Digital Social Hour - The Rise and Fall of a Crypto Trader: Lessons Learned from Zhi Ko | Digital Social Hour #4

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Welcome to the latest episode of the Digital Social Hour podcast, hosted by Sean Kelly and Charlie Cavalier. This week, they're joined by the remarkable Zhi Ko. Zhi shares his passion for eSports and how he appreciates the business networking opportunities in Las Vegas. He talks about his tennis background and the Sports Academy he attended in High School. Tennis, like any other sport, has its share of risks, and Zhi reveals how he coped with injuries from his days on the court. He discusses his college tennis years and how he gradually transitioned to doubles. Tennis is a mental sport, as he puts it, and he shares some of his favorite experiences playing even in wilting weather. Zhi Ko made a remarkable transition to business life, thanks to the discipline and work ethic he picked up during his tennis career. He went on to become a cryptocurrency expert and shares his thoughts on the industry's potential and risks. He also provides some essential advice to upcoming tennis players. Throughout the episode, Zhi shares his take on various subjects ranging from esports, health hacks, and social media handles. So why wait? Tune in now to listen to this fascinating episode of Digital Social Hour podcast. TIMESTAMPS: 00:58 Crypto regulations are necessary to ensure accountability. 03:48 Advice for upcoming tennis players 07:19 Mental conditioning is key in sports and business 10:37 The speaker made over eight figures in the crypto space in 2017 and lost some money later on due to greed 14:03 Slow grind up on Bitcoin is best conditions for making money 21:03 Mobile gaming is huge in Asia 24:14 Benefit from cupping therapy and dietary plan --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're in need of quality new tires and have been searching the internet for a good deal, look no further than your local Big O Tires. For a limited time, when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free on select set of tires. And because we know that tires can be an unexpected expense, take advantage of no credit needed financing made easy. They work with multiple lending partners, so the financing is tailored to you. Remember that when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free. Only at your locally owned Big O Tires, the team you trust. Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour, guys. I'm here with my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, and our guest today, Zico.

How we doing? Good, man. Everything's good. You just moved out to Vegas, right? Yeah, moved out to Vegas about six months ago. From Cali? Yep, from Orange County, California. Came out here to be close to my girl and kind of settled down a little bit. Yeah. So what do you like more, Orange County or here?

To be honest, I mean, I kind of like Orange County because I am like very close to the water. I like doing a lot of water sports, so I haven't had that chance out here. But I do like Vegas for business. I will say like I've met some very, very like-minded individuals that are very motivated, and that's helped me out a lot. Right. Yeah, because everyone comes here for the conferences, for networking. Exactly. And meeting guys like you, it's been good. Yeah. Charlie's out in Nashville. Oh, cool. They're trying to convince me to move to Vegas. I love Nashville, but you're totally right. All the networking that happens here, I always meet more people here than I do probably in any other city. Miami is the only one that kind

of rivals it in terms of the events, the networking New York for a different way from the business networking stuff, but never at like fun events like Vegas and Miami do it. Correct. Yeah. I feel that. Um, so let's dive into the tennis stuff. So you were a pro tennis player. Yep. You were ranked top 300 at one point. Yep. Uh, What was it like just spending your whole life dedicated to tennis? So it's interesting, right? So tennis growing up was second nature. It was actually like sports before school. So I went to Sports Academy when I was growing up,

Nick Ball Terry Academy up in Bradenton, California. I'm sorry, Bradenton, Florida. And then now it's called IMG Academies. And I just pretty much played six to eight hours a day. I mean, this is like wake up at five in the morning, you're on the court, you did two hours of school, and you're back on the court. And you're doing conditioning and the whole nine. Wait, you only did two hours of school? Yeah, I barely school. Yeah, that was like, that was pretty much I grown up. And then I, when I moved to Boca,

I also went to another sports academy and Everett Tennis Academy, and we did like four hours of school. I didn't know these sports academies only did two to four hours. It's like, it's nothing. So IMG does two to four hours of actual school? Back then, IMG, yeah. I don't know how it is now. I'm sure they've gotten some backlash on that. Right.

