The Iced Coffee Hour - Making $1 Million Dollars With Bitcoin - Confronting Andrei Jikh

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Find your rate in as little as 5 minutes! http://upstart.com/ICH Elevate your writing with 20% off Grammarly Premium by signing up at https://grammarly.com/icedcoffee This week we are joined by Andrei Jikh. Andrei creates videos on YouTube about personal finance with 1.7 Million subscribers, we discuss the future of bitcoin, bitcoin regulation, the beef between Graham and Andrei, and much much more. Subscribe to Andrei: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreiJikh Clips Exclusive:https://youtu.be/DTPBQJ3UrOM DOWNLOAD MY NEW FINANCIAL APP: https://hungrybull.page.link/graham Add us on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan https://www.instagram.com/alex_nava_photography GET YOUR FREE STOCK WORTH UP TO $1000 ON PUBLIC & SEE MY STOCK TRADES: http://www.public.com/graham  MY NEW COFFEE IS NOW FOR SALE: http://www.bankrollcoffee.com/ Join the 2x weekly mentorship group: https://tinyurl.com/yaexko4o The Equipment used: https://tinyurl.com/y78py5g2 Audio Equipment Used In Podcast: Rode NT1, Rodecaster Pro The YouTube Creator Academy:   Learn EXACTLY how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube, rank videos on the front page of searches, grow your following, and turn that into another income source: https://bit.ly/2STxofv $100 OFF WITH CODE 100OFF  For Podcast Inquiries, please contact [e-mail] *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And so far the podcast has made $1 billion. No, it's $100,000. I think... That would have been nice. Billion dollars. $100,000. That's awesome.

Congrats you guys. Thank you so much. You should have said, come for the coffee, stay for the $100,000. You know, the last time I was here, I broke another milestone too. I broke a million dollar in ad revenue

milestone, if I don't know if you remember. Really? Yeah. It's total, right? Not for the year, but total. No, not for the year, total. Wow. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Congratulations. Yeah, we should see. each other more often so we could break more milestones. You know, it's fine. I think we're almost about to do that for the second channel. We're getting very close. Almost a million dollars in the second channel. Whatever it is right now, we're going to put it on the screen for you guys to see.

That's awesome. And you've only had it for how long? Two years, two and a half years, I think. Oh, okay, two and a half years. So about the same as what I had in my major. Right. Got it. Yeah.

That's awesome. Anyway, I feel like we should introduce you. So you are my arch rival nemesis. Personal Finance Enthusiasmist on YouTube. 1.6 millie... What are you at right now? I think 1.68.

One point's... Okay, but who's counting? 1.6.8? 1.6.5. But who's counting? You make videos in personal finance. You do a lot of magic. I do.

Which is really cool to watch when you're doing these videos to incorporate that into your editing. And it's neat. It's really neat stuff. Thank you. And you were able to go from...

You started a dividend portfolio. I remember that's how you got started on YouTube on Robin Hood. There's making passive income And then you've grown that into What's that at now? Yeah, so far I could check Can I pull it up or?

Yeah. I think it's a little over 400 now. But I've kind of switched my strategy. So when I started, I wasn't making as much. So now that I'm in the highest tax bracket, I kind of dialed back to focus more on broad market index funds. Makes a little bit more sense. But so far it's at, come on, Robin Hood.

Load. Robin Hood. Hey, I love Robin Hood. What an amateur. Yeah, it doesn't want to load here. The crypto guy buys all of his stocks and... How much is this? It's not loading.

Come on, Rob, I don't know if it's your service or what. But anyway, it's about 450, 460 right now. That's great. And that started from what? And that started from... So when I quit YouTube, I think I had in my portfolio about 150, 170. When you quit YouTube? Sorry, when I quit my job to start YouTube.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that was 170K around, which was about two and a half years ago. I started January 2019. Yeah. And within two years, I got to a million subs. Luckily, I don't know how I did it, but here it is. And Graham is my mini-me. I'm just kidding.

So what I think is really cool, we had you on the podcast. When was it back in like February, it was the beginning of this year. Yeah. And we were talking about cryptocurrency. And you were telling us a little bit about the dangers of tether and what was going on with Bitcoin and Ethereum. And back then, that was just like just as things were taking off. So what have you now noticed with everything going on with El Salvador, with currency prices, just going crazy, and then just this flash crash that recently happened? What are your thoughts on everything? And have you changed your own investing strategy for crypto?

No, it's honestly stayed the same, but exactly what I thought would happen is happening, which is now we're shifting from institutional buying to now countries fighting for Bitcoin. And it seems like if you're an early adopter, then, you know, it's helping those countries that don't necessarily have strong currencies. So now we have Ukraine, I think, was the latest country that announced that they made Bitcoin legal. And that's going to have, again, a domino effect. We're going to have all these countries around Europe that are going to start adopting Bitcoin. And it's only going to keep growing. So why would a country go and start adopting Bitcoin, which is an alternative currency, to what they could be using and promoting their own currency within said government?

Why would they allow Bitcoin? Yeah, that's a good question. It's because their currency is not strong enough on a world scale. It's just not a strong currency against the dollar, right? Those countries are printing their money away. Their currency has no purchasing power, which means if you're a citizen of those countries, the price of goods is increasing every day. So to have some sort of store of value for those people, they're trying to put it all into Bitcoin.

Would it be possible for them to create their own currency? Like, let's say El Salvador. Right. Instead of Bitcoin, they say, hey, we're coming out with our El Salvador coin. Everybody's going to get X amount of this coin. You could redeem it for this. from making this legal tender. There's only going to be so many of these.

Like, can't they develop their own? Yeah. And then every country now, like, you go to Canada. They have a Canada coin. The U.S. You got the... What would be different from that than, like, the U.S. dollar? It's just a digital...

It's really just a digitalized dollar, and people might feel like it has less impact for inflation. Yeah, well, they are doing that right now, but not for the same purposes as they would for Bitcoin. The reason they're doing that is they just want to digitize their currency, right? It's the same as the U.S. is doing here with, We're trying to create our own U.S. digital coin. And those countries are not trying to recreate Bitcoin.

And even if they did, nobody's going to start adopting that currency as Bitcoin. They're not going to just switch over because countries kind of hate each other. They're not going to work together. So Bitcoin has that strength of not being owned or controlled by any single authority. And because no one lays claim to it, people feel like it's kind of neutral. So they want to buy it. Does that make sense? Yes.

Isn't it a bit dangerous, though? let's say for El Salvador, they all get a certain amount of currency. I think they were giving everyone $30 of currency, right, if they set up a wallet. Can you explain this in depth a little bit more for some people that may not know a lot about it? I'll let you explain it about El Salvador.

No, I'm not actually familiar. Are they giving away $30? Uh-oh, Graham. He's backed into a corner. Do you know how to explain it, Graham? Are you sure you can do this? Wait a minute. Hold on.

Let me, can we Google this? No, I'm kidding. Okay, so. Alex, pull it up. Hold on. Are we getting our citizenship? So let me explain. So to my knowledge, what they're doing is that they're giving everyone $30 a Bitcoin who signs up for a wallet and basically implements this. So that's their way.

That's their incentive of getting people in on the door. And a lot of people just don't know how to work it. It's like imagine trying to get like your grandparent to understand how cryptocurrency works, get a wallet address. So they're thinking, well, you know, we throw 30 bucks. that's going to bring enough incentive to make that happen. But my concern was that literally the moment they implement this as a legal currency, it drops 15% in a matter of minutes. And having such a volatile currency, now everybody in El Salvador who implemented this,

now their money's worth 15% less in minutes. Wait, you said El Salvador is making their own coin, or they're giving $30 of Bitcoin? They're giving $30 of Bitcoin to their citizens who... And why do you say? that drop is happening. It's obviously, it's got to be a whale. I mean, we don't know exactly.

My understanding is that the reason of the drop was that there was some sort of whale who sold off a massive amount, triggered a whole bunch of margin calls around the way. That lowered the price of Bitcoin to a point, I think it was like 42, where immediately people started buying it back up, kind of stopped that loss. Then it's since recovered to about 46, 47, and now it's kind of hovering there. That's my understanding of it. Yeah, my understanding is just it's a case of buy the rumor, sell the news, right? Like you said, there's just some whales that heard the news, cool, El Salvador's adopting it,

they're implementing it, sell it, scare people, buy the dip. It's just another opportunity for them to take advantage of those people who have no idea what they're doing. But it's, again, it's a temporary drop, and that's what Bitcoin does. And these drops are going to become less and less substantial over time as more and more countries start adopting it as the market cap continues to grow. Yeah. So who do you think is going to be the next country? Well, Ukraine, I think, was the last one.

