Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / Crypto and the Culture

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Crypto and the Culture · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome The Money and Wealth with John Hobryant, a production
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Yo, Yo,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: this is John Hobryant and this is the Money and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Wealth podcast series on Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. I
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for making this one of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: top one hundred podcasts for business in the country and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: top forty podcasts for entrepreneurship in the country. It shows
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that this is the aspiration generation. We are about the opportunity.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: The color is not black or white, or red or blue.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: The color is green. We want some more of it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Oddly enough, were talking about the color green. We we're
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: talking about colorless green or colorless currency. In a minute,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: we're talking about digital currency. He's a crypto currency's on
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: this episode. This is going to be hot. As people
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: are hot about this topic. They're fast, they're passionate about
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: this topic of cryptocurrency. So I figured I'd just finally
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: deal with it. So let's uh, let's get into this.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Tell all your friends to check this out. Sit around
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the coffee table or your coffee maker, or your fraternity
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: or sorority club meeting, or your links meeting or your
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: boulet meeting or whatever meeting you guys go to or
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: have on a regular basis, and let's have this conversation.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Let's get into this now. Whenever folks get all emotional
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: about something, I know there's a problem and that needs
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to be sort of worked out. And folks begin every
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: time I bring up the topic of cryptocurrency, even just innocently.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I just did a Forbes Black interview, my brother Jabbari
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Young was editor in chief, and I just I just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: covered this, I think in the most neutral way possible.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And folks in the comments just they outtake pieces, just
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: going all in, just selling me, I guess on cryptocurrency.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Whenever you start selling me on something, I'm concerned. Whenever
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: anybody gets defensive or emotional, I'm concerned. Whenever you make
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: an emotional decision, it's going to be a bad decision.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We make this very very clear. I'm not against cryptocurrency. Now,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: this was already in it a two minute mark on
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: this podcast. So you want to spread something, spread what
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I'm actually saying. Okay, I'm a repeat it one more time.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: John O'Brien is not against cryptocurrency. I hope it's successful, right,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and I love innovation. In fact, I'm a promoter, a promoter,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I am an advocate for a believer in blockchain technology.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Many of my friends are involved in this space, from
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the well known individuals like Anthony Scaramucci, who is on
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Wall Street and has done a great job with this too,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Folks who are fairly new in this space but very credible,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: like Carry Lynn here in Los Angeles where I happened
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to be right now. There are just a number of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: folks who are trying to educate people who are trying
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to do the right thing. They're folks who made money
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: on cryptocurrency. My wife, Shatra has made money on bitcoin.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: She goes she U was an early investor. So but
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you know, my wife has me in case things go
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: south of the border. And I keep saying that, folks,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: don't bet your rit money because well, this is not
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: traditional investing. This is at most investors speculation. Again, nothing
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: wrong with that as long as you acknowledge it for
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: what it is. So let me get I mean in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: my normal style. Let me just be direct, so you
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: know everything's gone digital. Okay, I'm gonna break this down
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: as simple as I can the next forty five minutes.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And if you want to quote me, quote me in context, right,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: why people go to dating apps? Okay, what's the purpose
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of a data dating app? The dating app is digital now, okay,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: so you're in a dating app. There's a number of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: these dating apps. What's the purpose of the dating app?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: To meet someone? Hold on in person? So you're using
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the data app, the dating app to actually meet a human, right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Why is this relevant to this conversation? What if I
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: told you that the overwhelming purpose of cryptocurrency is to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: get cash And I'm not jamming anything up. I'm just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: trying to be real with you and and to like
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: cut to the quick, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: in reality, trying to get to a cash basis. They're
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: trying to cash out with US currency. That's just the reality.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So let's start with that that this is not some
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: panacea of a new I'm gonna deal with. I'm gonna explain.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I am going to explain explain what an actual currency
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a currency is. But let me be very clear about
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: what the promoter, the goal of most cryptocurrency promoters happens
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to be, and the I'm gonna talk about how many
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies there are and which ones are successful and all
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that stuff. So again, I'm going to give you both
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: sides of this conversation. Uh. The goal of most cryptocurrency
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  Speaker 1: promoters and early investors is to eventually exit or cash out,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and what's called fiat currency in this case is usually
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the flight to quality in the world, the US dollar.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Here's why crypto is still pegged to the US dollar
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: psychologically and practically. Even though crypto is marketed as an
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: alternative to fiat money physical currency the US dollar as
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: an example, its value is almost always quoted in dollars.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: What do I mean by that? People don't say. Oh,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: by the way, bitcoin is an example of so far
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a very successful currency. And somebody came to my comments
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: were like, yo, man, you're wrong about bitcoin, Like it's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: adopted by Olive Wall Street. Not true, Okay, it's been
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: adopted by the way, by a Wall Street firm. I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: believe it's black Rock. You see the black Rock or Blackstone.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Somebody will clearly correct me in the comments. I'm doing
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: this by memory. They have ninety five percent of all
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of the inventory of crypto, and they have that inventory,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: by the way, on behalf of their customers who supply
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and demand. Who said they wanted it, so they have
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the currency because their clients pretty much demanded that they
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: would demand it, requested that they keep it from in trust.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So it's not like in this example the company went
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and bought these currencies from making a market on it.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: They're responding to customer to demand, which is encouraging by
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the way they're responded to customer demand, and they're keeping
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this currency. So again, the concept that Wall Street has
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: now fully adopted bitcoin, it's just not true. It is
