Latest / Winning With Winans! / Jeff Zylestra-e23Is Crypto Ready for Mainstream? The Future of Digital Assets, Security & Blockchain

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Jeff Zylestra-e23Is Crypto Ready for Mainstream? The Future of Digital Assets, Security & Blockchain · Winning With Winans!

• speaker-0: Well I guess it's another time for an episode of Winning with Winens. Let's go. Good afternoon and welcome to Winning with Wine's Las Vegas' newest and coolest financial show. I'm your host, Ken Winens. And for those of you who still do not know me, I've been a nationwide financial commentator on Forbes and on radio for over the last 25 years. I've covered many of the world's top issues that have popped up historically in the but in the good markets and in the bad markets. But most important, I walk the talk. I mean, I actually do this for a living. I manage money as a professional money manager. I founded a very successful investment management firm in 1992. And today, Wine and Investments is the only Morningstar topped ranked money manager based in Las Vegas. And last time I checked, we were number one in all of Nevada and a good chunk of California. So over the next hour, we will be covering the current events that affect your investments, and we will have a special guest. Look, I'm a news junkie. I mean, in this line of work, you have to be. You got to be on top of the news. I follow nine different financial sources every day. basically There are different thought processes. There's some are lean to the left, some lean to the right. But at the end of the day, it's what I need to know to become a successful investor. We want to try to cover the big overviews of stocks, bonds, commodities, and even cryptocurrencies. Why do you need to do that? You've got to have the full picture if you're going to figure out what your next steps are on making money in your portfolio. So winning with wine-ins is truly a different type of show. We don't cover the dot to dot to dot day to day. We cover weekly issues. And try to assess a strategy that will allow you to make money or at least be informed of what's going on. So let's get started with this week's big headlines. The drama at the G20 financial meeting. I would have been or would have loved to a fly on the wall at that thing. I guess it was drama-filled. It begins to look like probably what we're expecting to see at Thanksgiving this year post-election. But I guess Russia was in attendance for the first time in years. The US and Canada haven't fought this much since the American Revolution. But the bottom line is this: every country country there, these are the 20 biggest economies in the world, all have the same problem. Too much debt. There's a debt hangover in the world, folks. the company the countries around the world went on a spending spree really through a good part of this century. America, we know what's happened here. We had certainly the the whole the the debt structure from the Iran, or excuse me, from the Iraq and the Afghan wars that was eight to nine trillion bucks. We had another about of debt during the Great Recession in 2008, 2009, another eight or nine trillion dollars. And then during COVID, we managed to blow through 16 trillion bucks. If you've been following any of the scandals going around, especially in places like Minnesota and California, we know this is in the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. But look, here's the end the other side of this thing. There's too much debt. People are saying they can't buy it anymore. you know, obviously the Iran war has muddied the waters quite a bit, the tariffs have watered them quite a bit. But anyway, this G20 meeting, the bottom line was unfortunately nothing was resolved. It's my opinion that nothing will be resolved until after the election, to be perfectly frank. Okay, but let's talk about the inevitable thing. Everybody's been talking about it. Interest rates are moving up. Okay, that's been the big to-do about treasury rates. But you know, we're missing a point here. There's some good news with this. It and it it plagued many investors really since the 2008, 2009 debacle. We had rates near zero. There's a lot of people out there who do not want to invest. They just want to buy CDs and sit in money market accounts. The problem is you can't do that when inflation is running at a rate even if it's moderate. But now today's world, those those accounts are now paying around four percent, which is allowing money to keep pace with the cost of living. That's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. Okay, the other thing too. I know there's all this talk about mortgage rates going higher. Again, something that people are not thinking about. One of the there's there are three deductions on your taxes that are not adjusted for alternative minimum tax, which by the way, I'm not going to get into that today. The the basically one of them is mortgages. That means that you can take out a mortgage as long as long as it's below a million dollars. That interest is still deductible. So let's say your mortgage is a six and a half. You're going to get to deduct that against your tax rate, which means the borrowing rate's probably going to put it back in the low fives. Folks, that's not bad. If you look at it historically, look, and I'm not trying to say it doesn't hurt, but considering that in places like Las Vegas, where housing continues to appreciate, that can turn out to be a pretty really a pretty good darn investment. So again, don't take that by itself as a negative. Look at the whole picture and see where it goes. Okay. Where here we are, big, bad September is on us. And needless to say, I've got a little gray hair in my head, and a lot of that's because of September. So here is the truth: market seasonality. Don't ask me why. I mean, you can ask any researcher you want. Everybody's gonna say the same thing. We can't quite explain it. But since 1970, September has turned out to be the worst performing month for the stock market. Whether you're looking at the Dow Industrial Average, my own stock index. The Wynin's legacy stock index. The average monthly returns are negative, about 0.6%. And 50% of the time, they're basically 1% or even lower during the month. So I fully expect that September will be volatile during this time, although there's been some decent movement, such as certainly this week. But this is what's important to know. Number one, the market is still very healthy right now. And number two, from October to the following May, although I know October has a bad reputation, and certainly I remember the 87 crash very well. But this is a good time to be looking for investments. So what I recommend you do is talk to your advisors. And you know, if you have some cash in your portfolio or you want to put some money into your portfolio, get through the month of September, play the seasonal odds, and go after this market going into November, December, all the way through next May. And we'll talk later about politicizing your portfolio. But at the end of the day, I I really do not think the elections are going to have that much of a bearing on what's going on with the market right now. The stock market, again, is very, very healthy. Trend is your friend. You've heard me say that many, many times. Let me just give you this list. Okay, this is as of this week. These are stocks that are above their 200-day moving average, which means they're in an uptrend versus the ones that are below their 200-day moving average, which means they're in a downtrend. 93% of the oldest financial stocks are in uptrends. Now, think about what I'm saying here. We're in a rising interest rate environment that banks don't like changes in interest rates. They typically don't. They have a tough time figuring out what to do. These stocks are up, folks. Okay, no, no big surprise. Technology and electronics. I'm talking about the old tech stocks, not the the mag seven. 85% of those are above their 200 day moving average. The come from behind kid of the year, healthcare stocks. Start the year, terrible. 