The Wolf Of All Streets - Jason Williams, Co-Founder of Morgan Creek Digital on Taking the Bitcoin Red Pill

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Jason Williams, Co-Founder of Morgan Creek Digital began his career after dropping out of Yale to pioneer an urgent care startup. What began as an entrepreneurial idea eventually turned into a business that transformed modern-day healthcare and led to a half-billion dollar exit. In 2015, he pivoted into Bitcoin, taking the red pill and aggressively stacking crypto. Today he publicly urges others to consider Bitcoin’s potential implications and value. Scott Melker and Jason Williams further discuss dropping out of an Ivy league school, trying to become a billionaire, swallowing the red pill, stocks only going up, a potential 288k Bitcoin value, being SIM swapped 8 times,  having the FBI on speed dial, Bitcoin becoming a world reserve currency, hiring a private army and obsessively and publicly buying large amounts of Bitcoin. --- CHOICE IRA by KINGDOM TRUST Don’t be part of the 7.1M Bitcoiners who have bitcoin and a retirement account but don’t have bitcoin in their retirement account. With Choice IRA by Kingdom Trust you can hold bitcoin in your retirement account. The first 1,000 users to open a Choice IRA will receive $62.50 in free BTC - visit RetireWithChoice.com/WOLF to join the waitlist and secure free BTC. --- VOYAGER This episode is brought to you by Voyager, your new favorite crypto broker. Trade crypto fast and commission-free the easy way. Earn up to 6% interest on top coins with no lockups and no limits. Download the Voyager app and use code “SCOTT25” to get $25 in free Bitcoin when you create your account --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

What's up, everybody? This is your host, Scott Melker, and you're listening to the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Every week, I'm talking to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, politics, and basically anyone else with an interesting story to tell. So sit down, strap in, and get ready, because we're going deep. Let's go. Today's episode is brought to you by Choice, by Kingdom Trust, and Voyager. We'll learn more about them later on in the episode.

This podcast is powered by BlockWorks Group, the only events and podcast production company I trust. For access to the premier digital asset conferences and in-depth podcast content, visit them at blockworksgroup.io. I promise you will not be disappointed. Today's guest is the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital alongside everyone's favorite Bitcoin maximalist, Pomp, and a good friend of the show who I've had on before, Mark Yusko. Starting as a physician assistant, recognizing a need for change, started his own innovative healthcare company that resulted in a half billion dollar exit. From angel investing to obsessively buying Bitcoin, Jason Williams is the definition

of a disruptive innovator and dynamic leader. Jason, man, thank you buying Bitcoin, Jason Williams is the definition of a disruptive innovator and dynamic leader. Jason, man, thank you for being here and welcome to the show. Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks. Even on a holiday, as I said before, even though people won't know that. So you've made quite a splash lately, I noticed with your market buys all over BlockFi on Twitter, with the usual accusations that the money isn't yours, and you're faking it and all the things that we get in this space. But what's caused you to start dollar cost averaging six figures at a time into Bitcoin of late? Well, I've been doing it. So I'm not trying to flex. I just hadn't been publishing it. So we've been super bullish on Bitcoin since we got into the space in 2015.

You know, I dropped millions of dollars in mining to start. So that was my first kind of investment. And that that investment was in a lot of GPU miners because I was mining Ethereum. And so it was just an evolution. My entry was experiencing Ethereum and what you could do with it through mining, got into Bitcoin and then just started buying and holding it. So, you know, I think I bought my first Bitcoin at like 1200 bucks. Crazy.

Yeah. And I've been super bullish, like the full position that I have, and I've tweeted this. So again, I'm not, I'm just telling you, because I'm saying these things because I've gotten kind of frustrated with the anonymity around Bitcoin. It's so black box and nobody wants to talk about anything. And it's like, there has to be some people who are saying I've taken a position

like Paul Tudor Jones did. It was so important and we get so excited about it, but he's speculating around the periphery. He's a super smart guy, but how deep has he gone into the areas we have? So for me, I'm just saying, look, I put 10% and that's growing of my net worth into this business. You can back into what that means. It's, you know, it's a lot of money. Right. Yeah, no, I understand that. And listen, I mean, Pomp's your boy and your partner, and he's openly said that he's 50% in, you know, and people think that's nuts. It's funny. Like I can definitely, funny. I can definitely feel you when you talk about being non-anonymous in this space and approaching it because I've repeatedly said the same thing. I was at 90% of his net worth in there, Pomp's 32.

He's had some small exits in business, but Pomp doesn't have a giant real estate portfolio and a giant VC portfolio that's 20 years old. And so, we're just at different points of our life. I mean, Pomp's 32. I'm 46. Mark's like 57. We all have covered different ground in our partnership. And for me, a 10% plus position in Bitcoin alone is a big chunk of chain. And, you know, when I play it out, that's when I tweeted this morning, like, holding Bitcoin is like psychologically devastating because you're constantly running like, you know, this is money to me and it's money I feel comfortable holding. It's hugely volatile and it's probably funny to say that, but you know, you kind of play it out

and it plays mind tricks with you, you know, because it's so important in terms of where I'm trying to get, which is to become a billionaire. Right? Yeah. And it's interesting. I'm in my 40s as well. So I'm 43 years old. So I think for me with two kids and a wife and a family, people can't, maybe the average of the space is probably millennials or early 20s. And maybe they can't quite get there mentally for what that does mean to take that level of risk when you have like real responsibilities in real life. So. And Scott, like I'm talking about things that people probably, you know, don't think about in this space, wills and trusts and avoiding like, you know, a probate. It's just like, you know, people are like, ah, this may be lame, but it's not. If this thing does what we

think it's going to do, and you're sitting on millions of dollars, you turn, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, you better have a plan. You better have a custody solution. You better have, you know have thought about this or you're an idiot. Right. And those are things that don't come with the territory in this space either. Like it's very easy to do that, to write a will for your stocks and your other portfolios, your real estate. It's all understood by the government and by the officer who's going to handle it. They still have no idea how to handle crypto, I've found. I mean, I even brought it up to the lawyer and they were like, I don't even know what to do with this. Am I, is it your private keys?

