The Pomp Podcast - #688 The Ground Truth About BItcoin w/ Isaiah Jackson

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Isaiah Jackson is the author of the best selling book “Bitcoin and Black America.” He is one of the most underrated people in the Bitcoin ecosystem and is constantly educating one of the most important communities for mainstream adoption. In this conversation, we discuss bitcoin, inflation, wealth inequality, access to financial services, how young kids are making $100,000 in months, and why Isaiah thinks bitcoin is going to $250,000 this year.  ======================= If you haven’t started building your crypto portfolio on Okcoin, there’s no better time. They’re one of the fastest growing global exchanges around and they have some promotions happening right now to help even more people be part of the future of finance. If you have an account already, you can split $100 in BTC with a friend when you invite them to sign up for Okcoin if they buy $100 of crypto in the first month. The more friends who sign up and buy, the more BTC you get. And I always recommend dollar-cost averaging as a way for investors to have more control over their average price when building their portfolio. Now you can automate dollar-cost averaging with completely fee-free daily, weekly, or monthly recurring buys on Okcoin until November 1. That’s no fees at all on your purchases until the holidays. Get started on the web or on their new super easy-to-use app at okcoin.com/pomp  ======================= Cryptocurrencies offer boundless potential, but who will protect yours? Arculus is the crypto cold-storage wallet that combines the world’s strongest security protocols with an easy-to-manage app. Unlike other storage solutions that are less secure and more difficult to use, Arculus doesn’t compromise security or usability. You can store, swap, and send your crypto all with a simple tap of your Arculus Key™ card. And with no cables and no USB connections, you’re insulated from the thousands of hackers online trying to get at all the digital assets people store in the cloud. So that the only person with access to your crypto... is you. Order the safer, simpler, smarter crypto cold storage solution at getarculus.com today. ======================= AppSumo is the leading digital marketplace for entrepreneurs, and a great way to get your product in front of 1M+ entrepreneurs, founders, and small businesses. AppSumo is giving away their entire $1 million Black Friday marketing budget to creators. If you have an ebook, online course, template, or any other digital product — this is for you. List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1,000, the next 2,000 to list a product and go live get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to AppSumo.com/pomp to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal.

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. Isaiah Jackson is the author of the bestselling book, Bitcoin in Black America. He's one of the most underrated people in the Bitcoin ecosystem and is constantly educating one of the most important communities for mainstream adoption. In this conversation, we discuss Bitcoin, inflation, wealth inequality, access to financial services, how young kids are making $100,000 in months and why Isaiah thinks Bitcoin is going to $250,000 this year. I really enjoyed this conversation with Isaiah and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode

though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is OKCoin. If you haven't started building your crypto portfolio on OKCoin, there's no better time. They're one of the fastest growing global exchanges around and they have some promotions happening right now to help even more people be part of the future of finance. If you have an account already, you can split $100 in Bitcoin with a friend when you invite them to sign up for OKCoin if they buy $100 of crypto in the first month. The more friends who sign up and buy, the more Bitcoin you get. And I always recommend dollar cost averaging as a way for investors to have more control over their average price when building their portfolio in any asset class. Now you can automate dollar cost averaging

with completely fee-free daily, weekly, or monthly recurring buys on OKCoin until November 1st. That's right. There's no fees at all on your purchases until the holidays. Get started on the web or on their new super easy to use app at okcoin.com slash pomp. Again, okcoin.com slash pomp. Go check them out and let me know what you think. No fees on all recurring buys until November 1st. Next up is Arculus. Cryptocurrencies offer boundless potential, but who will protect yours? Arculus is the crypto cold storage wallet that combines the world's strongest security protocols with an easy to manage app. Unlike other storage solutions that are less secure and more difficult to use. Arculus doesn't compromise security or usability. You can store, swap,

and send your crypto all with a simple tap of your Arculus key card. And with no cables and no USB connections, you're insulated from the thousands of hackers online trying to get it all at your digital assets that people store in the cloud. So that the only person with access to your crypto is you. Order the safer, simpler, smarter crypto and cold storage solution at GetArculus.com today. Again, GetArculus.com today. Go check out their security solution, GetArculus.com and do it today. Last but not least is AppSumo. AppSumo is the leading digital marketplace for entrepreneurs and a great way to get your product in front of one plus million entrepreneurs, founders, and small businesses. AppSumo is giving away their entire $1 million

Black Friday marketing budget to creators. If you have an ebook, an online course, a template, or any other digital product, this is for you. You can list your product on AppSumo between September 15th and November 17th. And the first 400 people to do it, offers to go live, will receive $1,000. The next 2,000 to list a product and go live will get 250 bucks.

And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10,000. If you wanna be entered to win or you got a digital product to sell, go to AppSumo.com slash pump to list that product today and cash in on this amazing deal. So AppSumo.com slash Pomp. Go check it out or click on the link in the description.

All right, let's get in this episode with Isaiah. I hope you guys enjoyed 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 we've got isaiah here with me what's up man nothing much brother glad to be here man so i want to settle a debate right out of the gate john earlier so i'm gonna check his swag see who's swaggy or john who wins it's a tie all right i'll be the tiebreaker isaiah wins oh good what uh what's been going on man oh man nothing much traveling the u.s uh

and international book tour stuff so man just getting out here making sure people get the information so tell us uh the first book went very well now you've got the second book that's on pre-sale so bitcoin black america just walk through the people who haven't read it yet like what the main premise is oh yeah it just uh basically shows the synergy between bitcoin being you know group economics based we don't even need to know each other and we we're working towards the same goal and i feel like in the black community we can do the same thing group economics work together use bitcoin as a savings account use it as uh eventually a currency and sort of move away from the current banking system that doesn't give a shit about us like i don't

understand why we try to appeal to people that don't care about us like the banking industry has messed us all over so uh i feel like in the black community we can move away move towards bitcoin better better future in that lane i think so you and i've talked about this a bunch but i don't think people realize how bad uh just not even black people white people but also people who live in certain communities uh and also certain types of banks definitely treat people very differently as well. And one of the things that is really interesting is you literally can walk in a bank, you can apply for a mortgage, you can apply for a loan or whatever. And a lot of times people just say yes or no, and they'll tell you why. Right. And so what do you think is like

