The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex - From Small-Town Hustler to Crypto Innovator: Ryan Myher’s Journey

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

In this episode of The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex, we meet Ryan Myher, a serial entrepreneur who went from selling on Facebook Marketplace to co-founding Genius, a revolutionary crypto exchange platform. Ryan shares his journey from small-town beginnings in Pennsylvania to building innovative businesses, including the first decentralized hash exchange. Learn about his insights into the crypto world, the rise of meme coins, and how blockchain technology is shaping the future of finance. This episode is packed with tips for aspiring entrepreneurs and crypto enthusiasts looking to capitalize on the next big thing in digital assets.Check Out Ryan: https://www.instagram.com/ryanmyher/?hl=en“Your Network is your NETWORTH!”Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024Youtube: https://jo.my/ytpaulalex2024Linkedin: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur?Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.ATMTogether.comwww.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Welcome to the Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together.

Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. What's up guys, and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast. I'm Paul Alex, and I hear I have a special guest guys. His name is Ryan Meyer. He's actually a serial entrepreneur, been a serial entrepreneur since the age of 10, has actually founded three different companies and now is the co-founder of genius, which is a crypto exchange.

Right? Yes, more or less. More or less. Yes. right yes more or less yes crypto exchange business guys and he's gonna dive into exactly why you guys need to invest into crypto right now it's amazing Ryan what's up brother I'm not gonna show you crypto I promise no it's good thank you so much for having me dude thank you man I am it's actually a blessing that Colin like do connected, connected us because, dude, just based

on everything you told me, I'm super excited for this interview. It's gonna be awesome. A ton of people are gonna listen to it. A lot of people are gonna get inspired. But share us your background, dude. Where are you from? How you got into serial entrepreneurship? And then what are you working on right now?

Yeah. So basically started off in central Pennsylvania, small town called Johnstown, Pennsylvania, an hour and a half east of Pittsburgh and just like a cool minor town, nothing crazy and just always kind of loved the hustle more or less. So, you know, whether that be selling people cards, I was one of the early Facebook marketplace sellers and always enjoyed just like trying to

figure things out. And then I really got interested in technology probably whenever I was like 15 or 16. And this is kind of foreshadowing, but I was always looking for a way to build apps without code. And yeah, I mean, it was just like always a passion of mine and we kind of graduated high school Went to Duquesne University to do track and that's whenever like things really started moving And so kind of the first business that I started was a Company called no-code no problem And it was like the the first like kind of you know my real step in the entrepreneurship at the time Yeah, dude. I love that so

Let's let's rewind a little bit back Ryan. Yeah, dude Facebook marketplace. Yeah, where was that? That was 2016 I want to say okay And how old were you then? I was 16. I think 2014 I joined police academy. I was 26. So like 10 years.. Oh man. That's crazy. But anyways, okay Yeah, so dude you're in the middle of the digital marketing realm 2016 was a phenomenal time to be in the online space Yeah, what made you think of Facebook marketplace? I was messing around with Amazon quite a bit and I was like my mind was blown that I could order anything to my house A funny side story was I ordered a sword to my house and I was I was at basketball because I was like my mind was blown that I could order anything to my house. A funny side story was I ordered a sword to my house and I was at basketball because I

was like, oh, you can just buy a sword online. This is really cool. And so I ordered it to my house and I'm at basketball practice and I get a call from my mom and she's like, what is this? What did you order from something cutlery? And I was like, oh, well, I'll open it when I'm home. Don't worry about it. So I get home and I unbox this like sword with like these insane edges.

And my mom was so pissed off, my dad standing in the corner like laughing. And so anyway, so I was like enamored that you could order anything online. Facebook launches Facebook marketplace and I had a bunch of old stuff and I was like, oh, a bunch of people were selling stuff on here. Let me see if I can sell something.

And so I start selling things, mostly just like old Macs, things I got from Christmas that I never used And things like that and then I realized I was like wow like this could be a money generating thing And all my friends were like joking about it. They're like, oh like my name in high school or my nickname in high school Was was Ray J But so they would joke around and say it's Ray's thrift because I was like thrifting a bunch of stuff on Facebook Marketplace.