What's the value of it at any given moment? It's changing all the time. So that really is something I think that most people don't think about and need to. Because it started with me showing, you know, kind of showing my wife what she needed to do in case, but what if we both go, right? So now my dad's got to know, but what if he goes? So, you know, it's like this endless sort of thing. It's just really, it's really pretty crazy. So obviously you've been very successful. Can you talk about where your story began? Because I know it didn't start in crypto that that money came from elsewhere that you started investing? Yeah. So my background's

in healthcare. I was in PA school back in 1996, graduated in 98, got accepted to Yale in a surgical residency for physician assistants. While I was there, started to talk to my professors about a retail play for healthcare. It was just urgent care, but I wanted to put it next to a Starbucks, kind of where people lived in the community and away from the hospital system. And this physician, Dr. Flock, who was a general surgeon, really said, Jason, that's a great idea and you should go do that. And he really gut checked me in terms of like, if you continue on the path you're on, which is to be like, an okay, moderately highly compensated middle manager in healthcare, you're going to have a good life, you're going to get the three to five series BMW and a house and

probably a membership to a country club. But is it really going to do what you want to do? Because I think you aspire to more than just financial tokens and wealth. You wanted to kind of change the world. And he really didn't light a fire inside of me. It was already there, but confirmed that, you know, I wanted to have the options that real wealthy people have to make great change in their world and infect other people's lives. So, I called my mom, told her I was going to drop out, loaded up my stuff, moved back to North Carolina, headed straight to First Citizens Bank, which was a local bank. I had known these guys when

I was in college. I had won some awards that they give. And I remember headed to Smithfield, North Carolina, and I met with the bank owners and said, look, I want to buy a post office in Hope Mills, North Carolina, and start this company in urgent care that does 80% of what you find in a local emergency room. I'm going to work in there all the shifts. I'm going to work nights to kind of cover the cost of things. And they lent me an enormous amount of money, which was about $400,000. I was able to go to an auction, buy this property, have enough money left over to renovate the post office into the first urgent care. And I had about three months operating capital. And I was really fortunate, man. Like I rolled the dice, I was 25 years old. And I was able to stay at the

table for 25 years at this point, you know, and, you know, FastMed was born. It was hard work. But through the evolution of 15 years of working on that business, I ended up having about 127 locations, grew it to 1,400 employees, 400 PAs and physicians working for me. And I went through kind of an evolution of my own kind of learnings of business and how to manage money and manage people. At first, it was just me and my college friends. It grew into a professional board. Then I had venture capital and Blue Cross Blue Shield and private equity involved and participated on boards that were VC and PE led and took it through three exits. The final one in June of 2015, which you spoke about as we opened the show. And that was it. That was really my whole life's adult work. Like that was all I

did was build FastMed. So that was a cool story. And I had to start all over again, terrified in 2015. Like, what am I going to do now? Yeah, you're starting out again from a slightly higher floor. So it sounds like for you, it was really a trial by fire. Like every single thing that came along, you just had to learn to do it on the job and become good at those things. Because nobody teaches you how to like manage a board or talk to an insurance company, you know, do all those things. And I made wild mistakes along the way. It was really hard. You know, you run head first into the chasm over and over again. And it's just like building a company startup is like this exercise in testing your own will. And it's really for those who have the, the like intestinal fortitude to go after it. It's an amazing experience. You know, I felt

and still feel like I'm in control of my life and control of my schedule. And it's, I've been afforded a great opportunity. A lot of people backed me. I didn't do this myself. And I'm really grateful to those people. You had the naivety and balls at 25 to go after something like that. But like, if you were fresh out and you were 45, do you think that you could do it again? Like that you would, knowing all that you know, maybe that you would even tackle? Probably not, you know. Nice to be young.

Yeah, like, I was married, but no kids. you know what I'm saying? Like it, it just, I could tolerate like catastrophic failure at that point. You know, you're, you're still in those, in the period of your life that you're a high earner. I still could have practiced medicine. There were ways I could protect myself if I really blew it. You know, at 45, I still do startups. I mean, I'm not a, you know, a suited up CEO. I'm a kind of a rugged smash you with a bat CEO. That's the kind of environments that I work in. But no, I don't think I could do it now without assets, without anything with a family and trying to take the wild risks I did then. No, I don't think so. Well, you said you could, uh, you could have tolerated catastrophic failure. What were your most catastrophic failures along the way? Oh man. Like the, the whole like the whole model breaking. When I started FastMed, physician assistants were highly dependent practitioners.

And what I mean by highly dependent practitioners, a PA can't practice on his own. So I had to hire a physician, convince him to allow me to practice under his license and then he had to kind of observe my practice sign off on my charts be in constant communication with me because I was already stretching the model because he wasn't on site all right just me and we had this kind of daily interaction and weekly confirmation of my decision making And all along that growth trajectory of FastMed, the medical boards did not like what I was doing. They didn't like I was employing physicians. They didn't like that I was challenging the status quo of healthcare. So they were constantly trying to stop this process. Imagine you are the boss, but you're dependent on the person who you've employed to allow you the opportunity to do what

you want to do. It's a really weird environment to operate from. I was a subordinated employee in the structure, but I was the founding CEO of the business. I fired the guy who was allowing me to practice. Wow. Yeah. I don't think about that that but that's really interesting and there were times that i hit heads with that person you know so he could blow you know he could stop everything he could say yeah you're not allowed to practice you know and i had to play chess in that environment it was really difficult did you have to expand that structure to every one of your locations and as you because yeah with one now you're talking about 140 of these guys. That's right. So every eight, I had one of those physicians, overseeing clinics. And so, you know,

eventually I couldn't put myself in this position where I was in a subordinated role. So I could truly manage these folks. And it, you know, I never played the positional power game. I think that's a loser kind of move. If you make decisions that are right for the company, right for your teams, right for the patients, everyone will be on board with that. If someone's not on board with that, they're probably toxic and need to go anyway. Right. toxic and need to go anyway. Right? So, once you get yourself in the right position, you've got the right culture and you're working with the right people, it becomes really easy. You don't have

to be like, I'm Jason, I'm the CEO. You're just like, I'm Jason, I'm your friend and we're trying to do the right thing. What are you understanding at this point? Yeah, that makes sense. My dad ran the emergency room at the University of Florida for like 20 years. He's an ER physician and he always commented, I mean, all the problems you're talking about to some degree, I think, you know, any physician in that situation would sort of have identified with, but he always used to say that, you know, the ER was sort of like everyone went there for everything. If they didn't, you know, if you didn't have money, that's where you went when you had a headache or that's where you went when you had a headache, or that's when you had a stomachache. And FastMed and that kind of model sort of changed that, I think, to some degree.

