Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 110 | The American Dream - Erik Fin is Living His...

Episode Date: May 25, 2019

Another living the American Dream segment and this time we have teenage bitcoin millionaire join the show and talk about his latest app. Check Erik's app: CoinBitsApp.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we try to bring you different segments on American Dream here on Chewing the Fat, our American Dream segment each week. And, you know, I try to bring you people that have done things that are truly amazing. And this week we're talking to Eric Finman. Eric is a, I mean, he's had a tough life. He's had a rough life. At the age of 12, his grandmother gave him some money. And he invested in something that. that we all should have done, but didn't.

And that made his American dream come true. Eric Finman joins us here on Chewing the Fat, the American Dream segment. How are you, Eric? Thanks for coming on. Doing super well. Doing super well. Thank you for that very wonderful introduction. So at the age of 12, Grandma gave you some money.

Now, did you ask Grandma for money? Or was she just being nice and saying, hey, here's a little cash? Well, it wasn't money for no reason. It was actually supposed to go to my scholarship fund. Okay. I did not put it in my scholarship fund. With the help of my brother, you know, we snuck it out and put it into Bitcoin. Which was really genius.

I mean, a lot of people at the time would have said, Eric, what are you doing? You're such a loser. But in real life, it was genius. Yes, I think my parents said that after they found out after the fact. But it turned out better in the long long. How long a time you invested in Bitcoin? You took the money that your grandma gave you for your college fund, and you embezzled out of that account and purchased Bitcoin on the sly with your brother.

And your brother, you know, was guilty of fraud along with you against your grandma. And then you invested in Bitcoin. And what did the $1,000 buy you at that time? Absolutely. So Bitcoin was the price was back in like 2011. I was actually just 12 years old. It was actually really easy to buy Bitcoin back then. People would just like hand them out. People would give them way. So the price of Bitcoin was $10 at that point. I hate you already. I don't even know why I'm talking to you. I could remember making fun. I could remember the whole time as Bitcoin was climbing thinking we should have bought it at $300. Should have bought it at $400. I told you we should have bought it at $500. I told you. And pretty soon it's, you know, $8,000. And I'm going to buy it at $300. And I told you. And pretty soon it's, you know, $8,000. And I'm. I'm kicking myself. It's just crazy. So how long did it take you to reach an amount of money that you said,

I can, this is going to change my life. This is life changing. So yeah. So I'd say when, so 12 is when I first got into it. And then when I was 15, an old geezer, I had about $100,000 worth.

Bitcoin really shot up. Okay, right. But we're still not, at that point, at that point, for three years there, we're still not at the point where it's really life-changing. I mean, you hit $100,000, you know, while that's a good chunk of change and a decent amount of money, it isn't life-changing. Yeah, true. Yeah, I mean, well, I dropped out of high school, actually, with that amount of money and moved to Silicon Valley just by myself at 15.

There you go. So it is life-changing. What do I know? That is life-changing, the move and all that stuff. And then, yeah, but definitely when it got into when I was about 18 years old, actually, when I was 18 years old, actually, when I was 18. 18, I had a million dollar bet with my parents that if I made a million dollars by the time I was 18, that I would not have to go to college or go back to school. Nice. So when I was 18, I won that bet, and I think that was that was the life-changing amount of money.

Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. And I'm sure that, you know, are your parents still, you know, while they're happy for your life-changing experience, are they still disappointed that you didn't do the schooling or are they okay with it now? No, I think they're happy. I think they're happy. Well, it's weird. My family, they're all incredibly smart people and all that. My brothers are very smart.

My middle brother just sold his company to like some Google company. And then my oldest brother just, you know, works on the beach, working off his lap, hop with his own business. And my parents are actually, they're Stanford PhDs. And they do work with some really cool, like kind of mind-jew. gamming amplifiers for the U.S. military. So I like to joke that my family were like the Elon version of the Kardashians. Yeah, no kidding.

But yeah, my friend. That's a fact. My brothers, my friends are all geniuses. So that was cool. And then, yeah, but my parents were very, like, kind of very traditionally educated. Yeah. And all that. My brothers, they both went to, I think, good schools.

