Trading Secrets - 15: Crypto 101 with Bitcoin's Biggest Bettor Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Anthony Pompliano aka “Pomp” is a cryptocurrency investor like no other.  "Diversification" is a strategy that we are often taught about in finance, but it's a word Pomp absolutely stomps on!  The entrepreneur and Bitcoin investor provides a 101 breakdown of the crypto market and further explains the strategy behind his investment decisions. He has built and sold numerous companies, ran product & growth teams at Facebook, and manages a portfolio valued at more than $500 million in early-stage tech companies.  Pomp has even served across seas and talks about how that experience has impacted his philosophy as an investor.  From crypto to criminals, its all covered with Pomp.  Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. And let me tell you, we're talking today about a subject that we've sprinkled, we've touched the surface, we've sprinkled a little dust on it, we haven't gotten in the weeds, but we're going to get in the weeds because we have to get in the weeds. Why? Every single company, institution, individual investor is talking about a, what is it? Cryptocurrency in Bitcoin. So I searched up down, left and right, to find an individual who can speak to the relevancy of it, explain it in 101 terms, but not only talk about it,

put his money where his mouth is. And this individual, Anthony Popliano, aka Pomp, on Twitter, not only knows the ins and outs of crypto and Bitcoin, but he's been speaking about it for years in more than 50%, more than 60%, more than 70%, and I'll stop there and let him tell you what percentage of his net worth is tied up in Bitcoin. Crazy. He also currently manages an investment portfolio, Pomp Investments, valued at more than $500 million, including investments in many of the largest companies across the Bitcoin and crypto industry. What's amazing about his story too is he's also served in the Middle East. And he talks about how his time and service actually has an impact on the way he invests. And also how he forecast what's next. You always think

about these guys who are always a step ahead. You've got to ask them the question. How do you get there? How do you know what's happening before it happens? His answer is crazy. He's also served in 2015 as a growth leader at Snapchat. At that same time, he was a product manager of Facebook. He led the growth team for Facebook pages and helped launch numerous products like Ambler alerts and voter registration while also advising the executive team on their social strategy. He talks in CNBC interviews and he said things like, I don't think that most of the large financial institutions on Wall Street are ready to go into any decentralized applications, which, of course, which is what cryptocurrency is,

he says they're still worried about security, custody, potential hacks. We're going to see both worlds thrive in the future. Now, Bitcoin is decentralized. It's one of the most decentralized form of money ever created. Nobody owns or controls Bitcoin, and everyone can take part in it. It doesn't matter where you live or who you are or what your net worth is. 11 years ago, the cryptocurrency market did not exist. Now, today, the market cap of cryptocurrency exceeds two trillion dollars. It's incredible wealth generation that has benefited not only institutions, but some people that are the unbanked, the disenfranchised, has benefited individuals. It's honestly just a beautiful story of progress and something, whether you're going to be investor or not, you have to know about it. Because it has a fixed, predetermined monetary policy. Trusting Bitcoin essentially means trust.

math and trusting the billions of people that are embracing Bitcoin for this very reason. Now, the Bitcoin world and cryptocurrency world is extremely volatile, but one thing Pomp talks about is like, well, what are we comparing it to? I say volatile. What is it volatile? To the market? Well, it's not the market. It's a lot different. So what are we benchmarking it against? It's a conversation that makes you rethink a lot of things, especially your investment strategy. Now, right here, as I'm recording this intro, Bitcoin is trading at $44,262, and Ethereum is trading at $2,978. Ethereum, ETH, and Bitcoin, BTC, are two coins that are going to generate a lot of the conversation here. But enough of me, and let's get into the one, the only, the guy I searched

up down left and right to find who can break down the 101 of cryptocurrency and the very minute detail of what the future looks like and specifically how much he has invested in Bitcoin. Here we go. Let's ring in the bell with the one, the only, Anthony Popliano, aka the Popper. Thanks for having me. told everyone that follows me all about your background. And I said, listen, I have searched up and down, left and right for someone who knows the crypto world well and can speak to it articulally, and this guy has got it all. So before we get into crypto, I want to ask you a little bit about

your business background. So I see that you're a 32-year-old stud right in your Twitter. You got the fact you've invested over $100 million in early stage startups. And I started doing some research and I saw your success and it all made sense. I saw that Digiforce was acquired by strategic link partners in 2019, 2013, excuse me. Your growth leader at Snapchat, that your managing partner at Full Tilt Capital. I mean, I could read this resume for the whole next 45 minutes. I'm not going to do that. I'm curious, what was like the real igniter to your success? Where was like a lot of the money made so that you could get into early stage investing when you did and how you did? Yeah, well, I think that the first thing was the mindset really came

from the Army. So I was in the Army for six and a half years deployed to Iraq. And it's this weird experience where when you go to war, you realize everyone dies, which is super kind of morbid. But we're all going to end up dying. And so you really quickly realize, like, you should spend the time that you have and do the things you want to do. Who cares what anybody else thinks. Just do do what you want to do. And so that allowed me, I think, to really kind of take on the rest of life. I was 20 when I went, turned 21 in the desert. And from there, I just said, look, I'm going to do exactly what I want to do. I'm going to go bigger. And it really kind of unlocked a lot of ambition that I had, which was pretty powerful and pretty freeing. And then in terms of

kind of capital acquisition, you know, look, I was very lucky both from building some companies and then also working at Facebook, et cetera. But a lot of the wealth that I built has been through investing. It's literally been kind of betting on myself and either investing in companies that I own or investing in all sorts of different assets. And so I've got a, pretty big skill set and the ability to compound money aggressively. And so I try to lean into that and don't frankly do that much outside of my circle of competence. Do you think that your aggressive nature in investing and the moves that you made does correlate to your time spent in Iraq and the fact that maybe you're not as risk averse because you're just like, man, I've seen people literally