I personally go to one of those clinics when I have, like, a small problem with my kids, which is right down the road. I find it to be a much better experience even than going to my primary physician. So if you invented that, I mean, that's really like for the customer, I think that that's an epic shift in the paradigm of how sort of first-line healthcare is viewed. Yeah, I appreciate that. And that was it. It was founded around that time. My greatest competitors had like three or four clinics.

So there were about 8,000 urgent care clinics in the country in 2010. And most of them were three or less. So there was no physicians or groups that had three or more. So imagine I started in 2001, you know, so we were like the founders of that whole industry. And we were providing like services with the same outcomes, with great quality and great customer service in a walk-in capacity, seven days a week for one-tenth the cost. Yeah. Without your customers sitting there for nine hours with people that are like dying next to them who can't be seen, which is the normal emergency room experience. So I read that like after, I guess the exit or somewhere along the way that you

were effectively blocked out of healthcare. Yeah. So in 2010, I had my first exit and it was a large sum of money and I was able to roll a large sum forward and I stayed with the company for five years. But that transaction had a 10 year non-compete starting. So it was like, yeah, 2010 to 2020. I stayed with them for five years. So I was able to work through that. But after I left in June 2015, I was blocked out of healthcare, couldn't practice, and also couldn't do anything in the space around non-appointment-based medicine. So I had to figure out something else to do. And that was probably another really terrifying moment because on a Thursday, when we sold the company to Abri, we finally got that transaction. And Abri was like, look, you've been a good steward. You've been a great founder.

We're going to let you have a complete exit if you want. Otherwise, you can stick around and help us build. And I had had enough at that point. So I said, look, I'll disappear for five years and do something else. And they gave me a lot of money. And that was it. You talk about it was terrifying, but I think that there's that kind of speaks to the kind of person you are and your motivation and that you just like to dominate, obviously, because

a lot of people would have said, that's a five-year vacation. I'm rich. I'm going to the beach. It's a wrap, right? So clearly you woke up literally the next day and were like, I need to do something. I mean, where do you think you get that sort of drive? I mean, I don't think that that's inherent in most people. Yeah. So the terrifying part, I'll start with that, then I'll get into your question. The terrifying part was that this is really kind of what I wanted to do since I was 16 years old.

Like I wanted to work in healthcare. So then I just, I've been working on that forever. I build FastMed. It's my, my whole life. It's everything I've done as an adult. And then I'm out of it in 2015. The terrifying thing was like, I didn't know what I was going to do. Now I had been doing some venture investing with, with Pomp. And so we had this really cool portfolio. I had made a bunch of investments prior to meeting Pomp. And so we had this really cool portfolio. I had made a bunch of investments prior to meeting Pomp. So I was able to look back at that portfolio and say, is there something here that I want to do that is different? So I left Fastman on a Thursday and on Monday, I was working on my new startup. That's incredible. How'd you meet Pump? And Mark, tell me about how Morgan Creek came

together. Yeah. So I had this friend that worked for Mark Cuban in his office, family office, helping due diligence on investing. He told me that there was this really smart guy who had just left Snap, had like a horrible situation go down where he was like only there for two weeks. Before that, he was at, at Facebook doing really well, working on growth and different strategies there. But he was moving back to Raleigh, and he thought we'd get along well, so we should meet. And Pomp and I met for a beer in downtown Raleigh. He, his family was living in Raleigh here, uh, at that time. This is early 2015. And, uh, we just got along really well. We both wanted to start a venture fund. We were both really interested in, in pre-seed and early stage venture investing. Um, so we, uh, we decided to start Full Tilt Capital together. And. And, and that, that was the beginning of our,

our friendship and our investing together. And we've invested in with full tilt about 63 different companies. We invested about $18 million into those companies. The majority of it is in, was in early stage pre IPO stuff or late stage pre IPO stuff, excuse me. And then the balance of the money was in a bunch of really cool startups. What we realized while we were doing the full tilt portfolio was a lot of smart money and a lot of smart people were going into blockchain. And Pomp and I were on our way to Charlotte to buy a McDonald's, uh, that we were going to convert

into a coin laundromat. And we, we were just going back and forth about mining and Bitcoin and, and, and what, what is a blockchain and what's going on in the space. And by the time we, we spent that six hours or so in the car together, you know, I was ready to go. The way that I, I learn is by actively doing things. So Pomp, myself and JP Barrack started building GPU rigs, sourcing the graphics cards, plugging them in, mining. And that, that began the adventure, but that that's, that's where Pomp and I kind of pivoted into the blockchain space. like a really amazing guy in that he's got this longstanding experience managing money and dealing with institutions. He had a large amount of infrastructure set up in Chapel Hill with

Morgan Creek Capital Management. So, he had like 40 full-time employees. And we felt that the alignment of our cultural perspectives between Pomp, Mark, and myself, the fact that Mark had this institutional machine that could interface with them and we could potentially raise money there would be a great asset for Pomp and I, if we wanted to move into investing in blockchain and the space. So, you know, cause we were working at a Starbucks. Amazing. And Mark is the man that he blew my mind. We, you know, we've kind of gone back and forth a lot on social media and stuff, but when I had him on the show, it was just like a student professor,

you know, just getting absolutely schooled by your, your professor in like a one on one learning session. It's it's incredible that you get to interface with someone like that. Both those guys on a regular basis. So you started the fund. You guys are I guess if last I checked, you're in about 10 different coins. Right. But primarily, primarily Bitcoin. Is there anything that's on your guys radar that you're in about 10 different coins, right? But primarily Bitcoin. Is there anything that's on your guys' radar that you're thinking about potentially adding? Yeah, like I would say, you know, we really don't invest in any type of like altcoins.

