The Wolf Of All Streets - Daily Howl: What Do Teenagers Think About Bitcoin? | Guest: MissTeenCrypto

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Do teenagers actually hang out these days? What do they think about crypto, inflation, and money printing? How do we improve financial literacy? I have the best person to discuss it all: Randi aka MissTeenCrypto, the voice of gen z and as she calls herself - a blockchain maximalist.

This is the Wolf of All Streets podcast, and what you're listening to is an audio version of my live YouTube stream. I would love if all of you would please go on Apple or Spotify, whatever platform you're listening to, and rate the show, give it a five stars that more people will listen and find this episode. Thank you for listening and enjoy. Michael Saylor continues to be the hero we need but don't deserve, even after stepping down from his CEO role at MicroStrategy to focus on Bitcoin acquisition strategy. Having issues with the IRS, seemingly he's still finding creative and absolutely amazing ways to buy more Bitcoin for MicroStrategy. There was a lot of question marks as to whether

him stepping down meant that MicroStrategy was going to be less committed to that path. But now they are looking to spend another $500 million by selling their own stock to do it. That's obviously the main story of the day. But what I'm most excited about is that I have Miss Teen Crypto here, everybody's favorite Gen Z-er. I don't really even know what the Gen Z-s are at this point and what happens when we run out after Z. I don't know. But she's my favorite. And honestly, I'm kind of a boomer at this point, guys happens when we run out after Z. I don't know, but she's my favorite.

And honestly, like I, you know, I'm kind of a boomer at this point, guys, let's be real. I'm old. And so I need people who are younger to tell me what the hell is going on with the younger generation and adoption. And that's what I've got here. Her for here today. You don't want to miss it. Let's go. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of All Streets.

Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel and take your old man boomer finger and hit the like button because I'm old. I'm almost 46 years old, you know, and it's very easy for me to wax poetic and talk about what I think the next generation might be talking about crypto. But we have actual smart, intelligent people who are on the ground and can do that for us. Before we get into that, I just want to check. I'm checking on the comments. You guys are all here. Love it. Seems that Miss Teen Crypto Randy has a lot of fans who have showed up, which is really cool. I see you guys are very excited. And I can always tell because I see the word zesty. And if I see the word zesty, which I first heard from her, I went on her show and she was like, you ready to get zesty? I was like, I think so. I guess. Seems, feels good, right? I did want to make sure I wasn't in a trap and like there

was some code that I was being tricked into saying something bad that would be used against me in the future. But I think Zesty is good. So we're going to do that today. I'm going to go ahead before we bring her on, tell you, of course, about Bullish. You guys see it right down below. You've seen it a hundred times. I still don't know which way to go with the mirror, but now I'm coaxing it across. So just read that. Check out the link. Of course, if you don't know about Bullish, and you do, it's all the benefits of both a centralized and decentralized exchange all mashed up into one thing. So click on that, check them out. And without further ado,

I'm bringing on Misty and Crypto, who appears to be in a much more scenic place than me. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Scott. Thank you so much for having me. This is a great way to start off my week, by the way. I'm really happy to be hanging out with you. I mean, we woke you up early on Monday morning. Like, you know, for me, I need to like wake up and take my all my medications and, you know, check my glasses and stuff. But for you, you could probably sleep in, you know, from from Sunday night's party. So we're very excited to have you. But like I said, listen, you and I even were just talking right before the show. This bear market is brutal. Horrible. Horrible. It's been awful, I i think across the board from the biggest companies not named i guess binance or ftx but basically everybody else all the way down to i think your

individual investor i think i have a pretty good gauge of what's happening in the minds of uh you know investors who are seasoned and have been around for a long time but obviously i think you interact on a daily basis your community with people who are probably just getting started. So are you seeing them kind of waver in their commitment to investing? Are you seeing them double down because they think prices are cheap? What's the general vibe, would you say, with your audience? I think a lot of people are actually doubling down, which is something I really like to see. A lot of people with this bear market are educated. And especially if they're not educated, you come into this space and you hear a lot of people talking about the history of Bitcoin, 80 plus percent drawdowns. That's history. This has

happened multiple times. Bitcoin has been dead multiple times. So a lot of people are seeing this as a buying opportunity, which is very, very good news. I mean, Michael's strategy, Mike, Michael Saylor from micro strategy is feeling that same way right now. Yeah, he he absolutely is. But do you find that because of everything that's going on the bear market, the global narratives, do you find that you're hearing people actually talk about money printing and inflation and all those things? I feel like if you and I have had this conversation a year ago, it'd be all about number go up, right? Like, I'm buying these coins, everything's popping off, I'm trying to make short term money. And now we really have some serious things happening around the world.