81% of those are above their 200-day moving averages. Then you have energy stocks, another 81%. Service companies, which by the way, we live in Las Vegas. A lot of service-based companies here, 74%. Industrials, 66%. Even with all the problems you're hearing about with retail and restaurants, 63% of those stocks, and then natural resources with a rigmarole with gold, silver, and copper and all these other things. You know, they're doing well. Now, there are some industries that are struggling. No big surprise we know about real estate, but even there, 60% of the stocks I track are above or in uptrends. The negatives will have to be consumer staple stocks and then utilities. Now, here's what's interesting about utilities. So here's your lesson for the day. They're typically an inflation play because utility companies have the right to raise their fees to keep up with inflation. These stocks are down. That is a big sign. That tells me that maybe the inflation situation we're dealing with is not systemic. It's not built into the system. That is strictly just what we're dealing with right now, with the dislocation of commodities, very similar to what we were dealing with during COVID. So, I mean, I've said on the last episode, I'll bring it up again, folks, the U the United States is in a manufacturing boom. We're making all kinds of things. We're everything from technology, we're going back to manufacture. I mean, I can't believe how well the still stocks. American based steel companies are flying this year. I'm just saying that there is a lot of strength, things that we can take very great pride in as Americans of how well we're doing. My legacy stock index is up 23% on the year. The NASDAQ's up 14%. Hey, the other big thing that's so important to remember, we're in an IPO boom. That I mean, these we're having more new companies going public. That's again a good sign things are going well. crypto's back in the news. I talked about it last episode, needs to be brought up again. I think after the election, that regulation that we have all been talking about for a long time, basically you're gonna find it's gonna go through. You will be able to, at some point in time, have crypto accounts at your bank, believe it or not. It doesn't mean you need to do that, but it's important to understand that we are looking at a change in the economy. A little bit of interesting political news, and I've you've heard me say this many times. Don't politicize your portfolio. Democrat, Republican, independent, don't do it. There's a group of Republicans out in Georgia who got hammered in a hundred and forty million dollar Ponzi scheme. You don't do it. It just gets you into trouble. Other big thing that was in the news, a lot of talk, now we all know there's always talk about water around the Vegas Valley. We've been all this talk about the Colorado River. Well, guess what? There's there's droughts all over the world right now, which again, back into this. Yeah, that's bad. Especially if you were planning a river cruise in Europe, guess what? You're not gonna have one anytime soon. But because of that, we might actually find that American farmers get to export, although they might be a little short this year, but they're gonna be able to export more at higher prices. This benefits our farmers. That's all good. That's not a negative. Okay, some funny stories. Finally, they're out. The Trump $1 coins. They're been released by the US Mint, folks. So go on usmint.gov. But I'll tell you, they're already out of them. So they're gonna have to probably make some more of them. So if you're looking for that very special holiday gift to give to some to certain members of your family, I think you found it. They're actually reasonably priced. I was kind of surprised with that. Okay, the other little funny piece of news. Okay, we've been talking about food prices going up, you know, everything's going up. Guess what is not going up in price? Booze. There is a glut of aged spirits because I guess as it turns out, fifty-four percent of Americans drink now. That's at I guess it's at a record low. But if you're looking at the holidays, you're looking at buying people gifts, I can't think of anything better than giving somebody a bottle of aged scotch and a Trump coin. I think it'd be a lot of fun on that. Okay, listen, everybody. I hope you found that funny. I know that you're probably going to show it to some Democrats and they're going to get kind of mad about it, but that's okay. All right, listen, we're gonna take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back with winning with winens. And welcome back to Winning with Wine is Las Vegas newest and coolest financial show. And I'm your host, Ken Winens, and we always talk about bringing people in from all around the world. And we finally have our first international guest with a Western cowboy hat. Jeff Zelestra. Thank you for wearing it, buddy. And it's a great hat. I love it. We're both wearing dark hats. And how is it down in Melbourne today? speaker-1: It's surprisingly a beautiful sunny day out here in Melbourne. yeah, it's it's the middle of our winter, so we're kind of in the opposite from you in terms of weather and, you know, where we are in the world. But look, it's a beautiful day. speaker-0: All right. But let me ask you this. I think it's safe to say everybody in Australia knows where Las Vegas is. Is that a safe idea here? Okay. speaker-1: That's right. speaker-0: That's right. So you can tell them, hey, live from Las Vegas. So listen, I'm really excited about this interview with you because I am a certified cryptocurrency trader. You obviously have a background as a stock trader, and we both saw merit in looking into this area and realizing it is the next wave. And I, you know, it's it's app. It's actually very interesting that last week there was a lot of publications coming out about stable coins, the possibility of of the Fed using some kind of a crypto instrument with treasury bills. And of course, I love the fact that you actually have a firm that has people that can help people through all this. So, Jeff, real quick, give me a little bit more about your background. So did you feel like you were just, you know, pushing against the wind in crypto when you left the big firm? What were they getting it or? What made you decide to go out on your own? speaker-1: Yeah, well it's an interesting question. I I still feel people don't quite and firms don't quite get it today. While they are turning a corner, you know, ten years ago it was people just they just didn't they couldn't comprehend what a digital currency was. nor could they comprehend what the actual applications could be. So yeah, very early times. And I think it was kind of before the big sort of wave of you know, scams and illegal applications and that sort of stuff. So I think a lot of people were were interested in it. Although there were a lot of evangelists back then, if that makes sense. speaker-0: Yeah, I I get it. And of course we had a few people end up going to jail, as we all know about, but that's hardly a reason to stay away from something. But you know, the other thing too, and I I'd I'm being your perspective looking at it from Pacific Rim and most notably Australia, and then I'm looking at it from the US standpoint. Who's really driving things? Is it the fact that we're gonna look at the US possibly wriggly having the regulations allowing mainstream use of this? Or is it kind of like w you know, is the leadership coming from China? Where do you see it when it comes to to crypto in the broader sense? speaker-1: Yeah, it's a very interesting question. I sort of feel a lot of countries and regulators were very, I don't know, on the fence about crypto, including down here in Australia. But once Trump got in and then he sort of, you know, got the gears moving around regulation and saying that he wants economic growth through crypto and you know w they want to be the number one in the world in the US for cryptocurrency, it sort of created a a digital arms race, so to speak. You know, you notice that very shortly after European regulation got it together very quickly with Micah down here in Australia. We got it, we got everything moving very quickly. So I sort of feel it was it just became a bit of a race, right? And then you have you know China releasing their their their digital yuan, you have the Russia releasing their their digital ruble. So there is definitely a lot that's happening. I think people realize that it's going from This immature asset class where no one really knows what to do with it, to this to where we are just in recent years, this adolescent asset class with a lot of potential, but no one really knows who's gonna take the first shot, right? Because the thing is, is you know, when the financial institutions come in, they gotta be, they gotta be sure and they've got to be 100%, right? Nobody wants to be the first one shot through the door. so a lot of people were very apprehensive, but once the US took, specifically Trump. took a a a firm position on it, it made it a lot easier for everyone to sort of say, okay, this is how we're going to do things. And that's not just native to cryptocurrency, right? It's it's native to everyone watches what the SEC does, everybody watches what New York does very closely. So it is kind of like a financial standard for the rest of the world, if that makes sense. speaker-0: Well, I'll add one other part to it too, Jeff. And I think it's also that, and I'll give credit to basically the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, because you know, I have a commodity background. It's a lot easier to embrace crypto if you were to look at it from the fact that look, we've had financial, you know, commodities trading, you know, for going on 40 years. You know, in all sorts of derivatives. So it's a little easier for us to comprehend it. But I think it's it's the CF, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the National Futures Association and the Exchanges in the U.S. driving the machine. And I think coming from that end is where we're gonna I don't know if you'd agree with it, but I I'm stock people are still trying to figure it out. They really are. They, at least in the US, the the the the big firms, they're really still. I I think lost on how to message it properly and also from a suitability standard, who should they talk to about it? speaker-1: Yeah, look, it makes a lot of sense. I think that it needs to be a top-down approach. The institutions, you know, and