the the promise of Bitcoin as it gets adopted by people who have been shunned by a legacy banking system? Is it just simply, hey, you're outside their system now and so they can't screw with you? Well, that's one thing. But outside of that, it can't be taken away from you. And we have a long history of the wealth that our community has built just snatched away either through violence or whatever redlining through different mechanisms but for once you can actually own your wealth this doesn't happen you know every you know just every day this is something this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually own your wealth pass it down to the next generation and nobody can take it from you especially a government that really doesn't have your best interest so

yeah it has a lot of promises to it not only that it also gives you in my opinion a change of how you think uh it changes your way of thinking you start digging deeper you go down the wormhole i mean you start getting into history you can start getting into cryptography economics i mean it's crazy the wormhole you go down just entering bitcoin so all of that is positive so i want to talk about a couple of current events just kind of get your general thoughts on it so first maybe let's start with uh there was a bank executive recently jamie diamond who said uh bitcoin is worthless uh what's your general take from like the incumbents who still are kind of holding out or saying hey look i don't want to participate oh man well dinosaur diamond as i

call him the biggest dinosaur in the industry he's either he's either incompetent or in on it that is it's no other two ways where he either really doesn't understand it or because anybody that says the phrase the algorithms you don't know what you're talking about yeah the algorithms uh but again he uh oh he's in on it meaning he has a large amount of bitcoin or a plan for it and he might have tried to manipulate the price like he did in 2017 drive it down a bit get scoop up some more cheap and then get it for himself so i think diamond is just like the other people they have a script they have people behind them telling what to say to me most of these bankers aren't even that powerful it's the person behind them that's telling them go out here and

say this good old boy go out there yeah to me it's like better just go out and say whatever message is told to them so i don't really take what they say at full full scale i think people are ignoring it now like people don't care anymore yeah bitcoin was up when he said it exactly right diamond said that in 2017 it went down what 30 in one day yeah doesn't matter now so when you think about him he's uh still holding out but then there's a bunch of people who from the first time i met you till now they're all in now right now they're all buying they're talking about it they're ready to rock and roll they're like hey i got laser eyes i mean the whole thing what do you what's your take in terms of the people from the legacy world that now have kind of capitulated

and actually started participate they don't have a choice okay i've always told people this even years ago that it doesn't matter what they say now at some point you have to go with demand if you're an actual business person and you want to make money in business you have to go with demand demand is turning towards we want bitcoin even institutional investors who may not understand it they're like well this is digital gold and gold is outdated down what seven percent this year down two percent over the last 10 years why am i in gold i'm going to bitcoin so yeah i think a lot of these people that didn't understand it don't get it they see where we're going so they don't have a choice i mean everybody's going to capitulate at some point yeah even countries i

mean el salvador is the first but i mean we got a long way to go a lot of countries will have to as What do you think about the way that El Salvador is doing it, like in terms of giving out the wallet and paying people, getting the ATMs in place? Like, it seems like when they first made the plans, my read on it was a lot of people like, ah, maybe. Like, we had a lot of people make promises. But it now seems like they're executing on this. Yeah, I love the fact that, of course, the Chivo wallet that they're using, they airdropped it to everybody. Everybody got $30 free Bitcoin and it's up. So everybody made money who kept it.

Some people have a problem with the control that Bucolet is trying to put on them. But I always tell people, this is the first time that it's ever happened. So it's going to be mistakes. It's going to be people that protest. Like, you have a few people, which I think is kind of a sham. If you ever read the book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, these are the exact same tactics. It's literally, we have this group of older people like, oh, yeah, we're protesting against Bitcoin. And then some guy on TV, he was like, he forgot the script.

And they were like, no, no, no, say this. You got these, you gave them what, 50 bucks a piece, told them to protest. They're knocking over ATMs. That's I think that's all bollocks at this point. I think Bucolet is trying his best. And the fact that he's doing volcanic mining on top of that is is amazing. So we're finding new ways to use renewable energy on top of his Bitcoin strategy. So it's the first time it's happened. First iteration is always going to have some mistakes. But I think from here on out, people will learn from his mistakes.

And then they'll like Brazil. They're looking at putting into their their economy is legal tender. So I think it'll be better that way. Are there other countries that you think are going to start to adopt this as well? Yes. It's already talks, like I said, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Cuba, any country I think that gets sanctioned, Venezuela, Iran, any of these countries, they're probably going to look towards Bitcoin in some capacity. And then I think other countries, because of demand, won't have a choice. I think their citizens will want it. And if inflation keeps going the way it's going, 5.4% reported today, Jesus Christ, we are definitely going to have countries buying Bitcoin because bonds are worthless. I mean, what else will you have to save your country's wealth

if you're, you know, a smaller country. So I can definitely see that, especially in the Caribbean area too. Yeah. So you've been on this kind of world tour for the book and you talked to a lot of people. What is their understanding of inflation? So 5.4% CPI, 4% core. How many people do you talk to that actually understand what inflation is? Probably 10% actually get what inflation is and how it's affected them until you show them just simple examples like, hey, your father could work one job and they could have a house two cars four kids whatever now you got two people with jobs you can't even afford an apartment because money is worth less now prices only go up because the money is debased literally on purpose so uh once you kind of explain that

people are like yeah i get that it's just they don't see it in their face it's inflation is very slow it takes a long time for inflation to show itself so you know most people don't have that patience but when you take them back you're like yeah in the 60s people could could do this why can we do it now inflation so it works explain it to them that way but most people have no clue they don't realize their money is literally being stolen through inflation and when you describe the inflation to them do they change their behavior a lot of times not right at the beginning but they it's in their mind so they start doing things to save getting the assets of course getting the bitcoin so they take the action eventually but not always at first because

it's kind of a shock if your whole life you're like oh yeah i just make money and then i go spend it right and then somebody's like yeah the money you make isn't worth anything you know 10 years from now if you don't have assets to put it into so i think they they take that and then run with it from there and how much of it's like an investor psychology thing like hey my whole life i was told save save save save you know spin list that i make like that is the core um you know kind of value proposition of like what to do from a personal finance standpoint it's just if you're a saver then you can actually get to a point where you're you're wealthy right you literally save yourself to wealth now all of a sudden that's probably not true with inflation you know ravaging

on, et cetera. So now people have to become investors. And so that switch is actually a pretty big switch, right? Like basically save as much as you can versus now know actually you're going to spend, but you're going to spend it on assets versus some sort of consumptive action. Do you find that to be like a hard transition for people? To an extent. I think some people understand that I should be doing something with this money. But I think once you start seeing people like Gary Gensler say, hey, save five bucks a week at 8% and you can have 130K when you're 60. And people are like, that's what it takes to save? Oh, that's bullshit. I'm definitely going the other way. I'm going to put in assets. And I think people understand they need that.