put it all in the line. Do you think there's any correlation? I think I'm really, really comfortable being wrong in public for long periods of time. You know, literally for years, people thought, that the Bitcoin thesis was insane. And, you know, who's laughing now is kind of, I think, the feeling that a lot of people in that world have. But I was very public about kind of my position there. And also the ability to bet very, very heavily on the conviction. So it's one thing if you're right and you have, you know, 30 thesis. And one of the 30 is correct. It's very different when you say, look, I'm not in the game of being right all the time. I'm actually in the game of being right on a very infrequent basis, but when I'm right, I bet really big on those

investments. And so in 2018, in December of 2018, I put 50% of my net worth and Bitcoin, which happened to be the bottom of the market. And then in April of 2020, I basically put the remainder. So I had over 96% of my net worth and Bitcoin. And so it's just very rare, I think, for you to see somebody who, one, has what was a very contrarian kind of investment thesis, but then, too, has the conviction and frankly the courage to kind of make a heavy, heavy, high conviction bet like I did. And so when you're right, it pays off. When you're wrong, you look like an idiot. But so far, kind of the last couple of years, I've been able to nail it. And you were there before it was kind of the cool trending thing. Now, obviously, we see Bitcoin

on almost every headline in any foreign finance forum or journal. It's like everything's talking about it. So I want to get into the specifics about your portfolio weight in 96%. I also want to compare that to Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, who we had on, who said he just has 5% in it. And I think his whole tone has changed a little bit. But I want to talk about that. Before we do, we have listeners that just have a wide spectrum of investing background. So for our beginners, if you could tell us just a little bit like 101, how Bitcoin became

to be, what it represents and why it's provided the greatest returns of any asset in the last 10 years or so. Yeah. The easiest way to understand Bitcoin is basically it's a decentralized digital currency. All that means is that just like the U.S. dollar, it is a digital version. Most people don't care around physical cash in their pockets, so it doesn't really sound that different. But there's something called monetary policy. It's basically the rules of the currency. And so the U.S. dollar has infinite supply, meaning that there's a small group of people. They make different decisions and they've been increasing the money supply over time. And so just like anything, whether you're talking about handbags, you're talking about sneakers, or you're talking about currency, the more there

is of something, the less valuable it becomes, right? Scarcity drives value. And so what a lot of people don't understand about the U.S. dollar is that if you simply save dollars in your bank account, you actually are losing wealth over time, right? And something around purchasing power. So the reason why your parents probably told you that, you know, everyone in real estate gets rich, well, it's because you have a hard asset and the dollars being devalued. And so the more that they create, the less valuable your dollar is. That's why it used to cost, you know, $5 for a hamburger, now it costs $7, right? It's not that the hamburger got more valuable, it's that the dollar's been devalued. And so Bitcoin is the exact opposite of the dollar

structure. It is a finite supply, meaning there will only ever be 21 million of these things, and it is a programmatic and transparent monetary policy. All that means is that everyone knows what's going to happen in advance, which is very different than the U.S. dollar. And so while the dollar loses that purchasing power over time. Bitcoin increases purchasing power, right? So if you kind of think of the famous transaction was somebody spent 10,000 Bitcoin on two pizzas back in, I think it was 2010. And so today, two Bitcoin could probably buy you 10,000 pizzas. And so like, why is that? Well, that's because Bitcoin has appreciated in value and those pizzas have kind of stayed the same. Consequently, the two pizzas in dollar terms have actually, you would need to spend more dollars on pizza

today to get those same two pizzas than you had to in 2010. And so once people just understand, look, you know, most of the things that you've probably been taught from a personal finance standpoint, it's not necessarily that they were, quote, quote, wrong. It's just that they were for a different time in the world. And so your parents and your grandparents, the things that they were able to do, it's just a different environment today. So you can't do that stuff. And I always just tell people, you know, in the world, the way to build wealth is invest. is for winners and saving is for losers, right? And that sounds harsh, but ultimately what we're watching is if you take your dollars and you simply put them in the bank and you don't invest

anything, you are losing money or losing purchasing power over time. And so, you know, my message to kind of everyone is just always like learn about investing. Doesn't matter what you invest in, but learn about investing and start investing because if you're not, you're falling behind. Exactly. And inflation, time value, money, all those things are so real. And the thing is, just like with the U.S. dollar, I mean, we have so little control over what's passed, what's not passed, you know, how money is printed, and the supply could change just at the snap of a finger. And so some of the points you made about the scarcity of Bitcoin, obviously that can happen. Now, I kind of alluded to it before, but we talked about like Kevin O'Leary

coming on. And one thing he actually talked about, which was something I've never heard about, is institutional players from a Bitcoin perspective, are looking at Bitcoins to see where they were mined, and if there were certain aspects in China, and he was almost referring it to like blood diamonds, which I found absolutely fascinating, a different world that I had yet to hear from. But, you know, I love the fact that Kevin O'Leary's coming in, Mr. Wonderful. He's got 5 to 10% of Bitcoin. He's on it, but, you know, he's not as bullish as obviously you at 96%. So from your perspective, like, you know, when did you get in a Bitcoin from a price perspective? Do you currently still have 96% holdings. And tell the viewers who don't know about this whole

sell the chair mentality that a lot of Bitcoiners are on top of right now. I'll tell you a little story. So in 2019, beginning of 2019, I had already put a very, very big Bitcoin position on. And Kevin and I were on CNBC together. And I before the segment told him that I had 50% of my net worth in Bitcoin. And so as soon as the cameras turn on, he says, well, you're so convicted, tell me how much of your dough is in this. So I said, 50% on national television. And he literally said, I forbid you from doing that. That is insane. And he went on and on and on and on and on. So go look at the clip online. At the time, Kevin was very bearish on Bitcoin. He thought that it was stupid. I think he might have referred to it as crypto crap or garbage was another term that

he used. But we became friends. and so I've worn him down and he now is a Bitcoin believer. And so 5% while it sounds small is a heroic difference from where he started out with garbage and cryptic crap. In terms of kind of my journey, in 2016, I started mining, basically think of it as kind of the infrastructure. And in fact, I didn't know that much about it. Like I thought I was pretty late in 2016, right?

