The Pomp Podcast - #607 Pay Me In Bitcoin - Saquon Barkley and Jack Mallers

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Jack Mallers is the founder of Zap, which has created Strike, an application that allows anyone to send money instantly, with no fees, anywhere in the world. Saquon Barkley is the best running back in the NFL and plays for the New York Giants.  In this conversation, we discuss Saquon being paid in bitcoin, financial education, Strike, inflation, and building generational wealth.  ======================= LMAX Digital - the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading & custodial services - offers clients a regulated, transparent and secure trading environment, together with the deepest pool of crypto liquidity. LMAX Digital is also a primary price discovery venue, streaming real-time market data to the industry’s leading analytics platforms. LMAX Digital - secure, liquid, trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp ======================= Public Rec is on a mission to make comfort look good. Their fan-favorite Flex Short is the ultimate crossover short you’ll need all summer long. From the beach to the gym, this quick-drying short has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP at checkout for 10% off! ======================= Okcoin is one of the most popular licensed exchanges. Okcoin is the first to bring new cryptos to market, offering some of the lowest fees in the industry, an easy to use app, and Earn feature--you got to check out their brand new, beautifully designed app! And as of today, they also became the first US exchange to list NEAR. It’s easier than ever to sign up, buy and trade crypto in just 2 minutes on Okcoin with credit & debit cards or just link your bank account to the best new crypto assets. So get started, and go to okcoin.com/pomp =======================

what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there now let's kick this thing off jack mallers is the founder of zap which has created strike an application that allows anyone to send money instantly with no fees anywhere in the world saquon barkley is the best running back in the national football league and he plays for the new york giants in this conversation we discuss Saquon being paid in Bitcoin, financial education, strike, inflation, and building generational wealth. I really enjoyed the conversation with Jack and Saquon, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors.

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Again, OKCoin.com slash POMP. OKCoin, they keep investing, making sure that Bitcoin is going to become the next global reserve currency. So go check them out at OKCoin.com slash POMP. All right, let's get in this episode with Jack and Saquon. I hope that you enjoy this one. 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. Hey guys, what's going on? Jack, Saquon, you guys hear us? What's up, boss? Not much. Jack, you got us? I'm here, baby. I'm here.

More than ready. Let's go. All right. Saquon, you need to get a background like Jack. We've got to get you to go in the closet or something so that you could sit there with no clothes in the closet like Jack. No, I've got to switch it up. Jack, I've got that same hat, by the way. Good taste.

Good taste in fashion. I know. We did a little co-shopping in Beverly Hills not too long ago. We got a lot of the same stuff. All right. So, Saquon, let's start with you first just in terms of help people understand. When you came out of college, it was pretty well known that you were going to be selected very high. Everyone knew, hey, this guy's for real on the field.

But I think you've always had this interest in kind of business and investing and really trying to understand stuff off the field as well. How much what I'll call like traditional education, either the NFL or other people really provided, versus have you had to figure out some of this stuff on your own? Well, you kind of know in and out, but I think I got the gist of the question. When you first come out the league, I mean, well, let's start in college. You know, you have success. You see where you're able to go on a draft board and you know that you could break that that curse in your family of creating wealth in your family.

And you start thinking, what can I do? What's the safest way? Obviously, I want to be more of a football player. So you start asking questions. Obviously, you hire a financial advisor to be completely honest, you know, had no clue about what I was going to do or things that I can do. when I got to NFL to help my money grow and to invest. And I was very fortunate enough to find an amazing team, a goal-pointing amazing manager who put me in the right positions and put me in contact with guys like you and Jack and to be able to have those conversations, continue to learn.

And, you know, NFLPA, they do a little bit of stuff. When you're in NFL, when you come into college, there's like a seminar when you have, you have, and they bring ex-players and they bring people in to talk. But you really just learn about what not to do with your money. Don't buy these cars. Don't buy this house. Don't do this.

Don't do that. And it's basically just scaring you to say, like, dang, like the realization that, yes, you may have a lot of money, but especially after taxes, it's really not as much as it seems. And you want to find the best way to save. And that was the gist of what I was taught and what I've learned so far coming out of NFL and into my rookie year and so on. Yeah. And so I know you've got this interest in kind of investing in private companies now. Talk a little bit just about like why you're personally interested in that and kind of what have you done in that space?