Yeah, I mean, I've been talking about money printing since before the pandemic, it's been a big problem. When I was first talking to my family about Bitcoin cryptocurrency, when I first dove into it, like 2019 2020, they they called me crazy because I was like, OK, listen, there's too much money being printed. I mean, even from someone that's not into economics, you could see like, you know, you inflate a number. It's not worth as much. So I think especially now where we have almost like what, over 50, almost 100 percent of our money being printed over the past two years, that's very worrisome. And I think that pushes a lot more people towards Bitcoin, towards cryptocurrency, because they need a hedge against inflation. Even though Bitcoin has gone down the amount that it did, it's still a great hedge against inflation, considering the

inflation that has gone on. Are you seeing any people who are just dismissive of it now because it has gone down? We're just like, ah, we were wrong. It's done. The people that are in the zero, the Bitcoin is going to zero narrative. Yeah, I mean, and the people that are hearing the zero the bitcoin's going to zero narrative yeah i mean and the people who are saying that guess who they are the msm the mainstream media those are the people the people that i hear that from are the people the futters we all hear the fud every single day and a lot of it is misinformation or disinformation where a lot of the numbers are just not correct so always make sure you do your research because a lot of those people are just futters the people that are really in the crypto space,

like you and I that put out content every day, the people that put out the real news, like even coin desk, we know that this is, this is fine. Like we're all going to be okay. Yeah. I think,

uh, I a hundred percent agree with that, but are you still going out in the streets and asking people about crypto? I saw you had, you've had some, actually, I know the answer to that. So that was a dumb question.

I should say you are still doing it. But do you find that over time, more people, when you ask them about it, at least know what it is or have heard of it or have a superficial understanding? I remember when you were doing it at the beginning and like, given we're not seeing everything, but it seemed like 90% of them were like, what the hell is Bitcoin? Right. I've never even heard of this thing. It was so funny, Scott. November 2020 was when I first started doing on the street interviews. And when I used to bring up Bitcoin, people used to look at me like I had 10 heads, like I was crazy. A lot of people walked away from me. Now it's more like the opposite. People are like, oh, Bitcoin, I've heard of that before, whereas people never heard of it before. Before that,

I actually had a really good on the street interview that I posted last week when I went to Washington Square Park of this girl who's literally my age, sophomore at NYU. And she was saying how we need financial literacy, that Bitcoin is important not only for us, but for the next generation. And now that we have this narrative that's kind of complete and being brought up amongst Gen Z, it makes me really, really bullish. Yeah, I agree. I find it very hard to present education in a bear market, though. It just feels like people don't want to hear it. Maybe that's more sort of, again, my generation. Like I had my friends who I had finally gotten the hooks in, you know, to some degree. And now they're like, I went down with everything else. That was all crap. Right. It's just another asset.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, the way I go about it is not necessarily even the price action, because in the end, I've actually had this conversation, my telegram with my telegram group in the end price doesn't even matter. And I know that's like, you know, bold statement, right? But the reason why I say that is because the accessibility to our money is not the same. We have CBDCs that are going to be coming out really soon. I hear a lot. I see a lot of good documents from the gov. So we really need money that belongs to us and digital currency that really belongs to us. So at the end of the day, price action, it's something else. You just need to accumulate money that's actually yours.

I love that. I always say that the value of the asset and the price of the asset are vastly different. And the price is something for people who are gambling and are really concerned about now. And I totally get it. If you literally need the money that you're investing and it goes down, which you shouldn't be doing, it's extremely painful. But I think anyone with a sort of a lower time preface or long time horizon understands that the price will eventually catch up. Right. Doesn't that actually, if you understand what you just said, doesn't that mean that you should absolutely be buying whatever price is seemingly below the value? Do you tell people that? I mean, I don't give anyone financial advice.

