Unfiltered Union

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This is Linz.

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And this is Russ.

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And we're married.

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Are we?

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Yep, since 2013.

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We're the hosts of the Unfiltered Union podcast.

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Where we discuss popular headlines and interview interesting people.

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Our opinions may vary, but we will never censor our guests or our viewpoints.

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Welcome to the Unfiltered Union.

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Another one.

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You did it anyway.

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Just like DJ Cali.

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We have another guest and we are so excited about this one.

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I am going to be a total noob in this discussion.

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So once again, Russ is going to lead this.

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Yes, I will try my best.

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So we have Chris Revis on the show today and we're going to start with his intro

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and we're going to dive into something near and dear to Russ's heart.

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Let me tell you why.

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So Chris has an expertise in making complex topics easy to understand by a variety of audiences.

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In this case, we're going to be demystifying Bitcoin investing.

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Yes.

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To date, he has helped over 80 investors on their journeys to create generational wealth with Bitcoin.

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None of them were tech experts, financial gurus, or economists.

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All of them learned a ton and enjoy a positive return.

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So again, this is Russ's...

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True, blue, all the things that he loves.

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So we're going to have fun with this one today.

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And we can't thank you enough, Chris, for coming and joining us.

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Oh, it's my honor.

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So excited to be here.

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All right.

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Let's start with, again, I'm going to be the noob here.

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So I'm going to ask the really, I'm just going to say it, dumb questions, right?

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These are someone who I am not currently in that world and investing.

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Russ knows way more than I do.

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But for someone who knows nothing about Bitcoin, how would you define it?

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Yeah, it's actually a great question and there's no dumb ones.

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I'm glad you're asking.

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So there's a couple of different ways to think about it.

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So sometimes people quickly will answer,

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well,

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Bitcoin's digital gold because people can understand what gold is.

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Gold's had value for a long time.

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And they think about digital gold.

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Oh, I can just move gold on the internet from peer to peer.

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And that's, it's not entirely right, but that's one way to think about it.

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The more academic answer, it's a peer to peer currency, if you will.

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So I could send money to you

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with no bank, no credit card, no intermediary.

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I can sit it on Sunday at 10 a.m.

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in my pajamas, playing with my dog, drinking coffee, and it goes through.

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There's no three-day wait.

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There's nothing else like that.

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But it's digital money.

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It's incredibly secure.

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It's the most secure money that has ever existed and won't go too much in the weeds.

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The problem with Bitcoin is it's a deep well.

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But one thing that's very different about it, it's what's called a hard money.

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So it means it will not devalue.

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We're used to inflation being a normal thing and just kind of have accepted that, right?

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But Bitcoin is what's called a hard money.

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There's only a certain amount of currency that will ever exist.

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And that's a totally new concept.

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So big answer to your question, but that's what Bitcoin is.

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No, I appreciate that.

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I mean,

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the idea of the gold currency,

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I think that's a great way to put it because you're still putting a dollar value on gold,

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right?

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Right.

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I like that a lot.

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I think when we start thinking about Bitcoin, it does get really big and scary.

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Sure.

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But overall, I mean, why would I be interested in this?

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I know you're saying it's a hard investment.

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It is something that is...

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You can't create more of, and we shouldn't be used to that.

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So why should I be interested in Bitcoin?

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You know, I'm going to flip it and talk about the villain in the story.

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So a lot of times we don't think about our monetary system as a villain,

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and we don't study it in school,

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and we don't know about it.

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And a lot of people, a lot of us, myself included, are afraid of money, right?

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We've got a lot of fear and emotion around it.

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But

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If I talk about what's called a fiat system,

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which are all the modern currencies,

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US dollar,

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euro,

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all of them are what are called fiat,

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just a fancy word.

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They're not based on anything.

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So since 1971, we've been off the gold standard.

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The US dollar is literally printed out of thin air by 12 banks and the treasury.

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During COVID, we increased the currency almost 40%.

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So it's it's the villainization here is is banks and others are continually

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creating more currency so that they can pay off debts so that they can sell debt products,

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which is what banks sell.

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And it's just it creates an unsustainable thing for our families, for our generations, for.