And then they had me selling their stuff on Facebook Marketplace and it kind of just kind of grew from there. And so I was I was making a couple thousand dollars a month selling shit on Facebook Marketplace, which was which is really cool. Dude. So so the average 16 year old. Okay. I like 15 and a half, dude. I worked at Six Flags, Murray World, and then I, at like 15 and a half,

dude, I worked at Six Flags Marine World, and then I worked at like Foster Freeze, which was like a burger joint, and then finally Macy's retail. Dude, at 16, you were making a few thousand dollars online. Well, to be fair, I was also doing those things as well. So I worked at Subway, JCPenney's, construction, you know, all the good stuff too.

But dude, I love that. That is such a good niche to go ahead. So, okay, so you went from there. What was the next project or venture you dived into? Yeah, so like I said, I was going to Duquesne for track. Next company we started, which never really became like large, but was like a cool thing was I really got into crypto. I was following like crypto prices 2016. We walk into 2017, I'm with a friend, Evan Grus. We're at a basketball game and we were just talking about crypto and we're like, what if we just start

buying crypto for our friends and family? What if we get them all kind of bought in? And so we were doing that. We had another friend at Carnegie Mellon, a really smart guy named K, and we all kind of got together and we were like, oh we could launch like An alternative to Bitcoin and then that basically turned into us building the first decentralized hash exchange in the world And basically what that is is I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with like Bitcoin mining

But if you have like one minor, that's usually not enough like, you know power to like really get any kind of reward so you can rent power basically online and And the reason why being decentralized means anything is because basically there was a competitor called NiceHash. They had all these funds flowing in and out of a centralized wallet, had like 80 million in it. It got hacked. All these people lost $80 million. And we were like, if this was peer to peer,

and we just took a little fee on the side, it would solve that problem. There wouldn't be like one centralized vector to attack, you know. So that's so we started that. Yeah. What was the first crypto you ever bought? First crypto ever bought. Oh, God. Probably. And I'm ashamed to say this now because it's you know, but XRP. Yeah. Ripple.

Somehow it's still like one of those tokens that people people love. Like, I'll get calls from friends I'll be like my mom just asked me if you should buy $10,000 and ripple like her friend from work said that she needs to put 10k in it. I'm like, dude I don't even like It's up. It is up everything's up So here is the million dollar question or multi-million dollar question, okay Where do you think bitcoins gonna end up dude as far as price? I've this isn't financial advice

We're just two guys here chat. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know I think like I think it can be a million to several million dollars a coin Yeah, I think like we are in this time where Donald Trump just got elected president and he and Cynthia Loomis who's the senator in Wyoming. She's very pro crypto shout to Cynthia She they want to start a Bitcoin reserve in the United States and obviously there's nothing done concretely yet for that But if that happens, I think he the goal is basically owned over the next five to ten years Five percent of the Bitcoin supply and have that in like a reserve system kind of like backing the dollar. And I think if they accomplish that, I think one, the minute they announce it, many other

countries are going to adopt Bitcoin and kind of create their own strategic reserves. And I think it's going to go through the fucking moon. Yeah, no, it's going to be insane. And not only that, but I think like, I think most countries will hold strategic reserves and those that don't will suffer because of it. And a hot take that I have is I think in the next 50 years, I think there will be a tier one country, most likely European. And I think that they will be so in debt and they'll need to bail out. And I think that the person that bills them out will actually be a country that's adopted Bitcoin. That's maybe like tier three. And they'll swap some sort of defense equipment for Bitcoin. That's my prediction. Wow. Yeah, that's some good intel, man.

Yeah, that's it. So, all right, into the millions of dollars. So people that right now, dude, like, that have the Bitcoin, they should hold on to it forever. I would. Yeah. I'm not selling anytime soon, so. No, that's good. I mean, that's all the advice, because I know everybody right now is hitting me up like, hey dude, like you still got the Bitcoin.