They just don't know how. And once you kind of explain it, I think people will start to see that's what rich people have known all along. You have to have your money and assets to beat inflation so that your money does last long term. Yeah. And it almost feels like in some way, saving is defensive and investing is offensive. And you really got to, once you convince people like, hey, you got to go on offense here, then all of a sudden it becomes easier for them to do. Exactly. Yeah. And I had a mentor that told me, he said, hey, every dollar that I have is a worker. Every dollar should be working for you right now. There's no nobody in my house doesn't have a job. There's no lazy people. So even my money works for me.

So I think, you know, some people are so defensive with their money because they're scared. Once you take that away, usually through education, usually through seeing it over and over, that scared part goes away. And they can get over and, you know, invest in assets from there. I just think the people that still believe in saving. I mean, just look at the rates. what is it, 0.02% or something crazy? It doesn't do anything. So people, they see it, they just don't know how to get out of it. The math that always, I think, opens people's eyes is the national savings rate in a savings account or in like a deposit account is 0.03%. And inflation is 5.4%, which means that they are devaluing the currency at 5.4% year over year,

but they will pay you 0.03% to hold it. So on a net basis, you lose over 5% of your purchasing power every single year if your money is just sitting in the bank. Yes. And going up, I think inflation will actually hit the double digits at some point if we keep going this way. And I think they're kind of hiding the stats to try and cook the books a little bit so people don't get scared because as soon as people see that 10% inflation, I mean, it's going to be panic. So I just think it's worse than it actually is right now. So you should be vigilant at this point because like you said they're stealing five percent of your money every year we definitely think they're cooking the books we talked about it earlier today if you look at things like uh housing energy food

all that stuff's up big um and then the things that aren't up big are frankly things that most people don't interact with on a daily basis um and so when you see that the people who are in positions of influence or power say things like oh there's an official inflation rate and then they mentioned that the unofficial inflation and you're like wait wait hold on a second like if we're going to acknowledge the unofficial maybe we should actually be presenting both numbers uh in these reports but they only report the official one which and i understand why they do it and we always go back and forth on do they actually believe what they're reporting and i think to some degree they do believe hey based on the way that we calculate this is the right number

it's just that's not necessarily representative of what the everyday american experience is on a day-to-day basis, right? Come on, Bomp, you can't give people real information. We're all the sheep. You're supposed to just give us a little bit to pacify us and then let it go. Can't give us real information because it would be a revolution tomorrow. I forgot who quoted that, but if you actually knew what was going on, it'd be a revolution in the morning. So, of course, they're going to put those stats out. They're never going to tell you how bad it really is. And like you said, commodities are up 60, 70, 80 percent, but inflation is up five. Are you serious? So, it is, to me, a concerted effort to make sure we're not scared. But I think you should

should be a little bit just a little bit if you're not prepared yeah and part of i guess what really is interesting to me is so the we have the official numbers but also is when you start looking at employment like employments over or unemployment's over five percent but there's over 11 million open jobs right now so how is it that we have all these people who don't have jobs but all these open roles and we can't figure out how to put them together right and it just feels like that like there's a huge disconnect yeah everybody's at home trading crypto nobody wants to go back to work. Now, it is crazy. I have noticed a lot of hiring signs. I've noticed a lot of new people working at a lot of places that I used to frequent. It's a lot of new employees. So

it is a weird dynamic right now where it's like nobody wants to work, but jobs are asking people to come, but they don't want to increase pay or they don't have really any incentives. I mean, they do a little bit. Like I saw, I think it was McDonald's that increased it from like $15 to $17, but it's like, all right, thanks. But that's not enough to convince me to leave the comfort of whatever people are doing right now. So I think, man, this is a weird time to be living in. That's what I'll say. It's just weird to see this play out right in front of our eyes to be alive to see this, because it is sort of the game theory of Bitcoin is that, you know, long term, if there is problems with your economy and people need something to run to, businesses will use Bitcoin

instead. Like if our money starts getting inflated out the water, it's like, well, I use Bitcoin instead. That's kind of the hyper Bitcoinization thing. And then people aren't working. It's going to be hard to get people to work if they're in Bitcoin and then they make Bitcoin goes to 200,000, 500,000. You know what I mean? It's a weird dynamic. So it'll be interesting to see it play out. One of the things that blew my mind, probably the most ridiculous statistic we've ever uncovered is that 80% of American workers get paid more than $15 an hour because the narrative, the kind of mainstream coverage is, oh, we have to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks. And the free market essentially has already established $15 an hour is the kind of going rate. And so when you see,

as you mentioned um i was going from 15 to 17 it feels uh in some weird way that people uh are thinking all the time like john always talks about his friends they don't invest in anything unless they think it's going up 10x right which again like like there's there's uh one aspect of like they're probably not wrong right of like if you're young and you can buy assets and you hold them for long enough like you probably can get those types of returns over a long period of time uh but they're not looking for it over a long period of time looking for a short period of time So there's a psychological impact to just everything goes up. But if you could literally take a dollar and put it in something that you think, whether it actually happens or not, goes up 10x, what's the difference between $15 and $17?

Like there almost is no difference in terms of trying to get you to incentivize to come and actually work, right? Absolutely. And that's a problem they're going to have to deal with because a lot of younger people are starting to see that. I mean, we have the whole NFT craze right now. I know a 15-year-old with $100,000. You really think you're going to get him to work at McDonald's right now? No. He might buy McDonald's.