We have the digital asset index fund, which we did with Bitwise. But that really was just, that was driven by some of our LPs wanting that exposure. So we worked with Bitwise, but that really was just, that was driven by some of our LPs wanting that exposure. So we worked with Bitwise to set that up and, and people, you know, people can just go to that if they want that type of exposure. The main funds that we invest out of, Morgan Creek Blockchain Opportunity Fund 1 and 2, they, they only hold Bitcoin positions and then have equity positions in businesses in the space. But we're not traders of Bitcoin. We hold Bitcoin. We've DCA'd into our positions. Our first fund was set off to be a $25 million fund. We ended up raising about $41 million. And that turned out very well. It's closed at this point. Our second fund, we're trying to raise $200,

$250 million. And we've closed about $70 million at this point. And we're closing more capital now. So it's exciting. And I'm happy to participate in space. So I'm a huge fan of BlockFi. I know that that's one of your bigger, I'm assuming, I know that you guys invested in them. What drew you to them and their model specifically? Yeah. So the general thesis that we had was we wanted to try to invest in infrastructure around blockchain and crypto. That's what I understand. Like, that's what FastMed was. It was literally like looking at primary care or looking at a hospital system and a hospital system emergency department and saying, like, look, there's a gap here. There's some value that we can create if we build an infrastructure layer between the primary care who's open five days a week and doesn't really have walk-in services and doesn't really have x-ray and other technologies that could expand

the service offering. And then the hospital emergency room has everything you can imagine, but you don't need to go there because it's expensive and it's set up to save people's lives, not diagnose your sinusitis. When you take that same kind of approach to investing in this space, you find investments like BlockFi to be really interesting, but kind of boring. BlockFi is just a bank. You know, it's offering banking services, but in the crypto space. And that may be something that, you know, Bitcoin maximalists who want, you know, sovereignty and they want to control their tokens. It's just a non-starter for them. But for others that, you know, want the user experience and will take on some of the risk that they have taken. And I would even go further to say more risk putting fiat in banks. Just say you trust your bank?

Right. Or trust fiat, right? Do you trust US dollars and trust your bank? When you really start to think about this, it's not so far fetched to say BlockFi is a good service. You know, it may not meet everyone's needs, but it's a good service. And, you know,'s it may not meet everyone's needs but it's a good service and you know i love the service offerings as a bank you can deposit crypto and they continue to expand the type of crypto they have you can earn interest on those deposits you can leverage those deposits and get loans and they have ways for you to exchange crypto inside that bank, which is interesting. They have some protections involved. You know, they're constantly evolving.

They've had some issues recently. But Zach and Flory are doing a great job and the whole team at BlockFi. I'm a huge fan. Yeah, I had Zach on the show as well. And, you know, they'm very friendly with those guys. But their security breach, luckily, was an informational breach. Obviously, nobody's funds were ever at risk, which is good. And going back to talking about...

It doesn't feel good. No. I wanted to have Zach on going parabolic. And because I want to explore this on going parabolic and because I, I want to explore this in real time with him. So people can not feel like they're being bullshitted. So I'll do this. I'll do it with you. I haven't done it with Zach yet, but I want to, because it affected me. Let me tell you how. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

People may not know that. Like they're saying, Oh Jason, you know, 40% or some percentages of people's PI, personal information, was lost through a Symport attack on an employee at BlockFi. And the likelihood of some action happening on it to you is low. And let me tell you, if that happened in my business and medicine, if I lost your protected health care information in that way, it would have been millions and millions of dollars of fines. I would have had to pay for like life lock for every one of the people affected to make sure I protect your credit and protect all these things. Because really what was lost was my account information,

my home address. You know, a lot of things I don't necessarily want on the dark web, if it ever gets there, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good. Well, have you ever been personally, I was SIM swapped, which was like the most miserable experience. Actually, you reached out to me with quick advice when I was SIM swapped. And given like I was well protected, so they didn't get anything in that regard. But like, that means they have every single piece of personal information, were able to pretend to be me, unless they obviously had someone paid off at the phone company. But it really is the worst feeling in the world. It's funny. And so I switched my phone service to a company that's like a concierge that basically protects your SIM,

which is called Afani. And I introduced him to Zach the minute that it had happened. And they had been interfacing since because it's crazy. Like, BlockFi was secure. It was one of their employees who got SIM swapped. So, you don't realize how many ways your information is out there and how many different ways someone can attack any company, right? Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, I've been SIM swapped eight times. I think it's eight times total. My buddy. Yeah, it was it was dreadful. And always would happen when I was overseas. And imagine being overseas and not having your phone, not having your email like everything is malfunctioning and you can't get in touch with people.

It's it's a dreadful experience. And, you know, I've been through fire with it it you know and um opsec for me is important people think i'm out here yoloing and posting like my transactions and stuff part of it is um is exploratory um i'm constantly trying to find better security and you have to take this seriously if you're using your telephone to authenticate stuff, it's an attack vector that's just, you shouldn't tolerate it. Don't be a part of the 7.1 million Bitcoiners in the United States who have Bitcoin and a retirement account, but don't have Bitcoin in their retirement account. Seriously,

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you try Voyager. It's hands down my favorite place to buy and trade crypto, and it's 100% commission free. Voyager gives you easy access to more than 30 top crypto assets, and you can instantly transfer offering 5% interest on Bitcoin and 6% on USDC. Yes, you heard that correctly, 6%. And there are no limits or lockups, which means your funds always stay liquid. Find out why so many people are making the switch to Voyager. Visit investvoyager.com or search for Voyager on the iTunes or Google Play Store and get $25 in free Bitcoin when you use the promo code SCOTT25. That's investvoyager.com, promo code SCOTT25 for $25 in free Bitcoin and start trading today. You've been SIM swapped eight times, but you still with your name and face on the internet like me. I guess that speaks to how important you think this space is and that it's worth the risk to be out there and really preaching about the importance of Bitcoin because we know that we're targets. I mean, we're not farm animals with avatars.