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: true that there is a major Wall Street firm that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: is now holding bitcoin, lots of it, relatively speaking, in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: trust for their clients. People don't say I'm gonna buy
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: one bitcoin, or say one bitcoin buys one thousand loaves
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: of bread as an example. They say bitcoin is worth
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: sixty thousand dollars. You say, what's the point, Well, you're
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: tying it to not an exchange bit tied to a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: stable valuation. You're tying it to a well, the US dollars.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: When I just I was just saying crypto crypto wealth
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: is only real wealth when it's converted. Gains are on
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: paper until converted to fiat money. You can spend, invest
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: or pay taxes with fiat money. Again in this example
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: US currency. Some people say, yeah, well, there are there
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: are people where there're places where you can actually exchange
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: this with vendors and bartering trade. Essentially, yes, this is true.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about for the masses, for the classes, for
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the general public. Okay, you know you cannot go to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the store, any store and look at a stable price
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and say this is I'm going to exchange this cryptocurrency
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: for I want to get that robe, I want to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: get that brush, whatever, and it's the same price. In fact,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the prices will change at this moment daily. We'll get
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: into this. So the gains are on paper until converted
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to fiat money. A ten x gain in say ethereum
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: means nothing if you can't use or convert it into
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a stable, acceptable form of value. So the extra strategy
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: is the US dollar. Most early adopters or project founders
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: hold or sell tokens during a price boom and then
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: convert to cash or assets like a home or a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: business right that accepts the currency. Some even raise So
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: if you're having a problem selling your house, you might say,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: or if your business, hey, i'll accept Cryptocurrency has another
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: form of value because they believe in it. Okay, a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: ten x gain in the ethereum means nothing if you
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  Speaker 1: can't use it to convert into a stable, acceptable form
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of value. So some even raise funds in crypto and
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: immediately convert to US dollars to protect against volatility. Okay,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that's just funny to me, right because this sort of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: isn't that the point that you're getting away from the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: US dollars? And that's sort of the point of the
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  Speaker 1: matters because the cryptocurrencies came into into fashion after the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: global economic crisis really of two thousand and eight. People
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: rightly so, were upset with the mainstream economic system and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: they wanted a better or a different system, and so
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: they really came after they said, well, cryptocurrency is going
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to be the way that I leveled the playing field
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and create another alternative financial system. And again I'm gonna
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: get into why this is important in the moment. So
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it's created in the moment of emotions. I've already said
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you never do anything based on emotions. That doesn't mean
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: it can't work out, right, but it means the start
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: because it was based on emotions and not you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: just trying to solve a business problem. It means that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you've got to uphill battle sort of ready fire aim.
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  Speaker 1: Crypto has a speculative vehicle. Okay. The game for many
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  Speaker 1: is not building a new financial system. It's getting rich
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: quick and exiting before the thing crashes. Right now, somebody said, no,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: things don't this crypto doesn't crash. Just hold on a minute.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: We're only in this eleven minutes and I'm already breaking
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: eggs and upsetting people. Yes, cryptos have mostly crashed, right,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: are the survivors? Are there folks who have been very successful? Yes?
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: All right, but there's over twenty thousand cryptocurrencies okay in
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the last ten years, and ninety five percent of them
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  Speaker 1: are done, crashed, failed, poop, poop gone. All right, it's
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: not my opinion. This is just the facts of the matter.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: So you see the rug pull. They call these thing
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: rug pulls where you pump and dump in these pump
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  Speaker 1: and dump schemes where the goal is to leave with
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Fiat wealth, right, not build lasting cryptocurrency. So you pump
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: this stuff up, you get somebody excited about this thing,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and then you and then you you bounce, all right,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: you leave and leave other folks sort of holding the bag.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: If cryptocurrency was the revolution, why does everybody still want dollars?
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: It's a question. So that tells you that the game
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: is not about changing the system. It's about gaming the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: system and getting out before it breaks. Now, these are
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: these are the promoters. Okay, these are not the legitimate people.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: They're legiti I've already said there's legitimate folks that are
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that are market makers, legitimate market makers. Anthwery Anthony Skermuci
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: is but one that I trust who I know personally.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: There are others that are legitimate. There are educators, and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I mentioned one of those educators that I trust, uh
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: in this conversation. So uh, let's let's get into this.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Cryptocurrency was supposed to be the great equalizer, So why
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: does it feel like the wild wild West. A billionaire
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: friend of mine was at a major conference, Milk and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Global Conference last year, I believe it was, and he's
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you know, he's not He's not, you know, a boring guy.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: He's a proper entrepreneur, a proper businessman. He's willing to
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: look at anything that makes any sense. He said, like
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the two hundreds, which is a man of the world.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And somebody asked them about cryptocurrency. He said, this is
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: very simple to me. If somebody can tell me why
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the value goes up and why the value goes down
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of cryptocurrency, I'll buy some right, and no hands would
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: up because nobody could could explain it. Let me tell
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you what you can't explain why certain folks have responded
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: emotionally to this because they don't trust the government, they
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: don't think the financial system has worked for them. Both things.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: They're you know, legitimate reasons for this, and so they
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: sort of played on the promoters that played on the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: emotions of certain groups. So you didn't play on the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: emotion of my billionaire friend. But check this out, Uh,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent of Black Americans just about have invested
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in crypto, much more than white Americans. So this was
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: such a great deal. Why are all the saphistic so
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: called sophisticated white folks in the country who are make
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: up most of the stock market, right, why aren't they
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: paling in to cryptocurrency. Again, I'm not saying not to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: do it. I'm just saying they haven't done it. That