But it's definitely been, it was definitely not like geared towards like studies. Because those guys are training to become pro athletes. Correct, yeah. So we had other pro soccer players that were there, golfers that were there, and they all did really well. But yeah, it was definitely sports first. Yeah, they have a lot of good basketball players too. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy.

So then you ended up getting a lot of injuries from tennis. Correct. And that shifted your path. Exactly. So when I was growing up, I played a lot of international tournaments all around, pretty much all around the world. Specifically in France, two years in a row,

there's a tournament called La Petite over there. It's like when I was like 14 and 15 years old. And I twisted my ankles both times on their clay courts because we don't have their kind of clay here in the United States. It's like very fine clay. So I just was not used to moving like that. Twisted my ankles terribly.

And since then I've always had bad ankles. And then when I went to college, it is like that escalated. Like those injuries escalated because I didn't stop playing, right? I was still training five, six hours a day. As much rehab as I did, I never really rested it. And I was still training five, six hours a day. As much rehab as I did, I never really rested it. And I was doing cortisol shots, which are terrible for you. And yeah, I mean,

it just went rampant. So where did you play in college? University of Miami. Miami. So you were doing singles? So I was doing singles and doubles, correct. Singles and doubles. Correct. Yeah, I played singles and doubles. And yeah, trained there. What was your best game, singles or doubles? I would say I was definitely more of a singles player just because I think I, I don't know, I just always vibed more with singles. I would say, I guess I'm selfish on the court, I would say. But towards the end, because I think that my body

was sort of shutting down a little bit when it came to my mobility, that I sort of gravitated towards doubles a little bit more right how much of tennis is a mental sport because some games you're out there four or five hours like do you get in your own head definitely so I'll tell you a funny story um I actually played this one guy from Uganda I remember I was a young kid I was 17 years. I was playing my one of my first pro tournaments. I thought I was hot stuff and this guy from Uganda comes in and and it's like it's like 105 degrees in Florida. I'm playing on Stadium Court all the sun shining. It's it's so hot out there. This guy brings

out a hot jar like like Costco sized jar of pickle juice and he just drinks it in front of me and just stares at me and like right there this is like the third set i'm like dying out there like right there i knew like i was like oh man this is like bad this guy's this guy is not gonna give up and this is about to be like a five-hour match wow and that just like psychologically like shook me i remember that exact day for sure and um that shook me wow he got in your head your head. He got me in my head. Yeah. I was 17. I, and I kind of, you know, really kind of, I'm not sobered up, but I definitely got like a, like a slap of reality. So why pickled juice? The sodium content, you know, that's just his way of

getting sodium. Interesting. Yeah. He just didn't cramp, man. He was just out there grinding and I just, yeah, I couldn't keep up. Wow. How much camaraderie is there on tour? I know with a lot of team sports, right, you go back into your locker room, you have your guys that are in the locker room with you, they're on your team. But with individual sports, right, like tennis, golf, whatever it might be, everybody is your competition. Nobody technically is on your team. So what kind of camaraderie is there on tour amongst all the professional players? So there definitely is some, yeah, right?

There definitely is some animosity, right? Towards, you know, your fellow player to some degree, even though you like grew up playing each other, definitely is like that rivalry for sure. But I think there is some, I guess there is some like friendship when it comes to the struggle i would say because we all didn't have any money we were all traveling together we're all like trying to save costs staying four or five people to a hotel room so i think that's where you would see some of that like closeness that bonding but at the end of the day it is a single sport so on tour as well as on juniors it's very much you yourself, right?

In college tennis, because you are a team and you are trying to win in a unanimous fashion, that is a little bit more, I guess, yeah, that's a little bit more close. I feel that. What's some advice you could give to an upcoming tennis player looking to go professional and make a living off it?

You know what? I would say definitely take care of your body. I know it's tough to understand that when you're a younger person, when you're in your teens, when you're in your 20s, you can do whatever you want. You can get away with it. But that definitely does play a role in the future.

I remember talking with my doctors when I was younger. My doctor was like, look, at your current pace, you're gonna have arthritis all over your body when you're in your 30s. And I didn't believe it, right? I was 16 years old. I was like, no way. your current pace, you're going to have arthritis all over your body when you're 30s. And I didn't believe it, right? I was 16 years old. I was like, no way. Like, I'm top stuff.