There was all these people who had been in since 2011, 12, 13, 14, whatever. And over the last couple of years, I just took the time. I learned. I probably made a lot of mistakes along the way, but ultimately was able to feel like, hey, look, I really got a pretty good understanding of this thing. I understand kind of where we are. I think I understand where we're going. So that was where that courage and conviction to make the big investment was. The beauty is with Bitcoin, every Bitcoiner thinks the same two things. One, they don't want the price to go up because they want to buy more. And two, they think that they never have enough. And so not only have I not sold any

of it, but I've been aggressively buying more and more and more as time goes by. And so we still have about 96 percent. As the price goes up, I need to just buy more of it. Then I think that when it comes to, you know, mining and the institutions and all that, you know, look, it's, everyone has their own opinion. My perspective is that the institutions are going to have to come in. It doesn't matter what they think. It doesn't, you know, before all of this hype over the last year or so, with the institutions coming in, we were saying the same thing. It doesn't matter if they like it or not. They're going to have to capitulate. This is an inevitable thing. And I think we're seeing that play out now with a lot of these institutions kind of coming in, whether they're buying it, whether they're trading it,

whether they're mining it. It doesn't matter. They have to come in this market because, as you said, it's the best performing asset over the last decade, and Wall Street kind of missed the boat. Yeah. I know one thing you just alluded to was everyone has an opinion, and this is your opinion. And I think in social media, I mean, holy shit, everyone will put their voice out there. So you've got to see where credibility lies. Now, someone that I do give some credit to is Ray Dalio, right? So he just came billionaire. So anybody that doesn't know, he started the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.

And so he recently on the record said that he sees a good probability that Bitcoin gets outlawed. My question to you is, do you agree with that? And if not, what do you think is in place to provide? prevent that and protect your 96% of worth? J-walking is illegal in New York City. They can't enforce it, right? I just can't enforce it. And so it would be too much of a strain on resources.

And so the beauty of Bitcoin is that it's an uncensurable, decentralized currency, meaning that even countries around the world who have banned it, Pakistan, Nigeria, Morocco, et cetera, they've literally said it is illegal to transact in this. And adoption has gone up. And it's because the government can't stop it. And they know that. And so I don't think that they're going to ban it because I think that they understand that they're not going to be able to stop this thing.

And so ultimately, Bitcoin is inevitable. And that's not in a way that is adversarial or abrasive. I think it's more so that when you have an open decentralized protocol, right, the internet is an open decentralized protocol, people are going to adopt it, whether you like it or not. And so you have two choices. You can either fight it, right? You can ban it.

You can outlaw it. You can try to slow down adoption. Or you can embrace it. what the United States decided to do with the internet was said, hey, if anyone in the world is going to benefit from this open decentralized protocol, the United States is going to benefit more than everybody else. So I think that's what we're watching happen here, is the United States has to make a choice. I've got very deep confidence in the congressmen, the senators, the regulators, and people in the presidential administration. There's a lot of Bitcoiners who are in

those positions. And so I think that they're ultimately going to embrace it. I do think that they're going to say, if anyone's going to benefit from Bitcoin, let's make sure the United States benefits it's more than anybody else. But as with many things in the world, uncertainty is everywhere. And ultimately, that's what makes the market, right? When Ray Dalio puts that piece out, there's some idiot somewhere that went and sold a Bitcoin, right? Because they said, oh, my God, Ray Dalio is right.

So great. They literally sold their Bitcoin probably to somebody who's been listening to all this nonsense for years and years and years and they just keep buying more of it. And so I probably bought somebody who sold it, right? Like, who knows? So I think that's kind of how I look at it. Gotcha. So, I mean, ins and outs.

Everyone's got an opinion. So for you, you take it as the fact that they won't outlaw it. If they do, it's uncontrollable. I think what we've seen that I would agree with that is just look at the power of Wall Street bets and retail traders right now with GameStop. If you outlaw Bitcoin, the pushback, I can't, I mean, you literally, it's not like you have a group of bloggers on Reddit. You have the whole fucking world pushing back at you.

And so it'll be interesting to see what happens there. Do you foresee any other cryptocurrency other than big? Bitcoin coming to fruition the way Bitcoin has and what other cryptos are you bullish on? Yeah. So the way I think about this is there's all kinds of different assets, right? There's really four assets. There's stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities. And so when you talk about cryptocurrencies, that's different than a stock. It's different than a bond. It's different than a commodity. But in the currency bucket, Bitcoin's the winner. Hands down, not even close. There are plenty of other things that are trying to be currencies. If you take like these

stable coins. They're basically the dollar, the euro, or the yen, kind of traditional currency is just in a digital form. First of all, they're not decentralized. They're not uncensurable. And so they're not really kind of crypto assets. They're more just a replication of the existing system in a digital world. But I think that Bitcoin specifically is the king. It is the winner in the cryptocurrency bucket. And I think that a lot of that has to do with technology. A lot of that has to do with kind of the social consensus. That has to do with the capturing of the hearts and minds of people. There's plenty of other assets that will be digitized. I think there will be digital stocks, bonds, commodities, all that stuff. And so value will accrue there as well. But it's very

different. It has nothing to do with Bitcoin and currencies. So I think people like to kind of compare it all. But if I said to you, you know, do you think Apple stock's going to unseat the US dollar? You'd be like, what? Like that doesn't have anything to do with each other. So I think very similar here with the crypto assets. All right. There we go. Pop is saying Bitcoin is the king. We'll refer back to this in five years and see if he's right. One thing you mentioned pop is scarcity. You talked about the facts. Obviously, just the basics of supply and demand and what makes Bitcoin so unique. Now, I've also heard you talk a little bit about NFTs and the fact that anyone in the world can buy an NFT. So a couple of things for anyone who doesn't know an NFT is 101 is, you know, what is it? Where can you buy it?