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent of Black Americans of all black Americans
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: have invested in crypto, so scare number when I tell
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you what comes next. Nearly three and four crypto investors
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: lost money in twenty twenty two. Hello, I just like
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: math because it doesn't have an opinion I'm not getting.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just giving you the facts. You make your own decision.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: By the way, I've had I have an account, had
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: an account with crypto. I just wanted to see what
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: would happen. I'm a pretty good investor whatever. Anyway, I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: bought it. I bought the crypto, and let's sit there
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and then at some point, I, you know, close the account.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I lost money, but my wife made money, Okay, which
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: is why I'm getting to the point of saying, don't
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: use your rent money for this. So I'm not telling
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you not to do it. I'm telling you the investor
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of speculation, not proper investing. Okay. Of the twenty thousand
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: plus cryptocurrency currencies launched in the last decade, fewer than
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: ten percent are still active. Hello. So if you had
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you know in your neighborhood ninety percent of the businesses
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: failed in five or eight or ten years, would you
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: say that's a stable and investing environment or would you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: say that's it feels like the wild wild West. Something's
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: going on. That's what I'm telling you here. That ninety
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: percent of these things have just poofed gone and somebody
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: made some money and left. And I call that a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme. Somebody made, pumped, dumped, and left and then
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: left somebody else holding the bag. This but this episode
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: is not about fear. It's about financial facts and future
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: proof in your mindset. If you if there are people
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: who've done very well crypto and the folks who've lost
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: their shirt, I don't want you losing your rent money.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: If you want to quote something, quote that right, so
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that we're real clear on what I'm saying. I just
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to give you financial literacy so you
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: make the best decision for yourself. According to Pew Research,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent of black adults, twenty three percent of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Hispanic adults, and seventeen percent of white adults so they
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: had invested and invested in, traded, or used crypto. Okay,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So the vast majority of this market, like half of it,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: are people who are locked out, who feel locked out
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: of the traditional financial system, and we're looking for some
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: other way to get paid, get rich, get over whatever.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And I believe somebody have been playing on there. What
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: emotions and lack of financial literacy. Black Americans adopted crypto
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: faster than any other group, in my opinion, driven by
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: mistrust in traditional banks, barriers to stock market entry, and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a hunger for financial independence, which is, by the way,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: an admirable thing. I love those as motivations. I just
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: don't like what the answer is. So crypto promise lower fees,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: no middleman, global payments with no discrimination, fast profit in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: an instant world. I hate that last one. Fast profit
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: than in an instant world. But access without understanding, it's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: not empowerment, it's exposure. Hello, can I get an amen?
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Access without understanding it's not empowerment, it's just exposure. So
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: let's let's get into this next piece. You can't win
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the game if the rules keep changing. Okay. This is
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: data from the Federal Reserve and CNBC. Nearly seventy to
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of crypto investors lost money after market crashes.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: You're listening to me. Seventy to seventy five percent, So
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: seventy is the smallest number of crypto investors lost money
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: after market crashes. Black investors were more likely to invest
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: late and be hit harder. Hello, because we well, we're
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: writing the speculation, we're looking at the headlines, we're hearing
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and stuff, and then somebody knows that we're emotional, and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to come in and provide. I had an
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: exit for the folks who are trying to get out
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and go to what fiat currency? Cash out with cash.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: So here's the wild West warning. Over twenty thousand cryptocurrencies
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: launched since twenty thirteen, fewer than fifteen hundred to two
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: thousand of these currencies have meaningful value or any activity
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: at all today. Some estimates. Some estimates show that between
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: ninety and ninety five percent of all coins failed are
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: becoming active, failed are becoming active or became an active. Sorry,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: we'll give you some examples. The Lunar Terra collapse wiped
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: out sixty billion dollars in value. That's real money for
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: consumers and investors. The ftx crowd affected over one million customers,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: including friends of mine who were involved with this, many
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: small investors, including working class and minority investors. In fact,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: my friend Anthony Skermucci apologized for this particular thing. He
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: thought he was very sophisticated and got took by a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a professional scamster who looked innocent as snow is snow
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: white and ended up being the thief and the thief
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: in the darkness. So again, if a neighborhood that twenty
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: thousand businesses open and nine percent failed, you wouldn't call
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that an economic empowerment story. You call that a trap. Right,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: So understanding, let's understand the technology that and what's real
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and what's not, and how crypto actually works. So blockchain
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: is a public, decentralized ledger, right, like a transparent notebook
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: in the cloud. Right. I like blockchain be very clear, Okay,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: most proper cryptocurrency use blockchain technology. I think blockchain is
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: going to become very valuable. Bitcoin is considered by many
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: many to be digital gold. It has limited supply and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: is decentralized, and there's a maximum number of blockchain you
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: can mine. So I like that. Ethereum's programmable blockchain for
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: apps and contracts, all coins, thousands of tokens, all right,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: with often no utility or business model. Stable coins listen, now,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: this is an attempt to peg value to United States
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a dollar. This is an attempt stable coins are an
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: attempt to to peg the value of cryptocurrency to United
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: States currency or another currency again fiat currency, an exit
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: through US or other viable cash mechanisms. Again with a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: purpose of dating app to meet a woman our guy
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: in person, what's the purpose of cryptocurrency? Oftentimes is to
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: get cash on the back end. So let's not playing
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: a game. It should be honest what we're doing. There's
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: no FDIC insurance, no call centers, no undoe button. You
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: hit the wrong button, you lose your password. Whatever, it's
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: not a good day. Crypto is not evil, okay. But
