The Pomp Podcast - #1419 Anthony & Polina Pompliano | BlackRock Is All-In On Bitcoin

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Polina Pompliano, Author of ‘Hidden Genius’ and Founder of The Profile, and Anthony Pompliano, Author of ‘How To Live An Extraordinary Life’ and CEO of Professional Capital Management, discuss what Blackrock is telling investors about bitcoin & crypto, why so many people are becoming Republicans that used to be Democrats, how America is spending its money, Trump & Kamala, FEMA, and the job market. ======================= Buy book: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Extraordinary-Life-Anthony-Pompliano/dp/0857199927/ ======================= Xapo Bank, the world’s first fully licensed Bitcoin-enabled bank, offers military-grade security with an unmatched blend of physical and digital security, as well as pioneering regulatory oversight, so your funds are always protected. Beyond secure storage, they enable you to grow and use your Bitcoin. Earn daily interest in Bitcoin, spend with zero FX fees using a global card, and make instant payments via the Lightning Network for unrivalled access and convenience. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.xapobank.com/pomp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to join. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/ ======================= View 10k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's up, guys? Bang, bang. Today, we have Polina Pompliano on the podcast, and boy, do we got a special episode for you. You're going to hear a bunch of unique thoughts that you

haven't heard me or her talk about before. First, we start with BlackRock and what they're telling all these investors about Bitcoin and crypto. It's going to really surprise you because it's going to sound very familiar to things you may have heard before. On top of that, then we get into why so many people are becoming Republicans that used to be Democrats. The data will shock you, and I've got a theory as to why it's happening. On top of that, we get into how America is spending its money. Where is waste? Where's bureaucracy? What could be done to fix it? We then even get into some things around the two political candidates, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. We talk about FEMA, the response to the hurricane, a whole bunch of stuff that

you're going to want to hear. And then lastly, we even touch on jobs and why the 254,000 jobs that were created in September may just be like your favorite fiction book. You're really going to love this episode. Here's my latest conversation with Polina Pompliano. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Today's episode is brought to you by Zappo Bank. Let this sink in

for a moment. Over half a trillion dollars in Bitcoin has been lost or stolen. Whether that is misplaced hardware wallets or an exchange that went bust, the risks are very real. That's why I think where and how you store your Bitcoin is absolutely critical. Now meet Zappobank, the world's first fully licensed and regulated Bitcoin-enabled bank. They're known as the Fort Knox of Bitcoin. With over a decade of expertise in Bitcoin custody, they blend no holdback security, including military-grade Swiss bunkers, cutting-edge digital protocols, and strict regulatory oversight. This comprehensive approach ensures your funds are always protected no matter what. With Zappobank, you can grow your wealth with interest paid out daily in Bitcoin. You can

spend anywhere with zero FX fees using their global card, or you can make instant payments with the Lightning Network. Head over to zappobank.com forward slash pomp to join. That's X-A-P-O-B-A-N-K.com forward slash Pomp. Go check out Zappo Bank today. Polina, what is our first topic of the day? We have BlackRock reporting that Bitcoin and digital asset adoption is growing faster than the internet and mobile phones. So at its recent digital asset conference, BlackRock stated this is just the beginning while refusing to put a limit on the price of Bitcoin. What do we think? I love BlackRock's approach to all of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

They basically take everyone else's ideas that the crypto community has been using for a long time, and they repackage them up into the audience, suit and tie type vernacular. And so I can think of an exact chart that came from Raul Paul and I think Global Macro Investor that showed that exact thing like five years ago. And so the beauty is the message has not changed when it comes to Bitcoin or crypto. Now it's just the messenger changed. And because the messenger changed, it is being received better by a whole nother group, which also means that a lot of people in the Bitcoin and crypto community, their importance for

the marketing of these assets has been significantly diminished compared to Larry Fink and BlackRock. Larry Fink and BlackRock are the most important people in marketing Bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies. If they say something is good, the financial world listens. And so what we're watching happen now is these people, which by the way, the team at BlackRock, they're made up of Bitcoiners. They're made up of crypto enthusiasts. They know these talking points. They're taking these ideas, which are facts, and they're putting them into presentations with BlackRock's logo on it. And now all of a sudden everyone's like, oh, this isn't some crazy person on the internet saying this. This is BlackRock saying it. And then of course, everyone

gets really excited about it. And then they want to allocate to the asset class. And so what we have essentially done is we've memed the messages from the crypto world into traditional finance and the new vessel is BlackRock. Thank you, Larry Fink. Yeah, but it's almost like they're blessing it. They're giving it their blessing. 100%. That's probably very important. But by the way, none of that is negative. That is a very positive thing. That's what we need right now. The Bitcoin community, the online audiences, folks like us on this podcast and many others, We've taken this as far as we can go, right? We've gone on all the TV stations.

We've talked about it on all the podcasts. We've talked about it in all the newsletters. Without somebody else outside of the native community discussing this and putting that blessing on it, we're tapping out the audience. That doesn't mean that no one else would adopt Bitcoin. It just means that having that external third party come in and now say, no, we're on your side is going to accelerate the adoption. And that's where you see the ETF approvals, many other things are accelerating that adoption.