notably recently the DTCC wanting to tokenize all equities and everything like this and use it for their settlement layer. So I think they're really sort of starting to understand what the applications are because I I think the narrative earlier on was, you know, down with the banks, down with the institutions, but in reality it just doesn't fly. Right. So a lot of crypto companies have come to the table and said. All right, how do we make what we are currently doing more effective, more efficient, more liquid, and and in improve settlement times, reduce fees, do all the things that would be useful for institutions to be able to utilize. So now that there are a lot of crypto companies have taken that position, we are starting to see regulation and therefore adoption. And I think that at the end of the day, most people probably in the next twelve or twenty four months will be utilizing some form of blockchain technology in their everyday financial life without even realizing it. And that's when we that's when we're got we're we're mass market, right? speaker-0: well, I it's interesting you bring up the blockchain because I actually see a the parallels between blockchain technologies and AI, the the fact we're having all this coming together at the same time. I mean, you and I know it still needs a a a veteran trader broker to to at which your firm clearly does to navigate this, but it makes everything better. You know, I I Jeff, I don't know if you hear much about it in Australia, but there's been a lot of concern about how the Iranians have been using crypto. For black market operations on funding their country. And and that that was a big stop point for the US Senate and the Congress on regulation. And then, you know, people start talking about, well, wait a minute here. what about North Korea? There's been all these hacking instances with wallets at Coinbase and some of the other f exchanges. And then, of course, the Russians. The Russians are always involved this stuff. So, you know, so that that has been a a bit of a a hesitation point. For people here, are you finding the same thing in your world? speaker-1: Look, regardless of what what the instrument is, I feel that you know, eve it p bad powers or people who shouldn't be will like, you know, shouldn't have that power, they they kind of wield it in a in a bad way, right? And you could talk about weapons, you could talk about oil, you can talk about cash, the cartels, it could be anything, right? it it the immense power in the wrong hands is always gonna net a potential bad result. So I sort of feel that yes, I think they are cognizant of the fact that North Korea has been involved in a lot of hacks, that Iran and you know, Russia, other sanctioned countries are moving capital around the world. but it's usually it's mostly through black markets. So for example, our brokerage, you know, we are unable to work with people from sanctioned countries. you know, we we always have to really understand the the source of wealth when when dealing with certain people, just like a normal financial institution. Right. So there is an amount of due diligence that needs to be done by by companies to prevent, you know, money laundering, terrorism financing, all these types of things. Right. So I think that as a as an industry banding together and regulating and working together and not against each other, is gonna be a net positive and it is gonna be it's gonna make it a lot harder for these actors to be able to operate in these illegal spaces. speaker-0: I totally agree. And by the way, I I heard an interesting rumor when I was back at a conference. Somebody claimed that the biggest holder of Bitcoin on planet Earth is is Putin. I guess he learned from the mistakes of past czars and decided you better not have any too many hard or real estate assets that he's better be able to to move quick. I don't know if you heard the same thing, but it's pretty funny when you think about it. But you know, Jeff, I think the the other thing too, hey, we're gonna take a really quick break, because I know we're gonna have a lot to talk about in the second segment. And then if you have time for it, I'd like to have our our what we call our podcast bonus segment. But Jeff, hang in there, buddy. Go grab some coffee, relax. I know it's cold in the part of the world you're at, but everybody will be right back with Winning with Wines. I'm your host, Ken Winins. And welcome back to Winning with Wine. It's Las Vegas' newest and coolest financial show. But today's show, we're doing it from down under with our new friend Jeff Zelestra, who is wearing that cowboy hat. I love it. Two guys in the black cowboy hats. But I have to say, I really like yours a lot, buddy. It's extremely cool. But listen, we're talking about crypto. And I know many of you have heard me say that we always do cover crypto issues, but we've been distinctly looking at it, I think, and maybe my mistake from a US perspective. But I love having Jeff on today because we're looking at it globally and a lot of the issues that are coming up. Hey, Jeff, let me jump into a couple of other things that were some of the headlines. Okay, stable coins. everything seem in the US, everything is focused on stable coins. Are you finding it that way as well? Or people just still just saying, that's too new. I'm gonna stay with crypto, or if I'm gonna stay with Bitcoin and a th and ethos and the other ones that are established. What are you finding? speaker-1: Yeah, well, I think from a a retail or sophisticated investor standpoint, people are still very much investing in crypto and the in the digital currencies themselves, or digital currency platforms, or you know, mostly revenue generating platforms. You know, I think the time is gone now where people are investing in in smoke in mirrors, so to speak. They want to know what it does, they want to know who it's backed by, and they want to know what kind of value they're gonna get in return. But the stable coin. Narrative is is very strong. I feel a a lot of normal people, normal investors don't quite understand why. the reason being is there is more settled on the blockchain than than most parts of the world today. You know, Tether is one of the largest companies in the world by a country mile. Okay. So stable coins are the gateway. And it's how people get into crypto, it's how people get out of crypto, it's how it's all settled on the back end. So if you own the gateway. Maybe you only own the industry. So it's it's like a toll booth. It's like a digital toll booth for institutions. That's why they're all interested, right? So I would say that there is on the institutional side, yes, the the stable coins is the heavy narrative. And the question is, you know, if it gets regulated, and this is probably why the Clarity Act is taking so long, everybody wants to know what's in it for me. And when that when that question's answered, we'll get the Clarity Act. speaker-0: Well, and I love the fact that we actually named a piece of legislation in the US the Genius Act. believe me, the geniuses are are not in Washington, DC, at least from a lot of the people that I met. But anyway, you know, it the the stable coin, I think that it's interesting, like again, from a commodity perspective, I'll find people who will not buy a cattle future or they won't buy a soybean future. But if you had cattle or soybeans in a stable coin, they'll buy it. So I it's kind of interesting how people somehow the the word stable seems to mean something more to a lot of people. Jeff, I wrote an article in Forbes. I don't know if you actually had seen it or I should have sent it to you before interview, but wrote it, I think it was in 2024. And I was tired of having crypto get beaten up by our industry. And this is before, you know, Trump really had had gotten in there and fixed it. And I told everybody, I said, look, If you're a technician, you can track this. As long as you have liquid markets to a buyer and a seller, and I proved in my article, they trend. Like any other thing that trades, they trend. They're not some just helter skelter bouncing all over the place. And I was I was really taken back that even a lot of people in academia didn't do it. But you know, I raised another point. And as you know, that you know, I'm sure you guys have the same talks in Australia. about how public finance is gonna work. We're having a real problem in the US right now. You all know about our big federal debts, but a lot of our states are in deep trouble financially. And I raised in one article particularly about California, I actually raised the point, you know, states can't issue currencies, but if they could structure it properly, they could issue a crypto of some type. Call it a a state coin. And I and you know, and obviously in the case of California, with the resources they have They could actually tie it to something in the stable world. So it's just we haven't even begun to touch the ground that crypto can get into that that can actually net help a lot of people who just either they don't have, you know, traditional financing is not there. I mean, we're not looking at it positively nearly enough, in my opinion. Would you agree with that? speaker-1: Yeah, look, I I I think that's I do I do I do agree with it. It's a situation where I think, you