I'm definitely feeling it now, now that I'm in my 30s, right? But definitely take care of their body and mental conditioning, right? There's definitely a huge psychological play when you're a single sport, you're out there by yourself yourself and there's no one else you can blame, right? You're looking at yourself. When you lose a point, it's all on yourself. There's nothing you can really blame out there, right? So it's very psychologically taxing. And I think that's really important to be aware of that.

I feel that. Do you still watch tennis? Not so much. You know what? Not so much, man. It's tough. It's definitely tough. It's like a love half. Yeah, it's tough it's definitely tough yeah it's a

long match yeah it's a long match and i never really enjoyed watching tennis to be honest growing up i enjoyed like playing it and seeing my friends play but now that i'm sort of out of touch i don't really watch it now yeah it's like a 50 50 some of my good friends that are still really close in the tennis scene watch it all day long. I'm on the other side. I feel that. Who's your GOAT in tennis? I mean, for sure. I mean, originally when I was growing up, Pete Zampras.

He was my favorite by far. And then, you know, Roger Federer. Federer? Yeah, Roger Federer. I feel like that's becoming more of a rare answer now that Djokovic is just dominating. Yeah, yeah. Roger Federer for sure. We had some pretty cool instances.

Like when I was playing college, we had a lot of pro players play in Miami. So we had like Andy Murray, Djokovic stopped by the Serena Williams, Venus, they played at our facilities. So they were all, you know, Florida based. Florida is the largest, pretty much like hub for tennis

in the entire United States. And America just dominates when it comes to tennis programs. So Florida just was just a huge hub for it. That's sick. It's interesting you said America dominates when it comes to tennis programs, and we haven't had a U.S. men's number one in, I mean, you know a lot, but how long has it been?

It's been a long time. I mean, really, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, those were like the golden years of u.s tennis besides that i mean there's been some top players that have come in like isner and so forth but um no one really at that top number one spot you're correct roger federer you know jokovic nadal they've been the dominant factors and and the european players right how did you translate tennis into your business life i think it's more of a mental discipline aspect, right? Waking up in the morning, you know, growing up, especially at Nick Balteri's IMG Academy.

It's Nick Balteri himself. He just recently passed away. But he had a thing where if he saw you yawn on the court at 530 in the morning, you're a kid. So you yawn, he's sending you home. Whoa. And you're on scholarship and like that's reported to like your coach and so forth so it's a very bad look yeah and you know especially when you're a kid like you take everything like really seriously it's like oh my god attention um it's a big deal so he would just send people home and he it didn't matter how good you were

did that happen to you yeah yeah it happened to me twice it happened to maria sharapova who was like a big name back in the day yeah they were these guys were all playing there at this facility and uh they didn't it didn't matter how good you are he was very he was very straightforward he didn't care about egos he didn't care how good you were um he had a certain set of rules that's crazy so that like definitely translated to a business sense right like being able to wake up in the morning get it going um not stop until something's done. Yeah. Wow. So let's dive into the business side of things. You've made over eight figures in the crypto space. Super impressive. How did you learn about that whole space and really grow your company there? So I got into crypto in 2017 in

March. And before that, I was working at Disney. I used to be an engineer, civil engineer at Disney, I was doing sustainable construction, as well as alternative fuels at Disney. So then one day, a guy actually one of my, I guess guys that digs holes, a construction guy told me about Ethereum. And I didn't really think anything about it, to be honest. And I probably should have because I could have gotten even cheaper but then afterwards like two weeks later my buddy from Wall Street who's just like kills it he called me was just like hey man like take as much money as you got and put it towards Ethereum I didn't think anything about it I didn't have very much money to

do it I put like think like 3.5 thousand dollars into Ethereum and then it started skyrocketing and I was like wait a minute i just weighed i just made more money in like the last like two weeks like than my entire like engineering like career like in like the year right like saved up so i was like where is there like more of this and then i discovered there was a whole market to it i started buying some uh you know altcoin started diving into it i was reading red, and I just kind of fell in love with the space and got really addicted to it, to be honest, from a financial standpoint. I never want to pretend like I'm the most knowledgeable person from the tech standpoint. It was very monetary for me.