I could see, gosh, I could see countries in Africa start adopting it. So it's illegal in quite a few countries. Oh, yeah, it's illegal in a lot of countries. Yeah. And it's interesting because the countries that it's most illegal in are the ones with the most censorship. It's the governments that are the most corrupt and the most, the countries that want to censor the Internet, essentially. Those are the ones that are not allowing Bitcoin. Right.

So. And they're the ones that need it the most. Absolutely. They are the ones that need it the most. They are liberating those countries. Bitcoin is liberating those countries, 100%. Yeah, but then they give up control. I mean, you have to think, too, if you're a dictator and you want to control your entire country and just the masses, Bitcoin takes that control away. There's no incentive for those people to want to embrace Bitcoin.

And so imagine if that country that is censoring people did create their own currency. Do you think that people around the world are going to be like, oh, El Salvador created their own currency. I've got to buy into this. No one's going to do that. That's why I don't see any country trying to compete with Bitcoin to any relevant point. Yeah, I would love to see Zimbabwe.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I would love to now. Why is Zimbabwe? Are you not familiar with it? No, please. Are you actually not? I really am not. No. Zimbabwe is seeing the most inflation from any location, in the entire world. And you would literally

see people with trillion dollar bills, trillions. And they would have to walk with a wheelbarrow of money. There's pictures on it. Just to buy a loaf of bread. Like, imagine a wheelbarrow of money, hundreds of trillions of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. And I forget what their inflation was.

It was something like thousands of percent a year. Yeah. Like, by the time you receive money and spent it, it's lost value. That fast. So I'm like a Zimbabwe quadrillionaire is what you're saying. Yes. And you know what's funny. Well, not really funny.

But it's odd. I think it's, you know, as a bit of a souvenir, are people buying their currency on eBay. And you could say like you could buy a hundred trillion dollar notes on eBay for like, I think it's like 20 bucks, something like that. I have a collection from Zimbabwe for those. Yeah. I think there's one million, 10 million, 100 billion, 100 million, a billion, 10 billion, a trillion. Trillions, yeah.

I have all of those. I think the top is $100 trillion. And it's crazy because the value of the note itself isn't as valuable as the paper it's printed on. Like literally the paper is more value. It's like the penny. Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect analogy, yeah. That's incredible.

That's insane. It's like the dollar bills after, you know, Germany did that thing, and people started burning them because it was cheaper to burn dollar bills instead of buy fuel. Yeah. And also, remember Venezuela has another problem as well. So Venezuela's money is beautiful. I have a collection of those as well. They have a beautiful artwork on their money, which is also completely worthless,

unfortunately. Geez. And do they allow Bitcoin in Venezuela and Zimbabwe? To my knowledge right now, I don't know. I'm not keeping up with it. See, you really, when you talk about Bitcoin, it sells me on it so hard. Maybe I'm just a little too impressionable and juvenile, but like, you're really selling me on it. Andre doesn't even have to say anything. He just says the word Bitcoin. Jax's like, yes. Bitcoin good. Oh, okay. Wait a minute, but why do I have to sell you on it? What is a non-selling point for you?

That means you're averse to it. Why don't you like it then? Well, it just went from like 60,000 to 20,000. And for anyone, look, I have very limited knowledge of cryptocurrency. And just from any outsider seeing something do something like that when compared to like index funds, which are nice and safe or real estate, which doesn't generally do the same thing in such a short span of time, is very, very scary. First, I want to thank our sponsor Upstart. Hearing the credit card balance month after month can feel never ending.

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Loan amounts will be determined from your credit, income, and certain other information provided in your loan application. Upstart.com slash ICH. Thank you so much Upstart for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast. You know, so I do allocate a certain portfolio percentage, mainly just listening to what Graham says, you know, it's the 3 to 5%. And that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm at like 5 to 7%.

It's surprising that you say that, Jack, because you're the guy who invested. You had like 16 grand invested in Doge. I was just about to say that. That's the most volatile thing ever. That's different. It was going up. Okay.

And that is why. Only goes up. Bitcoin could go down. A lot of that was about principle. And honestly, I'm going to say a lot of it was about proving you wrong. Just because I was spiteful. But I just want to say it is lower today than the point I told you to sell at originally.

It's lower today than the point you. Yes. Yeah, but I sold that twice what you told me to sell out. Well, I've been telling you to sell along the way. That's the point being. If I sold it the first time you told me to sold, I'd be up like $100. It's still lower than that point where I was like, hey, you should probably sell. What's your most speculative investment right now?

Right now? Well, I got probably the power of like eight to 900 shares of Palantir. Oh, wow. So you mean options trading? Well, I have three. I call it the power of. power. Well, like, like, I got some, yeah, I don't, yeah, okay.

So I have like three or four call options, leaps. So like way out in 21, 22, way in the money. So like strike price, I'm talking like $7.50, $10. And then I think I have four or $500. So like 800. I like how you just use options trading language and you're like, oh, for people who don't know what Bitcoin is. I'm, I'm weighing the money for this.

What did you just say? Yeah. So effectively I'm owning. Effectively, I'm owning, you know, 800 or whatever. 800 shares. Yeah, Palantir, which is... Oh, they're 26 bucks. And I mean, the grand total value of them.

I'm not sure. So, like, the options that I bought were about $1,000 each, so $3,000. And then four or 500 shares of Palantir, I guess, would be like 15, 15 grand. Yeah, 15,000. Yeah, so, like, $18,000 in Palantir. And that's, like, for me, that's like a ton of money. What's your portfolio value in total? Wait, so what are you asking?

What are you asking me exactly? I want to compare your investment that you consider is the most volatile or the most risky to your actual investment portfolio. So you're asking how much money do I have in the stock market? Well, just in general, how much are you investing? Wait, so let me get this straight. So you're asking the stock market invested. What? I have invested.

I'll answer it. I'll answer it. No, the guy behind you. I'll answer it. Is it okay for me to say, Graham? What? Why wouldn't? Is he your daddy?

No, I'm just curious. Yeah. I just ask my permission. In Robin Hood, I think I have like $55,000. In Vanguard index funds, I probably have like $80,000 to $90,000. And then in M1 finance, I have about 70. So 150, so about 200,000, 200,000. Okay.

Is that 215? 215, 220? Yeah. That's how much I have invested in the stock market. And that counts Palantir. Yeah, and that counts Palantir. Which is about 15K. Yeah.

That's not bad. That's less than that. Well, Palantir is a, it's a kind of a newer stock. Yeah, 7%. Yeah, IPOed in the last year, and it's a newer tech stock. It's a little more volatile. But then again, I like the stocks. So I guess that's more most speculative.

I have more money in individual stocks, like Apple. I think I have like $30,000 in Apple. But then again, I wouldn't consider that more speculative than having 18 in Palatir. No, absolutely. But 7% is not that much. So if I were you, I would definitely swap that 7% Palantir with Bitcoin. no problem, you'd be fine. I have money in Bitcoin.

I have 5 to 7% in Bitcoin. 5% to 7%. All right, so you're fine. Yeah. And why do I think, I don't have to convince you with Bitcoin. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying now you're making me want to go to maybe 10, 15%. Honestly, you could go 15% Bitcoin.

I have the risk tolerance. That's the thing. I'll tell you this. I put 10% of my net worth when I reached a million in Bitcoin at the end of 2020. Uh-huh. And pretty much 10x at its peak. So crypto, by no intention of my own, kind of became 30 to 40% of my net worth. So you put in how much initially?

100 grand. Which was what percent? At the time, about 10%. 10%. And then it is now. About 40, 30, 30, 40. Which is how much money? Roughly a million.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah, roughly. That's pretty good. That's incredible. It's really good. Yeah. So I'm looking for places to put it.

So I can start earning interest on it. You turned from 100,000 to a million? Yeah. So you said it five-xed. No, I said it's 10x. That it's peak. 10x. Oh, it's peak.

Yeah. It's peak. Got it, got it. I got the title. Yeah, that's incredible. Wow, Andre, I had no idea. It was like that, man. Yeah, no, it's really cool.

But I've been investing in Bitcoin since 2014. I just didn't have that much money to put into it at that time. And I didn't really fully understand it. And I'm still trying to understand it. It's like the longer you're in Bitcoin, the more you learn and the more you realize how much you don't know about it. See, I think that's a little hard to stomach for new investors that aren't so familiar with Bitcoin. It might deter them.