And, yeah, I'm a high school dropout, I guess. Right. You know, I guess. So, I mean, you're the looser of the family. Wow. I mean, I should be talking to them and not you, Eric, that's all I'm talking about. So a couple of years ago, you're 20 now. I mean, you're at the ripe old age of 20.

And you're worth a few million and you're still growing and coming up with ideas. And we'll talk about your latest idea and invention that is, I think, game changing. But for those of us who were idiots and didn't get into Bitcoin until it was, you know, several. thousand dollars or eight thousand dollars you're now at a point where they're telling us that Bitcoin is going to go through the roof or at least they did a year or so ago and that

changed it didn't go through the roof it went in the other direction and people who bought in at the 8,000 mark were greatly disappointed so is Bitcoin ever going back up or we're just left in the dust

I think the number one biggest problem with Bitcoin is or has been with Bitcoin is that it's too hard to get into. I'm pretty sure like everybody at least in the U.S. and kind of the West has heard about Bitcoin. Maybe doesn't know what it is exactly. Doesn't know what it's into it. And and but yeah, I mean the hard thing is how do you get into Bitcoin? How do you buy it?

How do you invest? What's the website you go to? And even if you know some websites to get into the they're very hard. You have to jump through a thousand hoops. Yeah, you do. It's really, really hard. And even if you manage to jump, find the website, jump through those who three, there's like, it's not like the stock market where it's only so many hours during the day. Bitcoin is 24-7 trading.

And that can, even if they put their money in, it's high anxiety, high volatility. So you're always very anxious. And I think those are kind of the biggest problems with Bitcoin so far. And I think I'm kind of working on fixing those. So are we at a point, I mean, are we starting, you know, we see stories where, you know, more. and more and more people in the marketplace are accepting cryptocurrency. Let's stop. First, before I get into cryptocurrency overall, let's just stick with Bitcoin.

We're seeing where more and more companies in the marketplace are accepting Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin is, I guess, the frontrunner. I mean, for right now, it's still the, you know, the mainstay of crypto that everyone, like you said, most people probably know or I've heard of it. You know, so we're, some places are, more and more places are starting to accept it, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have, there's this app that allows you to use it at Whole Foods and on Amazon now. And then, yeah, I think the biggest reason of why I think Bitcoin needs to go up again is,

is now that you kind of are starting to have more technology that makes it easier, more usable. Yeah. I think it's going to take that $8,000 to much higher. Because how many billions of billions of dollars could have been in, invested in Bitcoin by the people that wanted to get into it, but didn't know how. And I think that's the main thing that's kind of, kind of made the price stagnate. And then, too, yeah, I mean, I think it needs to be accepted more in places. I think Bitcoin is a currency.

I don't know if that's the best use case of the currency other than maybe for emergencies. I think it's best used as like a digital gold and maybe another cryptocurrency or an upgrade to Bitcoin could make it a currency. But I think it's best as a digital gold for now. So as we speak, you know, and you're, you know, we're talking about you living your American dream. I mean, you're already, you are living the American dream. You started with nothing and you built it to an incredible sum and you're moving on from that. And you started at a young age and, you know, and decided you knew that you were headed in this direction.

So how many cryptocurrencies do we have or do we even know how many cryptocurrencies are there are on the market? it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a hard number. I think like there's over a thousand now for sure. Wow. I think thousands. And I think, yeah, I mean, there's, I think the top ones are definitely Bitcoin, Ethereum. I really like V-cash, which is kind of more of an unknown one that I really like. But yeah, I mean, there's a bit cryptocurrency during, at least kind of in the tech engineering world. It's really building up. And I think that will eventually show more in the consumer world. And that's kind of my goal.