You know, you see the KDs, the LeBrons, the Bradys of the world. and, you know, you want to create generational wealth and you can't do that just off of, you know, especially in a sport that I play, in a position I play and coming off an injury, you know, that's kind of stuff that kind of makes more sense when you sit out of football for a whole year, you realize that this game could be taken away from you and make you sit back and think,

damn, if I never played down in football right now, this is how much I have and that's not enough for generational wealth. So you got to find ways to invest, find ways to put yourself in the right positions and in contact with the right people to help your money grow in a smart way and do it the right way. Got it. And so I know that you've got some news for us today.

We've been talking a lot about kind of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies. I know that you spent a bunch of time with Jack. Talk a little bit about just how you see Bitcoin, why you spent so much time learning about it, and then kind of what your future plans are. well obviously you see inflation um you know you see how high how high it is right now and you learn that you can't save your save yourself too well you can't um so that's why uh i mean i had a little bit of conversation with jack one jack this guy is going to change

the world by the way but we'll hop on that a little bit later it's a special do but that's why i'm gonna be taking my marketing money um in bitcoin all right so hold on here this is important you're going to be taking 100 of your marketing dollars which is by the way you're like a well-known dude uh people like you brands like you you do a great job on the marketing side uh and you make you know eight plus figures uh in terms of marketing dollars you're gonna take 100 of that in bitcoin and specifically try to uh insulate yourself from all the inflation and issues with cash yeah i'm gonna do that especially do strike also too um i feel like uh that was my mind that was my model before coming into the league is you know just living my marketing money

um and now that i see with inflation and learning so much about bitcoin surround myself with a great team and be able to learn uh from guys like jack um so i think it's just be the smart thing to do and the right thing to do to start taking my investment money through bitcoin and through a do strike i i tend to think that this is probably a pretty good idea jack talk to us a little bit i know that you spent a bunch of time with saquon uh just the conversations you guys have had what the thought process here is, and then how Strike works in terms of helping him take 100% of his marketing dollars in Bitcoin moving forward? Yeah, well, I'm here to compliment straight back at Saquon. He's obviously a tremendous football player, but I hope that the world

gets to see the individual he is. He's a leader. He's a trendsetter. And this is a huge move that he's making. And he's setting an example not only for himself, his family, his team, but I think for the wider NFL, and I think for all millennials our age, the problem that Saquon's facing is a problem everyone faces is that non-working capital, capital that you want to save, capital that isn't required to spend on your day-to-day life, which is rent, which is your phone bill, which is groceries, capital that you want to turn into generational wealth, that you want to eventually turn into a house or to a car. You can't save it in cash anymore. And the inflation problem that Saquon's hinting at is extraordinarily real. And so then instead of asking, why would I

buy Bitcoin? Well, where do I put my cash? Is the more accurate question to ask. And Saquon went this journey on his own and everyone's doing it currently it's i don't know you can try commercial real estate you can try precious metals and it turns out bitcoin is the first asset class that humanity designed from scratch with our bare hands and we as a community built it to solve this exact problem and saquon became very familiar with the problem set the solution uh and strike as a company we strive to develop the best financial experience on the planet and i think a core nucleus of that is access to bitcoin in this way should we get rewards in bitcoin you should be be able to buy Bitcoin for as cheap as possible. You should be able to take your direct deposit,

your everyday paycheck as the wage that you're earning by dedicating your life to your craft and split a certain portion that you want to save and persist and grow wealth and protect against inflation. And that's exactly what Saquon did. I mean, we had conversations about, you know, the guy's making eight figures plus annually in off the field in marketing deals and brand deals. And it's this capital that he wants his kids to use, his kids have access to, buy a big house with. And we talked about how inflation and housing has reached over 20% right now. And so that annually compounding year over year, that means that his dream house is going to be twice as expensive in five years, or his cash that he's saving this marketing deal

that is going to be worth half as less. And he has to start saving that wealth in something else if he wants his dreams, his house, or his daughter's tuition, or the toys that she wants for Christmas. If he wants those things to be attainable and achievable, he needs to save in something else. And he decided on Bitcoin. We're more than happy to support him in that effort. Absolutely. And so, Saquon, when you think about this, how much of a conversation is Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and stuff like that in the NFL, other players talking about it? And what do you expect to be kind of the impact of you making a decision like this? Is this now multiple other people on the team may do it or just kind of how do you think about uh the other