And then I want to ask you a little bit about the whole premise of scarcity with NFTs. But before we get to, to that, just, you know, where can people get NFTs and, you know, how do people actually buy them? Yeah, so NFTs essentially are, you know, digital assets. And so if you think of many things in the world that are scarce, intellectual property, or all kinds of different goods, it's been really hard to do that in digital world, right? So if I said to you, hey, I have this image and I'm going to take the image and put on a T-shirt, okay, I can stop the T-shirt from having more than, let's say, 100 that I create. I say, okay, now I'm going to take that image. I'm I want to put it on a poster. I can only print 100 posters. And now I can make sure that there's

only 100 in the world. But when I put it as a digital asset, right, when I move it to a computer file, now all of a sudden you can screenshot it. You can take it. You can do all these different things. And so what ends up happening with an NFT is just the ability to make sure that you have the story who created it when and who's owned it along the way, right, kind of the provenance of it. But you could think of it kind of like a serial number, right? And I always joke that like the Eiffel Tower is the best example. the only Eiffel Tower in the world that's actually valuable is the first one. And we all know where that one is, right? It's in Paris, France, and we know exactly kind of what the specifications are.

If I built the exact same Eiffel Tower, the same specifications, and I put it somewhere else in the world, people would just be like, dude, that's the fake one. That's not the real one. Look at the Paris and Vegas. No one gives a shit. Exactly. And so I think that what an NFT basically does is it allows for these serial numbers. You know, Eiffel Tower zero one is the valuable one. Same thing here. is if you see all these images online, all of a sudden now, knowing that this is the first one, the fifth one, or the 20th one becomes really important. And so what we're about to watch is when new technology gets created, all of these people are going to figure out really interesting ways to do this. I've been playing a lot in the digital art space for about a year now.

And my whole thought process is just physical art is going to get disrupted by digital art. Why do we hang static images on our walls? Why don't we put screens on the wall and then the screens are going to change with various pieces of art over time, right? And whether that's every hour, changes by the season, has motion sound, whatever it is. That's kind of one of the thesis. And so you're watching some of the world's best artists start to create digital art. And I think that NFTs, frankly, are just getting started, which makes it pretty exciting. And then quick follow up is where someone's like, wow, that sounds badass.

What is the process of actually buying an NFT? Where do people go? I'm not going to say any platform names because everyone gets all mad when I mention a platform and I forget theirs, it's like picking between your children. But what I will say is if you simply just search on Google digital art or NFTs, I'll let whoever wants to bid the highest on SEO to win that award. But a lot of the platforms, I mean, it's like anything, right? If you want to go buy something on Amazon, right, you basically sign it for an account,

go, you click on it and you can purchase it. It's a little bit more complex on some of these platforms, but for the most part, it's a similar experience. Just create an account and fund it. And then you can go ahead and purchase a digital art or NFTs. Good stuff. Okay, so here's my take on it. I think just like art, anybody could be an artist. Anybody can make this painting. I'm looking at the wall that probably sold for $5 or there could be the one Mona Lisa. So you look at scarcity. Obviously, supply is unlimited. But it's just the value or the perceived value of the artist, the story and everything, just like any piece of art. Where I'm kind of losing touch with NFTs and I want to take,

I want your take on this is the whole idea of like, Obviously, the NBA being very involved with intellectual property and capturing it. I grew up on good buddies with Rob Grinkowski, right? So he was one of the first, him and Patrick Mahomes are the first people to like sell their moments. He sold a, you know, a few Super Bowl catches. My take on this is that how many catches does Rob have? How many catches does every wide receiver have? How many three-pointers have been made?

How many dunks have been made? Like at what point does the supply become so great within that space that it's just like, okay, cool, you own this one dunk one time, there's been a million of them. What's your take or retort to that? I think that I could easily take a picture of the Mona Lisa and hanging up in my wall, but I'm not going to go sell it for $45, $50 million because everyone knows it's a replica. And so sure, you can screenshot, you can have personal enjoyment, but you're not going to trick anyone into thinking that that's the original. And so, you know, just like with many things, you can go buy a designer bag on the streets in New York City and Chinatown, but that doesn't

mean that that broker bag or whatever is an original doesn't mean that you can sell it for top dollar. And so there's knockoffs, there's counterfeits of all kinds of super scarce valuable assets. But as we know, the originals are the ones that actually accrue all the value and people create systems and processes to make sure that only the originals are the ones that have the value. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I just still think if there's, you know, they're all the originals, every wide receiver catching a football and a touchdown, does it get like, go, okay, there's 15,000 legitimate. Actually, you have the IP.

It's yours. Does that get a little old? I guess we'll see. One thing I heard you saw. And I think that it's a great question because, you know, what ends up happening is, like, why is it important? Well, a lot of people just say, like, why is an NFL catch in general important? It may not be, but it may be important to you, right?