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developing nations.

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It's just, I can't think of a better way to describe it, but evil.

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It's kind of the silent evil that's there.

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And so the only way to do that is to get rid of it and do something that's based on

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not countries,

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not companies,

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not human beings,

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that's trustless,

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that's decentralized,

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that's incredibly secure.

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And instead of just creating new currency all the time,

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um bitcoin doesn't have that so if you think of the simple example i'll give really

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quick long answer your question again sorry but if you think of a fraction and that

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bottom part of the fraction say you've got one fourth and someone just decides to

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move that four away and make it a hundred so now your currency is worth one one

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hundredth of what it was before right and that that's really what's happening that

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denominator is constantly changing and your buying power is going down we

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experience by higher prices right and we blame inflation we blame politicians which

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are really a sideshow

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But it's the currency devaluation is sort of the evil one.

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And Bitcoin's the only way I know out of that long term.

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And the reason I get excited about it is for my kids, for my grandkids.

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Hopefully we won't experience massive devaluation of all our currencies in our lifetime, but we may.

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And it's the only other option that's really out there in my mind that exists.

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Right.

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If you tell somebody that if you had $1,000 in your bank and you left that $1,000 there,

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it wouldn't be worth $1,000 as it was back then.

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No.

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But if you did $1,000 in Bitcoin 10 years ago, you'd be living a totally different life now.

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He will not let me live that down.

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We'll get to that story here in a minute.

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I made that mistake early too.

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Yeah.

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I mean...

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Ultimately, you know, I am the new bit.

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Obviously, Russ is more involved, but I hear a lot of things about altcoins.

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I hear a lot of things about alternative investments.

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A lot of even our friends and neighbors mentioned that they have their investments in the stock market.

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They're doing well.

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Why should I even consider something in crypto?

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So what would you what would your advice be to them?

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Bitcoin versus alternative investments?

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Yeah, well, first off, I'm not a qualified investment person at all.

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But what I would say to them as a friend would be,

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look,

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as part of your portfolio,

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Bitcoin makes a ton of sense and you can't ignore it.

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That's my first thing I would say.

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The other is I would take time to kind of educate them on what altcoins are and what they do.

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So where they're different than Bitcoin is they almost always have a venture

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capital firm or a CEO behind them.

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They're centralized, which is the same problem we have with the US dollar that I just talked about.

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And they kind of have these pump and dump schemes.

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So they'll get the money high.

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or the valuation high,

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then the VC takes their money,

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the venture capital company takes their money,

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and then it dumps.

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So it's not a good long-term store of value.

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Hardcore Bitcoiners have some derogatory words to say about altcoins.

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You know, there's, what, 25,000 of them?

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I mean, it's just kind of absurd.

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And I think Bitcoiners get upset because they get grouped with it, right?

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You're grouped with the gross stuff.

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Now...

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In regards to the stock market,

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you know,

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honestly,

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a lot of our portfolios and our 401ks and IRAs are in stock.

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So that doesn't mean that they're evil or wrong.

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And I wouldn't suggest everyone put all of their money in Bitcoin.

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Other folks would.

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But,

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you know,

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a one,

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two,

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three,

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four or five percent of what you're investing to put and hold that in Bitcoin long

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term is going to probably outdo the other 95 percent right over time.

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It's just as you get into it and no more, it's just math.

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It's just an algorithm.

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There's no sure thing in life,

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but on a long-term basis,

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on a 10-year,

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20-year basis,

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you're going to do incredibly well on Bitcoin.

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I wouldn't throw all the other stocks away.

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I would stay away from altcoins.

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A lot of people jokingly call it a casino and the house always wins.

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Oh, for sure.

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It's just a waste of energy.

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Absolutely.

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I agree with you on that.

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And a lot of those altcoins, they tend to have pre-mints, which they enrich their buddies.

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And then they sell it to us as the non-insiders.

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And then all of a sudden, we're buying it up.

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They have millions of them.

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And that's where the dump comes from.

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Yeah, it's Ponzi scheme, right?

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100%.

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And that's what cracks me up is a lot of these news agencies and things of that nature,

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they end up saying that,

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no,

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Bitcoin's the Ponzi scheme.