players in the league um i think this is a conversation that i don't think i know some conversation that's me i hadn't in locker room but i think it just starts with just learning um and i'm still learning and you guys still learn you guys still understand um i think jacks did a amazing job of describing it and um obviously you guys know cuz that's kind of where it came into i saw it i was like what is this and you know he kind of you know we kind of got into the conversations of it and talked about it then i got to be surrounded by a lot more people that knew much more about it than myself um i think there's got to be ways that we could continue to just educate educate just not just only athletes but just the world uh on bitcoin and and what's

really going on and what's the problem in the world and how bitcoin can really help absolutely jack explain exactly how this works in terms of uh does saquon have to go and renegotiate his contracts or like how does it go from he's got these marketing contracts and endorsement deals How does he actually get the Bitcoin? How does Strike work? Yeah, this is a product that we're developing and deploying actively over the next 30 to 60 days to every consumer in the United States. And that's that you can line up your direct deposit product, just like you do to Chime, just like you do to Venmo, just like you could to Cash App. And you can divide a percent. Hey, of this paycheck, I want 50% of it in Bitcoin. I want

75%. I want 25% of it in Bitcoin. And the mental model that every American should deploy and everyone in the world is, listen, I can't save in cash. So listen, you don't like Bitcoin? Fine. I can talk to you about it for hours, but put in something else. Put in something else. You have to. It's trending on Twitter right now, right? And so the product is very simple. It gives you direct access from your paycheck to saving and preserving. And what I hold personally and our company holds is the best savings technology of all time. And being able to build a product for someone like Saquon. I mean, Saquon's job is to be a running back. You know, Saquon's job is not to understand public-key, private-key cryptography. It's my job. And giving him access to a product that allows him

financial sovereignty, financial independence, and an ability to grow and preserve his wealth. And, you know, Saquon's profession coming off an injury in the average NFL career is three and a half years. I don't care what you do. That is not enough time in any profession to build generational wealth, period. And giving guys like him, he deserves it. Every American deserves it. It's a foundational human right to have access to sound money materials, to live a high quality of life. And that's what we want to do. And I'm proud of Saquon for this move. I mean, it's a really brave thing for him to do. And I think he's setting a huge example on a big stage, obviously. Yeah, I completely agree. All right. I got one last question. I'm gonna turn over my

brothers. It's a more fun one. It's a two-part question for Jack and Saquon. If Jack and Saquon and play one-on-one basketball right now, who wins? Me. That is so wrong. It wouldn't even be close, Pomp. We've had this conversation before. One, I would just use my sides. And two, he's not fast enough or strong enough to stay in front of me.

I don't even know if he can touch the rim. So I like my chances there. What people don't know, Pomp, is if I were 6'4", there would be no strike. i'd be in the league and so you know that was just you know the the mother nature's way of ensuring that bitcoin progressed in the way it did by keeping me 5'8 and 150 pounds um but i still think i could beat saquon one-on-one and uh who you play like again who you try to game like i'm like steph curry you play like uh glenn big baby davis i'm like i'm like steph all right second part of the question is if jack and saquon sit down and play chess who wins

uh him i came i found out he was like some chess master before like state champion high school so um don't don't let him trick you in into playing a game for sharing your money on strike he's gonna take all of it saquon uh we heard a story that somebody said to jack that they were a chess master and jack was like oh you're a chess master he they're like yeah he goes all right cool pawn e4 what's your move like we don't even need a board we're just going we're just going to talk it out right here all right all right uh joe john what questions you guys got um saquon thanks for doing this first off and congratulations um they're already they're already saying in the comments that they're going to pick you number one overall in fantasy this year so

so there you go uh but i i think my question is probably a little bit off of what you were talking about earlier, which is what's going on in NFL locker rooms, right? And I think when you look back to like the 80s and the 90s in professional sports, a lot of the conversation was about athletes going broke and not thinking about generational wealth and how to build wealth and investments and stuff like that. And personally, I feel like that's kind of changed more recently, right? And you see, you know, we've gone out to dinner with you and other guys, and it's kind of more conversations around investments and stuff like that. And I'm curious, has that been your personal experience? You know, when you're talking to other professional

athletes whether it's in the nfl or the nba or other leagues around the world uh are people more concerned about this stuff are they more interested in it like how is your feeling about that i would agree i would say that they're definitely more uh interested in it and that's the conversation that would be had in the locker room but i always said kind of piggybacking what's up before it's the educational part of it uh that i see that lacks and including myself that's why when i'm with you guys i'm sitting down eating dinner i try to ask so many questions because um not only I want to learn from myself, when I'm able to go back to the locker room, I can explain it.