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a hammer can build a house or can bust you
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: over the head. It's all about how you use it right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: A knife can butter bread or cut your throat right
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: or cut your risk. It just depends on how it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: used right. So opportunities still exists, but only for the prepared. Right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So long term innovations require long term thinking. I don't
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: like this whole you know in it to win it,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you know, make money fast. If something looks too good
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to be true, it normally is. They underline technology, blockchain,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: smart contracts, tokenization. They're real and revolutionary in many ways. Right,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and by the way I'm explained between digital currency and cryptocurrency,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: so hold on for that legitimate long term players. I
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: think bitcoin is a legitimate long term player. The ethereum
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: ecosystem is considered I think a legitimate long term player.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Blockchain infrastructure companies legitimate long term players. But the rules
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of investing still apply dollar cost averaging, portfolio diversification. Only
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: invest what you're willing to lose. Ie, don't lose your
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: rent money, right, don't bet your rent money. Most black
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: investors going into crypto twenty twenty two, twenty one at
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: peak high prices. That means most bought high hello and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: sold low. Here's some street rules for crypto. And here's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a key concept. The underserved communities that I come from
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and that you understand so well, can't afford to gamble
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: with what little we've got to play with in the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: first place. We must invest with wisdom, not emotions. Here's
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: some street rules. If you don't understand it, don't invest
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in it. If everybody, if everyone's getting rich quick, someone's
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: about to go broke slow. If everybody's getting rich quick,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: somebody's about to go broke slow. I don't want it
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to be You use crypto to learn how to understand
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: this new innovation in this system, but don't lean on
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it to try to think you're creating a new system.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I had said that very slowly because I want anybody
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: thinking again that I'm doubting crypto. I'm saying it's a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: wow wow West Like, you can't lean on something that
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: might fall over. And if ninety percent of anything that's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: tried fails, well there's a nightcent chance that you're going
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to lean on it. It's going to fall over. May
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: be okay, right, you go to Las Vegas. You might
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: hit it big. Just remember that Las Vegas, the buildings
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: keep getting hitting larger with every plane that goes in
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and out of Las Vegas. You know, yeah, people hitting big,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: but somebody's losing their shirt. You got to ask yourself,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is this wealth building a wishful thinking? Never put more
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: money in the crypto than you're put on the roulette table. Hello,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Crypto is a tool, not a ticket. Right. People need
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to come to Operation Hope and get your financial literacy
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: education on before you start doing some crypto investing. Anyway,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, so you can go in armed and prepared.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, as a simple rule, you should have more
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: than in my opinion, ten percent of your portfolio investing
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: portfolio set aside for speculation. And this is speculation. And
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: so if you can afford to use lose five or
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: ten percent of your portfolio or win big lose one big,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: then than fine, knock yourself out, go do it. But
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: if you absolutely need this for your retirement as example, right,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: then the no, you should not be thinking that this
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: is some get rich quick scheme or some sure bet. Right,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: nothing's a sure bet. Everything has risk. Investing in real
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: estate has a risk, in resting in the stock market
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: has risks. Right, There are stock market companies. There are
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: companies on the stock market who've gone bus that were frauds,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: like in Ron my mother lost money. My mother Winnie Smith,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: who was a proper investor, got rest so lost money.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: On in Rock. There are many companies that just fool people. Right,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: But those companies at least have assets underneath them that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you can sell the assets. They have cash flows at
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: least as unless it's a complete fraud, they have cash flows.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: They've got profit margins, they have customers, and if the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: thing goes bankrupt and the thing goes by, at least
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a trustee can come in and try to, you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: figure out, you know, what's the fog and the fake,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: from the from the from the from the from the real,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and and then give investors back part of their money.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: If cryptocos bust nine times out of nine, right, Okay,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I would be generous nine times out of ten, the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: money is just gone. Right. So let me now explain
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to you why this is not a true currency. Okay,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: start to start with what is not and then I've
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: said a little bit about what it is. Let me
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: tell you what it is not. Cryptocurrencies are not true
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: currencies in the traditional economic sense. Here's why. Here's what
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: makes up a true currency. One, it's a medium of exchange,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: so it's used to buy and sell goods and services. Okay, stop,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: So so just understand it's a universal medium of exchange.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Number two. Uh, there's units of account. Prices are measured
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: through this unit of account, and the price is a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: uniform number. Three. It stores value. It's there's a store
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of value and it retains value over time. Really important point. Okay, Okay,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So let's think think about how how cryptos measure up
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: in this example. So is it a medium of value? Well, partially,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: it's accepted by some merchants, but it has limited adoption.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So for anybody think I'm jamming up crypto, just hear me. Now,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I did say it's accepted by some merchants, right, but
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: but it has limited adoption. I don't go in stores
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: every day and see that they say, you know, we
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: accept crypto. I see it every now and then. But
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I just I just gave you a compliment crypto promoters
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: that it is exchanged some in some places a unit
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of account. No, prices are still in dollars, in euros
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in the yawn, you know, in paysos, right, the unit
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of count it are prices in primarily in in dollars.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Is it a store or of value? Well, it's extremely volatile. Uh.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Some argue bitcoin is digital goal, but prices still swing
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: widely on even the most premium of these currencies, which
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: aren't which is which is bitcoin? And that undermines that's
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: those price wings undermine what I call here stability. So
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: most experts would say that this is not a currency.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Yet Actually I think it's an asset, not a currency.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: But here's why volatility. Prices can rise or fall twenty
