energy to mine and the mining is that not only do you mine new Bitcoin, you also the miners are what what facilitate the transfer of Bitcoin around the system.
00:34:10
Speaker
So if if you send Bitcoin from yourself to me, that a miner, whoever mines that block includes that transaction in their block, you pay a small fee for that.
00:34:21
Speaker
And then boom, it's moved on the blockchain. And then once it's moved, everybody else it propagates and then everybody else all the other nodes and miners ah agree with it. Now, if somebody owned 51%, they could, they might not agree with that then. And they would actually, so see, there is no president of Bitcoin.
00:34:39
Speaker
So there's nobody like there's the rules are consensus driven. Sure. So if, so consensus starts to break down if you have 51%, right? But 51% also allows you to make changes to Bitcoin, which have but been done many times over the years to make it better.
00:34:54
Speaker
Right, so is it impossible for another, because one of the statistics I recently heard is now Bitcoin, in terms of an asset, like net value of this asset class, ah is it the fifth most valuable asset in the entire world?
00:35:08
Speaker
Yes. That's what I heard. Yes. So if you look at like the value of like the stock, like it's like like sixth company, there's eighth or you know somewhere right around there. Right. I mean, I think there's things like oil is higher, gold is higher.
00:35:19
Speaker
But there's very few things. I think it's almost so large. I think it's almost, in my mind, in the layperson's mind, it's all it's so large it that it's, in an essence, almost protecting it.
Personal Stories & Early Adopters
00:35:30
Speaker
Yes, that's the point. That's that was the not the case in 2022. There was still a risk that China could make like this unbelievable push to own all the Bitcoin and to own all the miners. Right. Right.
00:35:42
Speaker
But it's too even China can't do that today. Right. It's too big. It's too it's a two point three trillion dollar asset, but it's not the money that's the issue because, you know, The government can print $2.3 trillion. dollars You don't control Bitcoin by owning Bitcoin.
00:35:56
Speaker
you control You control Bitcoin by owning miners. And miners use tremendous amounts of power. I mean, power that you can't even comprehend. 0.5% of the entire world's electricity goes to Bitcoin.
00:36:08
Speaker
you So can you discuss some of your mining operation, why you even got started? So instead of like me, I'm just going to go one of these exchanges and I'm going buy. My goal is to have a couple Bitcoin soon. Like that's my goal. Right. So, but that that didn't satisfy you. Your goal was maybe, did you start there? Did you start with just investing in Bitcoin? Mining is a very is a very difficult way to buy Bitcoin.
00:36:32
Speaker
Okay. Yes, you can get Bitcoin maybe maybe cheaper than buying it, but it's tremendous capital investment. We are buying generators electricity. um But one of the reasons I got into mining was because it supports the Bitcoin network.
00:36:48
Speaker
See, being a miner makes Bitcoin stronger. And one of the problems, you know one of the things we haven't talked about yet is that Bitcoin is decentralized money. right We've taught you know we said like it it just it can it's like a virus, it just lives wherever, right while fiat is centralized money.
00:37:05
Speaker
You got the president, you got the Federal Reserve, you know, chairman, Federal Reserve. They decide the price of money. So there's a concern that a lot of the big miners, all the public mining companies, have too much mining power.
00:37:17
Speaker
They're kind of approaching 30%. Well, if they get to 51%, that's a potential attack point for Bitcoin. So by me mining, not only can I get maybe Bitcoin at cheaper, you know, then the than the current price, I'm also supporting the network in a decentralized manner.
00:37:33
Speaker
Got it. And how many miners do you think exist out there? About 8 million computers. 8 million computers. How many different entities? You're an entity. You own. Yeah, you can't. It's it's almost impossible to tell.
00:37:45
Speaker
Right. you can You can get a sense of how many computers are out there by knowing what the ah number of calculations. You can determine you know what how many calculations are being done. you can kind of work backwards into a number. But the number I'm hearing is about 8 million well What's fascinating to me at least, one of the reasons I did not invest in Bitcoin early, and I think a lot of people that consider themselves an investor have a story if they haven't gotten any exposure to Bitcoin.
00:38:08
Speaker
ah i was it I bought my first Tesla, this was probably 2017. I go in there to the Tesla dealership and the guy next to me um had, did I tell you, I might've told you this you told story. yeah He, in his wrist right here, he had on each knuckle, he had a little protruding piece underneath his skin.
00:38:28
Speaker
And it just looked a little odd. He was odd in general. Good man, odd. And we're talking and carrying on and he wanted to buy his new Tesla. His version was much nicer than mine, but it was a very expensive brand new version.
00:38:42
Speaker
He goes to buy it. And now granted, maybe this, i maybe and it wasn't 2017, maybe it was like a couple years later. Maybe I was getting serviced. He was buying a new one because it was the Model S Plaid okay when it first came out. So I think maybe that's 2020 or something.
00:38:55
Speaker
the The whole point of it is he he decided to buy it. They were accepting Bitcoin as payment at the time yep because Tesla has a big position in Bitcoin. yep And he bought it by tapping his his fist on whatever it will you know whatever device they had.
00:39:10
Speaker
And he bought it in the exchange. He goes, that's his cold storage, he said. He had it on his person. And he was a miner and he lives in Carroll County. I'm not going to give any of his information, but he has an underground system he told me about.
00:39:23
Speaker
He mines it underground in a cooling solution to keep them chilled. Yep. chilled And he had a huge farm and he has a huge
Investment Strategies & Adoption Rates
00:39:34
Speaker
industry. And he was trying to tell me, he found out that my family had a farm.