It's like if they think that buying Bitcoin is much more complicated than buying a house, which to a lot of people probably does seem like that because people have houses. Then it's going to deter a lot of people. Like getting started investment properties is hard for people to stomach because it's just like you have to know how to fix this. You've got a no contract. You're going to know this. That's not true. The difference between real estate and Bitcoin is that real estate you need a lot of money to get started with, relatively speaking. With Bitcoin, if you try to introduce Bitcoin from a price appreciation perspective, if you're like, hey, I've got a cool opportunity for you to 10x your money.

That's terrifying. I would never take that investment. Sure. That's why if I'm talking to somebody about Bitcoin, I'm never going to say, look how much money I've made with it. I'm going to tell them about the Federal Reserve, and I'm going to paint this picture of how money works and what it is and how it's exchanged and what Bitcoin, you know, the Bitcoin's story in this world. And I think once you understand the monetary system, relatively, you don't have to understand it to the full degree. but just a little bit of the basics. I think you start to understand

that Bitcoin is not a risk at all. If you look at it from a price perspective, which is what I think Graham was doing for a really long time, then it's absolutely risky. It seems like a scam. It's like, I don't want to do this. So I wouldn't think about it in terms of price.

I would think about it in terms of the narrative and its place in the world. The use cases do make a lot of sense, but then again, it is just so much information because it's so new. It's overwhelmed. And I feel like we haven't even explored its full capabilities yet.

So like I said, I think it could deter some newer investors. And I'm sure if there was some sort of like Bitcoin encyclopedia or something that people could access with like a simplified version, if you know of any. Called YouTube. It's called Andre's channel. That's true. I'm not a crypto channel, but I do do a lot of crypto content. And the thing that I guess upsets me the most is that a few years from now, the people that are going to, that are learning about Bitcoin now that are just getting their feet wet, they're going to miss the boat in the next few years. it's going to be unattainable to even own one Bitcoin.

Really? Oh, yeah. Like I said, countries are going to buy in, institutions are going to buy in. I wouldn't be surprised if one day each Bitcoin is worth like a million bucks. That'll happen, I think, before 2030. See, but if you are that bullish on it, why 30 to 40% considering you have such a strong income? And that's not going anywhere. And you have a loan on your house?

Do you still have debt on? You pay it on cash, right? So why not just... Unfortunately, yes. Why not just go in on Bitcoin? You could invest a million dollars into an investment property or two, and then that will basically ensure that you're safe for the rest of your life, considering you have your current house paid off,

and then just everything else, Bitcoin. No, that's a great point. And the reason I'm not doing that is because I'm also risk-averse, and I think there are things that we don't know that we don't know, and you don't know what's going to happen. So, I mean, I fully believe in Bitcoin, and if I was a bigger risk-taker, that would be the smartest move right now,

because Bitcoin is going to appreciate far more than anything the stock market's going to do in the next 10 years. selling me on it. Yeah. Selling me on it. Yeah, why don't you go up to like... So for you, Bitcoin has got to be, what, 30%? Yeah.

It's not bad, honestly. Yeah. I think from here and out, even if you just invest 20% of your income back into Bitcoin, still pretty good. Yeah. No, I feel like I have a pretty good ratio,

20% of my net worth in Bitcoin, as it is, at a million. That's not bad. I feel good with that. First, we want to thank Gramerly for sponsoring this episode. You know what recent time-saving tips I've recently found? What?

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What are your thoughts now on Ethereum? Because everything happening with Ethereum lately is actually really interesting. And now I've started to buy more Ethereum when it dipped below, I don't know, 3500. It dipped around like 32. I started buying back in. and I was not buying Ethereum. I think I said on the millennial money podcast that I was only going to buy Ethereum

when it dropped below 18, or it was like 19, and they did a little bit. But now it's like 32, and that seems like a good, decent price to me. How many coins do you have? 50, 60?

50, 60. That's really good. I have so far about 100 of them. I'd like to have more, but, yeah, Ethereum is going to crush it next year, I think especially, just because they're going to go to the proof of state.

fake model. At that point, it's going to be insane. So for some people that may not understand Ethereum to the full extent, because I know a lot of people say Ethereum is way stronger currency than Bitcoin. I hear that a lot. Right. Like a lot of people would die for Ethereum. Why, like, what is that argument simplified? Oh, gosh. At its simplest core, I would say the reason people say that is because Bitcoin is deflationary. And as a currency, you don't want deflationary currencies. because deflationary currencies incentivize people to hoard on, right? They like just hold on of their money

and it's like, I'm not going to spend it. Ethereum has a higher print rate to where it's considered inflationary. So there's an endless supply of Ethereum? Right now there is. Technically there is, yes. Now, in 2022, when we go to proof of stake, which is a different consensus model,

we'll have a 90, I believe, don't quote me on this, but a 90% issuance cut. So the rate of which we create Ethereum will be cut by 90% in 2022. At that point, it'll still be an inflationary currency, but it'll be substantially less. And do you know why they're doing that? Is the inflation rate a little too high at its current state? They're just restructuring the incentives that aligns more with proof of stake rather than...

What does that do? How does that help proof of stake? To me, it seems like they do that and it boosts the price up for everybody else. That's what it's seen. It seems like it's more like... selling it yeah it's like the fed kind of like you know protecting inflation but they're boosting the market up it seems like this is like well it works better but it's also gonna i wouldn't say it's like a marketing gimmick it's not it's not a marketing gimmick it's not it's not a marketing gimmick it's

just instead of the fees going to the miners the fees would instead go to the people holding the coins that's the proof of stake right so if you're holding the coins you are the one that gets the fees rather than the miners so it's it's less a marketing gimmick and it's more but but but but a mechanic of yeah but if they're if they're issuing 90% less that's going to incentivize people to hold on to it and use it less as a currency for its intended purpose, right? It's too early to say, I think. I think we should wait and see.

But all currencies in their current form are bad currencies, just because they're very slow and expensive to use. Like Bitcoin, for example, the block time is 10 minutes, right? That means if I was to buy something at the store right now, not to mention the fact that it's like $5 to even spend a Bitcoin, which makes no sense if I'm going to buy something that's $5, I'm going to have to wait, potentially. up to 10 minutes to check out, which would be really lame, right? It's like wait in line for 10 minutes.

People behind me be really upset. So on layer one, Bitcoin is not a good currency. Neither is Ethereum. We have to go to a second layer. It's kind of like, think of it like dimensionally. We have to go to a higher dimension, a higher level to interact with these currencies. But that's a whole other enchilada that if you want to get into that. Jeez.

Do we want to get into that? I do. So are you saying like how Robin Hood's not technically like trading the stocks like because I think we talked about this last time. But this whole new enchilada right. It would be something you trade on top. Yes. Of of it that basically just signifies it,

but it's not actually. And it has a faster transfer speed. Yeah. And then once that transfer occurs, then it has the like it's it's slowly pushing this log like the lower inchelotta. So it kind of, I hate this enchilada talk. It reminds me of like,

We're going to be Hispanic food, man. Yeah, bro, it's good. It's like we're going from gold where it's like it was difficult to like, hey, I'm going to pay you an X amount of gold,

but I have to find a way to store it. So instead, we're going to create this dollar that signifies what gold should be so I just pay, we pay in dollars that's redeemable for gold. Yeah, grams ahead of the curve.

He knows where I'm going with this, but yeah. But as soon as this upper enchilada gets established, then it will be quicker. Yeah, we have any time horizon on this upper.

Then it's the rice, then it's the beans. Yeah. full meal. Yeah, think of the Ethereum within like the, like the salsa on top, like the guacamole, if you will. Man, I'm getting hungry. Okay, so what you were saying with Robin...

The gas fees are like sour cream. I'm naked stuff, Robert. Let's just keep it going along the way to do this. So what you said with Robin is absolutely true. What we're trading in Robin is just derivatives, right? The representation of the shares and not necessarily the shares themselves. That's how Bitcoin is trying to become a currency is through something called the Lightning Network, which I know.

you've heard of before. And the Lightning Network's like imagine if Graham and I wanted to interact with each other. And the Lightning Network is a bunch of nodes that are all connected to each other. And if Graham and I connect, maybe Graham and I are also connected to Starbucks or to, what's the coffee brand? Bankroll. Bankroll.

Oh, sorry. This is a smooth. Now for sale at bankroll coffee.com. Bankroll coffee. All right. So let's just say that we're all connected to all these different businesses. This money, Bitcoin would be routed through our channels. So if you and I wanted to send Bitcoin to each other,

rather than transact on Layer 1, which is expensive, we would open a channel together, we would deposit our Bitcoin enough to cover the cost of those transactions. We would transact infinitely, instantaneously cheaply. And when we're done, we can close out our channels and we can settle then on the Layer 1. Does that make more sense? Yeah, totally.