Yeah, when are you gonna sell? When are you gonna sell? Should we sell now? Like, I got a buddy, man. He went on, it crashed. Yeah. You know, what was it, like a year or two years ago, whatever, he was like right under a mill, dude. Right now he's probably like at four. Yeah, you know, what was it like a year two years ago? Whatever. He was he was like right under a mill, dude

Right now he's probably like at four. Yeah, just just because it's up Like good for you, you know when to buy crypto when when everyone's talking about how it's dead Yeah, that's that's if you're looking for a time to buy it. It's like, oh crypto is dead It's like I need to buy it like yeah. No. Yeah. No, absolutely man And it's it's gonna change the world dude. Absolutely think it's actually a replace cash Like people are saying like oh cash is dead. It's it's gonna go away, you know crypto is gonna get rid of everything I think that I Think it could I think like like it's hard for people in America to understand the problems That crypto really solves for.

Like, I tell my friends, they're like, well, like, why I just use my credit card. And I'm like, well, you have to understand, like, the people that this is really solving a problem for are not in America. And I think, like, it's going to start with outside adoption, many other countries, and it'll kind of come back to the United States and come full circle, especially as we move towards like a global economy. Right. It's like you need a way to like seamlessly pay anyone in the world instantly. And so like a lot of our engineers in India and we have a guy in Venezuela and France. We pay them in USDC, which is like a dollar pegged equivalent backed by like treasuries and things.

And I can pay them instantly. Right. Like I actually pay them instantly. Right. Like I actually pay them in on Genius. So I can send them like their pay USTC on Genius instantly. There's no like five, 10 day wait. There's no like clearing house. There's no none of that BS. It's like I send it to their wallets and that's it.

So. So essentially your company that you co-founded right now, Genius is an exchange where there is no middleman. Exactly. For basically the person that doesn't know what this is. that you co-founded right now, Genius, is an exchange where there is no middleman. Exactly. For basically the person that doesn't know what this is, cause I'll probably have like a couple of my relatives being like, hey Paul, man, you had that bad ass

entrepreneur Ryan on there, dude, talking about his company, Genius, but like, we wanna know more about the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So, how does that process work, dude? Like, there's no middleman. So, how can you trust the other person that you know they're going to give you the actual assets?

I think the best way to start that topic would be going, basically talking about centralized exchanges and then talking about how exchanges and then kind of talking about how we're different. That works. So I think you have Coinbase. Everyone's familiar with Coinbase. It's a centralized exchange and basically they custody funds, right?

So you put $100 on Coinbase, they're custodying those funds for you. So they're not like really yours. They're kind of, you're lending them to Coinbase. And so whenever you're buying things on Coinbase, the problem with centralized exchanges is, I'd say two like main problems. The first problem is there's listing teams. So you can only buy what they tell you you can buy, right?

So they have to list certain things. And while that's good to some degree, it's like a lot of the opportunity space is like not on Coin, or not on centralized exchanges, or not on Coinbase, right? By the time that gets there, there are already 50 billion plus dollar tokens. And then the second thing is they can freeze your funds

whenever you want. My co-founder, Armand, he had his funds frozen in Coinbase for over a year. It basically just proves the point that you don't really own your money. And it goes into the problems with third world countries as well, where a lot of these banks are corrupt and stuff.

So it's having full custody like the dollars that I send you is really meaningful to a lot of people. So that's like centralized exchange. Then we have decentralized exchange, which is how's the best way to describe it. So there's a bunch of blockchains and all these blockchains have different tokens. And so an example could be there's a blockchain specifically for real world assets, right, where they tokenize real estate. And if you want to buy tokenized real estate, then you have to buy the you have to buy the tokens on their blockchain. But that's liquidity fragmentation.

And so you can use an exchange on that specific blockchain. But like then you have to there's a bunch of processes. I mean, basically what I just said, it's it's complicated, more or less. So we're basically like, okay, this is great. Centralized exchanges kind of solve this, but then there's these caveats. So we were like, how can we build the best of both worlds? How can we allow you to basically have full custody

of your funds, buy anything you want on any blockchain without having liquidity fragmentation or gas fees, it's a gas fee, right? Signing transactions, all of these things that nobody cares to know about, they just want what they want. And so that's what we've built. We've built the first platform that exists in the world

that basically is a liquidity orchestration layer across all blockchains that serves like an exchange where you can buy any token on any chain instantly without worrying about gas fees and any of those other issues. So you guys' problems to make it faster, simpler and easier. And you guys cut out basically majority of the fees. And it's just easier for people to transfer crypto to another person.