And so, like, I always say, like, what happens if a father takes a son to a football game and somebody has the game-winning touchdown? And it's just a regular season. in game, though. It's not a big deal. But what would that father pay to have that specific highlight, own that highlight? Or maybe it's a running back ran. He ran out of bounds. It was just a random play. But that's the play where the running back ran over to the stands and handed the football to his son. That play would have incredible meaning for that one person. And so I think that we forget that in auction type of environments or free markets, it's not always everyone has to

agree on the value. It's just what does one person think the value is, right? It's kind of like it's worth whatever one person's willing to pay for it. And I think that that's what's really exciting to me is like, that's what we're going to see kind of play out here is people are going to take intellectual property. They're going to put it out into the free market. We're going to find out what does this stuff really work. It's fascinating. And it goes back to, I mean, some things change like NFTs and digital art. Some things don't. And that's the sales process. I'm putting a perspective out there that is clearly aligned with my brain. But half a selling is aligning your emotions in your heart with the decision-making process. So it goes back to old-school adages.

You made a point about intellectual capital before, and you said where intellectual capital flows, as an investor, you need to pay attention to it. So obviously, you're heavy on bullish on Bitcoin and NFTs. But other than Bitcoin and FTs, which are taking up every damn headline on Yahoo Finance now, are there any other areas that you're seeing a lot of intellectual capital flowing that as an investor, you're paying attention to it? I live in the shadows, man, that's the way I think about it. So if you think of kind of the fringes of society, what are the things that people on the fringes are talking about and doing?

That's usually where innovation comes from and innovation leads to returns. And so I always joke, you know, my wife and a bunch of her friends are kind of late 20s, early 30s. And I say to them, I say, look, you know, what are the things that you know are going to be big in the future? And they're actually better investors than most people on Wall Street. It's like marijuana is going to get legalized. Okay, probably, right? And like, there's deep conviction there.

electric vehicles are going to be the standard probably psychedelics are probably going to become more important in the future right you know e games and e-sports is going to be a big thing in the future right like living a digital life kind of this metaverse type uh um thesis like all these things that you me and other people and kind of our demographic almost take for granted like it's like of course like the phone's important there's people on wall street who are like older who have like an analyst and the analyst's job just like figure that out. And so I think that's naturally it's just you want to find that the shadows of society or the fringes of society because that's where the innovation is innovation leads to returns. Now another way and something that I

tried to do, but it's a little weird, is you want to find what the criminals are doing. Like why are the criminals using some new piece of technology? And usually it's a sign that that new piece of technology will become really important. So criminals were the first to adopt the internet. They're the first to adopt beepers, cell phones, Bitcoin, et cetera. And it's because they're always out of necessity playing a cat and mouse game with law enforcement. And so they've got to look for some sort of advantage. And so beepers, for example, was a great way to communicate to reach somebody. The internet was a great way to conduct commerce before law enforcement could figure out what you were doing.

And so if you can understand some of the technology, and again, it's not easy because it's not like I've got like a local criminal. I just call up for market research. And I'm like, you know, hey, man, what's the new tech you're using? Give me the scoop, bro. Yeah, but if you can start to understand some of that stuff, it's usually a pretty good sign that, like, hey, this technology is going to become more important in the future, and you've got to figure out how to go invest in it and kind of what the opportunities are. But I think that's the best way to think about innovation. And ultimately, innovation is what leads to returns, right? It's where the growth occurs. And so what you want to do is you want to find that new stuff and then just go find how to invest it. Criminals, I love it. So Anthony is reading every single guilty plea out there. And on top of it, he is going to his wife's bachelor parties because they do have the idea. that's where he's getting all of his insight following the shadow and talking about staying on top of

things. I want to get to social media. We got about 10 minutes left with you here, a little less than that. So for social media, I see that you have a podcast with a, you know, polarizing guy. I think some people love them, people are annoyed by him. Some people absolutely can't stand them is Bryce Hall. And so I thought about that play. Tell me a little bit about the podcast, why Bryce Hall, is it a way to kind of bridge and gap different generations? And in general, has the, the podcast, podcast been a means of monetization for you? Yeah, so I've got a regular podcast that I do where I just interview kind of business leaders

and technology executives, et cetera. That has been very, very successful. We've done over 500 episodes and is a pretty big revenue source for us. But the one with Bryce started because, you know, I've got a network of people who any young kid could really benefit from talking to. And so the idea was Bryce and his friends were calling me, and they were asking them for advice on investing, kind of all this stuff. And I said, look, why don't we just do a podcast?

I'll bring on a bunch of these people and you can talk to them and kind of don't mentor you, but do it in public. So it's not just one-on-one, but it's you plus all of the people in your demographic. And so I said to him, I said, listen, by the way, you know, he's not surprised either. Like, he's a pretty controversial guy. And I said, when we do this, though, you got to remember that a lot of these people are going to come from different backgrounds or come in different walks of life. And we're going to need an ability to talk about the good and the bad, right?