So how often would Layer 1 settle? Is this something like I'm going to put like 50 grand of Bitcoin in this account, trade instantaneously and like every week it settles? Right. That's a good question. So initially it seems like we'd be closing it all the time. But opening a channel and closing it, you have to pay a fee on layer one. So it kind of doesn't make sense. So if you want to create a channel, you're probably not going to close it for a very long time.

So I will say that like, and I know I'm going to upset a lot of people that believe in the Lightning Network, but the Lightning Network is something that's been promised to us for, I want to say like the last six years now, and it's been perpetually two years away. It's not, I mean, it's here, but not to the degree that we'd like to see it. Just because the technology itself is so, so, so complicated that, okay, so let's get deeper.

So Bitcoin works on game theory. It's an incentive theory where humans are incentivized to be greedy, because we are, where humans are greedy, right? So Bitcoin works because we're greedy. That's why we have miners. They get paid fees. Miners are not doing this altruistically. They're doing it to get paid these fees, right?

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The Lightning Network is not necessarily aligned with the right game theory. In order for the Lightning Network to work, game theory kind of falls apart because a lot of Lightning's, I guess, security issues stem from people needing to be altruistic.

They need to not screw each other over. Because there aren't so many fees and stuff like that. I'm not going to get into it. because even I don't understand the extent of how it works, but just know that game theory doesn't work on this second layer as much. People have to be trusted to do the right thing. Bitcoin works precisely because you don't need to trust me to do the right thing. I have no choice.

Bitcoin works the way that it works because of game theory. And if you develop a new technology to try to interact with it on, it breaks down because now it's a completely separate thing. And so just as Graham was saying, when we had gold, it had its own problems, right? That was base layer one. It was heavy. It was expensive.

It didn't make sense. We created dollars that represented pieces of gold, which we then interact with, right? But at some point, we got rid of gold, and at some point we printed so much paper that it didn't even represent that piece of gold anymore. So that was the issue we came across. And one of the arguments that I think Graham was about to bring up is that we could experience the same thing on lightning, where we're creating so many of these derivative coins that may not be. It detaches. Yeah, exactly. It detaches from base layer one.

That's one of the arguments. But a deeper argument beneath that is game theory, which again is just the technology doesn't work if you're going to be selfish. Because there are times at which you'll have a choice. Do I steal money from this person or do I not? And when that happens with money, it just falls apart. Now, again, I'm going to upset a lot of people in the crypto space. They're like, oh, Andre doesn't know he's talking about the Lightning Network probably,

but it becomes very complicated. And for me, I'm not 100% convinced that the Lightning Network will ever be created. It'll never really exist to the degree that we think about it. But even so, let's just say that the Lightning Network fails and it just can't exist, right? Let's just assume that. Let's assume the worst. Bitcoin will still be more likely to be worth a million dollars by 2030, even if it does not become the currency of the world.

So you don't think by dangling this carrot of the Lightning theory or the Lightning whatever, it's increasing the price of Bitcoin. drawing more attention to it. No, I think it has very little to do it. I think the average person has no idea what the heck lightning network is. Yeah, I mean, I've heard of it before, but I did not know. I don't even think it's priced in. It's not priced in, no.

So if they were to say, oh, we're not going to do the lightning thing, it's not going to... I don't think it's going to affect it. You know what it is? It almost reminds me of, like, Tesla's autonomous taxi network. It's not really priced in. I don't think it is. Besides Kathy would believe in, oh, you know, it's going to be $3,000 a share. Right.

I don't think the average investors looking at that and be like, yeah, that's going to be an autonomous taxi network in five years from now. That's debt. Sure. We're going to buy that. But there's so many things Elon has said that I don't know if it's priced into the stock because he's promised the world and he's promised just everything. I don't know how much of it, like you said, is priced in or not.

But I feel like every time I talk about Bitcoin, like we're getting really into the weeds here, it probably puts people asleep. But I think game theory is super fascinating. That is fascinating. It's pretty cool. I like it. Yeah. Bitcoin works because people are greedy and they're selfish.

and Bitcoin works because it relies on that. I'm glad I got the answer to Ethereum and why that, like, people like that so much. Are you doing Ethereum, Jack? I'm doing Ethereum on the side. A little bit of, yeah, a little here. Yeah, I think I'm actually nearly 50-50 Ethereum Bitcoin. And then I'm like, I got like $1,000 in Lightcoin. Don't know what it does.

Just someone told me to buy. Let me ask you this. Why is it Lightcoin the next thing to like blow up? Because it reminds me a little bit of like Dogecoin. In a sense where it's like you see it on Robin Hood. Right. And you're like, wow, it's cheap relative to everything else. Let's buy this.

Why aren't people, why has nobody done that with light coin yet? Yeah, that's a good question. I think the reason is, and I could be wrong, two reasons. Number one, because it's an old coin, right? It's not exciting anymore. It's not like, oh, guess what, somebody created this new technology. It gets a lot of hype, right? So it's old news, number one.

Number two, I think it lost momentum in steam when the creation. of Lightcoin sold out and he just sold all of his position and he left the project. That's what Dogecoin did. True. True. But for some reason, it didn't have a stain on that project, the same way that it did for Lightcoin. People just had a really bad experience when that happened. And I think that kind of killed the momentum of Lightcoin. And it just never came back. Part of me always looked at like like Like coin and be like, you know what? Maybe just throw like $50, $100,000. Oh, wow. It did well for me so far. Like coin? Yeah. Well, the only reason is it is that, you know, the only reason

I say that is because it just seems like just in terms of human psychology when you're looking at the stats, you have doge coin, the least expensive, and then light coin in Robinhood. Yeah, actually, a lot of investors will do this. They'll look at the top five or let's say coin, I don't know what it is on Coinbase, like the top five, like you said, if they see Bitcoin at $40,000 and Ethereum at $4,000, and they see Lightcoin at $100, $200,000, it's like, oh, well, of course this one is cheaper. Yes. And so people will invest in it short term. Yeah, now I'm not saying that that's any representation of value or that it means it's a good deal. I'm just it like psychologically. Oh yeah. I bet a lot of people did that with Dogecoin. They looked at

it to be like it's a fraction of a cent. I did. Let me buy a hundred dollars worth. 100%. That's what happened to Ethereum Classic as well. Yeah. Ethereum class, I think was $100. I was like, oh, great. This is like a discounted Ethereum. Some people bought into it. Now, if you want to hold onto it for the long term, I think is a whole different question. I wouldn't be willing to, but knowing crypto, I know like a year from now, people can be like, oh, that Andre, he's an idiot. Look, light coin's at 10 grand now. Yeah, well, I would be shocked. But I could honestly see light coin going from like 120 to 500 bucks, 600, just at least something relative. Because even when you look at the recent, like

when Bitcoin hit 60K, light coin basically just hit its all time high in 2017. It never went beyond that. See, for me, whenever we talk about this kind of stuff, that to me is like the epitome of gambling. And I saw this in 2017. And all these ICOs were being created and people like, yeah, but there's new technology and it's going to go to the moon and the exact same reasons. And you could be 100% right. But I feel like at this point, because we have Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are taking like 90% market share, if you're not going to invest in those and you're just going to speculate on the other ones, to me, that's literally no different than going to the casino and playing blackjack. You could be 100% right or you could be wrong and it goes nowhere and you lose all your money. Like if you want to take that risk, that's fine.

but I think that fuels the narrative of crypto being speculative. It was like when people think like that. I don't think you'd lose your money. I would think you lose the opportunity cost of not investing something else. I don't know. I feel like if you really focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum, if you know that's a surefire bet, like, yeah, long term, I would agree.

Long term, I would agree. 100%. So why speculate short term? Like, I feel like that's what really scares people off is this talk when you're like, oh my God, my head's exploding with information. Bitcoin, Ethereum is so complex. And it's like, now let me introduce you to light coin and dogecoin. And like, you're just like, dude, forget about it.

It just gets too speculative. So you think that Bitcoin and Ethereum, not like literally, but are really kind of the only like legitimate ones? No, no, not true. No. I think there's going to be a few cryptocurrencies in the future that are going to be a big part of the economy. I don't know which ones. I mean, people speculate like Cardano is going to be maybe an Ethereum. But right now, it's really.

maybe Bitcoin and Ethereum. Not to give you, not to force a hot take on you. Right. Right. But maybe only Bitcoin Ethereum. Honestly, I'm not like an expert in any of this stuff,

not Bitcoin, not Ethereum, not these like alt coins. So I can't answer that for you. There are other people that are like way more knowledgeable about this stuff. I'm pretty sure there will be. I don't know what they are.