00:39:37
Speaker
He said, this is what you have to do. I get to tell you exactly how to do it. You can mine it. We can put it underground. No one's going to see it. He has a huge solar arrays yeah and he's off the grid. And I'm looking at this character and I said, there is no way.
00:39:49
Speaker
Whatever he's doing is legal. Whatever he, I don't know what he's up to. And that was my experience with Bitcoin. And I was like, that sounds like that's the face of Bitcoin. Whereas my financial advisor shows up in a pinstripe suit, right? He looks charming. He's, you know, it's, it he drives his BMW.
00:40:06
Speaker
The disconnect between the two of these figures in my mind. right And that's what scared me. that's um He's like a c sober the cypherpunk, right, from the old days? And I don't know what he was doing with his hand. i have no He said they're dog tags.
00:40:17
Speaker
okay And he thought it would be cool to put them on him because he said he had so much on And he's in his early 20s. right And he said, I have so much Bitcoin because I've been mining since it first came out. He said that I don't dare leave it at home.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I go, interesting, but you told a stranger in 20 minutes. Exactly. that Makes no sense. Makes no sense. If I knew what I was doing, I'm cutting your hands off and I'm going to. So that's why i don't want to release too much information. But it's, ah yeah. Let me say, ah let me let me respond to your your comment about the traditional financial advisor.
00:40:47
Speaker
I've never met anybody who's put 200 hours into Bitcoin who doesn't support and but and own Bitcoin. That's what I mentioned to you earlier. i feel like I feel like they don't know enough about it to go down that rabbit hole or they don't know how they can make money on it. It's my same criticism from my financial advisor friends why they don't know a lot about real estate oftentimes. Right. Because I don't think they know how to make it part of their strategy and they can't monetize it for themselves. Right. So in the up until 18 months ago, that would have true.
00:41:14
Speaker
Now with the ETFs, they can at least own the price. You don't own Bitcoin because you've given your keys now to the ETF, to BlackRock or to Fidelity or whoever you buy them from. Okay, but at least you have the you have the price ah action of Bitcoin.
00:41:27
Speaker
So when Bitcoin goes from 100,000 to 200,000. The ETF will double. The ETF will double. Minus the small fee that the ETF charges. And from what I understand, because this is now gonna be an investable asset or or or ah you know part of a lot of people's retirement plans, you're gonna see adoption instead of that 2% adoption rate I mentioned earlier at a much, much higher rate because you might not want to be 50% Bitcoin in your portfolio, but virtually it's it's hard to argue that everyone shouldn't have at least some exposure to this. Yeah. So first of all, let's make sure that that 2% adoption rate that you're talking about is that that's 2% of the population probably owning 1% of their net worth of Bitcoin.
00:42:10
Speaker
So it's not even, right? It's not 2% owning 50%. It's 2% of some 0.1, 0.05, 300 bucks, whatever it is, right? So the first thing I'm going to say is that the only wrong answer to owning Bitcoin is zero.
00:42:27
Speaker
you have to do Everybody has different situations, different, you know, whatever. Okay, they're older, they're young, they're rich, they're they're not rich, they're about to to be rich, whatever. They all have different reasons, okay? So the only wrong answer is zero.
00:42:39
Speaker
But here's another way to look at it. this This was said by, I'm just forgetting his name. he he He runs the biggest financial advising firm in the and the in the country with $300 billion dollars of assets.
00:42:50
Speaker
He said that he's said crypto, which is mostly Bitcoin, but crypto is 2.2% of the United States assets. So if you're not 2.2% of your net worth in Bitcoin, you are short Bitcoin.
00:43:07
Speaker
So 2.2 gives you like even, right? 5% means you're above, ten for you know, like that, right right? But like every, you know, so that that is very sobering to people when they realize that by not owning any Bitcoin, Bitcoin's a $2.2 trillion dollar company.
00:43:23
Speaker
Everybody owns Apple. If you have a stock account, you probably own Apple because you whether you own it directly, you own it through an ETF. You own the mag, the mag seven, you know, all of them, right? Through your ETFs. If you don't own 2.2% of your net worth in Bitcoin, you are short Bitcoin. That means you're betting against Bitcoin. Right.
00:43:40
Speaker
Well, and someone, it was ah a female friend of mine, it's a client. And she told me that when I brought up that I was going to interview you, she said that she thinks Bitcoin is a male thing. She said, it's very masculine to me.
00:43:51
Speaker
Is that an interesting comment? She said that she doesn't know any of her female friends that have learned about it and done it. Is that something that you would agree with or is that it she's totally wrong? She wanted to ask you about that. don't agree with that, but I do agree that most of the people that own Bitcoin are male.
00:44:07
Speaker
I mean, when I go to the conferences, they're, you know, 75, 80% male. Yeah. i I don't think, I don't know why that is. i mean, it, it, Well, I can tell you the podcast, the people listening to this, it's going to skew so dramatically. The investment, if you didn't know that, it's extremely male-dominated because from what, this is the, you know, this is what I've heard. It's not my me saying this, but it's because it's like that, it's that that hunter mentality, that protection mentality that that men might be born with, that it's to go, you know, collect food and bring it home, right? It's it's that it's that desire to to go capture something, right, and bring it back.
00:44:44
Speaker
And it's certainly, it's like inherent in me. That's why I got interested in it. And it's, and what I challenge myself to do, and if you're listening to this, it's like, if you've made it this far through the podcast, I'm sure you're interested in Bitcoin. You go out, if you don't have any, go and get an account, learn about it, and just put in a hundred bucks, put in something. yep Because you're actually going to pay attention when you have a little something in it.