Yeah, I was talking to Jameson about this yesterday. Like we both had a very similar experience and it was beyond just simporting. It was threats of kidnapping, you know, I mean, really hardcore stuff. Guns, personal security, FBI. I'm all over this, man. Like I can text the FBI right now and put them on different things that are going on or problems that I'm facing. It totally sucked. What Jameson did, he anonymized his whole life and sold his house and went off grid. I don't want to live like that. And I had an experience that kind of hardened me to this world before I got into crypto. So from 2010 to 2013, I was moonlighting as the medical examiner of Cumberland County.

So as the medical examiner, I was doing the autopsies out of the office of the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill. All the external investigations of death, murder, suicide, et cetera. And then I'd have to testify as to how the people died, what what happened. And a lot of the evidence I was providing would lock up really bad people who had done bad things. So I had like every asshole on the planet, like coming at me. So living, living with, with security, video cameras and stuff. It wasn't something I was foreign to. I don't like it. And I'd much rather not have every asshole on the planet trying to attack me all the time.

But I don't know what else to do. Yeah, I mean, then they win, right? If you hide and you, I mean, I understand why Jameson notoriously sort of did that. And actually, like, I think what he did is a good lesson for people who want to take lesser steps, since it's kind of laid out there how he did it, but like you could do part of it, you know, and take certain precautions without having to go completely off grid and hide.

But yeah, man, it's the worst feeling in the world. You know, I was talking to, I don't know if you've ever spoken to Bitcoin Tina. You've got to interview Tina. Bitcoin Tina is really, really smart. But one of the things that I explored with Bitcoin Tina, which I'd love to get your thoughts on, if Bitcoin does what we think it's going to do, and Bitcoin becomes, and I don't know if you believe this but what if bitcoin becomes

reserve currency reserve currency it is the money of the world and you have an extraordinary amount of it as an individual like an extraordinary amount of it as an individual and that could be 10 bitcoin because at that point right at that point an extraordinary amount may be not so extraordinary but yeah because tina thinks bitcoin one is going to be worth $50 million. I think he says that 48 seconds into my interview. Right, at which point you're talking about having a half billion dollars if you've got to. That's a 25-year-old jerk-off. You have no plan, but you're worth what?

Yeah, give me a break. Imagine the pressure, solicitation, and danger that you could be in you'd be i mean you would yeah it could be fully mad max but uh i mean yeah i mean you you're talking about like private army level of security required at that point i i don't know about like i don't like to make outrageous predictions about price um but if the scenario plays where there's hyperinflation, if dollars become less and Bitcoin becomes more, then you have a lot of pissed off people and a lot of rich people who were not rich before. It's basically a switching of roles, as you said. And at that point, you've got real, real problems. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing to explore. So again, I posted today,

Berkshire Hathaway class A stock is like 250 some odd thousand dollars a share. Why is it so hard to believe that one Bitcoin could be worth $250,000 a Bitcoin? Especially when all you're buying with Warren Buffett right now is a big pile of cash. A big pile of cash and a bunch of inflation, like stocks that have been inflated and propped up. And I mean, think, you know, it's a really interesting thing to explore. And you know, I don't want to keep throwing these crazy price targets out. Yeah. But yeah, like I love some of the work plan B has done and I love the stock to flow models. And I don't think it's too hard to conceptualize or conceive upon that Bitcoin can be worth $288,000 by 2024. I just, it's not too hard to conceive upon. So where's that number come from? I know you throw

out 288 a lot. It's just going after the market share of gold. Oh, so it's arrived at basically reaching its full digital gold potential. And that's not even, and then I don't even think that gets the full kind of market cap of gold. Like I think it'd be more like $400,000 per Bitcoin. I don't think it's crazy. I don't think so at all. I'm not going to plan my life around it, unfortunately. I wish I could, but I don't think it's crazy. Right.

But do you ever play out these numbers in your head? Of course. Right. The amount of Bitcoin you hold and if this stuff continues to do that, because I I've lived it. I mean, I had Bitcoin at 1500 bucks and that's that Bitcoin went to like 19,000. Yeah. It went to 20,000. That was like an amazing expansion. And I remember like calling my buddies, like, are you watching this? This is crazy. It's like, what is going on? Look, I think that's going to happen again.

Yeah. And if you multiply that by 10 to the numbers you're talking about, it's pretty insane. And yeah, I mean, I think you need to plan for the possibility because as you said, there's a lot of things in your life you're going to have to bring to that scale. Yep. And I'm expecting it. So I'm talking about it. That's why I'm saying that like, you know, if it's $288,000 a Bitcoin, maybe that like ledger that's kind of casually sitting on your desk is not going to like that. How do I do this? How do I, how do I back the level of security of being your own bank when your own bank is worth tens of millions of dollars is really pretty mind-boggling and uncomfortable thing to consider. Yeah. I mean, you should be pressure testing who has your backup keys. Are they in a bank, a safety deposit box, a friend? That friend may not be a great friend once this thing is worth what you think it is.