And I would, if I have Bitcoin and Ethereum, this is something Warren Buffett, by the way, something he said, he said, if you have one good idea for an investment,

and I'm paraphrasing, your second best idea will never be as good as your first. So if you know that Bitcoin is your best idea, let's say, or Ethereum, why would you ever go anywhere else if you know that you only have one best idea, right? That's probably why he's worth like $100 billion. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to stray away.

So what's up with this Cardano, huh? What does Cardano do? How much is that going to be worth? What's your price target on Cardano? I've been trying to get Charles Hoskinson, the creator of Cardano, on YouTube. And he followed me on Twitter, and I reached out to him, but he hasn't responded yet. So I'm waiting. But I'd love to have him on.

If you're watching this, Andre wants to have you on, Charles. I would love to have Charles on. He's really, really great. He's knowledgeable. Do you know anything about Cardano? What does it do? No, I don't even want to comment on that because I know people can be like, no idea we're talking about.

So I'm not even going to try. That's fine. Neither do I. And it's so crazy because. With crypto, it's so intense. Like with stocks, there's only so much information that you have to look into to be like, okay, I think this is a worthwhile stock to get into. This company's balance sheet looks healthy enough to where it looks undervalued.

I'm going to invest in it. But with crypto, it's like there's like a never-ending black hole of information. It's like, oh, what about Bitcoin? What about Ethereum? What about Cardano? That makes sense. You don't know one nuance and then people just jump on you for it. So, why don't we call out some scams?

What are some things that you would say, like, that's questionable. No, that's literally putting me on the chopping block with crypto. It's like, you say one wrong thing. We've moved on to like a newer era of investing where if you say anything bad about anything, even if it's a blatant scam, like, what was it? BitConnect. BitConnect was. Even at that time, if you had said, BitConnect is a scam.

You would have been destroyed socially. Why do you think people take it so seriously? I think because... I take it personally. Yeah, that's a good question. Because the people that invest in the most speculative investments generally are not, I would say, the most clued in and the most...

I want to say intelligent, but the most maybe educated about what they're doing. And they're, as a result, probably not the wealthiest either. And so to them, these investments represent their escape to freedom. Like, it's like, don't get in the way between... a mammal and it's food. Like if you get in the way, you're going to get mauled. So it doesn't matter what you say about these investments.

If you have nothing positive to say, just get out of the way and don't say it. You know what it reminds me of a little bit, that the fact that you say anything negative could influence the price. Oh, absolutely. Of that cryptocurrency. And because of that, it's costing them money. So if I say, I don't like this stock and the stock price goes down a cent, that's costing somebody something. Exactly. And that could be their livelihood, whether that's right or wrong.

It's literally taking food off their table. Yes. Yeah. If you hate on index funds, no one's like, oh, you know. But here's the thing. Like, I talked so much crap about BitConnect back in the day. I got so much hate. And all of it.

I remember one of my BitConnect videos was more dislikes and likes, which is like, never happens on YouTube unless you really mess up. But I'm like, I'm right about this. At what point do you got to be like, I'm doing a public service. I'm protecting people, because eventually I'm going to be right. Can I save 100 people from investing in this thing and losing their money if in the short term it causes some people to question their investment and get angry? Yeah, that's a really good question.

I guess that comes down to who you choose to be as a person, and I guess I've chosen not to be the moral arbiter of truth when it comes to things. Like, I'll just let people find out for themselves. And I don't want to stand in anybody's way of making or losing money, if that's what they want to do. I want to talk about what I enjoy and what I think is the best investment and that's what I think and I'm not going to try to put anyone else down even if I believe that it's a scam. Completely unrelated to scams or anything. Andre, there's this video that you took down about this coin. Yeah. You know, unrelated to, you know, what we were talking about?

What can you say about that coin, you know, without naming the coin? Oh, gosh. What coin is it? Oh, is it? You can talk about it. Yeah, we can talk about it. Okay, this is the first time. Yeah, wow. I don't know much about it other than the video that I made on it.

So just for anybody on aware, that was called the million token, right, from Tech Lead. So he released that token. And I guess when he launched it, it was supposed to be backed $1 for every coin that he released. And it was only supposed to be a million. Well, it turns out that I think he initially put in like $50,000 into it. And he didn't have the full million. But by that. point when he was quote unquote exposed for not having done that the project was so

valuable that he could easily just liquidate his holdings and represent the million one for one so it was just more of like a political witch hunt I guess and so a creator coffee zilla made a video on tech lead and they had this like what I like to call the most toxic collaboration on YouTube I've ever seen it was interesting it was interesting like this back and forth I can't stand those when they're just like back and forth arguing with other right and it's so interesting because I feel like tech lead really got coffee zilla to play into this project like he played him like a fiddle he really did this intentionally now when I released my video and I saw coffee zilla release his I was like oh gosh well if it's true and if this project

really is a scam I should probably take my video down because I don't want anybody else to get hurt and for doing that I started to notice like my YouTube channel started to get negative comments and I'm like what's going on that's when I found out what was going on and to this day, none of it makes any sense to me because even though I took my video down, Tech Lead and CoffeeZilla have made these videos back and forth with each other.

Meanwhile, I take my video down. You have to remember, Tech Lead is making money off of his project. He's making money off of his videos. CoffeeZill is making money off of Tech Leeds videos. They're having this toxic collaboration where they're both making money off of each other, and I'm the idiot in the middle that's not making money

off of anything. And I'm just like, gosh, I should just take this video down because it doesn't make sense. I think the moral of the story is to keep the video up. Because once the video's on YouTube, for the most part, it's up there. Somebody's downloaded it. Somebody's reacted to it. Well, somebody could find it.

And then if you take it down, the immediate go-to is, what is he hiding? Right. Why did he have to take it down? He wouldn't take it down if he didn't do something wrong. Right, right. And that's why I've always had this philosophy where, like, if I post something up there, I'm going to keep it up. Right.

And it's just because otherwise if you take it. it down now, it's like, you know, I rather, yeah. Generally, I agree with you. I took it down and I waited until Tech Lead made a response. That's what I said. I was like, I'll wait until the creator makes a response that makes sense. I'll put it back up. Tech Lead never really made a, like, a non-sarcastic response that I understood because all of his videos are very sarcastic. So I watched all of his videos, but it didn't feel as though he addressed directly. It was like character assassinations back and forth. But what's interesting to me, though, is that after I made my community post, explaining what happened and explaining

my position, Coffeezilla made a comment on my community post that's like, oh, well, you know, good job. You made the right decision. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then I'm like, wait a minute. These two guys are giving each other so much toxic attention. And this project is getting so much attention and Coffeezilla is making money off of this project because they're making videos about each other.

How is it my responsibility to take my video down? Meanwhile, he's making five or six videos on his million token. It's a double standard. It doesn't make any sense because I have nothing to benefit from. Coffeezilla's making money. TechLeans making money. And yet, coffee Zill is like, oh, good job for taking it down. Like, wait a minute.

Should it be your responsibility to not make videos about this either? Because you're giving it way more attention than my one video did. Well, I think the difference is that Coffee Zilla really called it out negatively. I think your video from what I remember was neutral. It wasn't positive. It wasn't negative. It was right in the middle. Right.

And so people can interpret that however they like. They can interpret that positively or they could just be, I'm not interested. Coffee Zilla was very much on the side of this is bad, this is negative. These are these lies. Sure. But he's smart enough to know, and so is tech lead and so is Coffee Zilla. They're both smart enough to know that regardless of what the message is, positive, negative or neutral, the end result is that you're still bringing more attention to a project that Coffee Zilla otherwise believes is a

scam. I don't believe. Look, you're right. You bring more attention to it. But at the same time, I bet that the net change in people buying and selling millionaire token considering Coffee Zill making these videos is probably fewer people. No. Or those, you think so?

I know so. That more people bought it after Coffee Zill and made his videos. But then again, wouldn't these people just be negligent? No, or they go into it is the second, at least knowing they're like, hey, this is what's going on. Let me take a risk on it. The general rule of thumb for crypto, and this isn't always true, but it happens more often than you think, is that whenever a project is having negative publicity and negative attention, that's when people buy in more. Because they see it as an opportunity.

They're like, ooh, it's dipping. I should buy in now. And whenever somebody praises a project, and believe it or not, I've seen this on my own YouTube videos, whenever I say something is going to the moon or something is a really cool project, that same day, the project will dip. And that's just because people assume they're like, oh, well, if Andre found out about this, that means we're at the top, right? Now the public is talking about this. So to answer your question,

that attention that they brought on the project actually had a net benefit effect. And I'm telling you, both of those guys are smart enough to understand that. So I don't want to be the mascot of the scapegoat for all of this negative attention. And that's why I took the video down. I get that. I don't know.