00:45:04
Speaker
Get some skin in the game. Get some skin in the game. And by default, you're now going to be starting to pay attention to the ups and downs. You might start listening. It's like, so you're going to become more knowledgeable, which is what I really like what you said is the only wrong number is zero.
00:45:17
Speaker
So by saying zero, it's kind of like giving up because if if all these nut jobs, in my opinion, and I say this lovingly, that really know Bitcoin, if they're right, in which there's a percentage chance, you can't say it's zero. There's no not a zero percent chance they're right. If they're right, you're missing out on an opportunity that won't be replicated in our entire lifetime. Correct.
00:45:34
Speaker
Like that's the part that really freaks me out. It's like, I really need to because in five years, 10 years, this asset class could be worth so much money. and You will never become what they call a you know, a full Bitcoin or a whole Bitcoin. whole coiner, right.
00:45:48
Speaker
You'll never get there because it could be in the millions. Yeah. Exactly. I have a target that I'm trying to get at, and it just seems harder and harder because the price keeps going up. I started buying when Bitcoin was at 28, and I bought it all as it fell all the way down to 15. $1,000. $1,000, right? And then that was right around the FTX blow up.
00:46:08
Speaker
And then obviously started working back, but it's like, got 15 grand, I got one coin. Now $114,000, I get one coin. Well, and then I've... fourteen thousand i get one coin like well and then i've So someone like me, and i have I represent a lot of clients, and this is a real estate podcast, so I got to go here. So if I own a piece of real estate, let's say it's worth $400,000, it's a townhouse.
00:46:27
Speaker
It's a good example. I sell a lot of these. If you had that, I have it rented out, and I have equity. Let's say I have $200,000 in equity. It's about half paid off. Do the traditional sense, we pull that money out and I can then use that money and buy my next real estate rental.
00:46:42
Speaker
That's very common and everybody in the world knows that's a very common theme. As long as it your mortgage, your new mortgage, when you pull the money out, covers is covered by your current rent rate,
00:46:53
Speaker
it's It's the most beautiful thing in the world because you have no cash out of pocket. right You didn't have any initial capital outlay. You financed that amount. Should instead people be considering taking out that 200 grand and maybe buying a big Bitcoin or two?
00:47:09
Speaker
The answer is yes. I mean, I don't want to give financial advice, obviously. And the the neat thing about that is you're using the fiat system, right? where inflate So the neat thing is if you get a mortgage for $200,000 in your scenario, right, and you borrow it today, don't have to pay it back over 30 years.
00:47:28
Speaker
and When you pay that that last payment in 30 years, it's going to be worth so much less than that payment is today due to inflation. right so if you're making a thousand dollar payments let's make it simple right as you pay or if you get a note a note in you get an interest only loan you only have to pay back principal but if you have to pay that principal back in 20 years that 200 000 going to be so much easier to pay back in 20 years because of inflation right right so you're the bitcoin is a hedge against that now i'll just back up and say you know that might not be every everybody's in a different situation right that might make sense for you i don't know if it makes sense for everybody but the point is get off of zero
00:48:06
Speaker
however you decide to do that. There's people that do it with their credit cards. I don't know, you know, they're... that's So what makes me nervous about any of this stuff, it's just even if you really believe in it, it to say I'm gonna max out all my credit cards and I'm gonna take out if I have equity in any of my, either ah my primary house or if I have a rental, it's like being over levered because it is, a so it's still, it's not, there's no risk, there's not it doesn't have no risk it so associated with this.
00:48:31
Speaker
i kind of I do believe you based on my research, I don't feel it's going to go to zero, but it can certainly cut in half. Oh, easily. Yes. It's absolutely within its power. and so It's gone down 70 plus percent four times.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah. So let me say a couple things. One is Bitcoin, I think people should distinguish between volatility and risk. Okay. Bitcoin is very volatile. It's not risky.
00:48:55
Speaker
because you know that the that the inherent value of it in cap by 21 million, right? And yes, it has lots of ups and downs. And most the time when it goes way down is when it blows up. You know, if it one goes from 100 today to 300 tomorrow, then it goes back down, you know, it has that downside.
00:49:11
Speaker
So yes, it's volatile. Doesn't mean it's risky though. I tell people, one of one of the big things that people struggle with, and I think a lot of your listeners are gonna struggle with this is, i I love Bitcoin, I think it's right, I don't wanna buy it at 114.
00:49:27
Speaker
Like that's, you know, when it hit 100 people, I can't tell you how many my friends say, I'll buy it when it gets back down to 70. And it did. It went down to like 75 and changed. yeah And I went to those friends I said, did you buy Bitcoin? No. No, it was too scared. It could have gone to zero. Or they're just like, if you're if you're going to do that, then you better put the buy order in yeah now, right?
00:49:47
Speaker
But I just, I'm a firm believer in dollar cost averaging. I bought every week for 150 plus. and fifty weeks plus every week on Monday at 11 a.m. starting in spring of 2022. So explain what dollar cost averaging is for everybody? Yeah, it just means you put a certain amount in every week. So instead of trying to time the market, you just say, I'm to be disciplined. And people do this. Many people do this with their kids. The kids, you know, 529 college savings account. They do it with a 401k, right? They it with a right? Every paycheck, I'm going to put in 6% or whatever the amount is.
00:50:16
Speaker
So you dollar cost averaging. The neat thing is if Bitcoin like it did, it went from 30 to 15. I was putting the same amount of dollars. I'm like, wow, I got double the amount of Bitcoin. yeah Because there's an old saying in Bitcoin that one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin.