Because every kid makes mistakes or whatever. So I think that Bryce has one been incredibly intellectually curious. He's had great conversations. My favorite story from the podcast was we interviewed David Rubenstein, who is a multi-billionaire. And David got on. He was in his house. He had a suit and tie on. He was ready to have a conversation. And Bryce showed up and he literally had on a wife beater. And so, you know, that was an interesting thing. And to David's credit, what did he do? He said, hey, man, it looks like you've been in the gym. I need to get in the gym. So you kind of see the melding of these cultures of, you know, somebody who is kind of a creator and a person who's leveraged the internet and social media platforms with somebody who's built a, you know, a multi-billion dollar private equity kind of empire. And you bring those two people

together. And the conversation is fascinating because probably David learns just as much from Bryce as Bryce learns from him. It's, I mean, it's wild how generations, the change in almost everything has changed so drastically. The way we talk, the way we dress. the way we act, the way we pursue entrepreneurship, it's night and day. And it's like you said, a really cool time to put both people in a room, to put in Harvard, MBA, billionaire, Ivy League, you know, buy the book guy with someone who dropped out of college and is making million dollars dancing on TikTok. You can't beat it. You got to love 2021. But we only got you here for five more minutes. And so how we end every single podcast is we crack into the vault with some rapid

questions. So I'm going to ask you five rapid questions. And at the end, we have a trading secret. the whole idea is that not everyone can listen to a pomp every day of the week, but in your world where you live, whether it's crypto, whether it's trading, investing, what is one, think about, one specific secret that maybe you shared, maybe you haven't shared that is in within your industry and your realm. But before we do that, let's crack the vault open here with the one and only the pop. Right now, I give you a million bucks and you've got to build a portfolio. Shit, I think I actually, we had this question before. I think I know how it's going to go. Give you a million bucks right here. What are you doing with it? What type of portfolio are you building and how are you

building it? I'm buying 100% Bitcoin and I'm just holding it for 10 years. That's amazing. And the other 4% of your portfolio that's not in Bitcoin, what is that? Is it just in cash? About 2% of it's in early stage startups and tech investing and then 2% is in cash. Amazing. What price? Do you remember the first price of the first Bitcoin you bought? I mined it and I don't remember, but it was likely, I don't know, somewhere around $1,000. How long start to finish it takes you to mine a Bitcoin? So it was very easy

because we already knew what we were doing. We'd start out mining Ethereum. Maybe it took us to set it up. We can have something like that to get the computer set up and everything. Impressive. So you bought it at $1,000. The first time you had ever heard of Bitcoin before doing any of your research

and we're looking at it, what was the price point at that stage? Whatever it was in 2014, so probably a couple hundred bucks. I was pretty stupid. I didn't even Google it, but you know, you live and you learn. You live, you learn, and you've made out just well doing and dealing with it. Have you ever physically actually purchased something with Bitcoin? I have, but I try not to spend Bitcoin too much because I got a pretty deep conviction. That's going in one direction. Sell in the chairs, reinvesting. You got to love it. You alluded to this already, and this was already pre-prepared, but I still want to put it

out there. We want to thank you for your service. Saw that you were in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009. And other than the lessons you shared with us, which have already been phenomenal, can you think of any other lessons through that time with the U.S. Navy that served you well in the business world? Yeah. Look, in the military, there's a saying, right? In the Army, it's to shoot, move, and communicate. And it's pretty funny because no matter what's going on, roadside bombs going off, you know, people shooting at you, whatever, that's what it comes down to. Can you shoot, move, and communicate? And so whether you're talking about business, interpersonal relationships, whatever, just you got to remember the basics. Like, everyone wants

to make things super complex. But if you just understand the basics of what you're doing, and you focus on it and you get really, really good at doing it, then you usually can have a high degree of success. And so in the military, shoot, move, and communicate in business, it's like, look, just make more money than you spend. You're going to be all right. Basic principles, honestly, everlast, even though obviously means of making them change. Before we wrap up with you, we've got three minutes here. We'd love to hear a trading secret from your world pomp. It could be anything from social media, podcasting, investing,

even if it's sitting down and you want to confess that you actually do watch the bachelor every Monday. Whatever it is, give us a trading secret. Yeah, look, this sounds really, really stupid, but I think people underestimate the importance of consistency. And, you know, one of the things that across everything from the businesses I've built to the investing that I've done, it's just consistency. It's literally, you know, the last two and a half years on the podcast, which is, you know, kind of a side business for us, frankly, we've released 500 episodes, which comes out to somewhere around one episode every 36 hours. And so when you think about that, you're just like, wow, that's a lot.

But what did we do? We created a system where we can be very efficient with the recording, the editing, and then the release of these things. And then we just put our head down. We've just been doing it day in, day out, not worried about, you know, how many episodes or how many people are listening or whatever. It's just we focus on the process. If you focus on the process, you're usually pretty happy with the final product. And so I think that the consistency, regardless of what you're doing, ends up being a great differentiator because frankly, we live in a world with very short

time kind of spans. And so what do people do? They start something. They don't see it take off. Like, shit, I started a TikTok account. I only have 200 followers. It didn't explode. Like, this sucks and they quit.

But what they don't tell you is like somebody like a Mr. Beast on YouTube. Like that dude literally created videos for like five years. see like a hundred views on each video. And now all of a sudden, he's a large YouTuber in the world is making tens of millions of dollars a year and he's just chilling. And so it's just like you really, really got to do what you're passionate about. You really just got to stay consistent. I think that you can really do anything in the world.

Consistency, efficiency, passion. It all makes perfect sense. And I got to give you credit because with the network I'm on, we have to submit our damn podcast three days before it goes out. And you're turning one every 36 hours, wildly impressive, like everything else on your resume. Pop, people are listening to you. They're going to want to hear more from you. And they want to keep learning from you.

Where can they find everything you got going on? So normally I just send people to Twitter. It's just at Apompliano, but a bunch of people keep telling me, I'm supposed to be sending people to Instagram. I guess that's what is the hot platforms. That's just at Pomp Global on Instagram. It's the easiest and best way to monetize me. I don't got that many pictures.

What am I going to do? I just like, people, you got to say content, man. You got to get that. I'm much better with talking to people and words and stuff. I say, wait, we guys want to look at pictures of me for it. You know what? Take videos of every podcast and use that as your content. I need to hire you.

You got the ideas. We can help one another. Pop, it's 415. I know you've got to go. We really appreciate your time. This was fantastic. And we look forward to keeping in touch. Absolutely.

Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it. All right, man. All the best. Ding, ding, ding. We are ringing in the closing bell on the Pomp episode. Holy shit. That was a lot to unpack.

what a brilliant freaking dude. And here we are with David, where we break down and recap our guest. David, you know, as per usual, the voice of the viewer, the curious Canadian will get my take on everything we just broke down and discussed. So David, I'm kicking it over to you. You just listen to that, start to finish. What are you thinking? I mean, pomp is such an educated, smart, but relatable guy. I was so looking forward to this because of some Bitcoin knowledge and background that I have. But I just couldn't believe how much he took a really complicated shit and made it sound really normal with some different, like, analogies and stuff. What was your take on it? I mean, the best part is, guys, when you're listening to this, what happens is David

and I will listen it together. And then whenever we want to make an edit, we're like, okay, stop, stop, stop. And then like, here's the edit. Here's the timestamp. David didn't say one word to whole podcast. So we stopped. I'm like, dude, you fall asleep or what? He's like, no, that was just a really, really good take. So as a guy, like you said, you know Bitcoin. I mean, to give me your thoughts. Well, the first fact is if I'm not saying words for 36 minutes at a time, you knew something's got my attention. I mean, it's just incredible.

Like, I think it's also frustrating. Like, I first heard about Bitcoin before he did. When did you hear about it? I first heard about it in 2013. It's actually a pretty funny story. Well, tell me. Well, I'll make it short. I got a buddy named Mitch Devinter, Mitch, if you're listening.

he a great friend of mine he barely graduated high school he shows up at a wedding after high school in 2013 and he goes you know boys I got the next big thing Bitcoin da da da da da da da we're like all right Mitch like how much is one of these fantasy coins like he's only 60 bucks

60 bucks Canadian I was like wait what year 2013 2013 and I was like yeah hearing it now I was like you want me to give you 60 real dollars for one of your fantasy dollars you got to be fucking kidding you there's no shot in hell Mitch went and he started a Bitcoin trading company in Vancouver called Bitcoiniacs.

He opened four ATMs across North America and he's retired. So fuck me. So there's Mitch selling you fantasy coins. Not even about to graduate high school and he's sitting pretty just golfing every day while you're just grind and your tits off. 100%. But to bring back to Paul, man, like I think one thing where I want to talk about like relatability, like how many times did he even say like he could have missed out on something? like I could I saw it at a low price I didn't get it I could have missed out he said the first time

he saw Bitcoin was like in a hundreds of dollars and then his first one was at a thousand like how calm is that in normal investing just like ah shit I should have got pin at $35 now it's a hundred like I'm screwed yeah I mean it happens all the time and but the fact that he still pulled the trigger when he did and that actually brings back to one of the quotes he said I don't think I'll like ever forget which was his take on theories he's like there's so many people out there that have theories on everything. And some will be right and some are wrong. But I keep my theories and opinions pretty limited. But when I think I'm right, I go all in. And I think 96% on Bitcoin is the definition of going all in. So it's kind of like new age investing. I want to say,

like I have very limited investing strategies too. And I'm more like if I like something, I'm 96% at much smaller pennies. How different is that from like obviously the Kevin O'Leary's of the world, 5% and something, 20% and something. Are you seeing that more common? Do you think it's more successful? Like, what do you think? What's your opinion on that? I think this whole, okay, the world is changing so quickly. I think we all forget, like, YouTube.

The start of YouTube just started like in 2006. So life has changed so quickly. And when something is trending, the speed at which it picks up is crazy. But also we're seeing guys like your buddy Mitch and we're seeing pop. Early adopters this shit are just crushing it. And so I think there's something to be said for that. Why do I think Bitcoin is trending? Like right now, obviously, because it's the most appreciating asset in the last 10 years.

However, it's rare that you see these appreciating assets to this nature and then the biggest players in the world getting involved, right? Tesla, MasterCard, the Bank of New York and Mellon, all the big boys are now getting behind it. But what did you think, to me, it brings me back to when I asked them that question, how do you become an early adopter? like how do David and Jason find that next thing or when you hear about the next fantasy coin jump on it? And when he had brought up that like he'll listen to like his wife's bachelor nights or their coffee sessions or investigate criminals, I couldn't believe. Well, I think we just got to open up a pizza shop and just charge 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas, see if we get a bite on it. By the way, I did the math, $58 million, no big deal for two pizzas. Oh, no, no. I think he said,

I think he said, oh my God, someone spent 10,000 Bitcoin. That's what he said. 10,000 Bitcoins on two pizzas. It was like the legendary first transaction of Bitcoin. It's worth $58 million now. David, I need to go back. Okay, this is a sick story I have. You know me. I love poker.

Back when the United States outlawed poker, I bought Bitcoin. I know what the fuck it was. All I knew is that it was this one way. I had to buy this thing so I could get deposits. And I put like a thousand U.S. dollars in. And I lost it all. And I need to go, I'm going to do research and look at what it was, but it would absolutely

nauseate me, I'm sure. So do you own any? I do. I own, I own Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardana. And I got in those in, so ETH, BTC, and ADA. And I got in those in, I don't know, like early March. So certainly not. Oh, recently.

Yeah. So I think I got behind it, the big one, I was like, a Bitcoin, I'm totally bullish on too. Ethereum I got in like to run the like 1700 range just because I'm like this Ethereum is driving NFTs. Yes. So that's that's technology behind it. Yeah. How about you? Do you have do you like what's your do you have crypto? Did you end up getting on fantasy coins? I don't think you know this about. I have Ethereum too. I got it both of mine. I got I bought one Bitcoin. Uh, when is that 2,600 in 2017? No what? You own a Bitcoin? Yeah. Well, I want it at 2,600. I own half because I made a stupid trade.

for those of you who know Neo out there, coin Neo. I sold half my Bitcoin for Neo, and I've lost like $30,000 on that transaction. But we're going to look at the bright side. I own 26 Ethereum that I bought at the same time as my Bitcoin at $262 in 2017. So that's been a nice little turnaround for me. Wow, that's great. Yeah. Oh, man, I'm about to barf.