Exactly. that's what i'm saying so it's sort of a weird dynamic i'm seeing these younger people getting into a game earlier than their you know parents their grandparents and their it's money behind it's not like other technology well if you had a cell phone first whatever you taught your parents how to use their cell phones now it's like no i'm teaching my parents how to make more money i make more than them so uh it's sort of weird but it is crazy to see things change so take like a 15 year old like that is that something where uh they just complain on the internet they see stuff they learn themselves or somebody you know a friend a family friend whatever saying to

them hey look you should go do this you're a young person you understand like how do they get into it you think oh yeah well that particular 15 or what i'm talking about i taught his mom at a seminar about bitcoin she brought him to the next one talking about bitcoin and he just would call me text me every now and then like what should i do blah blah blah introduce him to nfts and he went crazy because that was more his creative side and he figured it out a lot of the drops and things that go with that and yeah he's sitting at about 100k worth of crypto right now and then as far as Bitcoin, our only argument is always tell them, man, you should stick with Bitcoin, blah, blah, long term. You know how kids are. It's like, no, no, I'm getting Shiba, I'm getting whatever.

I like the dog. I like the dog. Yeah, whatever's new out there. But like you said, your friends don't invest unless it's a 10x. That's the same kind of mindset he has. Why not gamble? I'm 15. Like, what am I really losing at this point? I have way more than my peers. So, hey, more power to them. Yeah. When you talk to like a 15-year-old like that, how much of it is around they're trying to actually learn investing and they're kind of exploring markets versus they're actually just saying, hey, look, I want to make money because I want to go and buy other stuff. Like, are they doing it to build a portfolio or are they doing it so they can go buy, you know, he's going to go

buy a car or something? It's usually the latter. But the good thing I always say is at least their foot is in the door. At least they saw it's sort of the medicine and the candy. If I can get you with NFTs or I can get you with, oh, you're making a lot of money, what you're actually doing is teaching yourself what investing is, whether you do it well or not, you're still teaching yourself and then sort of guiding them to that way. Because again, kids, you can't hit them with the hard Fed Reserve is doing this, get into Bitcoin, save. They're not going to listen. You have to get them in some way creative. And being a former teacher, I see how that works. You just get them in there. And then once they're in, you teach them what they need to know. So it's usually the latter.

I mean, when I was 15, I was going to buy shoes and dump shit, too. So I understand that. But just trying to shift it a little bit to where it's like, hey, hey, if you're actually thinking long term, you can be pretty wealthy if you know what you're doing. Yeah, because it's almost like you're teaching them the skill set of investing. And now the barrier to entry to invest has come down so significantly that literally a 15 year old can do it. And then you add in these like super asymmetric opportunities, whether they're sustainable or not. And you take a couple thousand dollars or a couple hundred dollars in some cases and bam, next thing you know, you're like, hey, I'm sitting on a real portfolio that other folks would spend years working. And I'm 15, I'm 16,

I'm 20. You know, there's plenty of people at 25 years old and they're just like, you know, wait, what just happened? Exactly. I mean, wealth we've never seen before. And again, And some of the people who are, you know, around our age, 30s, 40s, whatever, most of them have never seen this before, but they live during a time where, you know, technology took, so they understand that it's coming. It's sort of the boomer generation that's like, I don't understand how my 401k is this, but this little kid is making, you know, 60, 80. So that interests them as well.

So it all works in his favor. You know, Bitcoin wins the den. So talk to me about the, like the seminars that you guys do, because I think what's so fascinating is you're literally doing what I would call a hand-to-hand combat. You're going person-to-person-to-person and explaining to them, here's what this is. Here's how it works. Here's how you buy it. Here's how you custody it. Here's what to do from a good practice or to make sure that you've got high level security, et cetera. What are these seminars? Oh, yeah. So on the book tour, usually using the book as the standard for how I teach it, I usually ask people where they

are and then meet them there. So for example, if you just start out talking about Bitcoin, most people are not interested. We're still humans. You got to start with what interests them. So if they have a business, I start there. All right, for your business, you can put it on your treasury. You can accept it. You can do this, this and that. All right. If you're looking at being a trader, you can go to that angle as well. But usually just helping people where they are, if they're a very basic level, again, setting a wallet, showing them security, cold storage, all those things. I think I'm one of the, I guess, I've been out there the most, I think, of most people in person because a lot of people are used to zoom we can do videos forget all that

i like to go to people so uh usually meeting people in person they want to see your face because they don't there's no bitcoin university there's no like official bitcoin certification so for them to believe you usually in person is better so loved it uh been to a bunch of cities uh going to san diego the 19th with edge wallace or uh to show some more people so it's great to do it in person and seeing people seeing that light bulb go off is great yeah it's pretty cool especially the doubters oh man i've had a couple doubters and then at the end of it they kind of just they just let it go because it's like well it's too much evidence stacked up against me and i did write a book about it so it's not like i didn't research every combat combat that you have

at this point so it's cool what do you think is going to happen through the end of the year you got like a price prediction for bitcoin i said it january 1st 250 so i have to stick with it so you think we're going to hit 250 what's the logic behind getting the 250 000 bitcoin by the end year uh so statistically speaking uh if you look at the growth of every bull market 2013 2017 four years later here we are after happening uh the statistically where we will go is somewhere at 230 250. if we follow that same path also you have other models you have the s2f model basically in line you have people who use the uh pure multiple to show when there's a time to perfect time to buy which was during the pandemic of 2020 right now we're on the path to where it would be around 210

based on that model so it just kind of lines up to go that way and i think um also quarter four wall street gets those bonuses people started uh looking to reduce their tax uh their tax liability so they put it in assets and since bitcoin is an asset that usually people fomo into we hit 70 80k hey man you already know what happens after that because i mean if we really I mean, just psychologically thinking if we hit 100K and it zooms from there, there's going to be so many people that say, I cannot miss this. I can't. I mean, we hit 100 and then all of a sudden it's 120, 140. People are like, oh, my God, what just happened? I got to buy it. That's why I think we'll have the momentum to go past 200.