00:50:30
Speaker
and And people are like, well, what do you mean? Well, see, the problem with saying that one Bitcoin is equal to $114,000 is you you have to deal with the the denominator of the 114,000.
00:50:42
Speaker
If you keep printing more money, that number is going to keep going up. Because you debase the fiat. That's one of the reasons why everyone, for the the longest time, say buy a real asset, like real estate. ye Because yes, $300,000 townhouse today, it's still that same townhouse in 20 years, but it's not 300,000 just because 300,000 can't buy any you know the same amounts.
00:51:05
Speaker
Because of if it if inflation average is around 3%, I don't think it's going back to 2% annually anytime soon, even that's the Fed's target. into In 10 years, that's 30%. Just that. yeah just that Even if the the neighborhood didn't improve. And your rents went up...
00:51:21
Speaker
the same amount, the 3% a year. But you borrowed at a fixed rate. It's it's the perfect scheme. how else to say it Like it's it's beautiful to buy. it's accessible. That's what I get excited about it. Because when I was ah you know a poor college kid learning about real estate, I got so excited. went into real estate originally.
00:51:38
Speaker
wasn't to sell real estate, it was to invest in it. Because I understood that concept. And that just blew my mind that I could borrow someone else's money at a fixed low rate and buy an appreciating asset that had To your point, it could go up and down, but I always say hold real estate at least 10 years in a decent area when you buy. like It's really not that risky.
00:51:57
Speaker
Correct. And I feel like that's kind of what I'm being persuaded here is to consider Bitcoin in the same category where it could be halved. It could, it could but hold it long enough, and I think you're going to look really smart.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yes. I mean, Bitcoin has never been negative over a four year cycle. Yeah. So any four years- Same is true of real estate over seven. Okay, great. In the last hundred years. So that's really fascinating. And so in the other piece of this is that there's these banks that are starting to establish themselves to allow you to, if I owned a substantial Bitcoin,
00:52:29
Speaker
amount, right? If I had several Bitcoin or one in the future, even one Bitcoin um would be maybe enough. You can borrow against it similar to that, you like you could, but without selling the underlying asset.
00:52:40
Speaker
Right, so that's really a lot of people like that, A, to leverage and get more Bitcoin. But more importantly, a lot of them do that so to not sell their Bitcoin and still spend some money. So I want to buy a car that might cost $50,000. I could borrow against my Bitcoin, but not sell the Bitcoin. Correct. So over the five-year loan, so to speak, my in the theory is the asset of Bitcoin will be going up, yeah and I can be paying it back.
00:53:06
Speaker
Correct. That way. Yeah, you you don't even have to pay it back. so a lot of Explain that to me. well So a lot of the Bitcoin, let me say it more rigorously, you don't have to make payments.
00:53:17
Speaker
You always have to pay the loan back, right? But a lot of the a lot of the Bitcoin loans, they're they're no recourse loans. not even guaranteeing the loan. but you you put a Let's just make it simply, put one Bitcoin in, and you can borrow, let's just say Bitcoin's at $100,000, and you can borrow $50,000.
00:53:33
Speaker
And then if if Bitcoin falls to like below 70, you start to get into that margin call kind of thing where they could take your Bitcoin. So that's what you have to worry about. So a lot of people might put two Bitcoin in to borrow 50,000.
00:53:45
Speaker
Super secure. Super secure. You can see it on chain. You can actually see where your two Bitcoin is and so with certain types of lenders. You don't have to make payments. as long as so the payment So if you borrow 100,000- I don't make payments. So explain that. why Why am I not making any? So in five years, do I still owe the exact amount that I owe the day I- you owe the money ah based on the interest rate. Let's just say the interest rate's 10%.
00:54:07
Speaker
Okay, so you buy $50,000, you borrow $50,000 of Bitcoin, and then after year one, you owe 55. But if Bitcoin has was at 100, and now it's at 120, you're still okay. They just keep, as long as you don't get to that, whatever their cutoff is, their margin call area, you're fine. So as long as the so the the appreciation of Bitcoin exceeds the interest rate, you don't ever have you don't have to make a payment.
00:54:33
Speaker
And I think that- I'm not saying that's not dangerous, by the way. Well, so is borrowing money to buy a home for the record. But I think the difference is the reason real estate as a class is huge. It's in it's the it's the one of the biggest that there is, right? It's huge.
00:54:48
Speaker
I think it's the second largest class of all. So it's huge. But I think it's because most of us can wrap our head around that long term, that's a store of value. correct You can't argue with me that buying a piece of Manhattan doesn't make sense for 100 years from now. yep You can't argue like it doesn't it's really hard to argue that.
00:55:03
Speaker
And I think once people all can agree fundamentally on that, that's going to be such it's it'll be a like a gold rush scenario. And I think it'll never go backwards. And that's why I think I'm pretty much at an inflection point that.
00:55:17
Speaker
if you don't understand it, you need to get an education on this because I think you're in an opportunity to change the legacy, honestly, of for yourself and your potential family, if you understand what we're talking about
Securing Bitcoin & Investment Timing
00:55:29
Speaker
right now.
00:55:29
Speaker
Well, and so let's talk about the macro side a little bit. So if you if you kind of, this takes this takes some serious thinking because we are all we're all like swimming in the water we can't see, right? Like, we breathe in the air, right? so Everything in a normal free capital capitalism society things should be cheaper every year. Because technology makes things cheaper.
00:55:54
Speaker
But things become more expensive every year. But they become more expensive because we debase the dollar by printing more dollars. So it's counterintuitive. We expect inflation every year. It would be 2% or 3% or, God help us, 8% or 9% or 10% or 30%, right?