And did you guys keep this in mind for more because you guys have a lot of third party vendors that you guys use for your businesses, like, you know, in other countries, is that is that who you're made mainly targeting as far as like your avatar or your ideal client right now? So right now, and in full transparency, we're meme coins are really hot. And so we make it insanely easy to buy any meme coin. And so that's that's like the kind of initial, like most people that are- That's the thought process.

Because of like, would you say like social media has a lot to do with that? Like people on social media go on there, you got Elon Musk, he's like, hey, we're gonna take you to the moon, dude. You know? And you're like, okay, like how can we make it easier for people to buy the meme coins?

Exactly. Right? Smart. Yeah, cause it's like, more or like, more or less, it's like, no different than sports gambling, right? It's like, but it's like betting on culture, kind of, right? Like all memes, all meme coins are our cultural relevancies. Whether it be Doge and then the Doge now with the Department of Government Efficiency, and like Pepe, and you have all these tokens, and there's a lot of meme coins like these that are you know valued a lot less right now Yeah, and they'll eventually get centralized exchange listings

It's like how can you get or how can you give people access to these at their earliest stages? And so that's kind of a that's the number one reason for people using genius right now I think like, you know all of like these idealistic ideas that I have about like tokenization of real estate and all these things they're happening behind the scenes but they're not what people care about right now. In other countries that's not true there's like what do they call them? The name escapes me but basically they're just one-to-one pegs giving like access to like U.S. stocks for example, in Ecuador or countries like that, where there's not traditional financial systems that allow you to easily buy these.

So you can buy basically crypto pegs. So there could be a Tesla coin, and the Tesla coin is basically one to one mirroring Tesla stock. And the person that's issuing that Tesla coin is also holding Tesla stock on the back end as the collateral for that. So there's really interesting things, but I think that's all idealistic.

And I think that like right now people like to gamble. Meme coins are fucking great. And and yeah, so yeah, well, why not capitalize in that market, man? I mean, at the end of the day, you guys are providing the service, like I said, faster, easier, simpler. And I always tell people, hey, some of the most successful companies, it is just, you know, somebody copying a company that already exists, an industry that already exists and just makes it easier right? For sure. All right Ryan so what's your guys vision or

what are you guys working on with Genius now? Yeah so I think like right now it's meme coins obviously that's like our focus but I think in the, as everything kind of becomes global, I think there's going to be, there's going to need to be a global kind of exchange of value, because I think I'm of the opinion that a lot of things are going to be tokenized. So that the real estate intellectual property like everything's going to be tokenized to some degree. And there needs to be one place where you can go to like basically buy and sell like the global exchange kind of like how you have the Stock exchange in New York there needs to be that but for this new global economy for tokens and that's kind of what we're building Yeah, and so if we can accomplish that and we've we've done our job. That's freaking phenomenal, man So dude, I love everything that you guys are doing I mean you're crushing it right now, but one thing that caught my attention Well, let's go back to

The advice you were given about Bitcoin and crypto and then the election with Trump dude Okay, so something that like I know a lot of my listeners are probably like what like alright if right now Let's see like my listeners have like let's say 10 20 even 30 thousand dollars in liquidity to to actually invest into some type of crypto. What would be your game plan? And once again, guys, this is not financial advice. Not financial advice. It's just two guys over here hanging out, just talking about crypto, right? In business. So what would you do, dude, if you had like about 30 bands and you wanted to make some money right now? Yeah I think it depends on risk tolerance

obviously. I think like the safer more stable kind of native coins are like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana. I think most majority of my cash is in those three so that's like the honest truth. And then I think that everyone should keep a little dry powder to throw at some memes, you know? I think like, whether we like it or not, and during the first cycle back in 2016, I thought Dogecoin was the stupidest thing. And then I realized, I'm like,

it doesn't matter if it's stupid. It's like culturally relevant, and therefore it's gonna move. Like I literally opened a long at like 2 a.m. last night on Dogecoin and I'm up like three grand when I checked on the Uber ride over here. Ryan, so do you think like Dogecoin like it went up just because of Elon? I think Elon's a piece of it. What was the cause? The catalyst right now over the last like you know 72 hours is like Donald Trump becoming president