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to fifty percent in days, unacceptable for daily transactions. It's unacceptable.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: The price wings hit twenty to fifty percent. One day
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you go to buy a car and it's you know,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: ten dollars, ten thousand dollar. Next time you go to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: buy a card, it's fifteen thousand dollars. I mean, who
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: can absorb that. You go to buy some bread one day,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: it's two bucks, and next day you go buy a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: loaf of bread or whatever, probably two bucks. But let's
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: say it's five bucks and you go to the next day.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: You know, the next day you go to buy it,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: it's seven bucks and fifty cents. You know, that's just
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: not acceptable adoption. While growing crypto is not wildly accepted
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: like dollars or euros, regulatory uncertainty. Governments don't treat it
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: like legal tender. Right The US government is talking about
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: this right now. By the way, I think it's a
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: great idea for it to be regulated. Most things that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: get regulated actually end up doing well. The stock market
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: was unregulated, it was a wild wild west. It got regulated,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and that's where the wealth really came from. The Securities
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: in exchange commission. Banking industry was unregulated. It was a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: wild wild West. And of course you have this huge
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: boom and bust in the nineteen thirties. Banks are regulated
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: now and they're very, very profitable. You want to do well,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: buy some stable bank stocks and hold it over time.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Banking business is a very stable business. I can name
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: other sectors, but basically anything that gets regulated because now
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you have the rules of the game, and you know,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you can feel comfortable getting into it, and you have
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a place to call somebody to complain to. You can
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you know, report folks, And then you tend to have
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: more credible people that involve themselves in a regulated environment also,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and you tend to have a deep capital stack in
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: a regulated environment. Capital stack meaning people have enough money
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: so the thing that they're promoting doesn't go poof like
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: most of the cryptocurrencies have in the first In the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: first run up here, stable coins like USDC or tether
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: try to address volatility, but even they aren't official currencies.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: But they're stable coins, meaning they are tying themselves to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the US currency to try to make themselves more attractive.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: But even those aren't considered official currency. So today cryptocurrency
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: is more like digital property than digital money. It's an
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: asset you trade, not something you live on until it's stable,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: trusted and widely accepted. It's just not a real currency.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's an experiment. Now, it's an experiment that might make
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you a bunch of money because again you're in the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: early days of something that's going to go up and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: down wildly. So you know, if you again got enough
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: risk tolerance or you like that kind of investor speculation,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna call it investing investor speculation, and you've
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: got you bending your room writ money fantastic, or you
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: got a coach like I mentioned to you Carrie Lynn
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and others who are proper teachers in this area. I
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: believe that Earn your Leisure has been doing some education
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: in this regard that I don't think ash Cash is
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: a guy you can trust who geerly speaking, this good
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: educator in these as a financial literacy. Just make sure
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: you're financially literal before you go on these areas. So
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: over the past years, again you've had twenty to twenty
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: five thousand cryptocurrencies launched and most of them failed. Eight
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to ten thousand of them are still listed or tracked
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: on major sites. But they they're you know, they don't
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: do much, they're just inactive. Eighty percent plus either failed completely, abandoned, delisted,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: became zombie coins still technically exist but or notativity or value,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: or they just turned out to be scams or exit schemes.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: The peak time for all this cutivity was twenty seventeen
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to twenty eighteen. Thousands launched of these cryptocurrencies launched during
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the crypto bubble twenty twenty to twenty twenty two. That
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was the DeFi and the NFT Boom, another huge surge.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Here's the reasons for failures no real use for the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: coin or no real use case for the coin, poor
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: management or development of the coin by its promoters, regulatory
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: shutdowns because folks were scamming, market crashes, rug pools, developer scams.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Starting to get the just what I'm saying here, So
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: you read this however you want. I mean, I'm just
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: giving you the facts of the matter that this is
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: just not for the faint of heart. I'm not telling
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you not to do it. I'm telling you it's not
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for the faint of heart. Now, let's let's deal with
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: something that it's just not obvious. What's the difference between
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: digital So, John, do you like digital currency? Do you
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: like digital money? Sorry? Yes, I love digital money. I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: love it. It's like, with no exceptions. I love digital money.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: But that's different from cryptocurrency. Okay, so let me explain.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Let me explain the difference, because this is a good
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: sort of place for you to plant your flag and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: start your educational process just by knowing what cryptocurrency is
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and what it isn't and how these things different. Uh So,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: digital money are digital currency, right, refers to any form
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: of money that exists only in electronic form. It's not
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a it's not physical like coins or bills. You can't
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: it's not even in this example, writing a check, the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: old joke girming it up, you can't be broke. I
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: can't be broke, mom, I still have checks left. But
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: so it's not a physical anything. But it still can
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: be used to buy goods and services. Okay, which meet
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the criteria I said to you earlier of what a
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: real currency means. So here's an example of digital digital money.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Your bank account Okay, your bank account balance you view
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: primarily online. Okay, that's right. Tell me if you agree
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: with that. Uh So, a credit or debit card transaction
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: as example, or credit or debit card. A credit card
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: or debit card is an example of digital money okay
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: moving around ze Venmo, PayPal, Apple pay digital money. UH.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Central bank digital currencies c B d C, such as
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: China's digital yuan, which is in development globally. That's digital money.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: These are the key features here. Are is issued by
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: centralized u by centralized authorities are usually banks or governments. Uh.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Pay to national fiat currencies like the US dollar. Uh
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: do you know what fiat currency was before this session?