So what is going to cost, what is going to make a particular crypto breakthrough? You know, instead, like, for instance, if Bitcoin, you know, even falls or continues to climb and becomes the gold standard of the cryptos, if Bitcoin is the gold standard of the cryptos and we're going to use, you know, Finns crypto as the day-to-day interaction cryptocurrency, what's going to make that happen? Yeah, absolutely. Does it make sense? I'm trying to figure out how it's going to work into society, you know, every day. I mean, I think the biggest use case for Bitcoin is, um, the biggest use case for Bitcoin is actually bad politicians. I think that's the number one use case for today. Okay. Bitcoin was born out of the financial crisis. It came out in 2009, right? You know, 2008, 2009 big financial crisis time. two, you're seeing in Venezuela, they're using Bitcoin for food and all that. You're even starting to see refugees rather than having to leave everything behind, they can actually just put all their money into something the size of a USB stick

and put it in their pockets. That way they're not eating with nothing. You know, they're actually able to transport their money and their resources and all that. And, you know, maybe they can create their own kind of new community if they were able to do that, you know, somewhere. So I think that's kind of, I think those are the main use cases in a larger scale now. And I think, but I think definitely the hardest way, the hardest thing that has been getting in the way is it's been hard to get into. And that's why I just created and just launched, like today, very recently is coinbitz app.com. Okay, so that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.

And you create it. It's called coinbits? Yeah, coinbits is the name. And the URL is coinbits app.com. Coinbits app.com. Now, I usually don't ask for free stuff. on the radio because it's, you know, it's embarrassing and I don't like to people. But if I, you know, since I'm talking to you and, you know, you're being interviewed on, you know,

chewing the Fats American Dream segment, I mean, is it possible that I could get a, you know, a free, you know, coin bits app from you? Well, yeah, actually, it's really easy to create an account. So you can get into Bitcoin and it's, uh, and all that. Is it, is it free to everyone? It's completely free. It's completely free different. It's 100% free.

That's what I thought. So I get into CoinBits. What is that going to do for me? And I love the idea of it, at least assisting or helping people invest in it without really investing in it. So if I download CoinBits right now, what is it going to do for me? Yeah. So CoinBitsap.com, what you do is you sign up, you connect your payment information, and you're able to just to invest in Bitcoin. And it's as easy as that. I know that sounds simple, but actually, that's been

really hard. If you go to any of the other kind of buy Bitcoin sites, it's actually, it's like half to jump through a million hoops. It takes days to maybe verify your account. You have to scan your passport. It's crazy. And I think, so this is just simple, allows you to buy it super simply by connecting your payment information. And in addition to that, you can connect your debit card or credit card to it. So every time you swipe and make a purchase or plug in your, you know, chip, it will actually automatically invest in just a little bit of Bitcoin. So let's say you spend $1.75 on French fries. It'll round up on 25 cents. So it'll charge you $2 and then we'll put that 25 cents in Bitcoin. And actually like the national average for how many transactions you do in a

week, it's actually about kind of around 50. Sometimes it can be even 50 to 100. And you know, that adds up after a while. Boy, no kidding. Have like 52 weeks in the year, all those transactions, all those, you know, the Uber rides or Uber eats or even just takeout or, you know, swiping something at the gas station. Yeah. It really adds up. So it's complete Bitcoin investing on autopilot. You can even set your risk level to how risky you want to get. You don't have to be checking it all the time. It's kind of Bitcoin investing, autopilot, set in and forget it. Super easy. Don't have to worry about it. That's kind of the goal of this is really just making it super easy.

So for now, it's just Bitcoin, right? I mean, if I download CoinBits app.com and I fill out the information and I start using the roundup, the roundup segment, it invest in just Bitcoin. Yeah, just for now. I wanted to make it super simple. I think before I add other new cryptocurrencies, I feel like people should really understand and invests in Bitcoin first, you know, the frontrunner. Before you get complicated, you know, there's other cryptocurrencies. He's Monaro, Zcash, Ethereum, and those are kind of, you know, more in the engineering world than actually, like, well, what can we do for just a normal person right now? And I think that's been really hard.