As far as my thoughts, not that anyone asked for it. I'm pretty much neutral on this too. I think a lot of the accusations that were made, not the biggest deal to me. I would see these things and just be like, all right, I think there's a lot of nuance there and not putting up a full million.

It doesn't really seem needed. There is no evidence that he cashed out. He made money on the project, but he should make money on the project because he created it. I don't see that as an issue. It didn't have the most success. I mean, it moved, right?

When it launched, I mean, gosh, it went all the way up to 200 and something. It had like a $200 million market cap, which was nuts. Now it's down to like $16, $15 million. So whoever bought it $200 and it's now down at $16, they lost a lot of money. It lost a lot for sure.

But for the people who bought in at a dollar, it was a smart concept. For sure. I mean, it was part of me thinks it's like, not that I would ever do this, but like why didn't I think of it? It was one of those things. Oh, yeah.

Where it's like putting up a million bucks as a social experiment and just back it with your own money for a million bucks. I mean, like, there's nothing you could lose on that. I'm not discounting that as something I wouldn't try. Like, I would love to do that at some point. And just because he's done it doesn't mean that it can't be done again. I feel like that's something I would love to try at some point. I don't know.

Like, I don't have plans for it. But I'm just saying, like I said, it's a great idea. It's a good idea. It's a great idea. I bet he had to have had so many lawyers looking through this. Because the thing with Tech Lead is that he's not dumb. No, he's very smart. He's really smart.

And I think he just thinks on like a level outside of what, like most people are in this like sphere of like where they think. I think tech lead is like over here. And just thinking of all these abstract thoughts and ideas and what could happen, this and that. So I'm thinking he's planned like five moves ahead and isn't going to get sued, is not going to subject himself to the SEC. But there were some things you saying like it could go to the moon. This could be. Like some of that wording is it kind of. kind of got me where it's like, it feels like a security.

It does. Speaking of securities, yeah. Did you see Coinbase being regulated potentially for the lend product? Yeah, so for those not familiar. Because I was doing a lot of research on this today. Are you making a video about this tomorrow, Audrey? Are you going to make a video about it? No comment.

We always do this, right? The thing... Wait, what is it? It's Thursday today? Yeah, it's Thursday day. Okay. You know what? The thing is, we got to settle this really quick. Before we go to this, people think that we collaborate on video ideas.

Right. And we post at the same time. So let's address this. Let's watch this beef. Sure, sure, sure. Why does sometimes you post at the same time as me? You were posting at 315. Yes.

And then you went to 330. Yes. I posted 330. Right. And I've been doing that for five years. That's true. So the reason that I did that, I think I started at 3 originally. Yes.

Then I went to 315. And it's not because I'm just. trying to release the video at the same time as you are. It's just genuinely sometimes I'm so late on my edit that I'm just like, ah, gosh, I can't make my 315. So my next slot is 330. Got it. And sometimes it's 3.45 or 4, whenever it might be.

But I try to make 315, but it just doesn't always work. That's generally why. It's nice at 315 because once they're done watching your video, they hop on over to grams. So let's do that. 315 tomorrow for me and 330 for you. I can't promise. Maybe we'll post a 3. Sometimes they post a three

Because my strategy sometimes is posting on an off hour And people are like, why is it early? Yeah, if it's breaking news They realize that like, oh my gosh, it's a new video You can't do that all the time And if you get inconsistent too often, they won't watch it all Absolutely. But like I would say maybe once to twice a month, I'll post early.

Right. That's it. So on occasion I'll do that. If I can, I'll try to do that too. If I feel like the video is maybe going to be slow, I'll change up the time. Yeah. It's a psychological thing too, for sure. But people always think that we collaborate on business.

We've never spoken about videos ever or like we never coordinated anything. That would be horrible. And people don't realize that like if we said like, hey, let's both make videos on this topic, we're doing both of us a disservice. Right. Both doing the same topic. I think it waters down the overall content for each of us. So, okay.

It just so happens that we, I guess, just make the same videos. So clearly we're doing the same video tomorrow. So I have something I feel like I dug up. really deep into the research for my video tomorrow? So did I. Yeah. Who dug deeper? Who went deeper?

Oh, gosh. That's a loaded question. Yeah, there's a few interesting things I found out about, I suppose, why Coinbase is targeted. Because, like, Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, right? He feels really slighted. He's like, why? It's not fair. Well, how about this?

Since you're so researched, explain the issue with Coinbase lend. Coinbase lend. Yeah. Yeah. So Coinbase Lend is their program to lend out USDC, right? The stable coin at 4%. And they worked with the SEC to try to release this product, which was mistake number one.

I don't think Brian should have ever contacted the SEC. But they should have because they're a publicly traded company. And if the SEC cracks down on a product like that when they're publicly traded, that is disastrous for the stock. So they have to. Sort of. It's better to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission. That's my philosophy.

What happened with Robin Hood's savings account where they just unleashed it? And then the FDIC, hey, and that was disaster. And they weren't even public-a-traded. That's not because they didn't ask. That's because they weren't FDIC insured. They should have done that. There's nothing to do with their permission. But I would beg to differ.

I'd back to differ. Because it's all in the interpretation of what they call a bank account versus cash management account. Okay, fair enough. I think that Coinbase shouldn't have asked permission because there's another public company, which I'll explain in a second, that does have this product, which is Voyager. They have an interest rate program as well. So the Lend program. So they reached out to the SEC.

The SEC says, no, you can't, right? You can't do this project because that's considered a security. And Brian Armstrong, the CEO, started to tweet storm saying, this is some sketchy behavior by the SEC. Who are they trying to protect? They're clearly trying to protect the legacy banking system because we're paying way more interest on our accounts than, you know, the national average of 0.06%, whatever it is.

So what I figured out, and there's two things, There's something called the Howie Test, which I don't know if you covered, right? I did, the Howie Test, and the Securities Act of 1933. The first page. Jeez. I swear. Yeah, this is crazy. This is hilarious.

The first page, man. Oh, my gosh. Let's drop our videos at the same time. Let's not. How long is your video? It's going to be, yeah. It's like 13 and a half. Graham?

1350. Mine's going to be like 16. Oh. But he has like a. A minute and a half intros and out of Yeah, and I'm mentioning

I get writing to it. I mention a few of things. You want to watch mine because mine's more brief and condensed. I want to watch mine because I simplify things

a little bit easier. Yeah, but you don't have a lot more sponsored messages and cares about it. But mine's a lot more interesting. No,

sponsored messages is like two and a half minutes I don't fill my content with magic tricks. Yeah, yeah, you get sponsors instead. You get money. Oh my God.

He's doing something with that time. Oh, hey, there's no magic tricks tomorrow. Just saying. You'll be madge you because the people are going to watch my view first. Okay, okay, fair enough.

We covered the two reasons, right? We covered the How We Test and the SEC. So I kind of respond. So I responded to Brian like this. This is what I'm most proud of in the video that I said. The reason that the SEC is targeting Coinbase specifically, whereas they're not with Voyager, is because of how the interest rate model works on Coinbase versus Voyager.

The interest rate model on Coinbase, is through lending. Lending is considered a security because it's a lending product. So it's considered a security because in 2008, when we had the collapse, it was a result of the securities lending. Let me clarify, actually.

As someone who's researched this topic, it's not just lending. Lending is not a security. It's when you're lending in conjunction with a pool of other people on the efforts of somebody else. And they say... That's the how we test.

We're talking about. We're to cover this. I'm over this. But you're saying that lending... is a security, the fact that you're lending. It's not that you're lending. It's your lending with a pool of other people. I think you're nitpicking.

I think you're nitpicking, too. Anyway, that's not what I was trying to get at. What I was trying to get at is that Coinbase's interest rate model is based on lending, right? So we make money through Coinbase, if they had this product out, based on the money they lend out to their clients. Okay. Voyager is not targeted by the SEC, even though it's a public company. Why? Do you know this?

Uh. Why? I'm letting you. I want to see if you know it. All right. So the reason that Voyager is not as targeted is for two reasons.

The size of the influence of Voyager, because they're like exponentially smaller than Coinbase's first reason. The second reason is because their interest rate model is based on the bid and ask spread. Whenever you buy Bitcoin on Voyager, let's say you buy $1,000 worth of Bitcoin.