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: By the way, this podcast just curious. Transactions are processed
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: through traditional banking or payment systems. Right, you know what's
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the purpose? Increase payment speed? So checks were better than
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: checks were more reliable checks were you know, it was
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: more reliable. System moved faster. Check checks made the system
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: move fast. You could write you know, do you know
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: you can write a check on the back of your
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: T shirt? By the way, technically you write to pay
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to the order of Joe Blow, write his routing number
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: and account number, all this stuff. Sign it and you
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: could take somebody's T shirt to the bank and you
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: get into a nice argument with the teller and the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: manager about whether they have a right and responsibility to
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: cash your T shirt. Right. I don't suggest you do it.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying that a check is not just a
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: piece of paper. But we moved from from cash and coins, right,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: having to carry all that around and load down your
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: pockets and all this stuff, and all you might get
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: robbed actually writing a check, and those checks people would float.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I used to float checks back in the day. You'd
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: write a check and sit it in you know, a
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: to a to a vendor. Then they got to pass,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they got to they have to deposit in their bank. Bank,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the bank would process that. It would float for three,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: four or five days. Meanwhile you're running around try to
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: figure out how to cash how to cover that check.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Remember that. Don't act like you don't know what I'm
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: talking about. By the way, but digital, the digitization of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: money solved all that. The transactions happened right instantly. So
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: increase payment speed, reduce cash dependency, make transactions traceable and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: manageable in a modern economy. So as a step towards
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: are similar to blockchain. Right, and now, now, what's cryptocurrency? Okay,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I'm allowed to give you a compliment, now, crypto promoters,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Cryptocurrency is a new asset class. So I just called
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: it something other than a scam proper, legal, Proper Cryptocurrencies
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that follower rules, have rules of engagement, are trackable, traceable,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, fit the criteria I said earlier of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: legitimacy right are a legitimate new asset class right and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: need to be taken seriously. Cryptocurrency is a form of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: digital currency that uses cryptography and decentralized technology blockchain to
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: secure transactions and control the creation of new units. So
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: example Bitcoin BTC, the first and foremost well known cryptocurrency
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: ethereum et H enables smart contracts and decentralized apps Solana, Cardano,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Ripple you get them, Get get the gist. Key features decentralized,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: no central bank or government controlling it, limited supply usually
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: bitcoins for example. Supposedly it's capped a twenty one million
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: coins store of stored on a blockchain public ledger that
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: verifies and records transactions. It can be anonymous, no trans
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you can transact without trying tying it to your real identity,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: which by the way, isn't a plus animus. A lot
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: of criminals love this because, for obvious reasons, doesn't attract
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to a person. Scamsters love this people, you might hear
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: folks sending you a note saying I'm going to do
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: something bad to you and embarrass you or whatever, and
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I got this information on you. You need to pay me.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: In cryptocurrency. They want that because it does not have
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: an identity attached to it, and technically you can't once
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: they transfer that money out and turn it into cash
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: by the way, that you can't find them. So the
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: key differences between digital money and crypto cryptocurrency is, you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you've got you know, an issue or of digital money
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that's a central bank of government or institution. And with
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: cryptocurrency is typically decentralized and no central issue. Right. With
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: digital money, there's a lot of control centralized with courts.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Cryptocurrencies decentralized digital money, Uh, you use traditional banking and
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: payment payment rails and technology that's proven. Uh. And with
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and and cryptal currencies built on blockchain uh technology. You know,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: with digital money you have an identity tied to a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: user's verified identity, right and uh. And the course cryptocurrency
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: is pseudonyms and anonymous uh identities anonymous folks, well, anonymous
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: something right, you don't know what you have no idea
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: what was on this side with cryptocurrency, Uh, so you
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: you know digital digital money is you're really you're looking
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: at stability backed by FIA currency, a major US or
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: other government currency. Uh. Cryptal currency is somewhat volatile, driven
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: by supply and demand. I would often say, you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I gotta like this at all when I was more
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: smarty pain it's about this, I say, cryptocurrency. It's like
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: a fancy gym membership, like when you're using that, when
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: you're excited about that gym membership, you get it you
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and you go there and everybody's excited about it, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to the gym, and the equipment's off shiny
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and new, and you're meeting girls, guys or whatever and
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: whatever reasonally going to the gym. It has a lot
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of value. The minute that that the lure falls away
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and you don't want to go to the gym anymore
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and you found another place that's cool, and whether the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: gym just loses value overnight, like it's it's it is
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: based on hype. It's based on emotions, based on whether
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: it's popular. A lot of cryptocurrencies are like that. It's
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: based on hype and not based on and your feelings
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and your emotions, not based you know, on anything that's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: underneath it and that has real storage value. Anyway, I
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: think I've talked enough about that. Digital money modernizes our
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: current system. Modernized our our current system. It's like cash
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and credit going digital right where cryptocurrency challenges the system.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: In total, it's a new system altogether, built by and
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: for the digital age. So digital money is the evolution
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: of the old system. Cryptocurrency is a rebellion that created
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: a new one. But every revolution needs rules or it
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: burns out. That's why financial literacy it's so important. That's
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: why I think financial literacy is a civil rights issue,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: as I keep saying over and over again of this generation,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: when you know better, you do better. Now we're at
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: forty three minutes here, so I can probably suggest that
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you sort of got the memo so to speak on
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: this and why it's so important to get this right,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and why I have You probably understand now why I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: have been concerned about people going into this thinking that
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: it's some kind of a sure bet. If something is
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: too good to be true, it's probably a lie. Only
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: in the dictionary does the words success come before the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: word work, Because it's alphabetical. There's only work, right, and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I want you to do the work. I want you
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: to do the research of understanding what's what in this
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: particular case, what is a cryptocurrency? What is back It
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: typically nothing, there's typically no asset. Okay, let me give