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I'm like, how?

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Right.

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There's nothing, there's no benefit to me owning more Bitcoin, like a proof of stake system.

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right there's a benefit there for joe schmoe who was in on the the the minting of

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said coin you know and and they've got 10 million of them now they got huge control

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over consensus and all that right so speaking of proof of stake yeah yeah how how

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are more bitcoin created yeah so um

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Bitcoin are mined, and I'll explain what that means in a second.

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But there's two things that happen with mining and also nodes.

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They often get glummed together as two different things.

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So nodes are actually, Bitcoin nodes run all over the world.

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There's hundreds of thousands of them, probably even a million at this point.

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They're free to stand up, totally decentralized.

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And that's what guarantees like a transaction goes through or validates each block, right?

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And a block is something that happens every 10 minutes.

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You can think of it.

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I'm going to say it a little bit wrong and hardcore Bitcoiners,

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you can scream at me,

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but think of it as a package.

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And in that package are some new Bitcoin and some transactions wrapped up in a nice

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big honking algorithm that's very secure.

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So every 10 minutes, one of these things is created right now.

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Every 10 minutes, it's 6.25 Bitcoin or easy way to think of it's 900 Bitcoin a day.

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Every four years, that number goes in half.

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So here in about a month, in April 24, that'll go to 450 a day.

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And it just gets smaller and smaller because that's how the algorithm works.

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Now,

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the way miners work,

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there's,

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I think,

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almost 7 million miners that we know about on the blockchain today.

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They're literally,

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most of them are ASICs,

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which think of like a shoebox with two fans in it and computer in the middle.

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That's all it is.

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It's not like a CO2 producing machine or something big elaborate.

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It's a really simple machine.

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that it's doing math.

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Now, people will say it's solving a hard math problem.

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That's not totally accurate, but it's finding very, very, very big prime numbers where the next block is.

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it's competing to create that package that I talked about, right?

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So it's got some transactions in it and some new Bitcoin.

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And if it is successfully able to create that package and put it on the network and validate,

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it's paid by Bitcoin.

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So the miners themselves are paid by Bitcoin.

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There's millions of them competing to get at that.

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And usually I have visuals to show that because it's a lot at once,

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but there's just large compute farms all over the world that are competing to win

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that block every 10 minutes and get paid in Bitcoin for that block.

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Well, I want to kind of harp on this because you said that, you know, inflation isn't a thing, right?

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It's not a thing with Bitcoin.

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But if more can be created, then isn't that a contradictory statement?

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It's a great question.

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Yeah.

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So there's a max count of Bitcoin that can ever be created of 21 million.

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It's hard coded in everything.

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It's in all the blocks.

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It's in all the nodes.

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If you were to change that, the nodes would reject it and it wouldn't work.

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So it's really hard coded in the algorithm.

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People will go, oh, you create more, you can't.

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I mean, unless there's a massive code change and 6 million miners and all the validators agreed.

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So there's only 21 million, not all of them have been created yet though.

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And so they're 900 created a day,

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soon it'll be 450 a day and eventually becomes a really small number until it

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reaches that 21 million.

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So in circulation today, roughly 19 million.

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Another 2 million-ish will be generated over the next 100 years.

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Now, the good news about it, Bitcoin is divisible like to a million zeros out.

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We're also not used to that.

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So in time, we'll talk about Satoshis instead of Bitcoin.

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So a decimal point out there, right?

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So there's plenty of Bitcoin to go around for our 8 billion on the planet.

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But there only will ever be 21 million.

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Does that answer your question?

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I know it's a lot of info at once.

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No, for sure.

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Again, Russ knows all this stuff and I swear he's said it to me a million times.

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So you're just reaffirming it for me and making it make more sense because I love

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my husband,

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but goodness gracious.

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My wife's the same way.

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She don't want to listen to me.

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No, I understand.

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Well, in that 21 million, you also have to factor in lost Bitcoin as well, which I think

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the creator Satoshi did say that you can think of lost Bitcoin as a donation to the,

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to the entire network because it makes ours,

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you know,

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if you own Bitcoin,

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it makes it worth more because now there's less than 21 million.