Yeah, and fortunately for my job, I was a project engineer. So I got to manage a lot of construction sites. And as long as my construction sites were on schedule, I could have like all the time in the world to look at my computer, to read what I want to read. No one was really telling me what to do. As long as I was on schedule, I met my meetings and everything was gravy. What year was this? This was in 2017.

Wow, you were early. Yeah, 2017, I got into Ethereum. Ethereum was like, I think like then, Ethereum was $90. Jeez, I wish. Yeah, 90 bucks, Ethereum. I wish. That's when I started diving in.

But you know, I mean, first year, I wrote it pretty much up. I made my first seven figures in 2017 and then I lost a lot of it. You know, I mean, I'll be honest. I lost a lot of it because I was, you believing the tech i started like believing and started you know not concentrating so much of the money thought it was going to go up greed kind of got the best got emotional exactly and um that's where you know i started like seeing like the losses right i was

part of that 2017 you know roller coaster also and this you know this 2022 situation, or now 23, is giving me some of those same vibes, right? A lot of people bought in at highs, not lows, and now everyone's freaking out. And crypto is almost getting a bad rap for just doing what every market in the history of the world has done. Do you see this current trend that we're in right now lasting for a long time? Or do you see this being like a three, six, nine, 12 month thing? I think that it's gonna be on a shorter scale this time. I don't believe that this,

like right now we're in a bear market, right? I don't believe this bear cycle is gonna last as long as 2018 to 2020, like mid 2020, because that was a painful two and a half years. I mean, a lot of us lost a lot, right? I think that now, because we have so much money inside, we have true money, like true VC money. You're starting to see bigger banks talking about it, offering as offerings to their clients,

that I do believe that some sort of ground has been formed. I don't think that we're just gonna capitulate back down to five-figure numbers anymore numbers anymore, or four figure numbers, actually. I just don't think that we'll see that. Now, do I also, at the same time, because bigger money's in also, I don't believe we'll see this giant monster run up as quickly as 2017 either. I think that there's a balance between the two. And to be honest, I think as a trader myself, those are the best conditions when you're actually seeing a slow grind up on Bitcoin. Alts, altcoins have a chance to breathe and that's where you can actually make some serious money.

Yeah. The altcoins, if you time those right, man. Correct. I hit a few like 10 X's last time. Amazing. It's crazy. Yeah. What did you learn from the luna and ftx situation oh man you know what so i'll be very honest with you guys i mean luna i lost eight figures on jeez i lost eight figures on luna guys um i and this was actually a big wake-up call for me i was out of control last year i was partying like crazy, out of control, pretty much a success story in crypto and was going down a really bad path. I was in Miami for the F1 event and I had every single chance Jump Capital, which was the primary market maker in Luna that was like, hey, look, you know, we're actually going to, you know, punch the market back up. I had every single chance to get out at the end of the day. And I chose to stay and party, be hungover. I had a private jet waiting for me.

I ended up canceling my private jet to come back to back to california to get my hardware wallet and um the next day i looked and my portfolio was cut 33 i mean sorry 66 it was you know i was in primarily an anchor which is a it was it was give us a stable coin farm yeah i was giving like 20 yeah and i completely didn't get out and before i knew it ust was pegged 33 cents to the dollar and so essentially 66 of my net worth was just gone and you know what like looking back at it is it was kind of like a blessing disguise like i said i was going down a pretty rough path i was out of control i was just yeah out of control so it was kind of like a nice little wake-up call there now for ftx fortunately i didn't have too much in ftx i still had six figures in ftx um it was a little bit unfortunate because i actually just landed in singapore i was on a vacation with my girlfriend at that time

and uh first day in singapore landed in ftx collapses and i'm just looking i'm like oh my god like what is going on right now i probably ruined the vacation yeah i was like oh you know i mean thankfully it wasn't too crazy of a loss i was able to like you know recover for the most part but um it still sucked it still also sucked like hearing my friends who actually got hit really hard a few of my friends like definitely lost seven eight figures on that which was which was tough and then i guess also like the portfolios that like I invested in, right? I invested in a lot of other projects that had their entire bank like holdings on FTX. Because one of the things when Alameda invested into one of your projects, they encouraged you to put your holdings onto their platform. So it was like their bank.