They would find you Bitcoin for $999. They pocket the difference. With that dollar of profit, They pay you interest on your money. That is a significantly lower risk model than lending. Does that make sense? So they incentivize you to hold rather than to transact. No, that's not what I was trying to say.

So the way Voyager makes its money through this interest rate product is through basically scalping your order. That's what they say. We don't know if that's actually the truth. I'm pretty sure it's the truth. I would be shocked if they'd make it that. much money on scalping Bitcoin on the platform to pay what their interest rates are. It's probably not the only way they make money, right?

But that's just one of the ways. Like Robin Hood. Right. Right. But part of the Howie test is saying that Coinbase is using this lended USDC to fund business operations. I would be shocked if Voyager was not using your USDC or Bitcoin or whatever to fund business operations in some way or another. They have to.

Maybe. But like I said, because Voyager is exponentially smaller, and the influence they have on the industry is not the same risk model as lending out our deposits. The SEC is looking at Coinbase differently because they are lending our money. And that's what really massively fails at how we test. I would say the biggest thing for me is just the size. The size publicly traded and they brought this to the SEC. And the SEC is just against cryptocurrency in general. They want to really regulate it.

And I think for them up front, there's no way of making sure that, that Coinbase couldn't Ponzi scheme it in some way because they're lending money. Who's to say they're not lending money to somebody else? Who's lending money to somebody else? That's way more tinfoil hat theory than me. Is it possible? I would be shocked, but for the SEC to make sure that isn't happening for the protection of the people.

My position is Gary Gensler. The chairman of the SEC is not like an evil dude. He just wants to make sure that 2008 doesn't happen again in crypto. And so his approach is to look at, at every project and every platform independently. Because if what Graham said was true, if the SEC really hates crypto and they really want to regulate it, they would have regulated Voyager out of existence yesterday.

But they haven't. Why? Because they want to make sure that the innovation we have in the U.S. based on crypto is not stifled. Because if we shut down crypto and we're like, hey, lending, stable coins, crypto is illegal, we're going to lose so much business and so much technology. It's going to go somewhere else and they don't want to do that.

They want to make sure to regulate us only so, 2008 doesn't happen again. And Coinbase's model is more conducive to that. I don't know. What do they do with Ripple? You know, they called that a security. Right. Couldn't that be stifling innovation?

Coinbase had to take it down. Well, it depends. How is Ripple making its money? What is its effect on the industry? Again, I would argue Ripple is a far bigger project than Voyager. Mm-hmm. I feel like I'm going to re-watch this segment. Like five times.

To understand this. Yeah, point being. Coinbase was shut down by the S. SEC. They said no crypto lend. Coinbase came back saying this is unfair. I think they're going to try to work out of maybe a middle ground or something. But overall, I don't know. I feel like things should be a lot looser in terms of regulation on that.

Also, that's the reason why BlockFi is being regulated by the states. They're getting crap for it because they have the same interest rate model. They lend our money to their clients. Again, Voyager doesn't do that. That's why they're not looked at as much. What BlockFi is. But anyway. But they say that.

Again, I'd just be shocked that Voyager's not doing that because BlockFi could just say, oh yeah, we're using our crypto bots to go and trade and with your money, we do this, and we pay you back a percent. But they're not. I mean, I think they're honest, probably, and that's bad because they're being honest and maybe they don't comply with certain regulations of certain states in the way it's defined. But I would be shocked if Voyager is literally making their money from that. Yeah, I guess we'll find out.

But either way, I think our titles are probably going to be the same tomorrow, too. What's your title? I'm not going to say it. I don't think it's going to be. I'm mentioning a few. You don't have your title. I literally put title undecided. Okay.

So what I'll do is I'll post after you. And then when I see your title, I'll make it better. Sweet. Sounds good. But after I get the views. No, I don't know. I'm probably going to title it's something different. Maybe it's going to be crypto related.

I'd say 50-50. Okay. Yeah. Because I mention a few other things. Okay. Yeah, now I'm just focused on this issue. So if you want to hear this issue, you're saying... We have a multitude of things, very exciting things.

Yeah, I talk about five things tomorrow. Yeah, if you don't want to watch sponsors and the other two things, then... If you don't want to waste your time watching magic tricks... Who doesn't want to watch magic tricks? That just fill it long enough for you to place mid-roll ads in the video. Come watch my content. If you don't want to watch magic tricks. Oh, God.

Sorry, if you don't want filler content, to try to get it to 10 minutes. Yeah, go watch sponsors. Mine. That is so funny. That impression was... Oh, that's nothing. All right, well, we'll see what's at.

What happens? I'll watch both videos. Thank you. I'll let you know. Thank you. Wow. Where did we go for me? That was really good.

What else? Yeah. Oh, my newest investment. Let's see it. All right. I want to see this. You guys ready for that? Yeah.

I don't think you're ready. Love to see it. All right. I know what it is. Do you know what it is? Yes, I know what it is. And this is going to be a clips exclusive because it's the visual content. Wow.

Yes. Subscribe down below to the clips channel. This is only going to be available there since this is a visual. Wait, Andre, to entice them. You know, the clips people, how much did you spend on this investment? I'm not going to say how much, but I can say what the original listing was listed for. Yeah, yeah. That would be good.

It was listed for $220,000. Oh, sweet. Whoa, that was incredible. That was cool. That was so cool. I'm so glad I watched that on the Clips Exclusive channel. Whoa. That was awesome.

It was like time traveling. I know. Thank you so much for showing us that. Can you believe that, Derek? I really can't. I'd rather watch this than sponsors. Well, I'd rather watch sponsors than magic. Anyway, what else is going on for you, man?

Like, personally, you don't really go into your personal life that much. Yeah, I'm throwing a housewarming party. pretty soon because the house is finally done which is awesome. Congrats to me yay. Congratulations. Yeah it was pretty cool and other than that I'm trying to do more sponsored videos so I can be like Graham. So you could buy a 4GT2.

You are going to buy a Tesla right? I was yeah Model Y and I still am but they've pushed the delivery dates like December from November. There's no way you could get around that? No I'm not that who's good. What about a Model X? I'm not sure

I'm a huge fan of the Model X like it's cool I'm not sure I like the going doors because they're like they're cool but they're not as practical as normal doors because you're driving a civic right now right no we're driving a Corolla my girlfriend and I are sharing a corolla yeah and then Corey she got a new job with Jeremy

she did that was pretty cool so now Corey works at home so we can actually travel places together and she doesn't have to ask somebody for permission to get off work that's cool which I think is awesome so what's the next step for you like what's after this or what's coming up the next Yeah, I'm trying to create an app

that is tied to a cryptocurrency like what Tech Lead is doing, but it's tied to a game of investing. I want to do everything that Robin Hood wished they could do because it's a game. It's not real investing. It's just like paper trading? It's gamifying investing in a way that's never been done before.

So it would be like an app game? Yes. It'll be like an app game that's fun to play and that gets people encouraged and motivated to invest. But it could also like teach them stuff. Exactly. And the financial incentive behind it is that there's a crypto stable coin that I've created.

Wow. That's interesting. Yeah. So it has a utility. Sounds an awful lot like a security. No, it's a utility token. Huh. Yeah.

When is that going to launch? I don't know yet. We're working on it. It's been over a year now that I've been working on. Who's we? Just me and someone else is a team from New York. Oh. It's working on it, yeah.

But if you guys are talented crypto people, reach out. I'd love help. with crypto. It's so complicated. I'm curious how it's, when you say a game, is it because Robin is kind of gamified investing, right? Make a trade, you get like confetti. It's just like paper trading, but

on like steroids. Like all the gamification is amplified by 10. Like you make a trade, like the screen flashes. You could say that. It's some variable of that, yeah. And is it tied to actual values of stocks? Like, does it track the market and then like incorporate that? Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, it's real time data and everything, yeah. And the financial incentive behind it is that, you know, if I actually incorporate real stocks or real money, that would be really essentially scrutinized. But if it was a crypto or a stable coin, maybe that's different. So that's what I'm hoping. What could you buy with that stable coin? Could you buy? Or is it only used for like in-app purchases? Maybe it's something you pottle for life.

I don't know. I'm thinking through it still. Okay. Yeah. I think it's a pretty cool idea. That is interesting. I'd love to like hear more about it, but I'm assuming you probably don't want to divulge too much

while I'm still in the beta. Either way, it's not, yeah, I just, I'm still learning about it, but even if I tell people, it's,

it's, the thing about apps is just, it's not the idea that's valuable, it's the execution. That's why, like, one of the things I actually

don't really like, is that I don't know if you experienced this with sponsors is like, hey, we want you to sign an NDA. I don't, I don't,

never? No, uh-uh. Okay, I've had somebody asked me to sign an NDA and I can't stand that. Like, NDAs make no sense to me.