I just tell people, do what you need to do. But I always recommend dollar cost averaging. It's a recommend, it's not financial advice, but dollar cost averaging is a great way just to accumulate Bitcoin no matter where the price is at. I mean, whether you choose to do that is up to you, but I do definitely recommend just accumulating Bitcoin because again, it's money that belongs to you and that can't be taken away from you. And that's the most important thing versus the value.

Isn't it hilarious that at this point we have to keep telling everybody that it's not financial advice just in case they yell at us and blame us in the end? Yeah, it's actually crazy. I think it's funny, though, you know, that people are just taking the financial advice from us. But everyone really does need to do their own research. D-Y-O-R, my friends. So I'm actually curious, what apps and platforms do you think that people are using right now? At least younger people. Like I know, obviously, a lot of people I knew were using the Voyagers and Celsiuses and things of the world and or the standard sort of Coinbase. Are you finding that a lot of people are using Robinhood or PayPal or Venmo or sort of the less

crypto native apps because they're more familiar with those? Yeah, I know a lot of people that started dollar cost averaging on PayPal and things like that. I'm not against it because I think PayPal and Robinhood did recently allow withdrawals. So as long as there's withdrawals available, then I think it's fine. I Robinhood, a lot of kids my age were actually using even before they allowed withdrawals because they didn't know, you know, you had to take custody of your crypto, which is another whole barrier of entry that we could talk about later. But Robinhood is accessible for a lot of kids that are under 18. So I think that's where a lot of Gen Z is, especially outside of New York, because Bitcoin ATMs are illegal here. Outside of New York, a lot of teens are going to Bitcoin ATMs. I used to love going to Bitcoin ATMs. Whenever I went

to Jersey, I would go to the ATM, try to just swap some fiat for crypto. And I think that's a really good way for anyone, regardless if you're under 18 or not, just to go to a Bitcoin ATM. Yeah. But it sounds like they are using sort of the more standard approach and not going down the, you know, not your keys, not your coins, self-custody. You don't find that many people who are buying Bitcoin who are 18 for the first time and like doing it and then putting it on a ledger and multisig. Yeah, that's just another barrier to entry, because, again, like we're used to everything being custodied, right? Whether that's our homework assignments online or,

you know, the money our parents hold for us in their bank account. We're used to custody. So we need to educate people on that way of just being your own bank and just being more independent in every single situation because we're very dependent on things every single day. Yeah, I mean, I agree with what you said before, actually. PayPal, those, obviously, it was a bit annoying when you couldn't send your coins out and people didn't understand that. But I still supported it from the very beginning because I think that any platform that allows for more people to buy it and adopt it is generally a good thing. It's good to see them moving in the right direction, but I'll literally take anything we can get, right? We're so small. Yeah. PayPal is really interesting because I've been watching PayPal even before they

got into crypto with just what they were doing before they even added crypto. Just think about it. They were telling people to pay with QR codes. They're like, oh, businesses. Hey, this is a new thing you can do. Put up a QR code at your store and people could pay you with this QR code. Then they added crypto, even though you can withdraw it. They still gave you that feel because how do you spend crypto?

You scan a QR code. Now what they're going to do, they have the withdrawals enabled. I think maybe PayPal's next step is just allowing people to pay with crypto, receive payments in crypto, especially because you could do a business account there. Yeah, I think that that's definitely coming. I mean, they've already alluded to the fact that every one of their merchants everywhere in theory could take it. Of course, it would be converted to fiat for the person who's accepting it, but at least it opens the ability to make the

payments for those people. You talked about something that I think you're really passionate about, which is financial literacy and education. Do you have any bright ideas on to how we start to actually incorporate that into people's lives, especially younger people? Because I mean, it's been a long time, obviously, since I was in school, but we got zero, like none. Maybe it was like balancing a checkbook or something when I was young, but we didn't talk about debt. We didn't talk about inflation. We didn't talk about any of these macro things. And we certainly didn't talk about what money was. Yeah. I would love for the DOE, the Department of Education in New York to really step up because I've met them at a few conferences and I was talking to them about blockchain and this is something they're interested in. I don't know why they haven't

pushed the agenda yet, but I think financial literacy, you need to teach kids what inflation is. What a student loan is. I know so many kids, Scott, that are in college right now that went to college and applied for student loans and they have no idea what that means. And then they're out of college. It's so sad. I cannot imagine being in their shoes, but I think what we need to do is just really talk to these people higher up or just start as teachers implementing it into school. If you're a history teacher, talk about the history of money. What's the big deal about that? If you're, you know, there's investing classes, you know, in my old high school investing classes, it wasn't really valid. It was just like, there's four quarters in a year. You watch one stock per quarter, whoever makes the most money gets the best grades. Like that's not the way to do it.