I looked at, I bought $1,000 of U.S. dollars for Bitcoin in January. This was January 18, and it was 10. NK. I don't know how it just kept it in there. And I'm sure I could go deeper and find the other ones. But anyway, that's, dude, that's a nice portfolio. So, like, what do you think you got pretty solid portfolio that? It's pretty good. You know how it's like, you should diversify? So it's when I sold half my Bitcoin and like sprawled it over some alt coins to try and get like bigger returns. If I just kept my one Bitcoin, my own, my Ethereum, my portfolio would be way better if I tried to like be a hero and diversify. But I'm, I'm feeling good about it.

Now, just like most people and hear stories all the time about the guys who lost their passwords, I have no fucking clue how to get it out. What do you mean? You don't know how to get? I bought $10,000 of my crypto at a Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver, one of Mitch's ATMs. So where is your Bitcoin? It's in a wallet.

It's in an app on my phone. What app does you use? Jacks. Okay, I've never heard of just. So I use Coinbase and Finance U.S. Yeah, so you're a normal person. Mine's in Jax. And my Jax app, this is like a horrible, like I'm exposing myself.

my Jack's app is like outdated so I had to get like a new one it's like Jack's like plus or whatever and I haven't logged into it because I'm too scared come on log into it right now log into it I honest to God Jason log into Jack's Liberty and it has the cloud with the arrow like I you haven't even re-downloaded the app no I downloaded once and I didn't sign in because you have to have this one-time phrase and stuff I can't even do it I'll update next pod to make sure I got in because I'm going to be like the guy that has 10 passwords and our listeners are going to have to help me guess what my passwords are. Okay, because part of the issue with finances are that most people don't even have a written plan down. So you won't even download it. So,

here's what you're going to do. Before the next episode starts, you're going to give a commitment to everyone here that you're going to download it and see if this coin. Dude, do you got thousands of dollars out there and you can't even fucking download the app? So scared. Unbelievable. I'm so scared. All right. So one thing I've capitalized on is, is some crypto. But I think in like normal investing. I'm still behind. He said something that like gave me like shivers down my spine because it's so me and I hate it. He said stacking dollar bills in your bank account, you're actually losing wealth. Like that hits me and I hear it and I and I've heard it many times like you got invest to get future wealth. Can you just hit me over the head with that one more time again,

please? Yeah, I'm going to just smack you with it. He's a hundred percent right. I mean, think about what he said. He's made some good money doing what he does. But the money that he's made, is all in investing is what he's saying. He's like, investing is for winners. I know. Saving is for losers. And the idea here is that $100 today is going to be less tomorrow and much less than a year from now and much, much, much less than five years from now. And so if you're just saving, what is the point? What do you do you do? Ask yourself, what is the psychology. Do you just want to see those dollars there? Yes, honestly. A big part of it is that. And I feel like it's also like, again, why I like the podcast and what I love restart is like kind of the shit we didn't learn in school.

like the shit we learned in school is like save money. You're going to have to buy a house one day, like all that shit. So it's like for me, it's like anxiety. If I don't see the number, I feel like I don't have the money. Yeah, but I mean, I understand that. Everyone's got their own risk. But at the same token, if you know, you have stable income, you have pretty good credit. When you need that money, you'll be able to get money. And the idea is that if you look at the history of the market, since inception at S&P 500, it's averaging 10% per year on an overall basis. It's like there is nothing that we have at our disposal. from an information perspective that says if you do things and you do it the right way

and you diversify accordingly, that your money's not going to grow and compound on itself. Stocks only go up. There you go. There you go. That's your guy. So get your money to work, kid, because it's losing value. It's losing value. You're right.

You're right. Before we wrap, you got any other final thoughts on Pomp and this wild fucking world we live in? No, I think everyone out there should learn from Pomp and learn from the discussion that we had in the different timings, Bitcoin's not going anywhere. It's not going anywhere. It's still in its infancy. You don't, people, this may be a misconception. You don't need to buy a full coin of Bitcoin. You don't need to buy a full point. You can buy a point zero zero zero zero zero zero one of a coin. Good point. And I think I should go buy some. Exactly. And doing the way, and do it in the way where you don't need to, you know, be worried about opening an app like

me. Yeah. Exactly. I, my, here's my rule of thumb. Never have, this is my opinion, very different than pops. Never have more than 15% of your portfolio in Bitcoin. That's just where I'm at. I like Bitcoin. I own it. I'm going to own more of it. I'm going to buy more of it every day. I'll never have over more than 15%. That's my rule of thub now. I'll look back at this in five years and say, what a fucking idiot you are, Jason. But that's where I'm at right here, right now. Any rules from your end before we wrap this puppy up? No, I'm good. All right, David, so good to talk to you. The Voice of the Viewer, the One the Only. What a great episode of Pop. Thank you guys so much for joining this episode. If you like what you're here and want to keep us around, please give us

five stars. Give us your feedback after giving us five stars. Put in your IG handle and we will reach out to you. We're doing some giveaways in there. And we appreciate you guys. Tune it into another episode of Trading Secrets. The closing bell was open. The closing bell is closed. We will be back with another episode next Monday of Trading Secrets, a show you can't afford to miss. Playing on me Making that money and money Living that dream Making that money

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