I can explain it the right way to my teammates. And, you know, your teammates is people that's going to be some of your best friends for life, people that's going to be at your weddings, you know, brothers for life, that's what they like to call it in football. So you want to see them succeed too. And the things that I can learn and things I can educate myself on, go there and have the conversation. And I'm a big believer in playing devil advocate.

And maybe someone disagreed, maybe someone agreed. But having those conversations and seeing both sides, you'll be able to hear both sides and get somewhere in your mindset where it's like, even if I didn't agree with this, I don't believe it's going to be that way. This guy had an educational background behind it or said some critical things that made me think and have a different kind of thought process on this conversation. So I would say education is the big thing that continue needs to have in the locker room. And like I said, I'll be the first one to say I got to continue to learn more about it. Um, but I think we can find more, more avenues and more way to, to, to help expand that. For sure. John, what do you got?

Uh, what's up Saquon? Jack, congrats again. Um, so one of the things that I wanted to ask was about just like your investments and what you've been looking at. Um, you mentioned talking with Jack about how you invested with him. And, um, also I believe you've done some stuff in like the sports industry. It seems like you're really open to doing anything, uh, which is great. So you're outside of just like the sports realm.

I think guys like that, when they go to KD, the LeBron, they know that they're open. So LeBron's got the Spring Hill. KD's got boardroom, ventures, everything like that. What are you looking at investment-wise? Those are the things that I kind of want to go to now is become more than an athlete. Obviously, you have your big deals. And, you know, I'm very fortunate to be able to work with a big company like Nike and such like that. um but we want to find a way to to get into deals where you can use your brand to help promote it

um but also help build that brand as you help build that brand you're building yourself also um outside of football um and those are kind of things that i'm looking into and yes i'm open to anything but uh that's very another thing i would say that that is that happens in locker rooms and with athletes um there's a lot of things that's thrown at you it's a lot of things that's thrown at you a lot of investment opportunities of equity and all that but you gotta you gotta have the right team around you um like i said like jack said my job is to be a professional football player and be a dad um so i don't really have that time as much as i would like so i have an amazing team behind me that we go through every investment every deal and and really thoroughly think through

it and um we see what we think is the best opportunity for me yeah i'm sure coming coming into the league there's uh everyone and and their mother's got an idea of where to put your cash what to invest in yeah uh saquon you're an investor in strike right yes sir all right obviously we both think very highly of uh of jack what is the the thing that you think uh most impressed you about him and we're going to embarrass him a little bit here but what was the thing that kind of caught your attention this is hard um to be completely honest um he's not in to make a lot of money or be famous. He really wanted to make an impact and really change the world.

You could see that the way he talked and the conversation you had with him. You could see how passionate he is. And those are things that, you know, as just a human being, you love to see in another human being. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing. It's his heart, how passionate he is, and does this man really want to change the world, and he's going to change the world.

I tend to agree. We're going to get him a different kind of background there, but that's fine. Jack, are there lots of athletes that are reaching out to you, musicians, artists, like folks that have high income and high salaries that are worried about inflation, that are trying to figure out what Russell Kong or Saquon is doing here? Or kind of what are you seeing in that front? Yeah, everywhere. Not only athletes, but musicians, actors. You know what I think is really unique, Pomp, and I've heard you – I don't know. Can I call you Pomp?