That's even more than we did. How does the stock market work? Right. And you know, there's no basis to that. There's no foundational, you know, education there. And I even went back to my old high school, less than a year after graduating, my former principal invited me back in May to talk about in Bitcoin to two investing classes. And these kids were so interested. The interest is there. They just have to implement it. And the interest is not there, I found, for stocks and the other things that they're doing. No. Right. There's no.

No. Why would you be interested in that? OK, like, you know, I understand, you know, you want to get into finance and stuff. But if you think about it, right, stocks you don't really own, they're in some brokerage account that could be shut down at any point. Whereas Bitcoin, if you buy or crypto, you buy the asset, you could actually hold the asset and it could appreciate in value and you could do what? Oh, move it. I could send it to you. I could sell it to another person, OTC. You know, there's just so many things you can do with it versus stocks where you're just seeing a number.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but my understanding is you're primarily a Bitcoiner, right? I'm a blockchain enthusiast, Scott. I'm here for everybody. Of course, like, you know, Bitcoin is my first love, my biggest bag. I love Bitcoin. I love you. But, you know, I am here for blockchain. I am here for everybody. And I like to explore everything. But yeah, I do love Bitcoin. I know your dad loves Litecoin. Oh, he does. He does. And Litecoin's pretty zesty. You can't lie about that. There's a lot going on with Litecoin. I think MWeb is really beneficial to a lot of people. So I just think

Litecoin's making really good moves. They were in a peacock show the other night, which was pretty cool. But yeah, Litecoin is awesome. And like I said before, I'm not a maxi. I'm even though I don't have nothing against the maxis. I'm friends with a lot of them. I am a blockchain enthusiast. I'm here for everyone. I'm friends with a lot of maxis too. I don't see why anybody wouldn't be friends with someone just because of their belief in a certain coin or community. Do you run across that a lot? Because I mean, you're kind of like you're straddling the fence, right? I know that you are a Bitcoiner. That's what you ask people about. But do you ever have sort of any aggression from maxis because you're accepting as a blockchain enthusiast? Or do you think that you pretty much don't get too much heat?

At the beginning, when I first came on crypto Twitter and when Clubhouse was really popping is when I got a little bit of heat. But what I said to everybody is, listen, I talk about Bitcoin all the time. Bitcoin's my biggest bag, and that shouldn't even be anyone's business. But secondary, my name is Miss Teen Crypto, right? My job is to educate people on cryptocurrency, on blockchain, what's going on in this space. So that way they can make their decision on whether or not they want to stick with just Bitcoin or venture into something else. To tell them one way or the other is the right way is not my place. I want to know completely unrelated to crypto, because when I was a kid, we just like hung out

at the mall and we actually went outside and touched grass and stuff. What is your generation actually do to hang out these days? Because to me, it seems like it's all, you know, on the phone, TikTok, Instagram. Do you guys still go to the mall to go to the water park? You know, like the 80s movies? Like what? The water park. Man, I love the water park. Are there malls?

Is that? Yes, the mall. Actually, if you if you guys are around New York, Staten Island Mall really upgraded, man. They're popping over there. I think they added an AMC. Really nice stuff. Shake Shack is over there now. They opened a Krispy Kreme, which you guys know I love.