So once that starts to happen, we hit all time high, then we go past 100, go past 150. Is it just like a blow off top or you think we come back down on the other side and get another like 70, 80 percent drawdown at some point? Yeah, I think we have that. I don't know if it'll be 70, 80 percent, but I do think the bear markets will be shorter only because the 2017 bear market after happened was a lot of retail traders. This time is more institutional. They're constantly buying. You think Michael Saylor is not going to be buying every dip in the bear market? You think El Salvador is not buying every dip? Other countries during that bear market are not going to be buying every dip leading up to 2024, which is the next happening. After that, I just think it's over from there. I don't think a regular person is going to be able to buy one Bitcoin after 2024. So, yeah, I definitely see a blow off top. I think there'll be some sort of event that happens that causes it. Not sure what that will be, but our government is dumb enough to do something. They've been they've showed their stupidity over the last year to push people to alternative currencies like Bitcoin. So it should be fun. Definitely.

So if we go to two hundred fifty thousand dollars, do you think that not only the retail investors who definitely drive through FOMO, but do you think a lot of institutions start to FOMO once we get past like one hundred hundred fifty K? Yeah, because if we get to that point, I believe we'll be at a $5 trillion market gap somewhere in there. That's about half of golds or on the way to golds. You can't ignore that. I mean, at that point, it's sort of you'll be left in the dust. And one thing people don't know about institutional investors is most of them don't have an original thought in their mind. They all copy each other. So as soon as the one guy gets rich who was, you know, terrible before, he's like, well, I should be doing it, too.

That's how it starts. And I think we're seeing that now. I mean, we're seeing a lot of, I think even Larry Fink, he didn't say Bitcoin was bad. He didn't say it was good either. But he's sort of, I think he's sitting there thinking like, OK, well, we have trillions of dollars AUM. So why not? Like, why wouldn't we buy more? So I think that thought is starting to permeate and we'll see something fun in the future.

Also, ETF might be coming. People have been saying, oh, what if they approve ETF next week? I think the floodgates will be open at that point. You think the ETF is going to happen? Maybe, but who cares? I don't think people would put too much into all of these institutional products that got us where we are now. All they do is really just put us back where we are. But it does let a lot of money enter into the space.

So it is good for the space. It's a net positive. Net positive, yeah. Joe, what questions you got? First off, that hat's sweet. That's a dope hat. We got to figure out. We're going to have to get me one of those.

Second off, so you've been talking about Bitcoin and financial education in general for a while now. Now, I'm curious kind of from when you started to today, like how have you seen that transition? Has it changed at all? And how have people been kind of taking in Bitcoin and other digital assets in your talks? Yeah, so from 2013 when I started, when it was scary times and everybody thought I was crazy and everybody thought it was a scam, it was a Ponzi scheme, it was Beanie Babies. I don't know, whatever people said it was. From that time period to now, it has improved so much so to the point now where you can buy instantly on Cash App.

It's so amazing to me that you can literally buy Bitcoin just like that. used to be this whole process to go through like you had to do it on the command line so i think uh it's gotten a lot easier for people the user experience has gotten better and i also think that uh socially there are people who influence people you know rappers entertainers they've gotten into it so it's become a lot easier when you say hey yeah by the way jay-z owns bitcoin by the way uh naz uh has stake in coinbase so people start to you know accept it more that way so i love it at this point it's just it's just funny to see that now that we're at this point we have people who are still trying to scam and scheme and do whatever stuff with whatever

projects or whatever uh and losing money when it's like so much money in this market why would you even do that so hopefully we get that out but since then it's been pretty much the same yeah it's been fun to watch it become a part of culture for sure it seems right seeing it in movies commercials i mean this is it's crazy to me uh especially because uh what movie was it dope on the side movie i remember seeing in 2015 and my girlfriend at the time as soon as they said the word bitcoin in there i was like see i told you this is real she was like holy shit this is real i didn't think bitcoin was actually that's awesome so that's how people learn about it and you know go from there john what do you got yeah um i'm curious whatever you're comfortable sharing

with so a lot of our audience is young and they're trying to figure out how to allocate capital to different avenues whether it's cryptocurrencies holding in cash whatever could you just talk about your personal allocation maybe percentage whatever you're comfortable with sharing yep So 90% of my savings is in Bitcoin. The reason I keep it there is Statistically 200% year-over-year compound annual growth also holding it There is no tax liability because you don't sell it so that I avoid that so I keep it in Bitcoin and then also As far as any other things to invest in I always say Any other all coins to me Bitcoin cryptocurrency is separate big ones one thing trying to be you know

Put up your money system cryptocurrency is different Those investments are more speculative and I would say only money you can afford to lose put into cryptocurrency uh and bitcoin if you don't have it in there that is money you will lose so that's sort of the difference uh so i wouldn't say any percentages to put in there but just money you can afford to lose and again watch out for a lot of these these projects that promise you the world they have a lot of buzzwords but don't mean anything it's interoperable blockchain web 3.0 blah blah blah all of that is uh sort of you know just just fluff so just watch out for that when you start to think about uh how people can get educated reading your book is obviously

a huge piece of it what else should people be doing in terms of learning oh yeah definitely stay on youtube youtube has pretty much everything uh that you want to learn i would say whenever you look at projects or look at things in the industry always look at their github even if you're not technical you can do a quick review to make sure that they're actually active because for some reason people get a look at these projects they think it's going to change the world and the developers haven't even done an update in two months. So look at their GitHub. Also look at the founders, look at sort of the history, seen a lot of rebrands I've seen. I mean, crypto.com was Monaco back in the day. I mean, all of these, a lot of these companies, uh, they rebrand. So

look at the history of it. And then also I would say longterm, uh, whatever you choose to, to look at, uh, or to invest in, you want to make sure that you actually stand in it for longterm because some people will buy it and say, yeah, I'll hold it for a year, two years. That's, that's not long-term. We're talking 10, 20, 30 years, something that you wouldn't sell maybe for a hundred years, like Michael Sigler said with Bitcoin. So those should be your metrics. And from there, just block out the noise. Don't listen to Bitcoin Twitter. A lot of people will steer you wrong, just FOMO and into stuff. So just watch out for that. Yeah. So talk about like the long-term view. I always say that the Bitcoin that I have on my