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But I did, I did want to kind of,

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name what that method is though it's mining but it's also called proof of work it

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is yes so so most of these alt coins they do proof of stake which means you have

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more that means you have more control over the rules that are created and things of

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that nature proof of work is in my opinion well yes it's far more secure it's far

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more secure and it's way more decentralized absolutely

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I need Chris to repeat that whole statement you just said because I didn't hear you.

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No, I'm kidding.

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No, I'm so glad you brought it up.

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So there's a difference between what's called proof of work and proof of stake.

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And you said it great.

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The other thing that I would add to proof of work is you can think of the value of

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Bitcoin as the energy it takes to create it.

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There's literally some electricity and some math that was solved and that gives it

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intrinsic value,

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right?

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You can also think of digital energy, if you were.

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Proof of stake is...

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Instead of all these miners competing and doing math and being decentralized,

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someone's holding a big bunch of it,

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and they're using that for the math.

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And that is really, from an ex-hacker perspective, really flippin' easy to hack.

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I know which point to attack.

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I know how I can fake it.

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I can do denial of service.

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I get all those nefarious things that bad actors can do.

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I was an ethical hacker, but all those bad things people can do.

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it makes it really easy to do.

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And that's where you see these attacks and exploits and stuff are stolen because

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you know where to go,

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right?

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You know that an insurance company has lots of health data, right?

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You know, a credit card company has lots of credit.

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So attackers know where to go.

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With proof of stake, it's the same thing.

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There's a dozen big holders, right?

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Ethereum or these other alts, you know exactly where to go.

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You can fake them and everything else.

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And then it's, again, we have the same problem.

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Us as humans should really not control money, right?

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It should be decentralized because every time we touch it, we kind of F it up a lot.

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Right.

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The greed gets in and all of our human stuff, we screw it up and and pretty bad.

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So, you know, that's another reason it's kind of an emotional thing and it's a human thing.

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But it's like we're not great with running financial systems as human beings.

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Right.

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It just tends to bad things happen eventually.

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And that's another reason I think proof of works way better.

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And the decentralization is better because it's it's trustless.

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We don't have to be involved in it.

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Yeah,

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and even besides the hacking point,

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if those 12 individuals that own the most of whatever altcoin,

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they can say,

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you know what,

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I want to print more.

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Right, absolutely.

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And that's,

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so everybody that bought into that system,

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now their stuff is now gonna be devalued just like our US dollar because- Right,

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the bottom of the fraction changes and yeah,

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and you're hosed.

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Yeah, and it never goes the other way.

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Isn't that funny?

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It never gets, you know.

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Yeah,

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but like,

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I like what you said where people shouldn't control money and that's the beauty of

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this Bitcoin is because it's like,

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it's everywhere.

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And I wanna kind of make the point that

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nodes are essentially the rule setters.

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Right.

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And those are super cheap to run.

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Yeah.

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You can go buy a raspberry pie on Amazon or whatever.

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They're kind of expensive now because of,

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you know,

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the supply issues with those,

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but you can get those usually for like a hundred bucks and then run a node and

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you're part of the network making sure rules are being set and followed.

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Totally.

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I would recommend running one.

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I run one.

(00:17:17):
It's cheap.

(00:17:18):
Yeah.

(00:17:18):
Get your old PC and put Linux on it and get it downloaded and away you go.

(00:17:23):
Yeah.

(00:17:24):
I mean, it takes a couple of days to get the whole network.

(00:17:27):
Yeah.

(00:17:27):
The initial blockchain.

(00:17:27):
It's kind of fun too, right?

(00:17:29):
Exactly.

(00:17:30):
I mean, for us geeks, it's fun.

(00:17:32):
It's a learning experience.

(00:17:34):
But I mean,

(00:17:35):
you're part of a decentralized currency that I do believe will change the world for

(00:17:40):
the better.

(00:17:40):
Oh, yeah.

(00:17:41):
Yeah, it already is.

(00:17:43):
For sure.

(00:17:44):
Exactly.

(00:17:44):
To kind of compound on that though,

(00:17:46):
when you say that you can get a Raspberry,

(00:17:48):
anybody can get a Raspberry Pi,

(00:17:49):
right?