Right like Joe Biden and his administration and Gary Gensler. I have strong words for Gary Gensler But their entire administration was very anti crypto and you know, they can say they weren't anti crypto But their actions that otherwise they were attacking crypto more than any administration had before and so, you know, at least- And why is that? I think it's like uncertainty. I think uncertainty is like a big piece. I also think that the Democratic party generally hates things they can't control.

And I think that, I think, yeah, I think, yeah, that's, I would say that. Yeah. And so like crypto generally, I would actually say like crypto, people in crypto specifically, like hardcore crypto people, it's like a mixture of like, you know, tech guys, like social anarchists, like a bunch of weird, interesting people. And you know, it's split pretty down the middle, a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans. And then Trump really took the initiative and was like, you know what, I am going to be like, you know, work with Cynthia on this Bitcoin Reserve plan. And, you know, I think that crypto, like with proper

regulation, like crypto can be this really meaningful thing. And it should happen in the United States, because if not, the innovation is going to go outside of the United States. Like you know, even Coinbase, like, and Uniswap and some of these like, you know, enormous players that have been around for a while. Gary Gensler, this previous administration, attacking them left and right and not even with credible things. It was basically just fluff to scare off people. And it's a shame.

It really is. And so, yeah, it's ridiculous. So Trump gets elected and the markets move. So like even in the last 72 hours, like crypto, I'll try to give you a specific, like ETH was at $2,400 72 hours ago, and right now it's sitting at $3,400. Great, Solana, same thing.

Everything's moving up and to the right, so my friends are always asking me when's the best time to buy. I would say like right now. Even with this know, right. Even like with this week. Right. Like I recommended friends by yesterday specifically because yesterday was Tuesday. Right. Yeah. Yesterday was Tuesday. So basically like CPI and a lot of these data points are coming out

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And so Tuesday basically was like the de-risking. Everyone was kind of de-risking. So markets pulled backs. So it went from like 225 ish to like 207-ish last night. So, but like, those are all nuances. Whenever Soil's at 500, you don't care if you bought it 207 or 215. It doesn't make a difference to you, right?

So I think like right now, generally is great. We're gonna have Trump go into office and I think establish a lot of policies. We have Vivek, we have Elon, a lot of people that are pro crypto, which is amazing, working in his administration. So I think that a lot of policies we have the back We have Elon a lot of people that are pro crypto, which is amazing working in his administration So I think that the next four years are gonna be the four best years for crypto generally speaking Yeah, and do you think we're gonna hit six figures on Bitcoin before Trump actually takes over the office man?

Yeah, just the way it is right now. He selected it or he gets put in in what like 70 ish days? Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah I think we'll I This is a hot take. I think we're gonna hit 90k Bitcoin within the next 14 days And I think we'll hit 100k by January 1st. Yeah, that's amazing. There will I think we'll touch 100k I think there will be a sell-off though, like usually there's a sell-off in late December Yeah, and then how true do you think it is going to be with the reserves, man? Do you think that's going to be something that he's going to be able to do in the next

four years or is that something that's going to happen like eventually later on? No, I think it will happen within the next four years. I think it's like, like just I think honestly, I was very worried for this country. Like I mean, everybody was. Yeah. Just generally, though, like, with the debt and things, it's like, reasonably, how can we sit here and look at it and be like, how does this go any other way than just shitting the bed, right?

And so I think that with the, Elon and Vivek running the Department of Government Efficiency, if we can establish a Bitcoin reserve, I actually have faith that we can actually figure this out. They're operating the country like a startup. And I think that's what needs to happen. It's become too bloated. And I think Kamala had some interesting policies and ways that she could fix the country. But I think anything that a politician says around fixing the country is mostly bullshit, right?