hand to my kids, right? And the reason why that's the thought process is because when you think about it as I'm just holding this for somebody else, there's never a urge to sell at all, right? So how do you walk through or how did you get the conviction for kind of a multi-decade type hold of an asset? Well, first I had a daughter who will be one years old, the 21st. So that changed my mindset a lot because I mean, I was doing Bitcoin for myself. And then when you have a child, it's like, well, this is about to be generational. So yeah, I have no intentions to sale because, for one, passing it down to her, somebody once said, you know, nobody really owns Bitcoin. You're just holding it for the next generation. Right. So really, that conviction

came from that. And then also to seeing that Bitcoin goes long term, you know, for whatever reason, if something happens, it goes away in the year 2200 or something like that. Before that time period, you want to make sure that your kids can grow their wealth without the cost of inflation, you know, weighing them down, especially at a young age. I mean, you have kids who are growing up now in a world where it's already all the odds are against them bitcoin to me seems like the only plan b they could actually have so definitely holding it uh and generational you know wealth people hate i hate when people say this they want to have generational wealth but they don't provide their kids with the education they just give them money

and then they don't give an education that's the second part of it you have to give them the education on how it works don't sell it i'm sure i'll have some idiot grandson at some point that'll get in like gambling debts or something and be like i want to sell the bitcoin i'm like no, no, no. It'll be like, don't sell your grandmother's house. Don't sell grandpa's Bitcoin. So trying to, trying to teach that to my kids or future kids, uh, as well as giving them the money as well. Yeah. It's very interesting. There's a lot of cultures in the world. India is a great example where, uh, they pass gold down from, you know, generation, generation, generation. Uh, and if you're the idiot who sells the family's gold game over,

you ain't coming to any holidays, right? And so I do think that there's this element that it's likely to kind of play out there as well. When you think about that generational passing it on, do you think about education, the asset, and then also like buying into the infrastructure or doing anything else? Or is it just no trying to get Bitcoin and then being able to pass that down? Bitcoin is great. But yes, having, I would say, stocks and Bitcoin mining companies are great. Actually having investments in Bitcoin companies or crypto companies are great as well. All things to diversify. When people talk about diversify, that's what I would say. And as far as VCs, as you know, a lot of VCs invest in these companies. If you are an accredited investor,

I would look into that because a lot of times if you can't get the gold by the shovels or at least invest in the shovels. So I think a lot of people that can do that will win as well, because as Bitcoin increases, as it gets better, everybody wins, actually. So we have a tweet of yours that I think we're going to pull up that, that Polina saw and sent to me. And it says, I remember having $300 of cash on me in 2014, heading to buy an ounce of weed, right? So shout out to the weed, decided to buy an eighth instead. And I bought one Bitcoin with the rest.

That same Bitcoin is what I gifted my daughter, delayed gratification, got my baby girl set for life. So talk about this. Here we go. Here's a tweet right here. So 300 bucks of cash. you bought an eighth of weed instead of an ounce and then you also bought a bitcoin handed to your daughter talk about like that mentality because i think what sticks out to me and this may be a

crazy thing for me to take away from this you still got some weed right you didn't have to completely say i'm gonna get any weed right like you're able to still get some weed plus the bitcoins so explain that yeah yeah so uh you know at the time i was really to me it seems crazy now but i was really so adamant about buying as much bitcoin as possible because i was sold in 2013 like i was completely sold this is the future uh that it seemed crazy to some people like every 20 40 60 80 bucks i had extra i would stop eating out uh at work i would you know use less gas driving plate like i would just do small stuff take that money and then go buy bitcoin so this particular incident it was a friday you know it is friday you just got paid you're like oh yeah i'm

about to do this this and that had a lot of bills but i was like all right i got this cash i'm about to go uh buy weed like regular but then i thought about it i was like well actually bitcoin is 200 it was at 240, I think, or 250. And I was like, well, actually, I can buy a whole Bitcoin with this 250 and get a little bit less. And when I got it, I put it on this flash drive that, again, I still have to this day. That Bitcoin is still sitting there. It's my daughter's for whenever she turns 18. But my mindset at that time was everything you should be doing should be revolved around stacking sats before it was a term. And I used to go to ATMs pretty much every day or every other day by 20 bucks worth, by 40 bucks worth. And this is when Bitcoin was $200.

dollars so that was pretty significant 0.3 here 0.5 there adds up so um my mindset has never changed since then still do it to this day uh but i just think people uh didn't have the sense of urgency they just thought this is crazy you're a crazy person yeah well crazy people they're usually right sometimes so uh i think uh just having that conviction was great at that time and it worked out again like i said i think one bitcoin would be worth millions at some point so that's what i meant by i set my baby girl up for life just by not buying extra weed yeah yeah well And when you think about this, like this idea of the stacking sats, right, of just, hey, I bought today 20, 40 bucks, obviously can't buy you 0.3, 0.5 Bitcoin, but it can still buy you some Bitcoin. And being able to do that over time, it's almost like you built the habit of doing it and you built the discipline to continue to do it.

And then that ultimately is what led to being able to kind of build a Bitcoin position that ended up being pretty valuable, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And again, dollar cost averaging is for everybody. There is no person that can't dollar cost average. Everybody can't buy straight, you know, one whole Bitcoin. everybody can't trade everybody can't supposedly be an accredited investor but you can dollar cost average 20 bucks a week 50 bucks a week 100 bucks a month whatever it is that's actually the best strategy and I've been doing it so long now it's like second nature I use services now they do it automatically

but yeah back then it was just a habit just go buy as much as you can just because our dollar is going away this is what what the future holds yeah if I gave you the floor for two minutes what's your pitch for people as to why they should should take a look at Bitcoin and what the value proposition is so let's see I want to get too philosophical that's why I was trying to stop myself but let's just say Bitcoin is the first true form of freedom in the digital world and without Bitcoin you are guaranteed to lose your money and with Bitcoin you can keep your value long term so I would say for anybody who