(00:17:49):
And we're saying that security is so high.

(00:17:52):
Well, if anybody can get in it, get involved-

(00:17:56):
And how is it secure?

(00:17:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:17:59):
Tell her a question.

(00:18:00):
So part of the rule set is there's a large number of validation.

(00:18:04):
So if I got a Raspberry Pi and I was a bad actor and I was doing bad things,

(00:18:07):
the rest of the network would give me the middle finger,

(00:18:09):
right?

(00:18:10):
And it would shut me off.

(00:18:12):
So between both the nodes and the miners, there's a set of rules that this is how we abide by.

(00:18:19):
And what's really cool though, Bitcoin does have a blockchain.

(00:18:23):
Blockchain has a bad name in Bitcoin world, but it is based on blockchain check.

(00:18:27):
There's an order to it, right?

(00:18:28):
So one, two, three, four, five.

(00:18:30):
If four like doesn't exist in your blockchain and try to hose it, you're also hosed.

(00:18:35):
So there's like this nice length of, um,

(00:18:39):
I'm not a mathematician,

(00:18:40):
so I won't say it well,

(00:18:41):
but there's a strand there that has to be there for this to work.

(00:18:44):
So if you introduce a Raspberry Pi in your own code and you try to hose it and you

(00:18:48):
change your number four,

(00:18:49):
the network's gonna reject it.

(00:18:52):
So yeah,

(00:18:53):
that's what's really cool is there's this decentralized network that validates

(00:18:57):
every single transaction.

(00:18:58):
So if I buy and send you money, I don't need a third party or a title company for anything.

(00:19:05):
I just send it to you and the nodes in the network guarantee that it's a legitimate

(00:19:09):
transaction or it's not.

(00:19:11):
But you're downloading the core source code.

(00:19:15):
The other part is the source code's all visible.

(00:19:17):
So you can see if you're a coder or know a coder, you can see exactly what's in it.

(00:19:21):
I mean, there's no, it's totally transparent.

(00:19:24):
Unlike a bank, like show me your ledger, they're not going to.

(00:19:26):
They can.

(00:19:28):
Right, or politician, show me your bank account.

(00:19:29):
Exactly.

(00:19:30):
You're never gonna see that.

(00:19:31):
It's all there to see, which is, it's a little overwhelming, right?

(00:19:36):
Yeah, for sure.

(00:19:37):
Now, you don't know who the people are on the other side.

(00:19:39):
There's some anonymity there.

(00:19:41):
Like, I don't know Bitcoin address this and Bitcoin address that is, you know, Russ and Chris.

(00:19:46):
But I do see that ledger and that this transaction happened.

(00:19:50):
So it's this nice combination of anonymity and like full transparency.

(00:19:55):
Yep.

(00:19:55):
Well,

(00:19:55):
I think that's probably another barrier to entry for a lot of people is the bad

(00:20:00):
press that Bitcoin can receive because of those bad actors who are anonymous and

(00:20:04):
they're really just taking everything from people.

(00:20:07):
Sure.

(00:20:08):
I mean, how do you feel that people could guard themselves if they were involved in Bitcoin?

(00:20:15):
So it's really interesting.

(00:20:16):
It gets brought up a lot.

(00:20:19):
Elizabeth Warren and others talk about child abduction and all the bad, scary things get put in.

(00:20:26):
The reality is Bitcoin and even the altcoins are an awfully bad way to do crime

(00:20:32):
because there's a full blockchain to find you.

(00:20:33):
So there's lots of examples of the US government finding people really quickly that

(00:20:38):
were dumb enough to use Bitcoin to do bad things.

(00:20:41):
Because there's a whole thing versus, you know, a stack of cash.

(00:20:43):
That's a lot better, right?

(00:20:44):
Here's the cash and...

(00:20:45):
Yeah.

(00:20:46):
That's what cracks me up about politicians dogging Bitcoin for being used for crime.

(00:20:51):
It's like, how much US dollar is every day being used for drug deals?

(00:20:55):
Printed.

(00:20:56):
Printed.