So that's what I'm saying. Let's start the discussion now. If you fail to worth what you think it is. So that's what I'm saying. Like, let's, let's start the discussion now. You know, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Like, like, let's do it now. And then when this thing starts running, your pulse is, you know, quickened, but you don't have to worry about anything. Cause it's planned. Right. Let's do it. No emotional decisions. So you, and it's interesting, you've been doing this for five or six years. Like you're, you've been in this space, you're OG level for sure. But you're now constantly

talking about finally really taking the red pill. I mean, it feels to me listening to you, like this has been, I don't know, you can tell me if I don't know if it's COVID and the shit show, that's the stock market and the infinite money printing, the things that I think are really like showing cracks in the foundation, even to your average Joe. Like, I think your average person now is like, this is ridiculous. Who didn't understand anything before? I don't know if it's that or if it's just the point where Bitcoin is at. Like, why have you finally, why are you finally going so deep down the rabbit hole taking the red pill? Yeah, it's such a great question. And it is absolutely due to COVID, the economic devastation that we have seen, the shuttering of jobs and businesses, the amount of unemployment that we've had. The stocks only go up phenomenon, you know, Davey Day Trader,

yeah, Dave Portnoy, you know, bodying suits. All of this stuff led me to say, I don't know enough about economics, not to the level that I need to. And I need to start talking to reading and doing everything I can to understand like, what is money? Because I thought it was something totally different than what it is. I've been someone who would say, inflation is a good thing. Because rich guys like me, our hard assets get better in an inflationary environment, you know, right? What a dumb thing to think what a dumb thing to say, how tone deaf is that? What does inflation do to society?

And it just destroys people. It destroys value. And it's a tool. It's just a game that our governments use. Why have I been paying taxes at all? Like why the stress that I'm under? I'm under a lot of stress. I have to pay taxes every month on

everything and every, you know, every, every service, every product I buy. Why am I having to do that? If the government can just whip up a bunch of money and just give it away. Right. Why not just whip up the money and get rid of taxes? You can print it endlessly, right? So, and it's funny because people criticize everyone for saying, well, I'm not going to pay my rent. I'm not going to pay my mortgage, which by the way, I think is irresponsible. Of course, like if you have a responsibility, a financial responsibility, you take care of it. But like, you can't blame people for the mentality of like, why do I have to pay my debts if the government can't handle their debts?

If they can print money endlessly, why do they need mine? You know, I mean, it's not a far jump to and also like corporate socialism, like they're gonna they're barely bailing out me and they're bailing out every zombie company. But you can't blame people for, you know, not wanting to pay their debts at this point. Yeah. And the real red pill moment for me was this. It was like, money should be enough, right? Money should be enough. I've traded my life. I've worked my ass off. As a 16-year-old, I dreamed of being a physician. I became a PA. I rolled the dice. I built a business. I exited for more money than I could ever dream. My dad is from Manchester. He's a butcher. My mother is Sicilian. She's a hairdresser. Like we could barely pay for me to go to like a shitty third tier college just because I wanted to be a soccer player. You know, and now I have an enormous amount of money.

That should be enough. I should be able to live the rest of my life and not have to be a professional trader and put all that money at risk in the stock market and some kind of cockamamie scheme that some suit, you know, has planned for me. But you have to do something with money, with U.S. dollars because of inflation. You've got to risk it. And that's not right. Money should be enough. Right. You have to get out there and somehow beat the money. Bitcoin, Bitcoin, this is the red pill moment for me. Bitcoin is enough. Bitcoin is enough. The deflationary aspects of it, all of the things that sound like,

like a bunch of like spin and marketing are not. So when you see like Max Kaiser acting like a complete maniac, I love it. And when you see Bitcoin Tina being bigger than a permabull, I love it because they've been red pilled. And I know like these folks who see me talking about DeFi or saying like Rune, I whisper voice, Rune is up. I'm just exploring around the periphery of different technologies or different products or services that may be interesting. But everything I have, all the real concentrated investment is in Bitcoin because I think it's good money. It is. And it's funny because I was, I mean, I think this year

has been my red pill moment as well, to a large degree. I was always sort of, you know, I backed into the space as a trader. So it was always about like, how much money can I make trading this stuff? Right. It wasn't really, there was no, and then you kind of go down the rabbit hole and you start to feel it and you start to actually see the use case and understand what it is that you're actually trading. But I mean, I really think that this is the time for it to shine. I mean, every maximalist in history has gone down the rabbit hole and seen this hyperinflation coming and the dollar. I always used to joke like, I can't pay my kids private school tuition in Bitcoin. So what use is it?

But that will happen. And the question is, I guess I'm asking you, like you say Bitcoin is enough, but we still need it to be accepted, right? You need to be able to use it. Or are you saying that you just exit as much as you need to at any given time to pay those bills and hoard the rest? Yeah. Like I, I'm not even looking for another use case of Bitcoin. It's use cases to hold it. It's infinitely divisible. And as it consumes different asset classes and continues to grow in value, you can split it and you'll be able to do different things with it, but its use case is exactly hold it. I'm not looking to transact it. I don't want to sell my Bitcoin. I don't want anything.

I'm not trying to trade it. The use case is. Right. I guess there's just people, you're right. But the use case obviously is if there's a person who only has a thousand dollars to their name and is living in some foreign country and needs to pay their bills, I guess, keep as much of it as you can and only sell it when you need to get those things that you desire or that you need to live. That's a fair point. Again, I'm saying if you have the ability to buy and hold it, I would take some position to buy and hold it. Yeah, even decimal points, sats. So listen, the funny thing is, is that like, that's not a foreign concept. It seems nuts when you're talking about Bitcoin, but generational wealth has been accumulated for all time by people buying stocks and holding them. How about just saving money? Yeah, you just get money in there and you don't touch it. The only thing you have to do is not

touch your money, not touch your investments. That's the thing people can't do, but that's all there is. I don't know why people struggle with this. I'm saying to you, buy Bitcoin and just hold it. It's good money. If I was saying to you, buy Bitcoin and just hold it. It's good money. If I was saying to you, don't spend all your money, just hold it. That would be an investment strategy. Like don't spend all your money. It seems more palatable to say that, but then you say, well, you're taking money. And I think bad money, inflationary money, like just monopoly money. Who knows what this stuff is anymore? They send it to you for free. They just change decimal points on a ledger and do all kinds of crazy stuff with it. Who knows what it is?