is on the fence about bitcoin uh at this point if you need convincing i can't really help you like satoshi said but what i can say is uh if you need evidence we have plenty of it uh in this 12 year history and what is the evidence you normally point to with people uh we started out as a obscure currency and we're at a one trillion dollar market cap not much more evidence you need than that yeah just go right to hey look there's so much adoption and now it's pushed up to a trillion dollar asset class and that that pretty much shuts everybody up yep yeah pretty much and then what do you think think about in terms of financial services around it, right? Because I think, again, it's just always stuck in my head of the financial services. And there's so many people in the world

that are blocked out from what is in the Western world considered, oh, just normal financial services. When we get into this Bitcoin denominated world, do you feel like people will still leverage the same exact financial services around lending and borrowing and all that? I think to an extent, it's a bridge to where we're going, but I don't think it will be as needed and as inflammatory as it is now. A lot of the lending and loan sharks and all this stuff, that'll go away. I think it'll be more fair because people would literally be able to look at the blockchain and see that this is what the rates are. This is better. Competition is always good. That doesn't exist in a centralized world. The competition is gone pretty much. So I

think, yeah, at that point, Bitcoin, we may have those services, but I think it'll be a shift in how business is done. A little bit more fair, I think. Yeah. John, what do you think? Yeah, I agree. I have one question for you. What are some books you think people should read besides? I got a great book suggestion. So just in general, the Bitcoin standard is always a great one. I would say reading the Confessions of an Economic Hitman changed my life. Just seeing how things really work. The Creature of Jekyll Island. The Intelligent Investor. I would say From Bars to Bitcoin.

Shout out to Justin Redrick, who you have Bitcoin Vegan, his story. because that's one thing in bitcoin everybody's talking about how they got rich nobody talks about how they started and how they got to that point how bitcoin could change so shout out to justin um and let's see other than that uh those are probably my top five right now pump your own book again please oh yeah yeah definitely uh bitcoin in black america one and two uh second version is out for pre-order so that was a great book as well i would say a lot of information in there when uh explain justin's story real quick for those that didn't listen to the podcast episode idea with him oh yeah yeah so justin i actually have known justin since i was 12 and uh he

actually uh went to prison uh for a couple years got out uh rehabilitated himself uh you know and got his own business going uh he was he had a taco truck at first which i always tell the story i was buying tacos from him in bitcoin so i actually bought a 900 burrito uh from him at some point it was 16 bucks at the time it was like 900 something now so uh so yeah i was buying that from him he rehabilitated himself started accepting bitcoin started setting up lightning nodes started educational services on to now having the book and then starting a tour uh hopefully soon now going around the prisons teaching them about bitcoin because one thing we're trying to implement is uh jpay which is the way that you send money to people who are in prison

could actually have them invest in bitcoin automatically through some service uh bitwage maybe one some of the other ones we'll see but yeah justin's story is amazing you have to read from bars of bitcoin and it's it's a testament to what bitcoin can do it's not just i made a bunch of money changes your mindset and it takes you on a path i think that's way more enlightened than what we have right now yeah one of the things i think that we've uh obviously the whole show is built around uh the actual show the best business or not the most dangerous business show uh but the entire idea is this is education and it's mindset right and it sounds super cheesy it sounds super uh kind of like uh woo woo or whatever when you when you say it that way

but ultimately wealthy people know something that other people don't know and what they know is either passed down to them somebody in their family told them they had a mentor somewhere along the way or they learned it from themselves off the internet or reading books or whatever but once you get that knowledge it's the whole idea of you could take that wealthy person you could take them out of let's say the united states you could take every asset they have take their phone they can't contact anybody whatever and you can go and you can drop them in another country and they got nothing to their name and they'd probably be wealthy again yeah right because they they got the skill set they understand how to how to play the game and in

some crazy way i talked to some of my friends about it they're like man i'd probably be richer if that happened to me than what i'm doing right now because you know i started a business it's a good business but it's not a great business and you know if i started all over again i would do something different but by the way i can't really kind of give up because i'm addicted to you know a salary or the earnings or whatever and so it's really interesting when you think about like there is no place to go learn that skill set right it is literally you learn on the internet a mentor or or like a family or a friend tells you yeah is this like informal network and then that's ultimately how people end up uh acquiring skill set man it's crazy it's crazy to see too

because like i said before there's no bitcoin university uh and as far as investing and education uh as far as where you can do it there's so many avenues you can go to but who's actually correct who knows what they're talking about that's always hard to find but yeah man this is a great time to be alive that's all i have to say all the information is there you just got to go find it joe what are the people who have taken bitcoin uh from like a musicians and athletes we've got saquon taking marketing deals we got cunningham did it with block fi his deal yeah k did it uh russo kung took uh half of his salary in bitcoin which is still crazy awesome thing no um trevor lawrence the quarterback for jacksonville he took like some crypto or

something right from ftx ftx indomitian sued and do anything not that i know but tom brady owns come on man sean colkin shout out to sean sean colkin yes there's another one uh and then what we've got brady uh we also have uh who is that there was a recent professional soccer player right that uh uh he's getting paid in bitcoin he's but he's getting paid his salary or salary salary yeah and then we don't have any teams yet that have actually said uh they're putting bitcoin the balance sheet or anything there was a who's the soccer club in oh soccer who was it uh maybe the netherlands or something took some through a deal and they're back we didn't sell it it's appreciated whatever so they have some but i don't think they like proactively went out

dallas mavericks accepted right on the balance sheet yeah yeah they accept it for merch um and then uh well you got murder beats i know that he uh he's a bitcoin investor you got was the sacramento kings didn't they have a mining operation going on they did they donated it yeah yeah sacramento kings i don't know if it actually ever went through but they uh they had said that they were going to allow all their employees to be paid in bitcoin i don't know if it got approved with the league or whatever but i know they were working on it yeah uh vivek is the owner of the sacramento kings he's doing a great job uh and then you've got so you've got in outside of uh sports you've got murder beats i know meek mill right is super into uh bitcoin

crypto stuff uh i'm assuming do we know drake's position yet not particularly but i'm sure he's I feel like Drake and Kanye, you get those two to say it. It's like, OK, like you tip the scales even further. Yeah. Right. Well, they'll be beefing and want to buy more. And then the next buy more. And the next thing you know, I don't know.