But I think Trump actually is putting the necessary pieces in place to like legitimately fix the country. And I didn't actually expect it to happen, but he's already kind of doing that with like announcing yesterday, like Doge and things. So I'm actually really excited to see kind of what happens. Cause even if we save like,

I don't even know what our deficit is at this point, but even if we can save a trillion dollars a year, and half of that goes into buying Bitcoin for a reserve, and then we have the rest of the world also accumulating Bitcoin. Like, I think that's like very cool. And I think that like, it's our best shot at like, not becoming the Roman Empire.

Yeah, dude, that's awesome. No, I love that man. So let's go back to genius, man. Yeah. So with genius, where do you guys see like it going as far as like growth, man? Like I know meme coins now. Yeah. But eventually, where do you see like your company going up to like in the next five years? Yeah, I think I think within the next five years, we'll see a lot of different things that you can buy on chain. Some of them might be considered securities, some of them might not be considered securities.

But I do think there will be a lot of things that you can buy, a lot of tokens. And I think those tokens will have different types of value and people will want to participate in that. I think the main use case for crypto more generally is like speculation. And I think that in the next five years, like my goal is to have 10 million people own crypto on Genius. And like I said, like it doesn't even need to be on Genius per se, because it's self-custodial, right? So you have a Genius account, you can export your private keys and you can take that anywhere you want. Right. It doesn't need to be specifically on the genius platform.

We can't control anything that you do with that crypto. Like if you want to send it, if you want, we can't freeze your funds, which is like super powerful and really cool. That's huge. Yeah. So because because I was so I have buddies that own like Bitcoin ATM companies. Yeah, it's amazing. Dude, like regulations. Oh, yeah.

Like, oh, dude, it's massive, especially with the government, dude. Yeah. I remember like they would get shut down left to right in certain states and then they would have to go and appeal it and then. Yeah. And all that jazz. So it was very sticky. So the fact that you guys are able to swing that, I mean, that's remarkable.

I mean, I'm happy to talk about regulations. That's interesting. Yeah, let's do it, man. Yeah. So I think like kind of how we operate genius While it feels like an exchange. We're not technically an exchange And so as I mentioned, there's all these blockchains. There's liquidity on all of them. We basically orchestrate liquidity Across all of these chains to make it easy for everyone else to use So there's a bunch of complex BS that goes on in the background

And so there's like kind of two components to Genius. There's Shuttle Labs Incorporated, which is what I'm the co-founder of. And that's a Delaware C Corp. And basically we manage and develop the front end. Genius Protocol, which is basically the orchestration of everything, is managed and owned and operated by DAO based in the Cayman Islands. And that's basically like this permissionless thing where anyone in the world can go build things on top of Genius Bridge Protocol. And they could build Genius,

like they could build like what we've built on top of these open systems. And that's something that's really cool and I'm excited about the same way that people built the infrastructure for people to build all these payment infrastructure in the United States, right? How you use Square to buy things.

We've built basically the rails for anyone to do a similar thing in crypto, which is really cool. We've also built the car as well. So we've built our version of the car, but anyone can go build their version of the car as well. But regulation is super interesting, right? Like sexes have to have different licensing.

But the way that we've built everything to this point, we've been able to do so in a way where we don't have to, where yeah, we've been creative legally such that we aren't an exchange per se. We're not a licensed exchange because like we said, we're not custodying any assets. We're basically just helping you buy those things through orchestration, so yeah.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense, man. So let me ask you, Ryan, like what motivates you to keep going, dude? Like, it's like, you're a senior entrepreneur, dude. You've been an entrepreneur since the age of 10, dude. It's just like just talking to you, man. Besides the three companies that you built plus Genius, I mean you've had dozens of different projects dude.

What keeps you wanna keep going dude? Like because not everybody is motivated as you dude. I just, it's just fun. Yeah. I mean like I'm like super blessed to be able to like have fun doing what I do, right? And I think I have a lot of people in my life that don't have fun doing what they do.