I'm saying take that stuff and buy good money and just hold it as much as you can. Yeah. I mean, it makes complete sense. They're sending out $1,200 stimulus checks, that people's kids are going to pay $12,000 back for. So what do you think the end game really is? I mean, obviously, we all have this like Venezuela, Lebanon, Argentina, money in the streets and your suitcase, you know, Germany pre-World War II vision of what it could be. But those weren't world reserve currencies like the dollar. I mean, what do you think the end game is of all this money printing? Do you think that that's where it's headed? Yeah, you know, you brought up the exact point. The reason we get to play around the way we do is, I think, because of World War II. And, you know, we are the world's reserve currency. And every oil transaction in the

world is backed by the U.S. dollar. And all the banks that do those transactions have to hold U.S. dollars to do those transactions. And what the U.S. has done, and it's probably through design and through economic warfare, there's not a lot of U.S. dollars out there. So they kind of choked off supply. So they're able to run the money printer right now and it's scaring the shit out of everyone. But the world wants those dollars. It's consuming them. And I don't know how many times we can multiply the amount of currency, U.S. dollars that are out there. I know that when Ben Bernanke did this in 2010, they quintupled the money supply and it did nothing. I'm going to overgeneralize this. I'm going to say we didn't really see inflation, but there was inflation in stocks and inflation in all kinds of places, but we didn't see- You didn't see the standard kind

of inflation that you see in these countries where it's like suitcases of money to buy a loaf of bread. That's right. And it probably will do the same thing. We're going to see inflation around the periphery. You're going to lose buying power, no doubt. holds a reserve currency, that's when this stuff gets really real. But I, you know, the U S still has a lot of might. We still have a very strong military. We still have the positions that we have. We have a president that will do whatever he has to do to keep that stock market rolling. Like that, that's what's like, in my opinion, going on right now. Right. Which is funny because that actually means devaluing the dollar. That's what, that's what's happening right now. Like if I could, if I was at the white house or wherever president Trump is right now, he's saying, dude, I don't care what you have to do. Stocks go up because there's chaos all around. I'm going to have to stand on stage with whoever

I'm competing against. And I'm going to tell you all, you have never seen economic prosperity like you've seen during my time in office. You want that to continue? I'm your guy. All the rest of this stuff, I don't know about coronavirus. I don't know why it happened. I'm doing the best I can. But look at your portfolios. And at the end of the day that will resonate with people the beautiful 401ks it'll resonate with rich people but uh but i mean that means resonate with people because but it's it's ironic because you know the the economy and the stock market are so incredibly disjointed especially now now more than ever i mean i think maybe 50 of americans even have exposure to stock roughly, but even most of those, it's like in a 401k, they can't touch. And that doesn't help them pay their rent this month if

they have no job. Right. So, I mean, it's insanity. Yeah. It's hard to even, it's hard to even believe the statistics that are coming out now. Like we, we got into this like fake news and all this stuff going on now. I don't even know. The job numbers are such horseshit. I don't even understand. Every Thursday, it's like, we've lost 2 million jobs. We've lost one and a half million. Then the monthly, it's like up 4 million jobs. I'm like, dude, I could figure that out in kindergarten that this is, that this is horseshit. You know what I mean? It's wild. So I don't even know what's going on. I'm trying to just figure it out. I'm sharing everything that I'm learning with everyone around me. And, you know, again, that's why Bitcoin feels so good. And I'm a guy who has assets like I buy property, I buy different stuff. I, you know, I even test out Peter Schiff's business and bought a bunch of gold and silver just to see it. You know, I'm not a big gold and silver guy. I mean, Pompey used to joke with me. Yeah, but I actually don't know if it's

very valuable. I called my uncle Joe recently and told him, hey, stop buying gold, man, because he loves buying gold. And we talk about that stuff. And it's just like Bitcoin. Boomers love gold. But it's so funny. That means they should understand why we love Bitcoin so much. There's a little tech hurdle, but I tweeted this recently. Let me, you try this one on. I really feel unfortunate. I think it's unfortunate for millennials because they've been put in a bad position financially. And I think boomers and Gen Xers are going to own the majority of Bitcoin

and the millennials should have, but they're going to miss the opportunity. I agree because you still need money to get, unless you've dedicated your life to working some sort of service where you get paid in Bitcoin. I'm talking about the majority, the big war chests of Bitcoin will be controlled by boomers and Gen Xers. Yeah. I think that that's sad, but pretty true. It's heartbreaking, actually. You know, this is, well, unless there's, and I don't know the statistic offhand, but as boomers start to die and transfer their wealth to the younger generations,

maybe they'll plow some of that money into Bitcoin, which could save some of them. But it's a sad thing to think about. Because I was in the same boat in 1994 when the internet was born. I was just a broke college kid sitting in my dorm room. I'm like, this is going to be big. I want to drop out of school and put all I got into this. And people are like, no, idiot. This is goofy. AOL. Like, you think this is going to be like something? I don't even know what the internet's for. But I didn't have any money. So maybe a lot of millennials are just sitting by saying the same thing. Like Bitcoin, I get it, but I don't have any money to buy it.

Yeah. It's like, who cares if the idea is great, if you're trying to buy dinner. Yep. Yep. Millennials have really, I mean, you know, they get a bad rap for being like lazy and this and that, but they've just gotten the shit end of the stick at every single turn. I mean, graduating, you know, whether it's college or grad school during a financial crisis,

depending on what level they are September 11th. Like, I mean, there's just never been. And, you know, they've been dealing with this inflation to some degree their entire lives. Student debt. I mean, there's almost impossible for a millennial to have, you know, achieved financial independence or success, I would say, at this point. Yeah, and I'm not one who subscribes to the fact

or the opinion that millennials are lazy. I agree with you that they've been just raised or had to experience like economic devastation throughout their transformative years, including watching their parents and them lose their homes. I mean, it's been crazy. And it's not hard for me to to understand why they may not want to buy homes, why they'd rather rent. And, you know, they're the most educated group in history. You know, I wish I had a statistic to back that statement up, but I think it's true. I mean, I got to college and they told me, asked me what my email address was going to be in 1995. And I asked them what an email address was. You know what I mean? Like I had literally had never even heard of it. I didn't know what the internet was, you know, now the velocity of information,

these kids learn more than we learned in four years and four hours. I really believe that, you know, now figuring out what's actually true and what's fake is a whole other challenge. But also like millennials, I mean, if you were graduating college or something in 2008, and you saw, first of all, we talked about not being able to trust your bank. You saw the bank's default on all these loans. They were taking all of our money that we deposited and loaning it for complete crap. And to go through that and then see it all happening again, like nobody learned their lesson and they're getting brutalized for it once again. I mean, Bitcoin really does answer that.