And no one ever thought like, you know, the elephant in the room was going to collapse. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, to me, the FTX thing kind of highlighted the going down the road of crypto being the same as a lot of the banking industries were prior to the Great Depression. And as, you know, a crypto native like yourself, I'm sure you would love to see anything but that happen. What needs to happen moving forward to make sure that crypto and crypto exchanges don't end up just becoming banks 2.0? So one of the things that happened after FTX was that there was an open ledger, right? There was an on-chain open ledger where you could check most exchanges holdings, like true holdings, right? You got to see how much money was actually in Binance, right? I think Binance like showed that they had like $19 dollars essentially like what's ready to go yeah like something crazy or something like

that like a ridiculous amount of bitcoin ridiculous amount of ethereum and a ridiculous amount of us usdt so they had this like they showed their holdings and from there because they're like the big dog all the other exchanges started you know following through and started showing that so that's a good step you know that transparency out there. But at the same time, is that actually enough? I think that there is a necessary need for regulations to come into the crypto space. I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for saying this, to be honest. I agree with you a thousand percent yeah i mean at the end of the day there needs to be some accountability for you know people's actions so how much accountability that's the big that's the big question right um i don't think that you

want it to be like a bank of america where like you have sec or you have you know finra coming down on you by the same time i think that there needs to be some sort of docket where there is some rules, there is some regulations. Because you did see, for example, prior to the Luna crash, you did see, or sorry, after the Luna crash, you did see some of the biggest funds in crypto like 3AC collapse because they were so leveraged up on their assets that when one thing dropped,

everything sort of liquidated. And that never happens in traditional finance. You can't just 6X your entire holding on leverage on $16 billion. It just doesn't, it doesn't happen. There's regulations for that. But in crypto, there isn't. So that's what they did.

I also saw you were into eSports. Do you still feel good about the future? Because I was looking at, you know, face stock, I saw a tank. Do you think there will be a comeback in that industry? Yes, I do. So my thing about eSports, so I used to own an eSports team

with one of the best eSports players named Hai, but that ended up not working out, but I do believe e esports is the future because of how accessible it is unlike traditional sports there's like two big issues of traditional sports number one genetics as much as it sucks to say you know if i was competing let's just say me and you were as good as each other as is in basketball right but you're just happen to be so much taller right like i won't be able to compete against you. It's just, you know, it comes down to really just physics

and just physical prowess. And the same thing kind of goes across most sports out there, especially like football and more of the contact sports out there. With esports, anybody has a chance. Any kid that grinds out has a chance to be there. And now a lot of these top esports games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, they've been around for so long that you can actually play them on a pretty high level. You can actually play them on a not so good computer.

You can get a computer for 500 bucks, 400 bucks, and you can still play these games. And that allows kids to now be able to compete and be able to train towards you know the future and then ultimately i mean this is much bigger in asia but mobile gaming is huge in asia when you go to japan no one's talking on the subways they're head down they're looking at their phone and you know most of the guys are on playing some sort of game and that's where like i think the money's at as well as that's just where um. And that's where I think the money's at, as well as that's just where, I think that's where people are going towards.

Wow, that's awesome. Speaking of everyone staring at their phones, because it's the same thing here, but for social media reasons, right? Obviously you played IRL sports and you've done e-sports very much. So how do we get attention spans to return back to in real life things and not just be about what's on your

cell phone? I think it comes down to health, to be honest, you know, I mean, look, at the end of the day, there has to be a health factor. I mean, kids, you know, unfortunately, you know, the US obesity rate is continuously climbing up. And it's something to really kind of focus on and i really think that as people starting like you're starting to see the younger general generation talk about like you know biohacking you're starting to see the younger generation talk about you know um bodybuilding a little bit more opposed to the older generation and i think that that's going to be sort of the flip that it's eventually going to come in as like a cool trend again. And I think that's the only real way to transfer that attention span to over to like in real life things.