00:56:10
Speaker
We expect it. But inflation is not normal. In a pure capitalistic capitalism, there is not inflation like that. It's deflation. Okay, so now if you understand that we have $37 trillion dollars of debt, there's we've we've passed the tipping point.
00:56:28
Speaker
If you talk anybody, nobody thinks we can get out of that situation. The only way you get out of that situation is to monetize the debt. What does that mean? you just you you you Which is what Trump is doing.
00:56:40
Speaker
is he's he's He's creating inflation so that the um the the government's borrowing money at $37 trillion. dollars but And yes, they have you will they'll pay back $37 trillion, but they'd only be worth $15 trillion when they pay it back, or $10 trillion or $5 trillion.
00:56:55
Speaker
So that your growth is outpacing your debt, essentially. No. So the inflation outpaces the debt, right? Like inflation goes so like if if I borrow $100 from you today and I have to pay you $100 back and in 20 years, that $100 is going to be worth like eight bucks.
00:57:12
Speaker
I mean, or not eight bucks. I'm sorry. I'll sing a 10. Like what? Pick pick a number. $70, $60, $50.
00:57:18
Speaker
We've proven inflation just eats away. So what they're going to do is they're going to monetize the debt through inflation. Okay, as a way of kind of getting through the situation. Well, that means your dollars are gonna be worth less and less every year.
00:57:32
Speaker
So how do you protect yourself against that? That's where Bitcoin being fixed at 21 million is the hedge against that. So there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons to own Bitcoin. We can talk about self-storage and the government seizing your money. And a lot of that stuff is on the fringe, maybe for not some people.
00:57:49
Speaker
But People are really getting the 21 million. That's why Bitcoin right today is at 114 and not at 60, because Wall Street and family and institutions are starting to wake up and say, if I own Bitcoin, that becomes a hedge against the debasement of the US dollar.
00:58:06
Speaker
But what about... these big actors that have all this money, the Wall Street, they come in and say, um they're not like me trying to get a couple Bitcoin. They're gonna get billions and billions. Isn't there a time where enough people are holding it and not enough people are selling it?
00:58:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's when you get, ah and what happens? I mean, simple- out Supply and demand. Yeah, so price goes up. so So there will come a day where someone says, I'd like to put a $10 billion dollars order in, please. And they go, there's I don't have it to give it to you.
00:58:32
Speaker
um Well, they will because the price will go up until somebody sells. so many out there that goes, that price is so high, I'm ready to yeah buy my beach house or something. Yeah, because people have lives to live, right? I mean, the most like you could say the most important thing that you have in your life is time.
00:58:46
Speaker
The second most important thing is Bitcoin. Okay? So at some point- That'll be the caption. yeah At some point, you buy you sell your Bitcoin to buy you time or to enjoy your life.
00:58:56
Speaker
right and and you know a lot ofba everybody's like you know Michael Saylor has owned now almost 700,000 Bitcoin. He's been buying every week. Everybody's like, who's selling? Who's selling?
00:59:07
Speaker
Well, a lot of the OGs are selling from 15 years ago because they because they want to enjoy life. Yeah. And they wanna buy the house and you know take care of their kids and put their kids through college and all that costs money. Yeah, that's crazy. And then the last thing, cuz I could honestly talk for hours and I don't wanna kill you doing this. I've got all the time in the world. One of the things I wanted to ask you is that, like when I personally was doing this, I'm trying to figure out if I had a big position, let's say it does go up into the millions one day.
00:59:31
Speaker
And it percentage wise becomes a larger. You mean when it goes into the millions? okay, sure, I'll change my okay my tone here. But if it when it gets to this number, it becomes a larger and larger percent of majority of folks net worth at some point. If you were early enough into the system, and it goes from 3% potentially of your net worth. It might go to 30%. It might be 70% one day.
00:59:53
Speaker
All you own is a you know, most people, if they're not even most, most people aren't in this situation, but you own a house. and you have a car and a few other assets. So most the net worth, for example, of the average American is ah right around, what, 400,000?
01:00:09
Speaker
And it's it's right around the average cost of a home in the country. That's a good metric. tritan yeah And the average net worth of a renter, by the way, is like $10,000. ten thousand dollars So that the big currently the biggest differential in this country to learn about your net worth is whether you own a home or not right and when you bought the home.
01:00:25
Speaker
The earlier you get into real estate, the earlier or the more likely it is for you to have worth. That's why they call it your piggy bank. right So that's why this whole subject is so interesting. Those numbers could be slightly off, but you get the point. So how do you protect it? So if if you have these these, you know, this cold storage, you're not maybe putting it on your knuckles. I don't see it on you ah like my friend, but let's just say you, ah you know, you have it, you can get these devices, you can put them at home.
01:00:51
Speaker
How do I not get broken into and stolen? Or if I die, for example, my wife could care less about Bitcoin. She doesn't even, we talk about this at dinner and her she just falls asleep. So I want to protect her and my family. So what are there ways to do this at this point i think there's so first of all cold storage is like the the rolls royce of bitcoin storage but it's not for everyone because with sovereign money comes sovereign security now only you have to worry about how you're going to store it And i'm going I'll answer your question in a minute, but you also have to worry about inheritance.
01:01:22
Speaker
Like how are you going to get, how your heirs going to get that? That's what concerned about. have to worry about somebody coming to your home with a gun, right? So there's ways, I'm going to say there ways there's ways to protect yourself against that, okay? You can use multi-signature wallets, for example.