My top favorite things are In-N-Out and Krispy Kreme. So if you see me at a conference, bring one of those. These are my favorite things too. Yeah, I think the mall is a nice spot. In New York, Washington Square Park is the spot for teens. And Central Park, just like outdoorsy type stuff where it's just like there's crowds there's people hanging out um i think a lot of things are online though which is very unfortunate and i'm not you know in college i'm not on a campus so i don't

really know what those kids are up to but like you could just like have a hint i look at snapchat stories all the time they're out they party and doing their thing but a lot of kids are still hanging out i have just from what you just said i I think I have four fun facts. Go for it. One, I got engaged in Washington Square Park. Oh, under the arch. Oh, that's a perfect spot. My friend Colin is a pianist. He rolls his piano out there. You've probably seen him and plays in the park. And so I sat down and played a song and proposed. That's one. And when I was doing it, all the NYU kids, for some reason, like 100 of them were running naked through the park. So that was super awkward and ideal. Number two is that I used to go to the original Shake

Shack in Madison Park in New York City and wait like two hours to eat a hamburger. Now they're everywhere. Three, Krispy Kreme has one of their main locations in my hometown. And we used to literally just lurk until the hot one sign went on. And four, I will like seek an In-N-Out. I will go two hours out of my way anytime I'm on the West Coast to eat In-N-Out. Yes. Oh my gosh. We're basically the same person. So like, what's your In-N-Out order? I just go, I pretty much standard double, you know, whatever, and a bunch of fries and keep it real every once in a while, a milkshake if I'm feeling like a fat kid, you know, which I usually am if I'm going out like the double double. Yeah. So listen, before I let you go, I want to run through one or two of the big stories that are happening right now.

Then I'll go about with the boring news by myself. But first, of course, we mentioned it, right? MicroStrategy files to sell up to 500 million of stock to fund Bitcoin purchases. Listen, I know we all cheer this on. It's amazing. But do you think there's even a little bit of crazy here at this point? Or do you think that we should just embrace it and ride this roller coaster? Embrace it and ride the roller coaster. Michael is a permable. This guy is relentless. And you know what? We need people that are relentless. We need people of his stature to go ahead and do this, to put their faith in

Bitcoin and show these people higher up and other executives that they should be doing the same and that Bitcoin isn't going anywhere. There's people that are still bullish on it, despite the FUD that is coming from the mainstream media. And that might be coming for Michael. So props to Michael for taking the risk. I'm sure the people that are holding MicroStrategy might not be happy, especially because his stock price is now reflecting Bitcoin a little bit. But stick with them. And if it's you know, if his stock is going to price of Bitcoin, wait till the bull market. Yeah, of course. I think that there was just a lot of expectation that when he sort of stepped down as the, you know, the CEO and maybe that meant that they weren't going to continue on. And now it's very clear that he's still steering this ship. I mean,

absolutely. Have you seen his tweets lately? They're all about Bitcoin. You know, the most random stuff he relates to Bitcoin. Go, Michael. Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. And I think it's like it should be certainly to anyone in our very much smaller shoes than his who's like putting yourself out there on a day to day basis. His like relentlessness and indifference to all the hating and trolls on such a large level, I think should be an inspiration to literally everyone, right? Whether he's right or he's wrong, his conviction should be inspiring. Amen. Go for it, Scott. That's amazing. So now though, and then the next one I want to talk to you about before I let you go,

and it's not specific to Anthony DeOrio, who I've had on the podcast and sort of actually has transitioned out of crypto altogether, but he's one of the founders of Ethereum. And we've been hearing this narrative a lot, especially with the merge coming this week. Coindesk reported it. Now, he's saying and others thinking that not necessarily because there's anything inferior about proof of work, but basically the idea that if Ethereum's merge is successful, they make it to proof of stake. The environmental impact that we know is FUD is reduced by 99%. The regulators could just say, why do we need Bitcoin? And this could put major pressure on proof of work. He's saying that it could push proof of work by the wayside. Do you think that that's something that's a real risk?

Or do you think that this is just more narrative? More narrative, man. I don't see proof of work going anywhere. There's a lot of supporters on both proof of work and proof of stake i think you know there's pluses and there's pros and cons to honestly both of them um but i i don't think proof of work is going anywhere i think there's a lot of people behind that consensus and i think you know bitcoin is still going to be king no matter what um but i think you know ethereum going proof of stake is definitely zesty and i can't wait to see how this turns out because, Scott, I've been hearing about this merge since I got into... I

created my Twitter account in April 2020. I was hearing about the merge then. So I'm excited to see it finally happen. I hope it actually happens and there's no delays and that Ethereum, that everything goes technologically smooth. I really hope for the best for them. But I don't think proof of work is going anywhere. I still think people are still going to be mining Bitcoin. And everything over there is going to be fine. Especially because, you know, you see states like Texas starting to mine Bitcoin. Would they really be mining Bitcoin if it was that much of a risk?