(00:20:57):
Yeah.

(00:20:57):
That's a crime in itself.

(00:20:58):
You're stealing from me.

(00:21:00):
No, no.

(00:21:01):
100%.

(00:21:01):
Yeah.

(00:21:02):
But I mean, those news stories are there.

(00:21:05):
It's important to just, I think, hear the person out and hear their fear out.

(00:21:08):
Because if I go right back at them, hey, you're wrong.

(00:21:10):
That's not good.

(00:21:11):
So

(00:21:11):
okay, I understand you're nervous.

(00:21:12):
I understand you're afraid.

(00:21:13):
That makes sense.

(00:21:14):
Let me explain to you how this works.

(00:21:15):
It's so much more secure

(00:21:22):
and safer than cash for sure.

(00:21:26):
But also if you think about like a Venmo or a PayPal or all those things,

(00:21:30):
or if you've ever had a bank like hold your funds for three days,

(00:21:33):
just because,

(00:21:34):
you know,

(00:21:34):
it takes that long to clear.

(00:21:36):
I'm like, it clears in 20 minutes, right?

(00:21:38):
The money moves in the backend network swift between banks in 20 minutes.

(00:21:42):
It doesn't take three days.

(00:21:44):
You know,

(00:21:44):
so I think that's just a time thing,

(00:21:46):
people getting comfortable with it and understanding,

(00:21:49):
I think,

(00:21:50):
going to Bitcoin events and seeing like, that's what really changed me.

(00:21:53):
I was an alt corner and Bitcoining until I started going to events.

(00:21:57):
And I saw the caliber of people that like really cared.

(00:22:00):
It's not about money for most Bitcoiners.

(00:22:02):
They actually want to change the world and,

(00:22:05):
and we're altruistic and maybe stupid enough to think we can do it.

(00:22:08):
But there's hardcore, you know, economists and others that are, that are in the Bitcoin space.

(00:22:14):
If you go to the alt coin ones or even like a,

(00:22:17):
you know, a company annual event, it's all hype and money and let's get rich quick.

(00:22:24):
And it's like that kind of noise.

(00:22:26):
And, you know, after a while you get tired of that.

(00:22:28):
So yeah, Bitcoin's different that way.

(00:22:31):
I think there are going to be some people that will just, you know, it's early.

(00:22:37):
It's like the internet when it first came out, folks like, what is that?

(00:22:40):
It's crap or, you know, and

(00:22:42):
When texting came out, it was big in Japan and not here.

(00:22:44):
I'm like, why are people like typing on their phones?

(00:22:46):
That makes no sense, right?

(00:22:47):
It's all catches on in time.

(00:22:50):
And there'll be early adapters, which we're still in that spot.

(00:22:54):
See?

(00:22:55):
Yeah.

(00:22:55):
You said we're still early.

(00:22:57):
Yeah.

(00:22:58):
Oh, yeah.

(00:22:58):
This is the problem that I have with trying to...

(00:23:02):
I'm not going to say convert,

(00:23:04):
but push people towards investing into Bitcoin.

(00:23:07):
Oh, it's too expensive.

(00:23:09):
It's $60,000 per coin.

(00:23:11):
And I'm like, but that's not...

(00:23:13):
You're, you're looking at it as a U S dollar thing.

(00:23:16):
Right.

(00:23:16):
That's not the, that don't do that.

(00:23:18):
And it's so hard to break people of that.

(00:23:21):
And I mean, I get it.

(00:23:22):
We've been on that U S dollar forever now.

(00:23:25):
Right.

(00:23:26):
But I'm, I'm trying so hard.

(00:23:28):
And how do you kind of deal with telling people like, look, it's early.

(00:23:33):
Yeah.

(00:23:34):
It looks like a lot.

(00:23:36):
And it,

(00:23:36):
and it is,

(00:23:37):
I mean,

(00:23:37):
if you want to get your,

(00:23:38):
you want to be a whole coiner or whatever,

(00:23:40):
it's a lot for sure.

(00:23:41):
Right.

(00:23:42):
But,

(00:23:43):
how do you kind of bring people back and kind of like explain,

(00:23:47):
yeah,

(00:23:48):
look,

(00:23:48):
it's not about that us dollar number right now.