I grew up in Idaho, and people don't care. What is Monaro? What is Zcash? Right. Why do you use them versus Bitcoin? I think I just really wanted to start out with Bitcoin just for now. I think that's where people got into, you know, confusion when Bitcoin first started, coming online and becoming, you know, well-known, is that then it got bogged down with all the other

cryptocurrencies and people were like, well, I don't understand. What are you talking about? Instead of focusing on one thing. I think that's a really smart move. Now, if I, how do I get, how do I get my money? If I, let's say I've invested, you know, I go to coinbits app.com and I start doing my roundup and I realized that, hey, I've now got one Bitcoin. And, you know, that's worth whatever amount of money. And I decide that, you know, I'd like to get a little bit of that. How difficult is that going to be? Super easy.

Just log into the website and literally click one button and that's it. It's super simple. You can take it out whenever you want, day or night. It's super easy. We want to make it so you can take it out as fast as you want. and that goes like just comes into my into my regular account that's been rounding up yeah so you can just cash out sell your sell kind of the amount that you have and it goes right to your bank account directly right into your bank account can start using it instantly

that's amazing i'm in love with it and and you're giving me a free app is what you're doing uh me personally i don't care about anybody else but you're giving me a free app right free for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. So you are living the American dream. What's next? You've got your app, and I know you're focused on that now, but just between you and me.

It's just, you know, just between you and me. What's next on the Finn agenda? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I've done a lot of not just done the Bitcoin millionaire stuff by, you know, a bunch of us as a group, the satellite together, which is really cool. That's in space now. We built this robotic exoskeleton forearm, kind of Dr. Octopus, Spider-Man style, exoskeleton suits.

And then, yeah, now we're doing this. And, yeah, before I even launched an ed tech company that I sold. So, yeah, what's next? I think, not to sound egotistical. So, yeah, what's next? We might do another Dr. Octopus suit, but really what I want to do is I want to make cryptocurrency simple. you know that that is my main goal is I want to make this is the first step in that and there's even

going to be more steps than that and I kind of have a little master plan in my head of how do we make cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and all this stuff makes sense to people how do we make blockchain kind of underlying Bitcoin currency how do we actually make that useful for people and that's really my main goal for now so that's what I'm working on that's what next what does your satellite do what are you doing oh yeah so it was really cool actually because got a time capsule together. So that was really cool. So that was just one feature of it. It was a time capsule where we got all these kind of artists and musicians and political people kind of to represent the world. And we also got, we tried to get one video from at least one person

in every country to put it and put it kind of a 21st century golden record, which Carl Sagan, that was a time capsule he put up. So we actually got some really cool people. We got Taylor Swift. She sent us a little message and her favorite music to put on there. So that was really cool. And then two, we also got Scott Adams, who is right to does the Dilberg Comics and it's kind of transition and the political commentary.

Yeah, so he's a good friend of mine. I really like him. He has a cool crypto startup called Wenhub. And then three, Scott's been on the show. Eric Trump. Okay.

Oh, awesome. Yes. That's a great guy. And then, yeah, we got Eric Trump to contribute. So I actually went to Trump Tower and all that. And we got his little signature. And we put that actually as an engraving.

on the side of the satellite. So that's really cool as well. So those are kind of the top ones. Let me got some other people, but those are definitely my favorite. So your satellite is out there preparing to let the people of space wars find out what's going on? Exactly, exactly. So I guess that the aliens ever find us, they'll be listening to shake it off by the other schlitz. Excellent, excellent.

Eric Feynman, tell the people what you've created and what they can do to get your creation. one last time, Eric Fenman. Absolutely. So I created coinbiz app.com, which allows you to easily get into Bitcoin, Bitcoin investing on autopilot, set it and forget it. Just go to the website, like I said, coinbizapp.com to get into it. It makes Bitcoin super simple. Eric, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Take care of yourself. We have got to start interviewing American Dream people that are like 80 or 100 years old. Because when I start interviewing these people that are 20, it really, really hurts me. It's like a knife in my heart because it just makes me feel like I've accomplished, I don't know, zero with my life. And that's where you can come and help me by subscribing to chewing the fat. Yes, that's right. If you subscribe to the podcast that you're listening to right now, you will help me more than you have, more than you'll ever know. And then if you rate and review it, simple by giving me 20 stars and reviewing it best podcast ever, I mean, you will have saved a life today.

Mine. Have a good weekend.