Wouldn't they be going and trying to hop on the proof of stake chain and go with Ethereum? Yeah, I mean, my thinking actually is that I've always said there's sort of Bitcoin and everything else and that that's not a negative, right? Bitcoin is the most established asset. It's the real store of value. It's the digital gold. Everything else is a technology play. I agree. And I actually think that Bitcoiners and everyone else should be excited about the merge. They should support it because it further differentiates Bitcoin as something special from all of the other assets, right? It doesn't make, it actually arguably makes Ethereum more valuable and potentially better, but I think it makes it a less of a

competitor to Bitcoin to some degree, because it's really moving in a completely separate direction. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And, you know, I think we all just need to take our time. I think, you know, even this, we're so early that I think it's so funny that we're debating proof of work over proof of stake when this technology is only like, what, 13 years old proof of work? Like we don't even know what the better consensus is. Maybe it's not a proof of work or proof of stake. Maybe it's like proof of crypto where we don't even know yet. You know what I mean? We're too early to be deciding what consensus is better than the other. Right.

And to your point before you said you're obviously cheering for it to go well, I think the worst thing that could happen for the crypto space, and that includes Bitcoin, of course. So even if you're a Bitcoin maxi, I think you should be cheering for this is if it doesn't work or it gets delayed or something goes wrong. I think that would be bad for everybody. And I think it just kind of going back to that tribalism we touched on or I touched on earlier is that we're pretty small. Like we should all hope that everything sort of goes well for everybody else, because what's good for one is good for everyone. I 100% agree with that. We should all be rooting for one another instead of

just like kind of being angry. And, you know, even if you are, you know, Bitcoin only or your ETH only, because don't forget there's ETH maximalist, there's wax maximalist, there's Litecoin maximalist, there's every type of maximalist out there. Cheer for one another. Make sure everyone works because, you know, even if like, you know, one succeeds and one doesn't, like, that's fine. That's the way life works. I think we should all cheer for one another.

Be happy. If one thing doesn't work, then that's fine. Maybe let's go and fix it or move on to the next. Don't like, you know, hang on anybody for doing anything because that's not right. I agree. So now I'm going to give you the opportunity to tell everybody where they should find you, what you're doing, where they can watch you, where they can sign up to things. You got a lot going on. Tell us about all of it. Thank you, Scott, for having me. First of all, this was a really great time. I always love talking to you. If you guys want to check me out, everything is on Miss Teen Crypto dot com. I'm at Miss Teen Crypto on every single platform. So that's Twitter,

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, YouTube dot com slash Miss Teen Crypto. I go live one to four times a week with the Miss Teen Crypto show. Scott has been on. So definitely look for that episode. It's really good if you want to hear more of his backstory. So one to four times a week, I also have educational stuff on there. One to two minute videos. If you're new to blockchain and that's gaming shorts, I got it all. So definitely check me out.

It's really cool to be here. Thank you again for having me. Please give me a follow. So it's just as a, to speak to your show, I've noticed the level of guests you've been getting over the past few weeks has been like insane. Yeah. Really getting the biggest. I mean, you're getting everybody now. I'm jealous. I had CZ on last week, two weeks ago at Dan held Mark Yusko. Oh, my gosh. Yeah,

I had really nice people on. And, you know, it's really going to get better. Scott, I'm telling you, like really good show is coming up. So, guys, if you haven't seen the Miss Teen Crypto show, please go check it out. Like the top names, the people you follow on crypto Twitter, a lot of them have been on my show. And if you guys have any suggestions, feel free to comment on my channel or go on my morning tweet from this morning and let me know who you want to see. Awesome. I see some people here saying followed.

Thank you for everything that you do. I'm glad we've got to do this again. If you guys missed it, we did a podcast in Miami not that long ago. And I also had her dad on who Randy also Randy, who shared his story about how they came together and into crypto. It's really awesome. You guys should check that out. Thank you again so much.