Worthless, yeah. Yeah, it's like, dude, ideas are a dime a dozen. I don't want to sign your NDA, and that's going to prohibit me from, like, working on this idea potentially. Here's a great idea. Banana powered flying vehicles. If somebody creates that tomorrow,

does that entitle me to royalties? No, right. So why should an NDA? Yeah, NDA is sort of waste. But the app idea is really interesting. We got, with Jeremy, it's called The Hungry Bowl. Yeah, it's awesome. I'll link to it down below in the description

of anyone who wants to try that out. But we've been going now for a few months. Wait, was that smooth? Was that nice? No, that was not a nice intro? No. Okay. Behind a row.

Looking directly into the camera. Yeah. Hungryville is down below in the description where you could sign up and try it for yourself. Let us know what you think. Seriously, we got almost 30,000 people on the app so far. It's still a work in progress. I would say maybe we're 25% of the way in terms of doing exactly what we want to do on it. And there's a few other ideas and stuff that I want to implement.

Like right now, it's really just like the bare bones. and you're getting in at the ground floor if you sign up right now. It's free. Totally friends. No, no, not there. It's a good at 30. I like it.

As a customer of the app, I like it a lot. Listen, if Jack likes it, that's the best endorsement you could ever get. Is your goal to sell it to Black Rock for billions? I don't know. I don't know what the goal.

It's something new. That's what I like. Is it something new? It's something different. It's outside of YouTube. I could try a different endeavor. I like that aspect of it. Whatever ends up habit,

I have no clue. but I like the fact that it's not necessarily reliant on myself. It could grow independently of me. And it's just something a little bit different. That's cool. And I think really right now it's going in the direction of just eventually becoming an app that I wish existed for myself. Right. Right now it's it still needs more.

So I acknowledge that. You know what I want to know though? Yeah. What the people have going on at home. I want to know what their lives are doing. I'm going to read the comments. Yeah. try to reply to as many as I can

Nice Let us know what you think of the sponsors Of today's video Now I'm kidding Downblown in the comments section So we asked what's going on with you And you didn't say anything about your personal life You just you said

You know the app you're building and stuff So what's it going on with you? I've got no life man I've got no personal life Yeah I don't have a life I just I'm just working on YouTube all day Where do you see yourself 10 years from now About that?

Alive I hope I don't know. I hope that I'm still enjoying what I do. And I think the most I ever ask for is just to be happy and content where I'm at. And beyond that is just speculation. I just like, I don't want to predict it. I just want to be happy.

What about you, Graham? Ten years from now? Yeah. He's a buckets of money. Hopefully a lot of sponsors. I don't know. Definitely, I think 10 years from now, I want to take it easy a little bit more.

Yeah. That's a good goal. I like that. I took, what was it? I took Labor Day off. Yeah. I have to say, oh, man, I had not taken it like a, like a, and here's the weird thing. I worked that day.

You did? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's where I got all my reaction videos done. Oh, yeah, that's good. But it was, it was weird. It was like, I told myself, I'm just going to take the day off. And I got some of the best work done that day.

It was the weirdest thing, and I had so much fun. Well, you also only reacted to stuff. True. But like, once you take a week or two off in your life, like, purely, without work, you'll never be able to go back because you realize that life's just about enjoying it and not just working. But no, but I took the day off and I thoroughly enjoyed

work. It was just a fun day where I woke up. I slept in, like 8 a.m. Just read the internet for a while, like two hours. Took a shower, ate nice breakfast, did a whole bunch of great reaction videos at a fun time.

Went to the gym for like a solid hour. Went in the jacuzzi. I think Macy and I would have to do. Did you actually heat it up? It did. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've used the jacuzzi quite a bit, and I found out that gas is really not expensive at all. How much does it cost?

The gas bill went from, like, I think, like $15, like $20 a month. So it's like $5. Are you leaving it on now? No, not all the time. I just turn it on for probably like an hour. It heats up within about an hour. So I could turn it on, use it. Good for you, man.

Graham's got no soul. I think you probably had such a great day because. you just took it easy. You know, you worked your own time. Exactly. Exactly. There was no deadline to be like, yeah, oh my God.

During the week, if I don't hit the deadlines for every single day, I'm behind. And I have to make it up. That's a stressful way of living, though. I have to. You should take it easy more. Listen, that's, listen,

that's required. If you want to continue growing on the platform and continue like pushing, you have to do, I don't have the luxury of just, well, I'm not saying take off. I'm just saying don't stress about it as much. You don't think there's a happy medium?

Like a way that you can... Eventually. Right now, there's not. Because I know, are we allowed to announce that maybe by the end of this year? No, let's not announce it. All right. Yeah. So, I think it's good that you took it easy, man. You've earned it.

You don't deserve it. You don't deserve it. But you earned it. At some point. At some point, they will. But... I love cryptic podcasts. So what are you up to?

Secret stuff. Can we talk about it? No. Can we talk about it? No. What about it? No. What about you?

know things. Really cool stuff working on the end scenes. Can't talk about it though. At some point, at some point, I want to just scale back a little bit or do things in a way that's what was I about to say? Do things that can free it more

of my time. So I think if I could get some of my time back, it'll really help. Be honest, would you use that free time to enjoy yourself or use it to put it into other ventures that'll make you grow and make more? No, I don't. know. I want to get really, I want to get really into fitness. I don't know. I've had to say that. I just want to get ripped. I do. Something productive that moves grand forward. I could see, yeah,

I could see myself if I'm not, if I, if I even just like get get, I don't know, an extra 15 hours a week, I'd probably put that in fitness because I, I honestly, I looked at, I saw that CNBC millennial money video earlier. I hated the way I looked. Honestly, no, really. It was like to see myself, because I see the difference between like two years ago and now. Right. And I think it's just, I'm not in a place where I look at myself, like, weight-wise, and I'm like, yeah. Right. No, I'm worried.

I could get definitely in shape, and I've sacrificed that. Two and a half years ago when I started YouTube, I looked so thin. It's, like, unhealthy. But now I feel like I'm at a better weight, but I could be definitely more thin for sure. I was just thinking that. Do your arms look like they're really filling out? Yeah, it's because I'm getting fatter. Oh, pretty cool.

I thought it looked good. Well, on that note. Wait, but I just want to say something like, like, I do want to mention. because I came back from Los Angeles and what was that Monday, Graham? When I came back from Los Angeles, you seemed in an incredible mood and I didn't want to mention anything

because I didn't want to like, I didn't want to say anything, but I was like thoroughly enjoying that. Like I walked in the door and you were all like happy and stuff like I was getting your reaction. I know, but like I remember I was walking up I was walking up to the front door

and Graham's coming up from the Jimmy's all Jack, wait, wait, I turn around. I'm like, he wants me. And then like he went and told me I probably had to do something. And then I went inside, but I remember like, so I boxed his car in and I didn't have my keys. My dad had my keys. And grandma was like, oh, you got to like move the car and everything.

And I feel like if this was, this was, we're during like a time in the week, grandma would be like, I just beat you. No, he will. He treats me well, like, extremely well. But he would definitely like, he would be frustrated, you know, and it wouldn't be so fun. But then we solved the issue. I was able to maneuver the car out. So he was able to take the car.

And we were having fun while we were doing. It was all. And just like problem solving in a joyous mood, you know? And I really enjoyed like that Monday. And it was awesome spending time with you, man. I got to say the same thing, Graham. I walked in at 8.30 and Graham didn't know I was here because it was Labor Day. And he greeted me in the nicest way I've ever been greeted.

Ever. Because you know what? During the week, if I don't hit that schedule, I'm behind. Like I got to get that schedule done. He got a number one out of ten video. No, the algorithm hasn't been our friend Layman. The algorithm, despite the algorithm. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it was honestly just to take a day off. I still got a lot of work done, but to do it, like to feel like I'm really getting ahead and just to do the things that I wanted to do that day. Yeah, that's cool. And I was a bit of, you know, a head on the main channel. So. It was awesome. It's always a pleasure to be around you, man.

But Monday, it was just a whole different level. Like, it was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And that weekend we went to the Grand Canyon. Oh, that's cool. I thought it was that. I didn't know it was like that you were.

taking the day a little easier or less pressure. Yeah. So, all right. We'll see. Yeah. Sweet. So on that note, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having.

Use my coupon code down below blockfi.com for slash Andre. I'm just kidding. We'll edit that part out. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Peace. Are we leaving?

And then it's still recording and it's like, oh, we're getting up. Are we going to cut to that camera?