Because there's a lot of Pops here. As long as you don't call me an asshole, that's fine. We're good. I won't call you an asshole. No, but I've heard you say before, which is a really interesting point that you make, and it's true, that you can't build wealth as an employee. You've said that before. You've got to own equity. You've got to own an asset. If you want to grow well, you can't be working paycheck to paycheck. Now, that's true, except maybe, say, Quan Barkley. He's a very valuable employee. He makes a great living, right? And you can argue that while Saquon runs his own independent business, right? And athletes are independent

businesses, actors, actresses, musicians. But generally speaking, what I'm trying to get at is you have these employees, Saquon's an employee of the New York Giants, and they pay him handsomely and he's got making tens of millions of dollars off the field as well. But point being that he still is subject to getting a paycheck that his employment is priced in dollars. So Saquon's signing a contract that lasts X amount of time priced in dollars. And if you price in inflation and you price in taxes, he's actually losing like 30 to 70% of that money by the completion of his contract, right? And so then he's got all these commercial real estate agents, these club promoters, his family telling him what cars to buy, what things to invest in.

And I have the opinion that these people are relatively abused by their employer and by the people around them that they're taking advantage of and that they are one of the only rare employees in America that can potentially build generational wealth, build an independent business, build an independent brand, leave a legacy like Saquon's worked his whole life for, and that people are getting in the way of that and that the NFL and a lot of his counterparts aren't tremendously honest and potentially misleading to him. And I think it's a real problem. And so I think a lot of the people contacting me that is in the NFL, in the NBA, in Hollywood

are starting to realize that, starting to realize like, hey, I'm making hit after hit after hit i'm number one on the billboard every week but somehow after taxes after inflation after i listen to my cousin after i pay 20 off the top to my commercial real estate broker i don't have anything left that's bullshit sorry am i allowed to curse it's like what the fuck is that i thought it was that if i if i make hit after hit or i score touchdown after touchdown i work my ass off i act like a good citizen a good man uh that i that this isn't how it works um and i think everyone is starting to open their eyes to that. And the craze of Robinhood and now Bitcoin is this is a press, the Federal Reserve has perverted risk tolerance across all assets. No one knows what

anything's worth anymore because no one knows how to value a dollar. They're more printed by as the seconds they go by. So all that to say, I think every American, everyone in the world faces this problem from a high level. And I think folks like Saquon have a very unique visibility into it because they are high profile employees that do make a large wage of living. And there's a lot of opinions in their ear. And I think Bitcoin is the most accessible way to defend against inflation. It's the most accessible way to protect and preserve wealth. It's one that you can do independently.

You don't have to give a real estate broker any percentage of it. We don't need you guys anymore. Saquon can line up his direct deposit, toggle how much he wants to save and preserve for his daughter, and then go fucking run a linebacker over. He doesn't have to worry about anything else, and that's what it's all about. I completely agree. Before I let both of you go, Saquon, the most important question we have today, the Giants going to win a Super Bowl?

Are we going to win a Super Bowl this year? You know, that's the goal. That's every team's goal is to come out there and compete for a championship, but it starts when we start camp in two weeks or a week and a half or so. It starts there. You got to come there with the right mindset, believe in each other, believe in the coaches um and take it day by day and and see where it goes from there you didn't see this because you're uh only on uh on zoom but uh we pulled up saquon barkley and there was a

before and we were looking at what we should put underneath that and at first we had running back new york giants we made a audible we said now you gotta put the true title we said the best running back in the nfl so that's exactly what the title is so we figured that now that you're coming back from uh uh the injury you're gonna you're gonna prove us right so we're super excited about uh watching you guys play this year and obviously uh very excited about the investment in uh in strike and and uh you know kind of being co-investors there but uh i think just from our side just congratulations you know this is obviously a huge decision on your part we tend to think that uh this is a very smart decision uh and likely history would be very kind to you but

it takes real courage to uh kind of take a step like this and uh i think people will you know not appreciate it until a couple years from now but uh it's pretty cool to see so congrats again on uh, on making this decision. Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Jack, we'll talk soon, my friend. Yes, sir. Yeah. And I want to say Saquon man, congrats. I, I, again, I spent some time pump with him recently, a few weeks ago, people don't understand, uh,

the diligent work that goes into coming back from an injury like that. And then putting yourself again in front of 300 pound professional athletes to get hit one more time puts a lot of work that, and then also has the time and peace of mind to put his daughter and his family in a tremendous financial position. So Saquon, you're a superstar. You deserve all the credit in the world

and you're setting a great example for others to come. So congrats, dude. Much love. Thanks, brother. Jack, I love you. Saquon's whooping your ass in basketball. All right, guys, we'll see you later. This is...

All right.