Thank you for having me, Scott. Have a good day, everyone. Stay zesty. I'm going to stay. I know that I'm going to stay zesty. I don't know what you guys are going to do. I don't know how I'm going to do it because I still don't know what would be required to have said zest. But it feels right. It feels right. Guys, I have to say, you know, listen, we don't have that many people, you know,

of a younger generation who are passionate about this are really out there pushing. And I think it can make the argument that people like her are just as important as the biggest names that we're seeing in the space because we need that sort of level of enthusiasm, passion towards education and towards the asset class. So I definitely suggest you guys give her a follow, check out her show. It really is a different and very fresh perspective on everything that's happening in the space. Now, continuing on, people are asking, is Saylor coming on? No, he's not coming on. I never said Saylor was coming on. You said Saylor's a legend. Anyways, Vitalik Buterin makes surprise appearance at Kyiv Tech Summit and show of support for Ukraine. The Ethereum co-founder was born in Russia, so this is a pretty big statement from

him. Made time for the visit as his Ethereum blockchain is days away from the major overhaul known as the merge. Personally, I'd like to see Vitalik locked in some sort of cage, making sure that everything's going to go perfectly from the merge, but we can't always get what we want. Actually, it's great that he's out there doing this, obviously a symbolic gesture to be in Ukraine, and talking to the Ukrainian government about the future of blockchain and all the things that are possible there. You might have missed, I had Alex Bornyakov, who's the digital transformation minister for IT development of Ukraine on my podcast right at the beginning of the war. He was like literally hidden in a house broadcasting through VPN and stuff to talk to me about all the things that were

happening with blockchain in Ukraine, even at the beginning of the war. So it's interesting that now things are actually safe enough that they can head over to Kiev and have summits. I think that's a pretty grand statement on what is happening in that war. I obviously don't get into the details of something like that because I am not a war analyst. Analysts warn of headwinds as crypto gain ahead of CPI data. Luna Classic pairs rally. I haven't even looked at that. I guess we can pull it up. I don't even know how to chart Luna Classic.

Is that L-U-N-C? U.S. inflation data for August will be released Tuesday, and some economists expect it to show that price growth slowed for a second straight month. I don't know, man. I don't know. Too many narratives. Too many narratives.

It kind of starting to make me nauseous at this point. Nobody knows what the hell is going to happen or how markets are going to react. And so every single day we just sit here and read people's opinions on what they think might happen if certain things happen. And then if that doesn't happen, what they think, if this other thing happens and oh my God, it's absolutely exhausting, right? We're going to get inflation data tomorrow. But listen, we haven't had, what we've had in the past few months is the White House putting out these sort of coping statements, prepping everybody for bad news, right? Well, we might see inflation up because of this and that, but it's temporary and the numbers don't really mean that. And blah, blah, blah. Well, we've been radio silent this time. And we saw a drop last month in CPI, right?

So considering gas prices are pretty much back to before the crisis or close, at least in the United States, I know you guys are getting hammered all over the world. And considering the White House has not taken a preemptive strike on bad news, I would expect that we will see generally pretty good news. So I don't know what the major concern is here. This is a quote from the article. September has historically been a bleak period for Bitcoin's price. Not so far. During the same five-year period, Bitcoin has averaged an 8.5% drop in September, Center said. Cautioning the Fed's projections of persistent inflation and further rate increases could cause the hypersensitive crypto and equity markets to see price fluctuations. Well, no shit.

That's what the market does. It's hypersensitive and sees price fluctuations. Also the case for the stock market. Listen, I'm not saying that things can't go wrong, that the numbers can't be bad, that I have any idea how the market will react. Right now, things are looking a bit up. We're almost halfway through the month. In October, if we want to make the argument about how bad September is, October is historically amazing. You guys may not remember, but last year, we had the shittiest summer. And on literally October 1st, everything mooned for the next 30 to 45 days. So if we're going to talk about how bad September is, we can look forward to 18 or 19 days away talking about how amazing things are in October. Now, as we always report on, there's still a shit ton of money coming into the crypto space. Crypto focus venture firm Blockerot. I love

that name. Is that how I is it block? It's backer at like the game you play in the casino, but with block clever. I would read it as I looked at the first timeat, like the game you play in the casino, but with Block. Clever. I would read it as, I looked at it the first time, I was like, oh, Broccoli Rate. But it's Baccarat. Crypto-focused venture firm Baccarat is raising $100 million for a second fund. They already raised $20 million, topping the firm's $12 million inaugural fund. A $12 million fund is nothing, right? And even in this world, actually, $100 million is minimal. We're talking about a very small fund, but there's a couple still being raised. When you talk about Andreessen raising like $4.5 billion, $5 billion, there's a drop in the bucket.