know, having a state currency would be useful. But, you know, I I I think we're getting into the the into the discussion sort of around, you know, having a a a sovereign cryptocurrency, right? Having a having a national stable coin, right? And then I think the it has its positives for sure, but the I'd say the negatives as well is you know, people's privacy needs to be protected. Yeah. You know. that can the issuer, if I haven't paid my my speeding ticket, can the issuer freeze my my crypto account and freeze my funds? You know, can they use it as a social credit system where if I haven't paid my my you know one day late for rent, for example, I can't go to the cinema and watch watch a film with my family. So I think it does work as as long as the playing field is is fair and people's rights aren't violated. speaker-0: I well, I I worry a little bit more. I I'm worried that if you give certain states the ability to to print, you know, it the digital money, I worry about the effect it would have on politics. I mean you and I could certainly look at how this could wander off in some directions that we wouldn't want it to in influencing elections and other things too. But but Jeff, let's talk I I mean, I'm just love the fact that you did so much what I did many, many years ago. You left A big firm, you were very successful at that big firm. And you said, Hey, I'm gonna go set up my own shop. You hired all these firms. You'd you you you're old school in a way, but yet you're in a very new area, and I commend you for that. it to stick your head out of the foxhole, as we would say in the military and take your chances, man. I I just big thumbs up on you doing it. Congratulations. speaker-1: Thank you. Thank you very much. it was a pretty scary thing to do in high back then. And a lot of people thought I was an absolute madman because they didn't understand for a lot of people when I sort of explained the concept of where I was going, what I wanted to do, they they just they're just puzzled, right? But what I've learned in my life is always seek to understand. Right. You'll miss the best opportunity in your life if you if you fail to do so. So speaker-0: Well, I'd just add this to it. I mean, we could have a whole show talking about entrepreneurship in our industry. I do think you're right. A lot of people are just afraid to take a chance. But I would also add this. I mean, like you said, the people saying that you were crazy to do this. Hey, they laugh they laughed at Charles Schwab. they laughed at at Merrill Lynch when they with it, Merrill and Lynch when they went out and did their thing. They laughed at Ken Fisher. Everybody laughs until you're proven right on it. And you know, it's funny, my own dad was thinking I was crazy when I left Merrill Lynch. He couldn't believe I did it. But Je Jeff, I want to go back real quick and I because I want to get into some of your questions you might want to bring up in this. But are are you do you agree with me that you can take conventional analysis, you know, of market cycles and certainly look at where you've had topping patterns, bottoming patterns? Do you agree with me that you can you that your firm probably uses some of the same tools that you you that you have used in stocks? speaker-1: say yes and no i'd say that's in stocks everyone tends to use the same types of indicators okay but in our industry where we're using similar indicators but supported by by a bit more bit more weight so obviously you're you're aware that our industry is mostly sentiment driven like not mostly but there's a there's a degree of it right it starts it lights the match in a lot of cases So you know, we have to follow the sentiment, we have to follow the on-train the on-chain metrics, where's money moving? Because there's a lot of marketing out there that says one thing, but then you know they may not be doing it. And also there's a technical like an engineering part to it as well. If if a project is saying that we're building, you know, XYZ, we're gonna be the next settlement settlement layer for for the world. we need to actually see that the work is being done. So we can we can look online on their GitHub and have a look at what their engineers are doing. We can see how many engineers they have. You know, so yeah, and yeah. So there's a there's a lot there. I think it's a instead of a three, three D analysis like you'd have with stocks, I think this is like a 7D analysis because and you also need to track financial markets because you know what happens in the S P 500 can affect what happens with Bitcoin. So there's a lot of there's a lot of variables to be tracking. But I think if you can get it down to a s to a science, like I believe we have, then you can set yourself up for success. speaker-0: when he brought up the SP 500, I actually find that it tracks more with the Nasdaq. Have you guys confirmed that in that? I mean, it's really weird. I mean, it does now it's not day to day. We both know that, but it's that the the general trends seem to follow what is going on with the Nasdaq, which we've all had our heads scratching in the US for a while. It's kind of like crypto went back to the mother's ship of technology almost. It was we're we still don't quite know why. Are you finding that the the case too? speaker-1: Yeah, I'm finding that that that patterns do tend to rhyme and we do track the NASDAQ as well to see if there's correlation. And we have found in the past that there are signals as well. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, very much so. So now, hey, when somebody let's talk about your company for a moment. one, can US investors work with you? speaker-1: Yes. Yes. We actually work predominantly with US investors actually. speaker-0: Really? Okay. Now y but your offices are all in Australia, so you don't have any physical people in the US, correct? speaker-1: correct. But we will soon. We just open up our our our first our first physical office. is speaker-0: Whereabouts. speaker-1: anyone there yet? In Wyoming. speaker-0: Wa okay. Well, let me tell you, can I talk you into opening one in Las Vegas? speaker-1: Yeah, well why not? speaker-0: Well, you know how I feel about Vegas. It will become the new Western Wall Street. And I'd love to have a firm like yours saying, hey, we're going to grab the crypto. And then, hey, the other thing too, Texas. you know, Texas is just cleaning house right now. they're just sopping up all those financial firms out of these very poorly run states. Nevada's trying to do the same thing here. But again, I think you're gonna find very open, warm acceptance. because I mean, especially here, people love anything new. I I I don't want to say that there's a gambling side to things here, but hey, it's a mining state. People like to take chances with gold claims and you know similar to Australia, and people are not afraid to to play the the materials. All right. So you have offices that you're gonna open something soon here, and people are opening separate accounts. I mean, it's gonna be very much like a a traditional brokerage house. You get an account with your name on it. Are you guys then taking care of all the wallet stuff? 'Cause that's that scares a lot of people. The idea of having to go to a a Coinbase and having a wallet, trying to, you know, securitize it or you know, take it into cold storage. Your firm takes care of all that kind of stuff? speaker-1: Yeah, so we cater for both types of clients. So clients can trade with us, they can or they can invest in crypto and then they can withdraw it to their own wallets. I did run a security consultation for for a good friend and client of mine yesterday actually on on best practices. So we do we do preach and teach self-custody if that's the route you'd like to take. but for for a lot of people, they just With all the wallet hacks, with all the problems with exchanges going down, locking up your funds. There's just so much going on. That's why people like to deal with a firm that's kind of like at arm's length, because we we aren't Coinbase, right? We're not situated mass a mass market type of situation. We are a boutique broker down in Australia. We deal with a handful of clients and our custody, we're currently custodying over 1.1 billion US dollars of crypto at the moment. And we haven't had a breach. So our security system is like, you know, think about two-factor authentication. If if a client wants to request a withdrawal from their account, it's like seven-factor authentication. And it's seamless. It's not, it's, it doesn't take hours and hours and days and days to get your funds. the the thing is the the key difference between us and the exchanges are exchanges keep all your money in one place and they haven't learned their lesson. That's their biggest problem. That's why you wake up one morning, you see X Exchange has been hacked for $4 billion. And you think to yourself, how is that even possible? It's because they don't segregate your accounts. They give you an address, but at the end of the day, behind that address, all your funds actually sit in one place. It's like a gold mine, right? So the hacker has just has to just compromise one address through social engineering and away you go. But each of our clients have to create, when they when you click deposit, it says generate vault address. And that is your own specific vault where your funds are kept segregated from everyone else. And we can't even move your funds unless you action it. And even if you action it, we will verify that it is you. If you have logged in from Somalia, we will know. We will call you. Somebody will call you who understands your voice and will will will prevent anything from happening. So I'm proud to say that yeah, in three years, we haven't had a breach. And it doesn't come without attempts. We get about 15 to 20 a week where clients, people impersonating clients, you know, people get into clients' email addresses and things like that, but we're always able to prevent it. And our clients are better for it, you know. the way I see it is I hold funds, I hold assets with my brokerage, and I'm a very careful and cautious guy. So how would I want my assets to be secured? That that was how we built the security architecture around the wallet. speaker-0: Well, a hey Jeff, we're gonna take a really quick break. Hey, do you have time for another segment? I don't want to intrude into your day. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Listen, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come back for the bonus section and talk more about it Jeff has a lot of things he wants to bring up as well. And hey, this is very complicated. So you really should listen to the third segment. So this is Winning with Wineins with Ken Wineins. We will be right back. Welcome back, everybody. This is the bonus section of Winning with Wineins. I'm your host, Ken Wynins, and we have Jeff Zelestra from Down Under in Melbourne, Australia, who runs one of the leading firms called UpTrade in the crypto space. So I'm gonna say this because he can't say it. I kind of see him now as the early stage Schwab, or you know, I'm thinking about some of even the early commodity brokers that I knew, like Lynn Waldock. Jeff, you're you're taking the playbook from some highly successful firms. And I expect we're going to see great things as you you soldier on and become even more successful. But where we left off, we were talking about some of the things that concern a lot of investors and traders. And I think there is a distinction between a trader and an investor. Investors are going to be very worried about safety. Traders, they're so nimble with their capital. A lot of them are doing day trades. They're just more worried that the cash at the end of the day is settled. And they're done. So as you look at the US and you and you have your operations here, and as you mentioned, you have a lot of Americans that work with you already. Opening that office here and having it, do you are you concerned that you're going to be playing you know, the the regulatory game between the states and certainly what's going on at this at the you know SEC level? Then you have the commodity side with CFTC. Are you worried about having to navigate those waters at all, or do you feel it's gonna be smooth sailing? speaker-1: Well, it's a it's always a hard hill to climb, right? there's always a lot of work that needs to be done. but we we rise to the challenge. You know, we've already implemented because we are highly regulated down here in Australia. We're licensed down here in Australia and other parts of the world already. So our bar has always been extremely high. So you know, working with we have we've got a great team of lawyers over there who are helping us, you know, to to get what needs to be done done. And I believe that, yeah, look, it it's it it it is costly, sure, and it does cost a lot of time, but it will it will be worth it and I think it's the way. I I I believe that we have something real to offer people, you know, real human relationship, performance-based relationship, where you know, e each one of our clients are like our friends, you know. So we've always put the we've always put the customer first and every everything we've done and it's never done us wrong. So as long as we continue to do that and continue to look after them and put them first and no other needs or greed or anything else first, then we'll always be fine. That will always guide us. speaker-0: Well, I'd I'd add to this too. I see some huge opportunities with you with firms like mine, where we want to basically there's a lot of wealth managers and financial planners who they themselves don't build portfolios. They they will be a one-stop shop for a lot of clients, but then they'll work with somebody underneath the service called a subadvisor. And I see a huge opportunity for you there. There's just that they don't want to jump into this themselves. They don't understand it. I mean, a lot of these guys wouldn't even know how to pick a stock. so imagine them trying to pick a crypto or timing a crypto purchase. They wouldn't know what to do. They or hedging. They they they would have no clue. But I I think that's again a what's interesting, again, it's a bit of a hot potato, as we say here. people believe in it, they see it as an opportunity. But it's kind of like, well, we don't really do that. So they pass it to this other person, then they pass it over here. They pay but yet at the end of the day, I see an opportunity for you that you you have a chance to say, hey, come to us at UpTrade. We you want to you're a US investor. you know, you can still have your Schwab account, you can still work with a firm like Wynans, but we will be glad to help hold your uptrade assets. And in fact, we'll make sure it's on the platforms that show performance reports. The people here, they'll be all over it. I just knowing how it plays out. But Jeff, let's go let's go into some other things here. All right, we're entering an interesting period of of you know this digital assets becoming more mainstream. Okay, let's jump into your questions. What would you like to further discuss today? speaker-1: Yeah, I guess, you know, from from your end, I I wanted to sort of understand with the recent changes in the market and the upcoming Clarity Act, what are your what are your thoughts and sort of I guess guesstimates or forecasts for the next 12 months? speaker-0: Well, you know, it's funny. When when Bitcoin and and Ether were ethos were hitting their their low points, I mean, if you had a chart, you could see that this was a point of support for them. With all the other things you talked about earlier, that you're right. You have to pay attention to those other things. But these are so well established. They're so liquid. I I told people I think that minus there might be, and I there's still might be some of it this year. I I don't know if you have it in Australia. We have what we call tax harvesting. Where people will sell off things that they bought at the wrong time because they need the tax write-off. And then we have a 30 day rule, which is if you stay out of something for 30 days, you can buy it back and you're back in the long term trend. I thought that there was gonna be a little more concern about that, but I mean, let's face it, I mean in one month in dollars, you know, Bitcoin bounced back twenty-five percent. You know, and and he I think Ether did the same thing. So pe more people are now saying, okay, I get it that it's volatile. But I also see there's opportunities to make money. I think also, too, real quick on it, that when gold and silver, and and I'll even throw copper in there too, because there are very dominant exchange traded funds that trade those. And when they were flying earlier this year, there were a lot of people said, you know, crypto's having some trouble. Look at what's going on with these guys. I'm gonna play with them. But of course, those blew up too. So now, everything with crypto is kind of back in the fold. The only thing And and I think some of the US advocates of crypto made a big mistake. is they they were becoming a little what we would call perma bulls and perma bears. And they were they were all looking on the old game of the dollar's gonna go to zero, the dollar's gonna default, blah, blah, blah. And and you know, they were playing a little bit too much of a fantasy world. And although the dollar is weaker than it was, let's say three years ago, it's still well within a range. If you look at the bac, you know, just look at the dollar index. And so I think again, there's there's refocusing the argument. But your point I'm bringing up, whether we like it or not, and whether people are ready for it or not, I'm talking about from an industry perspective. I am of the opinion that right after the election, the regulations are gonna it's gonna be smooth sailing. I think it's it's not a political party issue. People believe in it. It's gonna be that, hey, the powers to be. see the need to stay active in this area and we should not deny people the ability to invest in it. So that's what I see happening. I think that literally watch and see what happens December going right into January in in the congressional cycles, watch and see what happens. I think this is going to fast track pretty quick. speaker-1: yeah. No, my I think my feelings are pretty parallel to yours. it's a situation where we're at the precipice of so many different things, right? And this is what we're talking about, about those variables, you know, and and some of the variables are hard to see. So you have the political variable, you