01:01:35
Speaker
where you can you you might have five keys and three of them have to sign, but all but not all three are in the same spot. So you have to drive or fly to another spot to be able to move your Bitcoin. You could custody it.
01:01:46
Speaker
There are custodians out there, not Coinbase, that actually keep your Bitcoin but hold it with a true custodian. okay that's a third-party company that's designed to hold bitcoin sure that's you know it's not perfect but that's a good in between you know i i tell people most of my people most of my friends that i've you know orange pilled is what this is called right going back to the matrix with the red blue the blue bill is the orange bill right they they start with either buying bitcoin and holding it and up it's in a in a uh with a cut with a custodian and paying a small fee for that um or they buy the etf
01:02:23
Speaker
And then as they get more and more into it, they start to learn about, they start to switch over to more sophisticated storage. But you have to, you know, I had a friend who was going to, you know, I was going to teach him how to do the self-storage.
01:02:37
Speaker
He bought the 200 bucks worth of stuff he needed. We went to this, um ah we were at a hotel and i said, well, I'll come over to your room and I'll help you set it up. He said, well, let's go down and have a beer and do it then. I go, we can't do that.
01:02:48
Speaker
He's like, what do you mean? i said well, there's cameras everywhere. If somebody sees your 24 words, which is like your password, then your Bitcoin's gone. goes, ah, don't worry about that. I said, you know what? You're not ready for self-storage.
01:03:00
Speaker
You're not ready. You're not willing to put the work in to keep it. So there's lots of ways to do it. You can buy insurance against your Bitcoin. You can keep it. there's There's institutional custody solutions where you can have ah three different companies have a key and all and two of the three have to sign to move the Bitcoin. They're in in the located in three different countries.
01:03:18
Speaker
And I've heard there's whole there's a whole business booming where if you're a corporation and you have a billion dollars to invest in your corporate treasury, you don't want to have the CEO have the keys because that puts a tremendous risk on their life, right? So you need to have- So Coinbase, most of the big companies use Coinbase. Okay. and like point Not Coinbase like you and I would use it, but they're professional custody solutions.
01:03:40
Speaker
And obviously- And it requires multiple people signing off so no one can hold a gun to your head and say, give me like all the Bitcoin your corporation has. you want The point of Bitcoin self-storage is to eliminate single points of failure.
01:03:51
Speaker
right you know If somebody puts a gun to your head, or if I die, or if my wife and I die together in the same car crash, or you know um ah your exchange goes under, you want it you want to eliminate single points of failure.
01:04:03
Speaker
that's the That's the whole idea. But I don't want to scare people about the self-custody because, it yeah is work. it's good But you don't have to start there. You can actually buy the ETF. You can buy Bitcoin through Swan, for example, get real Bitcoin that's held in a um you know in a by a custodian, not by Swan, by by a third-party company, and start building your Bitcoin that way. Then once you get enough, do you need do you need a self-custody Bitcoin? If you have a million-dollar net worth and you have $20,000 of Bitcoin, you knowt you probably don't need a self-custody.
01:04:33
Speaker
Right. Okay, but when that 20,000 turns into 250,000, you probably do. Right. So there's there's a progression. So people get the point is start, get off a zero. Right. If I can leave you with anything, as the only wrong answer is zero.
01:04:48
Speaker
Well, that's it's fascinating to me. And I hope this opens up a few eyes. And I think um because we very quickly get, I think, very deep down the rabbit hole. I think we did today as well, because it's hard not to.
01:04:59
Speaker
And to me, I when I started doing this, I would have to stop or pause something and just research a word or a term because I didn't understand it. ye And I think it stops so many people, even my own family. I'm the only one in my entire family that's even considering this.
01:05:11
Speaker
And it's how that's why I know it's still early. So I've heard some people that are starting to learn about it and say, well, if it's too late, people like you have been doing this and now their net worth is in the tens of millions and I'm screwed. And they can't do it.
01:05:23
Speaker
There's an old saying in Bitcoin is everybody gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve. That makes sense. I didn't deserve it at $3,000 when I saw it there on the CNBC ticker. Yeah. um I deserved it at 33 as an average, right? Right.
01:05:37
Speaker
I have friends that I have a friend of mine who's same amount of Bitcoin that I have, and his his average cost is $4,000. Wow. I have a friend that and I have another friend that sold 1,000 Bitcoin to buy a car.
01:05:49
Speaker
Yeah. buy a car back when it was $70 of Bitcoin, you know, a $70,000 car, right? Like, yeah so everybody gets it at the price they deserve. And one of the neat things is this Bitcoin is so less risky now.
01:06:03
Speaker
Now, maybe it's not going to or 1,000x from here, um like it like it did when it went from, you know, 1,000 to 100,000. But it's also so much safer. The government has embraced it. They've approved the ETFs.
01:06:15
Speaker
All the banks are- The next administration can't come in and just reverse all of this? That would be, so they could reverse some of the things, but like, you how can you, if if the the ETFs own $170 billion dollars of Bitcoin, how can you, how can you- have Money talks in this government, so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so how do you how do you undo that? Like, they could make it hard. i think the thing that concerns Bitcoiners is the is the rails, okay?
01:06:39
Speaker
Is that
Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange
01:06:40
Speaker
the government could come in and say, you can't self-custody. You can own Bitcoin, but it has to be- How do they tax us, though? Well, they tax it's capital gains tax. So if you when you sell, you know. But if it's self-custody and I and i want to exchange goods, let's say you're a roofing contractor and I need a new roof, one day, right, if I want to exchange this and you have a Bitcoin, is that possible? And can they track it? So can you, will they know that was income I gave to you?