Yeah. And so I think generally it's like one of those things where I Love to build things that people like to use I think genius is one of those things like we have thousands of people that use it every day Yeah, I think that's amazing and I get if something's not working I get a hundred texts when I wake up in the morning including this morning And we go and fix it but it means people are are using it. And that's that's amazing. Right. Like I'm blessed for people to use things that I've built. Like I mentioned to you earlier, like we have a Figma plugin, we built the first generative AI Figma plugin, which Figma is like a design software like Photoshop.

And yeah, you're familiar. And 50,000 people use it, which is sick. And so like, I think like, part of the motivation is like one day I want to be able to walk down the street with a genius hoodie on and people know what that is and like be like, oh, like, you know, I made ten ten thousand dollars for my genius account. Like, I think that that's like that's like what I'm like yearning for. But I don't think I'll ever stop. I think like people that retire die. So no.

Same. I will never retire. I'm always looking for fulfillment, dude. That's what it's about. It's more of like the journey. Exactly. Just like you were saying, dude, like, you know, how sometimes like you'll team up with the other developers and your co-founders and you guys will just work.

Yeah. That's what it's about, dude. Building that culture, right? Exactly. Yeah. So what would you say to someone who is trying to actually build a business in your industry, dude? And like they're just getting friends family just being super negative about that, dude

Like what has helped you and your mindset like to keep going to get up dude and like stay resilient on building Because sometimes not every day is gonna be motivating right? Yeah, so what would you what type of advice would you give to that person? Yeah, you just have to be okay with being crazy, I guess, or like the view that people think you're crazy. Especially like in crypto, you know, I feel like crypto is one of the most cyclical industries. So like the last two years, it's been really tough, right? Like there's been some like super low points even for me, where it's just like, you know, you get up in the morning and you're like, what am I doing? You know, you have friends building an AI and all these other things and you're like,

you know, but whenever things move, everything's fantastic. But it's so it is super tough. It's really hard to stay motivated during those low points. But if you can push through it, like, I think you can come out on the other side. And crypto specifically too, just building businesses in crypto. If you wanna build a business in crypto, it's really interesting because business

and companies and things, they don't operate like normal companies do in the typical internet world or in real life. It's kinda like this weird. And I think that'll change over time, but whenever you talk to investors, right, like they only care about like when you're going to launch a token. Like if you like it's crazy.

And it's kind of messed up, but it makes sense. Right. Like you'll see like a lot of venture funds have kind of to like it's actually really popular for venture funds to have to two funds, one specifically in crypto and then one in like a more archaic industry that has longer return on investment cycles because crypto like the path the liquidity is much shorter. So it's a way for them to kind of average that out to like what you'd consider like a typical like internet fund like Sequoia or something.

So yeah, it's interesting. But you basically have to throw away all fundamental principles of business that you know for crypto specifically. It's crazy. So, all right. What would you go ahead and let's say if somebody wanted to start investing into crypto right now, what would be a couple of books? Like either like you could go like one to three books, dude, that people could start

reading right now. Because I always tell people this, dude, like I've been a serial entrepreneur my entire life, but I got stuck at the nine to five, you know, like rat race dude, because like, I just feel like I just wasn't around the right environment and books is actually, it sounds, it sounds cliche, but, but books is what really changed my life. Yeah. So is there any books that people can read on dude or like, what would you

recommend like due diligence, market research, like if like a complete newbie that wants to learn to invest into crypto, man, especially right now. Sure. Yeah. I mean, January's around the corner do 70 days, right? So, you know, best time to invest, but I want to educate the folks that are listening to this and watching this, man. Yeah. So I'll be candid. I don't read books. I read, I read a lot. I read like the Wall Street Journal and the information every day I read a lot of things every day

But I don't read like traditional books and I actually would not recommend reading traditional books for crypto specifically just because the industry moves So fast by the time that you'd actually publish a book it'd probably be outdated, which is crazy But I think there's like two really good places to get information on crypto Yeah, the first is a research platform called missari.io But I think there's like two really good places to get information on crypto. The first is a research platform called masari.io. It's a company just, I actually think they're based in Miami, but they're entirely like based on research. They have a lot of reports.