Yeah, let's touch on health more because you and I are super passionate about it, obviously, into health hacking. Charlie and I just took a blood test today. Oh, very cool. Yeah, I saw you take them every six months. Yeah. So what are some health hacks you've been doing lately? So I saw you posted about the sauna. So sauna, sauna is the easiest one to hack, right? It's, I do that right now. I've been doing the sauna about six days a week. I've been going above and beyond because, you know, stats are crazy. The fact that he can,

you know, drop it just look at the end of the day, from what I understand from biohhacking i don't pretend to be an expert at this by any means but from everything that i've read it really comes down to seeing how much blood flowing blood flow is happening within your body when you have elevated blood flow in your body it helps your body recover it helps your body um essentially get more oxygen in your body and you're just healthier overall. The sauna allows that. The sauna allows for your blood to flow faster, you're getting more oxygen within your muscles, and it just helps with just recovery in general.

I feel that. So I think the sauna, number one, is the main thing I've been doing. Number two, I just started cupping. Cupping? Yeah, so like cupping, like massage therapy where they put those things on like yeah they put those things in your body um only downside with that is that you know you get these crazy marks all over your body so like i have bruises all over my body

no not bad okay what hurts bad is um i forgot what the technique was called when they take like the iron rod and they scrape over your your scar tissue. That is a bit crazy. That's a bit crazy, but it's great, man. It unlocks everything. I've had really bad also shoulder issues just because of tennis. And to be honest, I've done this three times, three sessions, and it has probably improved like 70%. Really?

It's like that drastic. Whoa. The scraping or the cupping for the shoulders? Both. So like they come in and they go all in you get you get 40 minutes into the place and they just like go to work on you they like tell you to like they do like an assessment like movement assessment and they're like okay like your left shoulder clearly you're tight here you're slouching a little bit more than your right you've imbalanced here and there we're gonna go and they just do everything

they can to unlock your body as well as balance it is this in vegas it's in it's in henderson dude take me there yeah yeah it's it's very affordable too nothing crazy and um dude it's it's helped a lot yeah yeah for sure what about on the diet side of things what are you eating so diet side i mean besides like in the morning so in the morning i always do intermittent fasting i don't eat until about one o'clock in the afternoon. First thing I do in the morning is I take the, you know, athletic greens drink. I don't want to show a product over here, but it's pretty comprehensive. I take it too.

It's pretty comprehensive. It's a great thing. I mean, whether, you know, you believe whether it's working for you or whether it's a pseudo effect, just taking in the morning makes me feel accomplished. So I'm taking that first thing in the morning makes me feel accomplished so i'm taking that first thing in the morning um and then in the afternoon i have a meal plan service um that just right now i'm trying to gain weight so i've just been sort of eating everything but knowing that i'm eating from a meal plan service i know that the ingredients are good i know that the ingredients are coming in from actual like real food it's unprocessed it's properly done and i think that's like the biggest

no seed oils ah that i need to ask on you should that's the big thing i know you guys got me yeah you guys got me on it's you and david you guys got me on seed oils and i went down a dark path man like that night i i went down this like rabbit hole i was like oh my god everything is seed oil yeah every restaurant man yeah terrible it's terrible. It's horrible. Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. Well, I guess any closing thoughts on where people can find you? Yes. I mean, most of my socials are, you know, Neko's Tech, N-E-K-O-Z-T-E-K.

I kind of just like, to be honest, like for Twitter, I post a lot of like my crypto thoughts, whether it's like analysis or whether it's like what I believe like the price is going to be. Not financial advice, of course. But, you know, that's number one.

And then on Instagram, I just pretty much post health stuff. That's the only thing I've been posting is really my health hacks. And then once in a while when I go out, that's about it. Awesome. Yeah, I actually cut alcohol for my life. Did you? You were part of the reason. So I got to thank you for that.

Dude, it's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big, big difference for sure. But I, you know, once again, I think that it really comes, comes down to balance. I don't think that, I mean, just, yeah, just balance. I think that's, that's really the key right there. Absolutely. All right, guys, you heard it there. Digital social hour. I'll see you guys next week. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts,

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