have regulation, you have institutions. You know, you have ad adoption from retail now with Robin Hood chain. So that's coming back into the spotlight. Yeah, you know, and we're at the precipice of this new dawn in this new age. We have AI coming. Everyone's talking about AI, you know, all the AI agents, they're gonna be transacting on the blockchain themselves. It's like humans aren't even gonna be transacting on the blockchain. It's all just gonna be computers. So now we're almost at the dawn of this new age, and we're gonna look back in a few years and we're gonna go, wow, we really were at the know at at the start of something big here because you know going from that infant that adolescent to that full mature asset class where can it take us yeah as a you know as a as a people where can it take sorry where can it take our wealth and where can it take the technology? So the the applications are vastly unknown. We know about stable coins, we know about blockchain, we know about anonymous transactions, but Think about the the birth of the internet, right? The first 10 years, most most people could only send emails, right? And people go, Why would I want to send an email? It was j you know, I can send I can send a letter, but now look now look at what what the internet can do. So I think that people are underestimating how quickly this can move. people are underestimating how this is gonna revolutionize a lot of the things we're doing now. And The biggest opportunity is is glaringly obvious. It's staring at most people right in the face and I don't think they've can fully grasp it yet. speaker-0: I'll add to that. I'll add a couple other quick things. If you were to ask me, and I did an interview not long ago on this, you know, I I'm old enough to remember in 1987 when we were when we first adapted you know commodity futures to the S the index futures and index options on futures and all this stuff, and we and we were using computerized trading i is is our you know archaic as it was then, but we what we did have happen was the 87 crash. And it was because we, you know, we didn't put in proper safeguards. I I know that one thing, and I've been asked this by some elected officials, the concern about 247 trading on vehicles, and I'm thinking about especially in tokenization, things that are tied to a US security that only trades during exchange traded hours, but yet trades over the weekend or trades at two in the morning, and how that's all gonna work out. Yeah, there there will be some I'm gonna call them flash crashes. Or something, you know, maybe somebody in a in a token that, as you say, hasn't been properly vetted and people are p manipulating it. They're doing what we call pump and dumps. You know, they're pumping it up and then they're cr you know, they're letting the thing fall apart. Hey, that's gonna happen anywhere. But I do think we'll have to work through that. And that's a concern. The politicians don't want to just hear about people losing their money that went into things. But Jeff, I think the other thing too. And it's a great question that our our team came up with. And it's the the idea that this is not a competition between stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, and crypto. This is all together. This is all working in an orchestrated way that is a very healthy way to invest and create wealth. And that's the way I see it. And the fact that There are going to be places around the world. I mean, maybe I'm looking, I'm a bit of a dreamer here, but I look at some emerging markets, or you take a country like Venezuela that's in such such upheaval right now, and crypto can give, you know, young entrepreneurs in that country a way to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. I that's wonderful. We we wanna, you wanna have the green shoots of capitalism begin to show up in these parts of the world that have just had or think of what's going on in Ukraine right now. Or or certainly think about the Middle East. We want that. That that that's one of the best exports of free market capitalism, I think you can bring. So I think again, this thing that it's some kind of a pissing match between firms like yours and the and the conventional brokerage houses, I just don't see it the same way. Would you agree with that? speaker-1: No, I I I agree. It's you know, it's a situation where we're all in the same boat here. And and the and the key thing that you mentioned is the free market capitalism, right? To give people opportunities in places where they wouldn't previously have it, right? A tokenized, you know, house out in Texas, somebody in the Philippines could buy one one millionth of that as an investment, right? To have a 247 stock trading would open up the world and commodities trading would open up. the world to finance, right? And not people with brokerage accounts. Like for me to to trade US equities, I need to get a separate brokerage account. Right. I need to deposit funds to that brokerage account. And it's it can take a up to a week or two to get that set up. But if I can just jump on right now and trade stuff in Germany, Switzerland, Singapore and US all within 10 minutes, that would be of great value to me. And the the thing is yes, a 24 hour market, I believe, probably would cause a lot of volatility. It would probably act a lot like crypto, but it would at least be a free market. A free market that I I would even argue that it's more manipulated now with the circuit breakers they have and and and things that they can do to stop things from crashing. I think that opening it up to a free market will actually, yeah, it'll be volatile at the start, but I think in the long run it's it's the right direction to go in. speaker-0: Well, here's the thing. I I mean, the beauty about anything in the in the crypto world, we already have the ability to do hedges. If people are concerned, I mean, do what you do in the commodity world. You put a hedge on or you close out your position if you're really that concerned about it. I mean, you know, I don't know if you know this. If you trade commodity, and by the way, let talk real quick about tax policies. In the commodity if you have a commodity account in the United States, it's a 60-40 tax policy between long-term and short-term capital gains. If if I was King for a day, and maybe we can work together on this, is you want crypto taxation to mimic commodities. If we can swing that, that op that's a whole different ballgame. And that we see again, that's the the nuances of American finance that it it drives me crazy. you know, I I it's a whole different show. The fact I have to have two companies, one commodity company, one a RIA, because of of the conflicts of regulation. But I I want to go back to something and I'm so glad. And and I know we're coming close to the end of this real estate. I have forever, I mean, anybody who owns or has ever bought a piece of real estate in the United States, the I don't know, it's probably the same in Australia. The process, it the best phrase I can come up with is Byzantine. That it takes forty five to sixty days. In the twenty first century, are you kidding me? We're still doing title insurance. This is not the old West. What title for what? I mean, you know, you you so the problem is there's a lot of fingers in the pie on a real estate transaction. And I think that if there is an area that crypto could by far make the greatest improvement in what we're dealing with right now, is if you had some blockchain of some kind of a token, and I could take everything that I've ever had in a house I've ever owned, all the records, all the title insurance, everything, boom, it's in there. And I can buy and sell that thing in a nanosecond. man, the money that would be made, it would, it's it, it would, it's uncalculable how much would be made when you look about how much real estate industry collects now. Now, the real estate industry in the United States, you know, you probably can guess this, a lot of lobbies. You've got a lot of money from the association of realtors and all those groups that pour into you know elections in the US. So there's gonna be a a little a thing. Jeff, if you come out here, I'll take you back to DC with me one time. I'll take you down where the lobbyists are, and you want to see which buildings are closest to the Capitol. The very first building you come to is the Association of Realtors. I'm not kidding. Not the unions, not the educators, nope, r realtors. So I'm not kidding. So a little thing for you to know. And then also the other thing, too, and this is important to know too. and I'm telling, I mean, I I know you probably know these things, but it's probably worth exchanging between two colleagues is insurance. So you know that right now, people who yeah, there's I don't know if you have them in Australia. They're called annuities, insurance annuities. I don't know if you guys have them down there, but but they're basically they're contracts that people can make with an insurance company that provides them with income and they and they have indexed options in there. The problem is they're all regulated state to state. There's no such thing as a federal insurance commissioner. But here's the point is that if you can ever again, we talk about blockchaining. If you can blockchain some of these