They have a lot of like, like everything that you could possibly want. It's there. There's also a newsletter. What's the newsletter called? I'll give it to you after this. Milk Road, milkroad.com. Milk Road. Milk Road, yeah.

It's a carton of milk, but it's a fantastic newsletter for crypto, people that are just getting into crypto. They have like 300,000 subscribers. It was really good during the last kind of bull cycle. I love that. 2021, it was really popular. And then a third thing is just being involved.

Like I think so much of crypto is like the culture of the different internet spaces that you're in. And so I'd specifically recommend Twitter, like if you're not on Twitter, or if you are on Twitter, engaging with like accounts like I have to be careful with this one. There's an account, our account, Genius Terminal, we kind of talk about a lot about things, but also like there's like more culturally relevant people like at Kobe, C-O-B-I-E or at Ansem who are like big kind of influencers in this space. But it gives you a good pulse on like the culture of crypto and kind of what things are going on in the space. Yeah, and you need that because it does move so fast.

Like you have like ZK, you have like all these things that i honestly don't even know a lot about because it's just moving all the time um and so it's just it's like i i know what i know about like my very specific thing but i if i tried to keep up with everything i'd lose my mind i think no absolutely and then any uh insider tips dude like on what's the next biggest thing in crypto uh insider tips um i i i can't say I have insider tips, per se, but I think that, I think in crypto specifically, the best thing that you can invest in is a cult. And so, like Dogecoin has established a cult.

And I think you also, like, there's a bunch of coins that have established cults that aren't listed on centralized exchanges. When you say cult, what do you mean by cult? Cult like people that are like insane. They're about it. Yeah, like mentally ill kind of like I'm like I don't even like I'm being like genuine like it's like there's something serious.

Yeah, it's kind of messed up. But yes, like like true true, like, like, insanely passionate about like that meme and they do exist. There's one right now that's really popular is called Giga. And it's like the Giga Chad with the huge chin. And people were like insanely passionate about it. I think that's gonna be a big one this cycle. And then another one, I don't know if I should say it, but it's called retardio. It's how you spell it. And the community behind it, it's an NFT, which they call cousins and then a coin. And it's like the most insane cult that I'm personally a part of. And in these people are nuts.

They're they're they're literally insane. But like, because of that, like they get other people to have equal conviction in it. And that's kind of how you create like a doge effect. And so like personally, I hold an irresponsible amount of money in retardio. So, so, so influence has a lot to do with the mean coins. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Mean coins are everything right now. Like the, I think last cycle, we saw

NFTs be super popular. And I think the problem with NFTs more generally was they were a fun tool for speculation, but they, I personally don't like find them super useful, right? But they were good for speculation. And so on the other side of things, right? On meme coins, I think they're basically saying, you know what, we're going to create the same good for speculation. And so on the other side of things, right? On meme coins, I think they're basically saying, you know what? We're going to create the same level of speculation,

but we're not going to try and attach some arbitrary value to it, right? It's just like it is what it is, accepting that it is just a means of speculation. Yeah. Right. No, that makes total sense, man. Yeah. So where can people find you, man? Yeah.

People can find us at tradegenius.com. And if you go, we'll create an account, or we'll create a referral code for you if you want. If you want, we can give users free crypto or something. That could be fun. But tradegenius.com, my Instagram is at Ryan Meyer. And yeah, those are like the two main points. Guys, so follow Ryan Meyer and yeah, those are like the two main points. Guys, so follow Ryan Meyer on Instagram

and on his Genius Platform. Guys, he's just offering some free crypto for you guys. Okay guys? Yeah, it's gonna be phenomenal. So we'll make sure to drop the link in the bio guys. Make sure to subscribe, like this episode. And if you know anyone who's interested in the crypto space with the politics that's going on with Donald Trump, guys this is the episode to actually have them

listen to and tune in. It's gonna blow up, it's gonna go viral. I already know. Thanks Ryan, I appreciate you man. Thank you so much. Alright guys, take care. This is the Level Up Podcast with Paul Alex. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Thanks for listening up to the Level Up Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to share with a family, friend and everyone you know who's We'll catch you guys on the next one.