01:07:05
Speaker
So, So you would have to, if you- Because the government will care if they're getting, if there's tax evasion, boy, they come after you. Well, that's the that's the point, right? So for sure you have to pay, ta if if you if you pay $5,000 to the roofing guy in Bitcoin, you are actually selling your Bitcoin and you have to pay tax capital gains tax on it.
01:07:22
Speaker
Now, is that tracked? I don't know, but remember when you, you know if I think the risk is if it's not tracked and it starts to become mainstream, they're going to have to find a way to to make sure that they track it. What's hard, it's it's it's right now it's de minimis, right? Because it's hard to, one of the things that prevents adoption of Bitcoin in terms of a medium of exchange, which means I i pay for your services and I get paid with Bitcoin, is that it's a taxable event.
01:07:49
Speaker
So by the fact that it's a taxable event means 90% of the population is not going to engage in it. So Bitcoin becomes a store of value, hopefully soon to replace gold. So the dollar still might have a role, even though it's it's just you're not going to have the main store value in in that currency.
01:08:08
Speaker
Correct. but doubt i I actually think that it's so you have you have store of value, you have medium of exchange, and then you have a unit of account. Those are like the three levels of money. OK, so so Bitcoin's a store of value now. And when it when it gets to a million is when it almost exactly when it'll match gold.
01:08:27
Speaker
in terms of market cap, about 20 trillion. right okay Then a unit of account is when it like it takes over like the pricing of everything. I don't actually think that we'll ever give up the US dollar until unless the country collapses at some point.
01:08:40
Speaker
But what'll happen is everything will be priced in Bitcoin in some future time, 30, 40, 50 years from now. You might you say, okay, that's one Bitcoin. And then that car is one Bitcoin. And then to buy the car, you might, okay, well, one Bitcoin today is $115,000. So ah Here's 115,000, but it's priced in Bitcoin. It's the thing that doesn't change.
Bitcoin vs. Real Estate Investment
01:08:59
Speaker
yeah way that So you could say this car is one Bitcoin, then tomorrow that car might be 0.85 Bitcoin because of the technological advances, yeah make that car cheaper. But what it actually is in dollars could go up and down depending on the debasement of the US dollar.
01:09:13
Speaker
Does make sense? Kind of. I mean, I think we've lost everybody who wasn't lost before, but but that was the goal here. if we didn't lose most people, like if you're on this now, they're, you know, four whiskeys deep and really ah just on the ground rolling around, ah not knowing what's going on. Get off of zero. How about, how, just keep it simple like that. That's all have to say, but I just, hopefully this is ah like, really to me, I want to join here selfishly because I think this is part of my journey of understanding what this is. And I think,
01:09:39
Speaker
you know i I am in a position now where I need to start accumulating. I think I like the dollar cost average. Sometimes you have that FOMO. I want to catch up, right? And so you don't just go in and say whatever you possibly can grab. You immediately put it in and immediately. it you know But there is a chance because there are experts that are truly experts. I think i think like for somebody like you, knowing a little bit about you, putting X amount of money into Bitcoin today is a smart thing. And then you get a chunk.
01:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, get it, Sean. And then dollar cost average going forward. Yeah. you knows So you're not just starting from zero with the dollar cost average. I think that's a legit way. Yeah, I mean, just to me, I like the idea of cash flowing assets. This is not a cash flowing asset to me. And so in order that's why I like the idea of owning the underlying asset of real estate that has a cash flow associated with it that can pay down my debt. I have a fixed mortgage on it.
01:10:29
Speaker
And then I can buy my Bitcoin. That's really how I intend to buy this because it I can borrow, let's say, $115,000 off one of my properties. and it's considered a loan. It's a mortgage. I don't have to pay taxes on it because it's a mortgage, right And so that income, it's not income, right? So I can borrow against it. I can then borrow buy a Bitcoin. yeahp And then my little LLC that has that particular property is now in essence a you know a Bitcoin holding company.
01:10:55
Speaker
So the one thing I'll say about the, I mean, i love cash flowing companies. That's one reason I like i like the Bitcoin mining. I get the ah get both. I get a cash flowing company that also produces Bitcoin, right? But you know Bitcoin consistently goes up, consistently, not always, but consistently. And the number I keep hearing, correct me. And once again, this is not financial advice. I never talk about money this much. So I got to keep saying that, or else the algorithm is going to, Lord knows what it'll do to me.
01:11:18
Speaker
But on average, what I hear is 30%. It's no longer going up 100%. Like these big, massive gains annually are coming to an end, is what I understand. And on average, and it depends on who you listen to, but between 20% and 30% annually is considered pretty realistic. I would, that's what I budget. I wouldn't, I'm not going to guarantee that obviously.
01:11:38
Speaker
And people, a lot of, that's what most people are in that, in that 20, 35% range for the next five to eight years. that At some point it'll start really growing slower. They'll get down to like, and at some point ill probably just match the debasement of of the dollar.
01:11:51
Speaker
But if they print, you know, 5% more dollars, it'll only go up 5%. ah But that could be 30 years from now, 50 years from now. Right. But the one thing I would say is that Bitcoin is 100% liquid. You can sell it anytime.
01:12:02
Speaker
Right. Unlike your real estate without any transaction. cost I mean, the transaction costs selling Bitcoin are nothing compared to real estate. And it's not a cash flowing business, but it also doesn't take any work.