(00:23:51):
And the upside of this is going to be massive.

(00:23:55):
I wish I was more successful.

(00:23:57):
Cause it seemed to be only a certain percentage, like want to get it right.

(00:24:00):
Um, I've used Legos.

(00:24:02):
I've literally put 21 Legos out there and like,

(00:24:05):
let me explain,

(00:24:06):
you know,

(00:24:06):
and I've done like the really simple supply and demand drawing,

(00:24:09):
like there's only ever 21 million.

(00:24:12):
Now we've got BlackRock and Fidelity buying a billion dollars of Bitcoin a day.

(00:24:18):
We're only making 900 and they're buying, which I don't know what 900 times 70 is.

(00:24:22):
What's that?

(00:24:25):
63 million, something like that a day.

(00:24:27):
And they're buying a billion a day, right?

(00:24:30):
So it's just supply and demand.

(00:24:32):
Right.

(00:24:32):
It's going to go up.

(00:24:34):
So folks get that.

(00:24:35):
I think also if I talk about generational wealth and the nice part about Bitcoin in

(00:24:41):
some ways is it's not a method of exchange yet.

(00:24:45):
We're not using it for everyday products.

(00:24:47):
If we're just being honest about you could, but it's not there.

(00:24:50):
It's a lot easier like a 401k.

(00:24:51):
It's a lot easier to park it and like not look at it and not try to spend it.

(00:24:56):
And that sounds weird, but the fact that you buy it and hold it is a really good thing.

(00:25:00):
And a lot of people resonate with that.

(00:25:03):
But honestly,

(00:25:04):
I would say 5% to 10% of all my normie friends take action and the others that

(00:25:10):
might roll their eyes at me or might get it later.

(00:25:13):
Maybe I planted a seed and it's going to come later.

(00:25:15):
Yeah.

(00:25:16):
And just keep going.

(00:25:16):
Cause I'm not going to convert everyone.

(00:25:18):
Right.

(00:25:20):
But it's, I can't just stand by at the same time with my friends and like, not say it.

(00:25:24):
Like I would feel awful for not like telling them,

(00:25:27):
you know,

(00:25:28):
there's posts on my Facebook of stuff almost every week of,

(00:25:33):
and not investment advice,

(00:25:34):
but just,

(00:25:36):
you know,

(00:25:36):
do you want,

(00:25:37):
do you want healthcare to change?

(00:25:39):
Do you want the things that aren't money?

(00:25:41):
I think if we talk about those, that's what resonates with people more, right?

(00:25:46):
Do you want us not to be at war all the time?

(00:25:48):
Do you want these things in your life?

(00:25:49):
Which everyone's like, yes.

(00:25:50):
I'm like, okay, the money system's a little broken.

(00:25:53):
Go look at that.

(00:25:54):
And then here's an option to tweak that.

(00:25:57):
Right.

(00:25:57):
So I like, this is kind of a cool little segue.

(00:26:02):
Why do you think Bitcoin would help with war?

(00:26:06):
Yeah.

(00:26:06):
Yeah.

(00:26:08):
I am not a defense expert and I have a huge love and respect for our veterans and all of our country.

(00:26:14):
Right.

(00:26:14):
But I wish we never had to put them in fricking harm's way in the first place.

(00:26:17):
Right.

(00:26:18):
In this day and age, it's not world war II.

(00:26:19):
We're not being invaded.

(00:26:21):
So in my opinion, um, the value of the U S dollar comes from our ability to defend ourselves.

(00:26:27):
Right.

(00:26:27):
In our military budget.

(00:26:29):
Right.

(00:26:29):
The other part,

(00:26:30):
that's kind of the villain that we're not talking about is when we devalue the U S dollar.

(00:26:35):
We made agreements with Saudi Arabia and others that all oil exchanges on the

(00:26:40):
planet have to be done in U.S.

(00:26:42):
dollar, which makes everyone have to hold the U.S.

(00:26:44):
dollar, which in a weird, bizarre way.

(00:26:47):
I mean, one, it makes every country angry with you because we keep evaluating like you talked about.