And so I, many other people with big audiences in the community, people with podcasts, newsletters, et cetera, they're not the right people to go to try to convince a random sovereign wealth fund or a random endowment to go and put money into Bitcoin. I've done that. I've been in those meetings. Literally, we had the pension funds. We had all these people. Like we talked to a lot more than said, yes, BlackRock shows up.

your hit rate, your batting average goes way up. And that is really important for people to understand is we should say thank you to what they're doing. And, you know, part of this part of Bitcoin's allure is that we don't know who Satoshi is, correct. And now I know you're going to have a lot of thoughts on this. So I'm excited to bring it up. But a new HBO documentary claims that they have unmasked satoshi it's set to air tuesday at 9 p.m eastern which is tonight depending on when we air this podcast you know i may already be out there um but without having watched it what do you think stop it stop it i mean it's called a money electric the bitcoin mystery stop it what it's like politics if you view it through an entertainment lens

it's amazing if you view it through a substance lens it's depressing if you view this documentary through an entertainment lens entertainment value is probably gonna be off the charts it's probably gonna have all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories very loose evidence tied together they're gonna pinpoint a man who most people hadn't even heard of less than two weeks ago if you view it through reality and substance stop it let's not go there nobody knows who satoshi is the world is better off not knowing who satoshi tell us more because bitcoin surface area for critics or attacks is drastically reduced when we don't know who satoshi is if i look at ethereum some people don't want to buy ethereum because they look at vitalik buterin hopping around on stage like a bunny

rabbit and they're like i'm not trusting my portfolio to that guy there's a lot of other people who say, I'm going to buy Ethereum because that guy's smart. I am going to trust it. But they're evaluating the merits of the technology and the network based on the person. Whether you agree or disagree with him is going to determine whether you allocate or not. Bitcoin has the beauty of nobody is determining their allocation based on the founder or the creator. And so imagine if the creator came out and they had a certain political leaning. Imagine if they came out and they had a previous criminal history. Imagine if they came out and an ex-girlfriend showed up and said, this person did X, Y, and Z. Those are the things that increase surface area

and critics. Now, what's interesting about Bitcoin is we probably have reached a point where whoever Satoshi is, if it is unveiled, probably doesn't matter. People will not be able to stop Bitcoin, but it's just more noise. Bitcoin doesn't need more noise. It needs less noise yeah but people's bitcoin exist on its merit but people's natural curiosity uh they want to know the people want to know who satoshi is i know what you're saying about oh it's better but how do you satiate that natural human curiosity curiosity killed the cat i how did i know you were getting curiosity killed the cat you just learned this um put your curiosity back in your pants and let the world just exist as it is i believe what he meant to say is don't open

pandora's box what i say i don't know i don't want to repeat it but put your curiosity back in your head there you go and just let the world exist how it exists okay but but again i don't think there's going to be a shortage of documentaries trying to unmask satoshi it's been 15 years they had two two times was it wasn't it week yeah time was it harassing week it was news week little innocent dorian nakamoto my friend i met him he's real nice guy oh he really very confused as to why everyone wants to talk to him but also you're telling me the scoop of the century was uncovered by hbo documentary that's what i'm saying i don't buy it either come on who's behind the documentary you know that where's the money let's follow the money

but you know that people are gonna watch this and people who maybe aren't that educated in the space and they'll be like whoever they claim it is that person their notoriety and fame will skyrocket i think that it's gonna be this guy len sassman is what the prediction markets are saying you never heard of him right he's dead oh okay okay so they're not gonna harass him so that kind of solves one of the problems. Now, on top of that, what I would say is there's a hell of a lot of people that are just dumb and they're going to watch documentaries regardless. There's a lot of documentaries that I've watched, which people who are actually experts about the thing or know a lot about the thing would say, I can't believe he believes that he's just dumb. And so it goes

back to it's entertainment. It's not substance. Everyone calm down. It doesn't matter. Nothing's gonna change put the documentary out entertain some people maybe people will speculate about bitcoin all's good are you gonna watch it no i'm not gonna oh i might watch it i don't have time to be watching oh i got the time i don't read fiction books i don't want well i do watch fiction movies but other than that i don't be dealing with fiction i'm all about reality and facts he watches movies either based on uh real life on real life or war movies which i guess are kind of based on I'm real.

Yeah. It's like real life, real books, real stories, real movies. I also, if you watch I can't remember

the last time I watched. You keep putting fake stuff in your brain. Don't talk to me. Your brain becomes mush. Oh, that's part of the problem is imagine if everyone

just read nonfiction books. Yeah, but some people get ideas from fiction. Name one you got. No, not me. I don't read fiction,

but a lot of people who do read fiction. That's why we get along. Rational people. Okay. Name a rational person that reads exclusively fiction books. Oh, a lot of people. Name one.

I bet you a lot of people on Wall Street do. No, there's nobody. There's nobody that is quantitative that all they read is. As someone who reads a lot of nonfiction, some of these books could have been an email. Like they do not need an entire book to tell me that. But imagine the fiction books. Oh.

So imagine the fiction books. Wait, I just had one. There's no difference between a child's picture book and a fiction book. All it is is more verbose. All right. So- You know, do you know that? The job-

That's, hold on a second. This is an important thing, is if you really think about it, right? A nonfiction book, good ones, are very concise, like three-hour audio books. I'm not saying that How to Live an Extraordinary Life is that, but it is. They're very concise and they're very factual. just bam give me the information no chit chat no fluff no nonsense a good good let me put in air quotes good fiction book it's like you're talking to somebody who's drunk the flowery dress moved in the wind as you heard the rustle in the trees what kind of novels are you that is literally

it's like highly descriptive verbose information not always not always like that is how people right no not always have you read shakespeare oh my god you're crazy all right go ahead um what was the name of that author that he is so not memorable you don't even know i know him i know him obviously not i'm gonna remember after this podcast it's okay all right was it a good one i was reading his memoir but yes he writes like he writes his his fiction was so bad