But I guess notable just to still have funds being raised in the depths of this bear market. Here's the other one. Blockchain supporter Nier, this is the Nier, unveils a $100 million VC fund targeting Web3 culture and entertainment. The Near Foundation is collaborating with Saris Ventures in the initiative, which will make seed round investments. $100 million, actually, if it's strictly seed rounds, is quite a bit, right? Because most projects are lean and mean these days, and they're pretty protective of the seed round raise. So even to the biggest VC firms, and in this case, foundations, they generally only give up to, and usually even less, $1 to $2 million. So you're talking about them having enough here for investments in 50 to 100 seed rounds.

So that's going to help a lot of new companies along the way. Now we're going to talk about the market very briefly here. Let's see what they got. Double digit weekly gains for Bitcoin, Ethereum, send Bitcoin over 22,000. Kind of the opposite narrative of, oh, woe is me. September's horrible. We're all dead. It's over. Bitcoin and Ethereum have enjoyed a hefty boost this last week with regulatory news and a particular network upgrade playing key roles. They're talking about the merge, right? The merge is going to happen in the next two or three days, man. And it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. It's going to be that Y2K style where everybody's

staying up like, holy shit, the clock is going to change on my computer. A nuclear bomb is going to go off because of the clock. You get those vibes? I say it on the show all the time, but that's the vibe that I'm getting from the merge. They've tested everything. There will be problems. Any software upgrade, update. I mean, shit, I have an iPhone that gets messed up every single time I try to update my software. If Apple has struggles doing it, do you ever find that you like update your iPhone and then you need a new one and then you buy your new iPhone

and it doesn't sync with your computer because the operating system on your computer is too old to sync with their iPhones, then you have to buy a new computer. Not saying that's ever happened to my wife. I mean, to me or anyone I know, my wife. But yeah, got to be careful with software updates because they can wreck your shit. But in the case of Ethereum, I think it's going to be all right. Yeah, Kristen, you've been there. You've been there. Of course, you know, like you update your phone

and then all of a sudden the battery just like dies super, super fast, right? And you're like, oh, now apparently this software update that allowed me to take a one pixel resolution, better photos eats 50% of my battery. And also I can't do phone calls, right? It's a trap. It's a trap. In this case, we're not talking about a simple software update. We're talking about the merge, the biggest fundamental event in the history of cryptocurrencies. So yeah, guys, that's all I got for you.

Can't break up if you don't break it down. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's true. Heck yeah. Stacked more soul last night on the dip. Don't even see that there was a dip, but hey, I'm looking at a daily chart there.

That's all I got for you guys today. Not sure what we're doing tomorrow, but it's going to be freaking awesome, whatever it is. But hey, I'm looking at a daily chart there. That's all I got for you guys today. Not sure what we're doing tomorrow, but it's going to be freaking awesome, whatever it is. I want to thank Miss Teen Crypto for being here. Wait, I think we have something awesome tomorrow. One second. I'm going to check my calendar. Something great.

Something super great. McGlone. That's what it is. Mike McGlone is going to be back tomorrow, guys. It's been way too long. If Mike McGlone is turning optimistic, then I'm going to buy it all. You guys have seen him here before, and he definitely predicted all of this downside that we have seen. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you know? Pump it up. Yeah, we'll do it. Copyright infringement in real time. Let's go. We've got to pump it up. Let's go. No. No. No. Let's go. We've got to pump it up. Let's go.

No. Pump it up. Let's go. We've got to pump it up. Let's go. No. Pump it up. Let's go.

We've got to pump it up. Pump it up. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No worth it. It was totally, absolutely worth it. Love you guys.

I will see you tomorrow. Come check out Mike McGlone. Don't want to miss it. It's going to be epic. Peace. Let's go.