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: you another example. So people say US currency is nothing,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: it's back it's fiat currency. It's it is fiat currency.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: It's not backed by gold anymore. Correct, that was a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Breton Wards agreement way back when. So it's not back
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: by gold anymore. Correct, it's just it's a flimsy currency
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: back by supposedly back by the US government. Correct, it's
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: US currency is fully backed by the full faith and
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: credit of the United States government, which happens to be
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the biggest economy, the most stable legal system, the sole
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: superpower in the world. And it is a flight to quality.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: For everybody in Russia who say they don't like America,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: they're putting their money in, putting money in America while
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: they're complaining and criticizing the country on TV. All these billionaires,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and I would argue government officials in Russia are putting
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: their money legitimate Anteio Godden gains. They're hiding in America
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: because it's safe China. A lot of the Chinese billionaires
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and Chinese officials, they're putting their money in the US
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: or buying US real estate or stocks, etc. Because America
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: is what I call what investors call a flight to quality.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: It's the best, most stable system in the world. And
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: China owns a lot of our US treasury bills, right,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of our debt because they believe while criticizing US,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: they realize there's no deal better than uh, than than
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the US dollar in the US financial system. So capitalism
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: in democracy your horrible systems, except for every other system
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: in the world. Right and UH, even communist countries like
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: China and Russia have adopted capitalism. One of the on
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: one of these podcasts, I'm going to break down the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: different systems communism, socialism, and capitalism. I'm going to do that.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Tell me in the comments, and I'll spend a show
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: talking about that. But I want to get the fundamentals
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of all these things out of the way, so you
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: have you can actually operate in this world fiction effectively
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and smartly. So UH. It is a fiat currency. Uh.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: The US is based on a FIA currency, but that
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: currency is fully backed by the US. The full faith
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and credit of the US government. Occurrencies are not backed
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: by assets. Bitcoin has the benefit of it being mined
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and having again supply limited supply and and and all that,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and so it it it has more inherent value, okay,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: because it's a it's a closed loop system. And I
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: have some confidence in bitcoin and my my wife owns some,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: but most cryptocurrencies, it's just it's just somebody who issued something.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Think about in the early days of the United States.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Anybody could issue a currency. A grocery store could issue
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: one and did m A labor a lumber store could
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: issue currency, and it did. A bank in this town,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: a bank in that town issue their own currency. A
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: town could issue a currency, and so of course inflation
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: was rampant, and the coins, the coins, and the currencies
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: died as almost as quickly as they were created. And
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you had no assurance that your money was worth anything.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So in America, the country reg you laidd this and
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: may create a central bank, hello, the Federal Reserve, a
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: US Treasury department also within the government right and put
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: rules in place and created a national currency that survives
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to this day and is the envy of the world. Essentially,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: that's what's happening now. In a smaller way with cryptocurrency,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you have all these folks running around starting this, starting that,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: and calling it a currency. People who are not financially
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: literate believe the hype because there's a celebrity or whoever
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: are politicians. They buy these things. There's a rug pull.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Often the celebrity or whoever or whoever's backing that celebrity,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: who's a real financier, they get them. They pump, they
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: pump a dump, they pump the price up, they pull
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: their money out, the price drops, and those who are
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: in the middle get slaughtered. I don't want you in
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the middle, and I don't want you to en up
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: at the bottom. Did you get that? Did you understand that?
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: So I'm not jamming up crypto currencies. I'm telling you
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: that I don't want you betting once again your rent money.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I feel like I could talk about this all night,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: but that's probably like you never want to be the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: old guy in the club. So before you kick me
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: out of this conversation, I'm going to leave. I may
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I'm kicking myself out of the conversation. I want to
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: just make sure before I end up talking myself into
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: coma and just making sure I've covered all of the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: ground on this and that you don't walk away from
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: this sort of scratching your head, that you understand that
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: there are risk and rewards. There are clear opportunities if
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: you get up the right currency at the right time
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: and you ride the price up right. But what is
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: somebody trying to do upon what's trying to They're trying
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they're trying to build a an economic system where you're
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: you're training, you're buying things with the cryptocurrency, and you're
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: training it and your you're you know, you're, you're it
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: has a stable price, And no, that's not what's happening
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: right now. What's happening is if people are bidding up
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the price with US dollars, they're saying, again, bitcoin's worth
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: X dollars, And then at some point folks are trying
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: so you're if you're a millionaire, you're a millionaire on paper,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and you can wake up tomorrow and that work is
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: worth zero by the way, or you lose your key
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: or something, but that has no value until you convert that,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: until you sell it and get what US currency. I
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: dare somebody to correct me on that The whole purpose
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: of this currencies, most of these cryptocurrencies, is not to
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: create UH. This is is not some effort to create
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: this community of merchants and those who are buying and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: selling and using this. That's not the primary purpose. A
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: primary purpose is to uh to use it as an
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: asset that increases in value. But this asset doesn't have
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: any assets. It has height and hope tied to it,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: my middle name. If you're buying stock, vying in real estate,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: it's secured by real property. You can go tomorrow. The
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: property is going to be there. You need a key,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you lose your key, You get somebody come make you
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: another key. It opens the door to your real property.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: There's a property ledger, it's called it's called a title.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: It's ted, and it's insured by title insurance. And you
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: come up tomorrow. You leave for five hundred years, years
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: for five years, come back and your property is still there.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: No one's gonna pill your property, steal it and take
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: your property someplace else. Whatever to my property. Somebody used
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: toole my property. Anybody's seen one five five O two
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: is out of freely my home address when I when
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I the home I grew up when the house my
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: mother bought when I was very young, me and my
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: brother and my sister. No, the house address is still there.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: A stock you know, a Ford Motor company, or whatever
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: company you you wal Walmart at whatever company that you love,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: that company is there. It has employees, it has customers,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: its cash flows, it has buildings, it owns, it has
