The Wolf Of All Streets - Why Gen Z Chooses Bitcoin | Miss Teen Crypto

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

This teen is on a mission to make crypto mainstream by educating Gen Z on its benefits. At just 13 years old (and with $200 in her bank account) she was smart enough to know that keeping it in her savings account wasn’t enough. Now, at 16 years old, she’s amassed a combined 73.2k followers on Twitter and Instagram as Miss Teen Crypto, where she’s well-known for asking strangers on the streets what they know about Crypto (and teaching them what they don’t). On this episode we learn how a shopping spree got Randy hooked on Crypto, discuss the barriers that are still holding teenagers back, and hear from Randy herself on the best ways for our young generation to get started. JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER 📩 https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS ►► Vauld is a Smart Investing Crypto Platform which allows the user to invest without any stress! With Vauld, you can earn free passive income in crypto. Vauld lets you earn the highest interest rates in the crypto industry - 12.68% on stablecoins and 6.7% on BTC and ETH.. Sign up below and get a 40% kickback on trading fees, 5% commission on interest payouts and 5% commission on loan interest. Vauld’s ‘Buy the Dip’ function automatically purchases specific cryptocurrencies for you when the price dips below a pre-set level. It’s awesome! Sign up here: http://thewolfofallstreets.info/vauld EPISODE LINKS Miss Teen Crypto: https://twitter.com/missteencrypto Production & Marketing Team: https://penname.co/ FOLLOW SCOTT MELKER • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolfofallstreets • Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io • Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe • Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3FASB2c

And just crypto, I just saw how it was going to change the world, the way we store our value, the way we transact, the way we collect things using blockchain and all the amazing technology we have here now. So I just really wanted to spread that word and just let everybody know about it. This podcast is sponsored by Vauld. Please stay tuned for more information on this amazing company later in the episode. Bitcoin is inevitable. We all talk about how fast we're going to see adoption and that this curve is going to come. But the fact is, younger generations are never going to live in a world

without crypto and Bitcoin. One of the greatest voices of the Gen Z generation, of course, is Miss Teen Crypto. But I had the opportunity to sit down with her and her father today and found out the story of how she discovered crypto in the first place and why it became so important to her. You've been doing in-person stuff forever.

You walk into Times Square and you interview people. Yeah. I started the podcast two weeks before COVID hit. And this is the first weekend I've done a single in-person. Really? I love doing in-person ones. Like it's different with strangers though. Cause like you're just like, it's like the wild.

You never know what they're going to say to you. Yeah. Well that's a little crazy yeah there's a controlled environment and we know what we're going to kind of talk about in general like i just talk to like these wild people on the street like you there are a lot of interviews i haven't posted because they're just crazy i'm sure do you ever like think about taking all the outtakes and doing outtake i was actually thinking about it my sister wants to do like this whole thing where we just have the camera rolling the entire time and just when everyone yells at me and says, no, I don't want to talk to you,

we clip it all together. Yeah, that's the secret is you got to keep it rolling so people don't even know that they're on camera yet. While you're micing them up, you're secretly... Yeah, I have a little mic that's this big. She don't mic. She just walks with a little corded mic. Yeah, I have a little new Bluetooth one now that I'm going to test out.

I'm like really excited. So listen, I was planning to have you. You and I have talked a few times on Spaces. I was on your show, everything like that. But I met your lovely dad yesterday. Yeah. The two Randys. Yes.

Right? And I had no idea. Maybe I just never heard the story that he's responsible, at least to some degree, for your interest in crypto. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tell the story. Probably mostly my fault. I'm a single dad. You know, my two daughters live with me since they're small.

And got into crypto, I think, late 16. Had not many people. My friends didn't want to hear about it back then. My friends still don't want to hear about it. Yeah, I had no one to speak to about it. And I used to eat dinner with the girls at night and talk about crypto and talk about Bitcoin. And I just went to a meetup and this is what happened. And they would pretty much look at me like I was crazy yeah and then one day you know

I said to her she said she was going to the mall and I told her I'm gonna give you some some money right for the mall right she goes yeah I said well I'm gonna give you crypto today so she's like but I can't spend it I said yeah but I have an app you could download that you can you could go to ulta where you get your makeup nordstrom you know and a bunch of other stores in the mall so she goes all right send it over to me so she's not gonna say no to money right so i sent her i sent a little bit of crypto and it got there instantly on a phone which made her look at me like wow it happened that fast

i said so when you get to the mall and you get to the place that you want to spend it just pull up a qr code press go to the app press the store you want pull up the qr code and just show it to the register don't say nothing like i'm going to use crypto just let them scan it you know so she did it and she was that. And she was, that was it. Okay, so like your dad gave you this thing. You spent the money, but there's another step there to, because you can still go to the store and use your credit card or money, right? So that maybe it was an awakening that, okay, I can use crypto for this.

But then you still had to go down a rabbit hole and figure what crypto was. So why did you guys do that? That was just the beginning. It only takes a spark. And we always joke that once you come in, you never go back out. Right. Exactly. Right.