You know, it's a meme, Bitcoin fixes this, but. It's so true. And again, at this point, it's taken me five years to arrive at this conclusion that I'm not really looking for the layer two and layer three and layer four over Bitcoin. I'm saying Bitcoin's fine just like it is. The construction, the way it's, the way it works, it's fine. You've got to own it. You've got to own it. Whatever you have to do to custody it, protect it, put it in a will, put it in a trust, avoid probate,

make sure that you have and go through the security layers so there's redundancy and you don't lose it. It's smart. It's smart. And then because we don't know what's going to happen with the geopolitical environment that we're in today. Who knows what that is going to do? Just do this. Take some control over your own life. Just do this. It feels good. It does.

It really does feel good. As much stress as it can cause in your life, as you've mentioned before, with the volatility and more the custody. The volatility doesn't even get me at all anymore. Like I don't need the money right now. Like everything I have in it, if it, like you said, if it goes to zero, that'd be terrible. It won't.

But it's more about, yeah, worrying about somebody coming for it or worrying about what will happen to it if I'm gone or something. And that really is a very stressful thing. But I think that solutions will evolve that make it more of a part of the conversation as more people are exposed to it. And as institutional and bigger investors are exposed to it, they're going to need the answers. And that's going to trickle down to guys like me. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we will eventually get like dummy proof custody solutions where you're not, you know, having to keep paper seed phrases and all this

other stuff. It will be made very simple. Those are interesting things to me. But you've got to go through the process of exploring what Bitcoin is, getting an on-ramp to move fiat into an exchange, purchasing Bitcoin, moving it off of an exchange into some place that feels comfortable to you, and then putting in security so people can't take it from you in its terminal destination, wherever that is. If it's on, you know, if it's being custodied by BlockFi or Coinbase or Gemini or what have you, you've got to protect it there. And then you have to go to the next level, which we've explored. You know, how do you recover the Bitcoin in the event of some catastrophic thing happening to you? Do you have a will?

Do you have a trust, et cetera? I want you all to think about those things. I know that the people who listen to some of the things that I'm doing are in the age range of about 25 to 55. I'm challenging you to not be YOLOing right now with one or two Bitcoin. There are only 21 million. Don't be stupid. If this thing got to $50 million, you have one half of my net worth and you bought one Bitcoin. I worked 15 years building fucking companies and dealing with enormous loads, mountains of bullshit to have that money. Dude, everyone else I have, like half the people I have on this podcast are like 27 years old and they're talking to me about like every altcoin that they were an early investor in

pre ICO. And honestly, man, they're all brilliant dudes. And those are the millennials who got it, but it pisses me off. Cause I'm like, is it a long slog? Like to, you know, to keep it together at major down moments. And some of these people really hit it, you know, really hard the first time. Good for them. Good for them. You know, we didn't put any real money in ICOs during that time. I just didn't, I didn't understand it. It seemed like I couldn't understand making an investment in a company, but not receiving equity. It's just, it was really Americans.

Americans largely were locked out anyways which is a whole other conversation whether that's right or wrong accreditation and all that but you know so yeah i i was not like uh i mean i was trading this stuff when it hit exchanges and stuff but i was not a big ico dude i didn't even as you said i didn't even get the tag it was like vpn to this thing and then send money to a strange address something comes back not within my risk management uh profile at the time but probably would have gotten a hell of a lot richer if it had been if i'd chosen the right ones so uh where should everybody follow you after this where can they keep up with you uh yeah no look first of all i

appreciate uh this first time we've uh ever spoken and I enjoyed it very much. It's always fun to just have a conversation about things that are interesting. So really cool. Yeah, man, I love it. Well, we'll do it again. Yeah. So you can find me on Twitter at jwilliamsfstmed. And then come check me out on YouTube at Going Parabolic. It's a show I do every day. Sometimes I do rants. Every day. Sometimes I do rants. Yeah, every day. We're having a good time there. But like I said, I'm just trying to share what I'm learning, doing some mentorship, bringing on people that I think are underrepresented in the space, who are absolute

titans. And, you know, let's go. So when you were growing up as a jason williams in the 90s did everybody call you white chocolate oh yeah it's like because then we go i'm a gator fan i grew up in gainesville so like that was he was the greatest jason williams of all time you're rivaling it now because i remember when he got like yeah kicked off the gators for smoking weed and it was like the most devastating moment in the history of gainesville. But man, that dude was fire. Yeah, they call me black milk, white chocolate. I got all the nicknames. I mean, you were at the exact right age.

I'm telling you, that's me. That's it. There's been a lot of Jason Williams, but I'm the crypto finance one. I did see you dunking on that like seven foot basket the other day. Hey, don't even try me on a seven foot basket. You're going to get dunked on that like seven seven foot basket the other day hey don't even try me on a seven foot basket you're gonna get dunked on it was dirty though i mean that was dirty oh man

windmill 360 oh it's on what happens if we go up to 10 i'm shooting that i can slap that net i'm gonna shoot the jumper i'm gonna shoot the jumper i'll stay outside yeah that was always my game it was like the bad knees and ankles i just throw it to me on the outside. I'm not guarding anybody and I'm not trying to get in there, but I can dunk a tennis ball. Okay. I'll take that. It was good. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. This is definitely an awesome chat. Like you said, it's good to just shoot the shit. So, uh, have a good one. We'll speak soon. Have a good fourth. You too. All right. Hey everyone. Thanks for listening. New episodes go live every Tuesday at 7am Eastern standard time

links to our Apple and Spotify channels are in the show notes. You can also follow me on Twitter at Scott Melker to continue the conversation. See you next week.