insurance products, because the cost of these things are horrific. I mean, they some of these guys, they they get upfront fees of five and six percent on some products. It's crazy. So again, I the potential, like we said, making the world a better place to make money in. You've got me as an ally, my friend. I'll be happy to work with you on anything you want to work on. I think it's it's fantastic. speaker-1: No, I think there's some great comments there. And it just goes to show how many incumbents there are across many industries that are essentially holding us back as a race, right? So I don't understand why we're still doing things that are you know back in the Stone Ages. But you know, just like Uber and Airbnb and all these companies, they'll just there'll be someone who comes through and disrupts it and either turns it upside down and inside out, or if they are know too powerful and they're lobbying it they're lobbyists and such. Maybe there's a situation where that question that we were that we mentioned earlier in the stream where you know what's in it for me, you know, to for me to make that change across to a new a new way of doing things if that can be answered successfully then there'll be transition but I think the the most exciting option which is probably turning the industry upside down and inside out. It's probably the more likely scenario, the most entertaining one. So yeah, let's see what happens. I think there's a lot of industries that are ripe to be to be modernized and you know just just make it better for the people. speaker-0: Well, I mean, like the fact you and I are both wearing cowboy hats, it is a bit of the of the of the old West. It's new territory. Okay, we'll figure out how to blaze a new trail as we'd say. Hey, Jeff, if people want to get a hold of you, to open accounts or learn more about you, where should they go? speaker-1: Yeah, so our our website is uptrade.co. We're a personalized digital currency brokerage. We help clients with investments, trades, research. so we're kind of like a stock broker, but for crypto. So yeah, that's our site. feel free to get in touch. We'd love to hear from you. speaker-0: Hey, but last last thing, is there anything else you wanna add that we didn't cover today? I I mean we I'm sorry, I did a lot of talking. I should have been asking you more questions. But I just I think we're we're like minded in a lot of ways. speaker-1: No, I think it flowed really well. You know, I think we both have a a lot of of of you know things to to cover off on. So, you know, the I felt like there was a lot of fluidity fluidity in the conversation. So I'm I'm very happy. So thank you so much for having me. speaker-0: My pleasure. Hey, I I just real quick, I was gonna say one other thing that is being asked a lot, and and and you need to noodle on this too, because I can actually see you actually helping in the US. and I will I'll throw Canada in there too. Canada's try even though we're having these this trade spat right now between cousins, it's you're having a lot of the uniformity of the financial regulations when it comes to crypto. But I'm being asked about having what they're I mean, I ride motorcycles. We have what we have call of a on a motorcycle called a kill switch. And they want to know that look, if if this thing starts really wandering off in some wild turf, how does the industry shut it down? So your point on circuit breakers is taken. We need to mod we need to modify circuit breakers and not just send them with these point breaks, but it should be percentage moves. But what would you recommend on that? And and that's because I'm asking you, because I'm being asked these questions. You're in the industry every day, you're in the trenches every day. What would you recommend? speaker-1: Yeah, well it's it's it's difficult to say. I would say that there's there's probably no specific right answer to it. And I think that we're gonna learn through through mistakes. I think you know, that that's kind of how industries kind of move forward. There are people that come in and and take advantage of of certain sectors in the industry after government forms regulation and then they quickly patch it up. So it's it's very hard to say. But you know, if they were to put a circuit breaker in, it could be similar to what they're currently using, what they're comfortable with. but yeah, if you if you go full crypto twenty four seven that anyone can trade, then it's hard to put a circuit breaker in. So I I I kinda wonder what the half measure is there. speaker-0: Yeah, well that that's the point. Is there going to be a circuit breaker? I think there'd have to actually be guidelines, global guidelines on something like that. Or at least maybe leave it that the group of people that you're a committee from, you know, G, I'm, you know, a global committee. If if the world is in in free fall, what can we do to stabilize things? But you know, Jeff, I think again, these are gonna be fun questions. So the last positive to think about for you and you're you're a young entrepreneur, three years out of the block. You're gonna have the largest transfer of wealth over the next decade between old guys and their kids and their grandchildren. You and I know that those those younger people are much more in tune with crypto. And I think that that alone, there will be an automatic a readjustment because they're gonna get those assets without taxes associated with them. They're gonna rebalance those portfolios. So whether you like it or not, I think it's gonna come at you much faster than you realize. So hey, Jeff, you better saddle up, buddy. You better get ready. It's gonna be a fun decade. speaker-1: But you have really glad that you I'm really glad that you brought that up. you know, in in Australia, the biggest trend for people using their IRA to to invest is to invest in crypto. Yes. that's my generation. I'm a millennial. And yeah, I agree there's a massive wealth transfer that's gonna happen and they're they're very excited about digital currencies. So it's gonna be a bright future for us all. speaker-0: Well, listen, I'm a baby boomer. You're a millennial. So between the two of us, we'll we'll make sure the US gets this. But buddy, when you come out here, bring that cowboy head, okay? I got it, we'll go to some Western bars. Jeff, you have a fantastic evening, my friend. Appreciate it. And like I said, anytime you're in Vegas, come on out. speaker-1: Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me on. speaker-0: My pleasure. All right, everybody. We'll be right back with the last segment of winning with winens. And welcome back to Winning with Wine's Las Vegas Newest and Coolest Financial Show. I hope you enjoyed our guest segment. You know, I have to say, we've been very, very lucky. We've had everything from high-ranking politicians to entrepreneurs to people from all different walks of life come on our show. I think it's important to hear that. But what you are by doing those things, I hope you're realizing the Vegas community is diverse. Everywhere it's not just about gambling. In fact, if you go back and look at it, I haven't had a single person yet from the gaming industry come on this show, but we're gonna probably have that at a certain later point. Hey, listen, a little talk on the news, an investment tip. you know, we have F1 coming up here pretty soon. Well, the stock of the company that does trade F1, Liberty Media, they've been in the news. So if you're looking at trying, how do you take advantage of that? You talk to your advisors about it, but it is pretty funny. But listen, I want to jump into an A B C section on this part of the show. there's been a lot of news in the paper about bonds. Okay, but I'm having a lot of people ask me, Ken, what is a bond? I don't even know what it is. Okay, I just talked to a group of young men who are are collegiate athletes and they're gonna be getting money. They're learning about education. So let me make it very simple. All investing comes down to basically. One of two concepts. You either own or you loan. That's it. That hey, forget all the other terms that you either own a stock, own a piece of real estate, own, you know, cattle, or you're lending money to a company, to a a mortgage, to a government, to a school district. That's it, folks. That's I'm just here. There you go. You can turn off the show now. You just learned all you need to know about investing. But what is a bond? A bond is a loan. You are lending money to a corporation, a state, a county, a city, a revenue bond to the US government, to a foreign government. though those are loans. So, you know, again, this is very important. Not everybody is cut out for stocks. Okay. I and by the way, it has nothing to do with age. It has nothing to do with how tough you are or how smart you are. There's a there's just different things that people like and dislike. It's a personality thing. Okay. It has an absolutely nothing to do with age. So a bond, the the advantage that you have with this is you have near certainty of return. What do I mean by that? Well, like with any loan you have, whether it's a credit card bill or it's a mortgage, you have a date in which you have to make an interest payment. And in the case of your mortgage, you know exactly when that mortgage is going to be