I want to buy Bitcoin cash. Jay-Z is involved in crypto yet, but I know he's an NFT craze. Well, yeah. And he's got the Crypto Punk, I think, as his avatar or whatever. Right. Well, him and Jack Dorsey started a B-Trust private fund. I'm actually applying for that to be on that board. so really with jay-z and jack dorsey so okay explain what that is to everyone so it's a

private trust uh i believe it's 500 bitcoins worth right now it'll be more later private trust for uh developers uh building on bitcoin in african countries so jay-z and jack dorsey started it i don't know if there'll be more added to it but yeah i applied for it fingers crossed we'll see if i can get on there because that would be great how do we help you get it oh man so everybody tweet jack right now tweet jay-z right now say hey this is the guy you need to get on there so made it it made it to the final round interviews we'll see how it goes and uh on the board the idea is that they're going to take the 500 bitcoin over time i'm assuming that it'll appreciate uh and they're going to give it to developers in african countries that are building for bitcoin

yep building bitcoin businesses building on lightning building you know different projects that are centered around that and then of course i'm sure there'll be scholarship uh funds uh things of that nature donations to different um 501c3 so yeah all great stuff just want to be a of it because i think that is the the breeding ground of all the great talent right now uh in a lot of african countries they've never had this opportunity so they're going even harder like i tell people all the time some of these developers in kenya will eat us for lunch because they they have more of a reason to want to use it like they can actually change everything and here we're kind of spoiled we have a relatively stable currency in countries where that's not the case they're

definitely going to work a lot harder so i just want to be there to help as far as education i'm absolutely like a thousand percent convinced that the united states is complacent and the people here are like ah i can go to the atm you know i can walk in the bank uh my dollars you know yeah maybe they went down maybe they didn't but i don't know it's only five percent inflation it's not you know argentina which is 50 inflation or whatever and so what they ultimately end up doing is uh i think they're convinced that there's value here and a lot of people are like okay yeah we'll get to it. But in other countries, they're like, this is a yesterday thing, right? Like we got to get on this, right? That's why Nigeria has what, second or third most transactions. They need it.

That's a different mindset than, well, I'll get it if I feel like it. That's a whole different mindset. And I also wonder how much they understand a different problem as well, right? Like the problem that I have in the United States is like stupid stuff, right? The bank is closed and it's hours of operations. They're like, I don't have a bank account. Like that is a completely different problem set that you're trying to solve for versus uh kind of a need to or i'm sorry a nice to have in the united states and many other places that need to have right and that i think really drives uh one just the velocity of action and kind of the urgency but also it tends to drive i think just a different type of uh solution that gets built because they actually

understand fundamentally a problem that i think most people in the western world don't understand we're we're trying to figure out how do i do derivatives you know what like let's go trade let's go you know do all this crazy stuff but there's people who are like no literally if i can earn a living by just having an internet connection i can get payments that are uncensored and i can hold that asset no one can confiscate it for me yeah it's a middle finger to my local you know government or bank or whatever and you know that's not in a negative way it's actually most people in the western world would say no you should put your middle finger up to your local bank because they're stealing from you right and they've been doing it for a long time right it's

nuts too and i also guess like part of it is just like how much internet penetration smartphone penetration we now have right if we were talking about this 10 15 years ago we probably don't have the internet coverage or the smartphone penetration actually be able to pull this off now i think we do and you know i i think i've told you a story before i went to uh nigeria in 2016 i believe i think it was 2016 or 2015 uh and i went to a place called computer village right uh outside of uh or in lagos and um i was blown away i walked through that place and i literally was like this is the future i think i actually wrote a piece when i came back and i was like that is the future of the consumer internet is just people who they've got smartphones they

understand the internet they're digitally native and everything they were doing was completely different and the best example i have is uh while i was there i went to what i don't know what else to call it than like a sports book right it's basically like you go when they were betting on soccer and it was very rudimentary you walk up they basically write on a piece of paper whatever they give it to you you sit down you watch the game go back up get your money whatever uh and a game ended and i noticed that a bunch of people were watching one of the tvs on the far right now and i started paying attention i was like that real game and then i realized they were all betting on simulations of a video game so you remember like when we play video games like madden at home

you're simulated okay whatever i just you know bring up to being too lazy right they were betting on it and so i remember thinking to myself like damn if that ever took off in the u.s that'd be crazy right like i couldn't see it because i was just like oh like we like live sports and whatever zed run oh yeah right is the horse game or whatever that all these people and again i don't play it but all these people are betting on these horses running in simulations wow and so you've come and you just look at it you're like okay again like maybe that one works maybe it doesn't I don't know. It almost doesn't even matter.

But, like, I saw that happening in Nigeria in, you know, 2015, 2016. And now, bam, here we go. Here's this global phenomenon. And so I do think that, like, that same mechanism is going to happen over and over and over again where there's just a different consumer behavior that then gets exported to the rest of the world. And now that those technologies are there, historically, people in Nigeria have waited for other people to build it. I don't think they're going to have to do that as much anymore. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to people who are building mesh networks in Africa right now and African countries and mesh networks hasn't been a big topic in like the Bitcoin industry.

But think about it. The Internet does go down or if your phone isn't working, how would you be able to send value? Mesh network takes care of that. And I mean, in a place where that could happen, they're going to be more advanced. And then what's going to happen over here? Like you said, then we're probably going to jump up and start building mesh networks like, hey, it could happen over here. So you're right in that respect. I think them being innovative in different countries, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, just different places, I think, are finally getting a chance. I mean, even outside of Africa, if you look at a place like the Philippines, they have exploded playing this game called Axie Infinity. I mean, they're making more from a video game than their monthly salary, usual like the usual monthly salary. So, yeah, that's going to change a lot of people's perception. And I think here the only reason we haven't adopted it is because the video game industry is so big right now.

they don't need it but think about it they need it so that's why they're going so hard but they'll adopt it at some point you'll be buying uh fortnight clothes or packs or whatever with crypto soon enough