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: real estate, it has trucks it owns, It has a reputation,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: a brand. It has a stock price based on price
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: on earnings. It's called a price a pe racial price
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: to earnings ratio. There's some rationale of why that price
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: is going up or why that price is going down
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: is not totally rational. There is sentiment and there is
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: a motion in the stock market. But if that company
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: goes bust, goes bankrupt, as I said earlier in this podcast,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: then there will be a trustee that comes along and
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: sales the assets or tries or sort it out. There's
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a chance to get some, if not all, of your
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: money back. So an example of a stock market, unless
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: it's a complete fraud, you'd get some of or all
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: your money goes back if the company goes bust. In
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the case of a franchise investment, you make same thing.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: There's a building, there's a franchise, there's a business plan
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: as customers, as you know, there's a franchise license, you're
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: going to get something out of that. In most cases,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: insurance company goes bus, same thing and all LIKELIHOD, you're
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: going to get your money back or some of your
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: money back. Real estate have already covered that. Nobody's stealing
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the real estate. The stuff is but in US currencies
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: already covered that. Treasury bills, the tanza. The US government
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: goes out of business. The whole world's toast anyway, So
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: don't worry about it. That'll be nothing to worry about
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: because we're all done. But with cryptocurrencies in rare in
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the other than the rare instances of the ones that
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I've already mentioned, and stable coins which use the US
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: dollar as a foundational credibility piece the way, you know,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: they get stable coins tied to US currency, But even
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: those are not asset based, I don't think in total,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: So in many of these currencies, these cryptocurrencies are just
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: hoping and praying that they hit and they create a
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: buzz and sustainability, and and then when they do, you
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: do incredibly well, like bitcoin, folks who went in early
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: on bitcoin, like my wife and others, just absolutely killed it.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: They're still trying to cast that for cash when they're
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: trying to get out. By the way, although some people
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: have traded bitcoin for cars and real estate, they find
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the people who love bitcoin and are willing to trade it. Okay,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: I hope I have in fifty four minutes demystify this
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: for you, and now you feel more empowered. Financial literacy
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: is a civil rights issue of this generation. I want
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you to know better so you can do better. I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: know this is going to call This is gonna be
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: a hot episode. People gonna be hot that I did it.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: The promoters of bitcoin, who is they have bitcoin, not bitcoin, sorry, cryptocurrencies.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: They have a tattoo on their shoulder for cryptocurrencies, and
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: they don't want anybody criticizing, and they're talking bad about it.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking bad about it. I'm talking I said
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: things that are positive. I've said things that are not
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: so positive that called life. Get over it, right. I
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: love members of my family. Other people my family drive
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: me nuts. Right, it's called the bum factor. Twenty percent
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: of everybody are bums, and twenty percent of cryptocurrency are
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: more because it's new and innovative. Are just bums? Just
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that their bums are everywhere? And you don't want
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: bums in your family. And I don't want bums in
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: my family, and I want to do business with bums.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be I don't have friends that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: are bums. But there are bums everywhere. And I'm just saying,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you don't want to make a bum investment? What's wrong
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: with that? If you're a crypto promoter, you should love
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: what I just said. You should take this podcast and
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: share it with everybody and say do what John Brian says.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Be careful, be thoughtful. Know what you're investing in, who
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: you're investing in, what the company is, what the credibility is,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: and then be thoughtful about it because why wouldn't you
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: want that? Right? You should have complete transparency and if
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: you do that, people can trust you too because you
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: don't have anything to hide. So there you go. This
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: is John O'Brien. This is money and wealth on the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Block Effect Network talking about cryptocurrency and digital currencies all
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: that come with it. If you love this space, go
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: into it with both eyes open and go in with
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: both feet and and and do very well with it,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: have a long term perspective, and I wish you. I
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: hope to see you the finish line, telling me John Bryant,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I did it, and I made and I made a
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: fortune there. There's only about my numbers are correct, about
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a one percent of billionaires who made their billions billionaires
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and millionaires. By the way, about a one percent who
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: made that. They're tens of millions and billions in cryptocurrency. Okay,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: just so you're clear, that's then there was the source
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: of their wealth is cryptocurrency only about one percent. It
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it, It's not possible. I'm just telling you
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: this is separating the hype from the reality. I want
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: you to go to Operation Hope, get your financial coaching
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: scholarship so that you can go deeper in these areas
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: and they can give you some good advice on what
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: things to do and what you should be looking out
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: for as you become an investor, which I encourage you
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: to do. Have a full portfolio, including something you can
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: have a risk tolerance, a risk you're part of your portfolio,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: in which case you might decide you want to go
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: all in on cryptocurrency and after you heard this and
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: got everything all your knowledge, go do it great, that's
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: what you want to do, but balance it out with
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: other things which you know well. It's a balanced approach.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: So one thousand dollars free coaching scholarship. You got that
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: from me. Tell my people at Operation Shope I sent
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: you. You can download the Hope and Hand app and sign
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: up for coaching online on your Android or Apple phone.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: You can go to our one eight hundred number. You
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: can go to our website at Operation shop dot org.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Just tell them about John Bryan sent you. I'm the founder, chairman,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and CEO. We're the biggest in the country for financial
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: literacy coaching, fifteen hundred offices in forty two states and growing,
• 57:49
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• 57:52
  Speaker 1: branch in US history. By four and a half billion
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: dollars invested in you, raising credit scores, lowering debt, increasing saving.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: So change your life and make you bankable? Can I
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: get an ape? Man? Getting? My book Financial Literacy for
• 58:05
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• 58:09
  Speaker 1: a hardcover copy and the new paper book paperback version
• 58:13
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• 58:17
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• 58:20
  Speaker 1: to support them, and of course tell your friends to
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: follow this podcast where I go deep in my ministry
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of finance once a week on some topic. This week
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: was cryptocurrency digital currency. John O'Brien, I'm out. This is
• 58:35
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• 58:40
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• 59:02
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