01:12:14
Speaker
And obviously there's- say there's no tenants, because you have enough Bitcoin, it's enough money where you're like, if I transfer that all to real estate and you said, Matt, buy me 30 of these rentals, now you have 30 tenants. Now you have, you know, each house has three toilets and three, three you know, furnace. And you can hire a management company, but still it's still work and you're paying for that. So there there are pluses and minuses to each yeah asset class.
01:12:38
Speaker
you know And there's and i like them both. I like i like real estate. That's why I love the idea, at least for me, my simple mind, I like combining them. yeah Because the one thing I'm exceptionally talented, like I know i have, it's it's an unfair advantage at this point. it's all I've been so focused on real estate.
01:12:51
Speaker
That's why I like the idea of trying to combine them. Yeah. in In my own, that's I'm getting to you can borrow money at 7% through your real estate to buy Bitcoin, that's a no-brainer. And I, yeah, I just think the odds of Bitcoin long-term, short-term, it could go down by a lot. That's possible. But I think long-term, this is how I, you're in my in my head, this is how I'm thinking. Long-term, so it's very likely to be going up at a higher rate than what I'm borrowing it against. Correct. And if it's cash flowing enough to offset my borrowing cost,
01:13:19
Speaker
It's a no brainer to me. yes That's that to me, but you have to be in a position. So if I said, what's chicken or the egg? If I don't have either, and I'm looking at, you know I just have enough to do something. Do I buy my first investment property or do you instead buy your first Bitcoin?
01:13:35
Speaker
I don't know the answer to that, but I'll say the the only wrong answer is zero. Yeah.
Bitcoin's Global Impact Potential
01:13:40
Speaker
There we go. Well, listen, there has we have to have something to talk about in the future, so we can't give all the answers away. We have a whole Bitcoin mining episode. Yes, and I will get you back for the mining because we did not even discuss that in depth, and I do not want to make this a 13-hour podcast, even though I find it fascinating.
01:13:56
Speaker
um So I really appreciate you. is there anything else that you think we haven't mentioned or I should mention at least on this first discussion with you? So a cop you know that i when i kind of lead webinars on Bitcoin, I say Bitcoin is censure-resistant.
01:14:10
Speaker
decentralized rules-based hard money and i kind of just take the whole hour and explain that one sentence yeah we've kind of touched on all of that right it's decentralized there's no head of it no way to shut it down it's censure resistant if you hold your own bitcoin the government can't take it from you they could throw you in jail in theory but they can't take your bitcoin from you it's rules-based it's bitcoin is nothing more than open source software So it follows rules. Everybody knows what the rules are unlike fiat where there's a person in charge. They change the rules. They create the price of money kind of makes no sense when you think of it. Yeah.
01:14:46
Speaker
Okay. And it's hard money. It's backed by energy by 0.5% the world's energy. So you can't just you can't just go in and you can go in and mine Bitcoin, but it's going to cost you a lot of money. You're going to pay a lot of utility bills.
01:14:59
Speaker
So it's back just like gold is backed by that how hard it is to get gold. Oil, the same thing. right You have to dig and get the oil and that takes work. So it's it's proof of work. You only get the Bitcoin when you can prove the work. Well, and I want to just add a point here that you glossed over. i think we've mentioned it during the the the meat and potatoes of this podcast. But when you talk about sovereignty and the government can't take it to me, immediately, I just think of crazy people that, you know, are having pitchforks and and like, you know, stock all their food in the basement and you know is so But I think we have the privilege of being in America where you have the right to be kind of in the dark where you don't feel as afraid of your government, even though we everyone should be at least cautious of what we see.
01:15:41
Speaker
But what I'm saying is we kind of can live in the clouds a little bit more. And there's plenty, like the example that Michael Sawyer would say is that if you are a a wealthy individual in Zimbabwe, or if you have money in any of these other countries, and ah Raul here is in Mexico, there's Plenty of countries that are even more over the top in terms of their, they're egregious in terms of their money printing.
01:16:02
Speaker
They're even more corruption than what we're exposed to here. Or they're and unstable. They're unstable. What do you do? And it's like. they Now for the first time in the in the history of human civilization, you can cross a border, you can memorize the 24 words, and you can actually take your wealth with you.
01:16:20
Speaker
Yeah. Versus just the clothes on your back. it's it's you If you take a gold bar or cash across a border, didn't get stolen or confiscated ah in a third world country, right? right Right. So that's it's transformation. We haven't even gone into the transformational nature of of Bitcoin for third world countries and what they can do to empower people. It's wild. And you don't have to be wealthy, wealthy, but you could just be a farmer in one of these countries and say, I don't have to be dependent on my nation state.
01:16:48
Speaker
To control everything about me, I'm going to put ah whatever I can away into this class. And in 10 years, i'm going to have I'm still going to have something that I can't be. yep it Yeah, I mean, it's it's not going from $1 to $100,000 anymore, right?
01:17:01
Speaker
But it's also not risky. So we're we're not there's plot <unk>s there's no doubt that Bitcoin's going to hit $10 million, $20 million, $30 million over the next 20, 30 years. And and we're we're so we're still so early.
01:17:14
Speaker
there's nine hundred trillion dollars of assets in the world So Bitcoin will at some point consume them all probably out, you know, sometime after my lifetime. Yeah, that's wild. Well, very nice. Well, thank you, Neil, for joining me today. Hopefully, if you hung in here and listened to this, hopefully you were able to get some bits out of this. And thank you. I will have you back at some point because I think this will be more interesting to even revisit this myself in six months or a year. Sure. During my own experience. The quick journey. Right? Through your own journey and to understand and to become more knowledgeable.
01:17:46
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And so I look forward to that. And thanks again. Thank you. Thank you for having me All right. Cheers.