paid off. Exactly. You'll have to the day. That's certainty. There's also legal protections. we found this out in 2008, 2009, also during the Great Depression back in the 1920s. So a company can get in trouble and it might even go bankrupt. Well, the first people who get claim to what's left of the assets are the lenders. at first is the IRS, the taxes that erode, but then it's the lenders. The other thing that's advantageous advantageous to it too. There's no such thing as a bond mark it. They're bond mark it's. So you know, for a lot of investors, buying or lending money to a corporation makes more sense. Many publicly traded companies, some of the biggest companies around, all have bonds that you can go out, can that you can go out and buy. You can buy bonds at a state level. certainly in the state of Nevada has a very good credit rating. You can lend money to it. there's not quite the advantage here, so we don't have a state income tax. Like you do in other places, but you can lend there, and of course, you can buy treasury bonds. When you buy a money market account, you in fact are having treasury 90 day T bills in that account. Okay, those are the easy parts to this. What I just gave you is all you largely need to know, but this is where it gets tricky. A bond, an individual bond, let's say you buy 20 of them, put them in your portfolio. You want to buy and hold them. I I generally am not a big believer in trading bonds. If you buy a bond mutual fund or an ETF, you could in fact be buying something where they're trading them all the time. I don't know why, but Wall Street has really got this completely backwards. They've had it this way most of my career. Somehow we came up with a concept that it's good to buy and hold a stock, although stocks lose value. I can prove it historically, over 20% of the time. their attitude is no, just buy and hold all the time. And if you're an older investor, Many financial planners and wealth managers tell their clients, no, you're gonna hold your your your stocks. no big surprise, people hold real estate. I mean, it's hard to buy and sell it. But for some weird reason, Wall Street has told people that it's okay to buy and sell bonds to trade them. So you're taking the two big advantages you had, which is when you're getting your interest and when it comes due, and now you're trading these things. Folks, it doesn't make any sense, but bonds are not a wimpy investment. They're not just for the old. They're not just for people who are meek. I really do think there's a time in life when you need to reallocate your portfolio, especially when you get in your retirement or you've just had a life change. Hey, the other simple fact, you've kind of you could have done so well financially, you don't need to take the risk anymore. There's a lot of different reasons, but don't dismiss bonds because for some reason you think stocks are the only way to go. Okay. One of my favorite segments, California craziness. listen. many of us left that former great state. We there's reasons we left there. But let me talk about the new nutty stuff they're coming up with. And the reason I'm talking about it, because it does affect us in Nevada. You know, in hunting, the there's nothing worse than dealing with a wounded big animal. They're very dangerous. They're even and and even to its own detriment, you know, they can cause damage. I think about California as a wounded animal. This state has managed to put itself 1.4 trillion in total debt when you count all of its cities and counties. And by the way, it's climbing. it's not a country, it can't print money to pay its bills. It is desperate for income. And we all know what's going on there. So, California's new tax policy. We need to pay attention to this because it can drive more migration. Prop 40, the billionaire's tax. They're planning to put a 5% tax on wealth, not income. The wealth. Now, this is where it gets a little scary. There's articles out talking about there's an actual thing called Article 14 of the California Constitution. That means once a tax is in place, the government can manipulate the value or the level of it. There's already people talking about that that billionaire's tax is going to become a millionaires tax very, very fast. Folks, if we thought people were leaving California quickly, wait till that happens. We're going to see our valley continue to grow. We need to get ready for it. By the way, there was some California congressman, and I'm not going to mention his name, I don't want to get sued, but sir, you know who I'm talking about. You are an economic moron. You need to go back to school. Or I'll tell you what, I'll send you my book. I can't believe that people in California were dumb enough to elect you. You are a real moron. But anyway, California already has the highest progressive income tax in the land. And you know what? Now you want to tax the billionaire, some of your most successful people even more. Hey, I have a question for you, Congressman. All that money you guys collect in tax, where does it go? Because it sure as heck is not your roads, it's not your schools. I think it is going into politicians and bureaucrats' pockets, and I bet you're part of that. So why don't you go back and take a class in economics, you idiot? Okay, going back, California's broke. Okay, it's it's running out of money fast. They are going after their utilities for fires, they're blocking corporate mergers. here are the statistics. California this is coming from Bureau of Labor and Statistics. California has suffered a loss of 2,100 companies in one year alone. Okay, it's driven by the massive stake. Just literally, I guess in the first six months of this year, another 741 have left. Now let's compare that to our great state. Okay, first off, it is written in our Constitution, written in it, no personal income tax, no inheritance tax. No tax on business inventories, no tax on st on corporate stock, and we have con we have limitations on property tax. I love it how they always talk about Prop 13, but how wonderful this thing is. I lived in California. I owned two houses there at one time. Yeah, they had the base tax, but then they had 14 separate line items, everything from climate change to homeless taxes. I mean, it's the craziest bunch of stuff. we are the fat we are the fifth fastest growing state in new business formations. Now you want to talk about economic novelty. Women-owned businesses outpaced men-owned businesses if by 17%. Okay, in a three-year cycle, minority entrepreneurs, black and app black African American small-owned businesses spiked over 35% in Nevada. Hispanic businesses grew by 31%. Asian businesses grew by 20 by 27%. So guess what? This is not taxing. The rich people who we all think are look like me. This state is growing by leaps and bounds. It's diverse. And a lot of it are micro businesses, companies between one and five people, both blue and white collar. One of the great things I love about this state, I've never once had anybody ask me, where do I go to school or where did I go to school? It's more, did you go to school and did you serve in the military? So listen, the international distress signal is to hang a flag upside down. I think Sacramento might want to hang their bear flag in that direction. California has taken many of your sports teams and your sports management companies are following suit. Before Sacramento decides to enforce an exit tax, it may be it's time for the remaining California financial service industry to relocate to a capitalist free state. That also includes, by the way, the San Francisco Federal Reserve and the San Francisco Mint. So look, we're we're really close to being out of time here. I just want to say I want to thank our sponsors. If you by chance are interested in being on a guest on a future Winning with Winin's show, please send us an email. If you're interested in any of my Forbes articles or my books, send us an email. I can direct you where to get them. And last but not least, please take a moment to listen to the the commercial after the show. It talks a lot about Winin's investments and why we are different. Anyway, folks, as usual, we ran out of time, but this is Ken Winans. Good luck with your investments this next week. I'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye Hey everybody, this is Ken Winins, the host of the Winning with Winens podcast. And I want to take a moment of your time to talk about how do you pick an investment advisor. Well, first off, we're not all the same. In fact, Winens Investments is the only Morningstar top-ranked manager based in Las Vegas. And last time I checked, we're number one in performance in all of Nevada. So if you're looking for something unique, something different, go with a friend that's been around since 1992, 100% independent and veteran-owned. Win with Winens. Look forward to hearing from you. Boy, that time went fast. I hope you had as much fun as I did during this segment of Winning with Wineins. Make sure and tune in next week for another round of guest and interesting topics. And if you missed this, make sure and check us out on Spotify, YouTube, or go to our website, winningwithwin's dot com, where there's a lot more information for you to follow. So good luck this next week. Look forward to seeing you then. Take care.