That was the light bulb moment for her. Yeah. You know, when I gave her the crypto and she was able to get it on her phone instantly instead of like, you know, transacting money would change and stuff. And then she went and used it. She didn't think she'd be able to. But why did you run with it? I ran with it because not only did I see this instantaneous transaction,

I just saw it as free money, right, that anyone can use no matter what your age is, where you come from. As long as you have that Internet connection anywhere in the world, you can send and receive payments. I also saw that side of Bitcoin where it's that store of value. I was 13 that like when I first heard about it and I still only had like $200 in the bank account right in the savings and when I was growing up all I heard teachers say in school was well you keep your money in the bank it's safe there to appreciate you earn interest all this

all these things and I always saw $200 it just never changed and I just saw Bitcoin as this appreciative asset a store of value and that was just another thing that brought me and I said not only is this money I could spend and send to anyone anywhere in the world but it's something I can hold on to I can huddle and have it be like worth more one day it's interesting that you saw it as a savings account as a 13 year old kidold kid because when we were 13-year-old kids, you get like 10% interest. Yeah, we used to go to the bank

and get 8% like on $100 per month. Of course, your mortgage was 15%. Right, right. But so that was, those teachers who were teaching you that are dinosaurs like us who they were taught that and just so it becomes a meme.

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So I just really wanted to spread that word and just let everybody know about it. I mean, being a part of Gen Z, we understand the concept of digital property, the concept of digital currency. We value, a lot of the time, we value our in-game currencies more than we value our dollars. That's why these 13-year-old kids use their mom's credit card to go buy V-Bucks from Fortnite, right? So I just saw this huge thing that was really

going to change everything. And the fact that, you know, Gen Z was behind the revolution and not leading the revolution was something that just hurt my heart a little bit because we're supposed to be ahead. We're supposed to be spearheading this. You know, I think there's this thing from every generation, you always make fun of your parents for being like, oh, you kids get off my lawn or your music is trash or music is so good. I think it's just deeply ingrained in society

that one generation doesn't take the next generation seriously. Yeah. I think it's just how itrained in society that one generation doesn't take the next generation seriously. Yeah. I think it's just how it is. It is, it is. I mean, but the funny thing is, is that the millennials and the Gen X are what built this foundation for us in Gen Z

to take this technology and run with it. There's so many, you know, the younger generation, like 20 and down, is really not involved yet, you know, from what I see in crypto. But they're not involved in anything. Right. They're involved in like China D. I think if they learn about crypto, if they learn really how to use it and what it is,

I think they're going to run with it, and they're going to end up being the biggest players here, not my generation or your generation. It's going to be that generation that's going to take this to the next level. That's how I feel. I keep having this same conversation or sort of idea, but you're almost there, right? My kids are two and seven. They'll never know a world where there wasn't Bitcoin.

Absolutely. So it's like we talk about it'll come, it'll come, it'll come. It's just going to be natural. I guess it kind of, you got there early enough, but maybe even your generation is a little early. Absolutely. I think we're all extremely early. I mean, this is...

First inning, still. I hit the streets all the time and I ask people about Bitcoin. I've been asking people about Bitcoin on the streets since November 2020, just asking people, like, what's going on here? And just people have no idea what Bitcoin is. Still? Still. I went to the mall a few months ago and I was talking to kids around my age and I asked them do you know what Bitcoin is? They looked at me like I was completely insane. Like what is that? Do they know what Dogecoin is? No. Okay good. Some know doge more but yeah with that I mean

Right and Elon memes are very powerful. Yeah, that's being the idea and a lot of people especially, you know in this type of environment They're they're upset with those they're upset with Elon and just like the way things went about what especially with the price action with doge But the thing is the memes and everything that came out of that it brought so much adoption Especially with Gen Z a especially with Gen Z. A lot of Gen Z I know, yeah, like they came in for the meme. They were like, oh, this is a really funny meme. But they didn't go directly invest in Doge. They just want to know what it was and why cryptocurrency was important, which led them to Bitcoin and to learn about that. So I think it really did help adoption.

It helped bring the younger ones in because the Bitcoin thing they were scared of, for whatever reason, I don't know. It's intimidating. Yeah, they think it's this crazy thing. We still have a messaging problem, right? Nobody can explain it to somebody in simple terms. But yes, if you tell the age group doge, that they want to know about,

because Elon and they hear about it. They just understand me. It's a meme culture, tweets are short. Everything has to be a short messaging to be palatable now. I mean, a lot of the time when I, especially why I do one to two minute content on like intro to crypto, what is Bitcoin, what is blockchain, how it works, is because when I looked up a lot of these videos when I was getting started in space, they were all lengthy videos, seven to ten minutes.

A lot of people don't have time for that, right? They just need something that's quick, to the point, and gives them an idea. And a lot of the time when you explain Bitcoin, or when I first heard about Bitcoin, there wasn't much adoption, but it was complicated. To me, it just seemed like some adult things, finance, something I couldn't touch. Which is literally the opposite. It literally is. Because the adults are the ones who are confused. It is, and I used to tell her that, if you just give me a minute, you know? But now I think it. But now I can actually use crypto. It's something transactable, collectible even. You know, so it takes that moment.

But it needs to be put in simpler terms. But another reason, another problem, I guess, I find being a younger person in this space, especially when I was under 18, is that there's an extremely high barrier to entry to come into this space. When I was under 18, I couldn't go on Coinbase. I couldn't go on Gemini. I couldn't go on BlockFi. I couldn't go on anything to earn interest, to buy crypto. But when I was 13, I was able to use my dad's credit card to go buy in-game currencies for a video game.

Which had no value to you in the real world at that time. Exactly. So the fact that I can get a debit card from the bank at 13 but I can't go and buy crypto, that's why I feel like we're extremely early and there's still a ton of work to be done. Right now we have like the rise of decentralized exchanges but you need to have that point where it's easy for Gen Z to get it. Yeah it's got to be. I think the closest thing under 18 has right now is a Bitcoin ATM, but that's... And you're getting gouged. Yeah.

Exactly. Because sometimes when you go to an ATM, the price is like just way above what the market is. Like Bitcoin could be, for example, 40K and they'll write 45 on the ATM. And then there's a huge fee on top of that. So you're paying 45K and then the fee is another 100 at some machines. I think that conceptually a Bitcoin ATM is amazing, but that's one of those things that we're going to look back and be like,

that was early and it's not what we need now. I could be wrong. Maybe someone will innovate in the Bitcoin ATM space, but I think that there's a lot of easier ways now to get your Bitcoin. There has to be an easier way for younger kids to get into crypto. It's not that easy for older people. It's not. It's easy in the context that I can sign up, but still there's a leap of faith.

When she goes and talks to people, that's a problem. You're asking me about Bitcoin. Do I own it? Do I have it? And they don't know how to get it. And then they ask her, okay, you're an expert. You're asking me what is Bitcoin. Okay, where do I get it?

And that's still a problem. Exactly. I would always recommend the exchanges, but a lot of people just get uncomfortable. Why do I have to put my driver's license on the platform? What is this KYC? What does this even mean? So it's a little complicated still, but it just still shows how early we are. I mean, four or five years ago, some people were still using the peer-to-peer platform.

Local bitcoins. Local bitcoins. People were still using local bitcoins not too long ago, and now we have Coinbase, we have Gemini, we have these ATMs. So we're still in these early stages of just building and just giving people accessibility. But we still need to lower that barrier to entry. It's huge. Like in a perfect world, do you have like a vision of what that platform would be that was so that would be accessible to teenagers and really easy to use?

Honestly, a good a good start for teenagers right now is actually a lot of games that are here today at Bitcoin Conference, like Thunder Games, ZBD Wallet, these are games where you could just play games on your phone and earn Satoshis and just build up and accumulate that way and just start your journey. Ideally, an app that I would like to see is an app that I could just download on my phone, get my credit card or my debit card, maybe even a gift card of some sort, and redeem it. Just like how I could go to Walgreens or CVS and go buy an iTunes gift card

and buy a ton of games on the App Store. I should be able to do that, but with cryptocurrency. Well, I'm really glad that our future's in her hands and not mine. I'm glad, too, it's in her hands. You must be, I mean, I hate to do this, but you must be incredibly proud. No, every day, goosebumps.

I never in a million years thought my daughter, you know, I never pushed her. I never told her, oh, crypto needs this and that. I just told her about it little by little. She got in. My heart is warm. I love that she's in it. And I love that, you know, people look up to her and ask her all these questions. Can we get your dad in more of your content?

Maybe like a sideshow that's like, you know, the two of her and ask her all these questions we get your dad and more of your content maybe like a sideshow that's like you know the two of you it's great you do well together I know you don't like to be on camera but you get yeah I you know every day I sometimes I just step back and I get a little teary-eyed just you know looking at all the stuff she's doing not so secretly you're on Twitter. Oh, yes. So where can we follow you guys? Yes, yes. I'm at Miss Team Crypto.

And I'm Randy at LTC, the right coin. LTC, the right coin. It's so funny what I realized, too. You were with me. I had no idea. I made that years ago. But everyone knows me on Twitter. I'm just in person quite, you know.

Not like, you know. You guys are amazing. I truly love what you're doing. Anything. Always, as you know, I've told you know. You guys are amazing. I really, I truly love what you're doing. Anything, always, as you know, I've told you, but anything I can do to help, but you're doing, I think, the best work of all of us because that's the generation that we need more than. Well, you're doing great work too.

Yeah, thank you. You guys are awesome. You have great people. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Great people. Randy. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you haven't already left a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please do that now. Spotify just added ratings, so please go ahead and click that five star. I'll see you guys next time.