(00:26:53):
Right.

(00:26:53):
You've just devalued their debt with you.

(00:26:56):
and their method of exchange,

(00:26:57):
but it's also,

(00:26:58):
we've got this constant,

(00:26:59):
since it's not based on a hard asset like gold or Bitcoin,

(00:27:04):
not that gold's totally hard,

(00:27:05):
but it's harder than fiat,

(00:27:07):
we gotta constantly defend it and be the strongest country.

(00:27:10):
That's the only really value behind the US dollars, our ability to stay strong as a country.

(00:27:15):
That's where it comes from, right?

(00:27:17):
Next it would go to China or Russia after that.

(00:27:21):
So yeah, in my opinion, that's, you know, if you had Bitcoin,

(00:27:26):
And it's not controlled by a government,

(00:27:28):
which would be really bizarre for us because we're used to like dollar and Euro and that.

(00:27:31):
But if you had a currency, it didn't matter what country you're in.

(00:27:35):
It flips the power structure.

(00:27:36):
Like,

(00:27:38):
you know,

(00:27:38):
you don't need to have a massive military necessarily because we're all spending

(00:27:42):
the same money,

(00:27:43):
you know,

(00:27:43):
one way or the other.

(00:27:44):
And it changes the priorities.

(00:27:46):
Like, okay, proof of work.

(00:27:48):
Like we do a lot of proof of stake things in our, our, our normie life.

(00:27:52):
Right.

(00:27:53):
We hope that home prices just keep going up and we make money off that.

(00:27:57):
We're not doing work for that.

(00:27:59):
There's no work or effort, but we're valuing this increase.

(00:28:03):
And folks that can flip lots of houses and do lots of Airbnbs, they make lots of money.

(00:28:07):
I'm not trying to villainize them, but that's not really proof of work.

(00:28:10):
That's more of a proof of stake thing.

(00:28:13):
What if we valued the farmers and the producers and people that create things of value?

(00:28:20):
it would flip like our value system, right?

(00:28:23):
And how we treat people and everything else.

(00:28:25):
So I think that's a long answer to your question.

(00:28:27):
I don't have like a super succinct one.

(00:28:28):
I'm not like a Jeff Booth or those guys,

(00:28:31):
but I think once you take the money out of it,

(00:28:34):
I mean,

(00:28:35):
I joke about this in the Middle East.

(00:28:37):
We spent all this money on oil.

(00:28:39):
If you took all that money out of the Middle East, I think we'd see something different, right?

(00:28:43):
I mean, right?

(00:28:46):
It changes the problem.

(00:28:47):
So

(00:28:48):
And again, I am not against anyone that serves.

(00:28:52):
I have huge respect for those people.

(00:28:54):
But I just wish we didn't have to put them in harm's way so much.

(00:28:57):
Absolutely.

(00:28:57):
It's just a waste of talent.

(00:29:00):
For sure.

(00:29:01):
That's nuts.

(00:29:02):
I'm sorry.

(00:29:03):
What you just said really hit me.

(00:29:05):
Like the idea of the way of old, right?

(00:29:08):
The old way to invest is real estate.

(00:29:11):
Like try and screw, right?

(00:29:13):
People make money off of real estate.

(00:29:14):
And that is something that people talk about all the time.

(00:29:17):
But if you flip it on its head and put in Bitcoin, the idea of utilizing that in agriculture?

(00:29:24):
Right.

(00:29:26):
Wow.

(00:29:28):
Yeah, it creates abundance, right?

(00:29:29):
So the price is actually,

(00:29:31):
what's really weird is we have all of this and other smart people have said this to

(00:29:34):
me and I've just taken it in.

(00:29:35):
So we have all this incredible technology to mass produce things.

(00:29:40):
Why aren't prices going down?

(00:29:42):
Like, why aren't we paying less for lettuce or less for consumables and oil?

(00:29:46):
We're paying more.

(00:29:47):
It makes zero sense.

(00:29:48):
And it's because we're devaluing that dollar.

(00:29:51):
We're devaluing the currency.

(00:29:52):
Right, right.

(00:29:53):
And if the currency is increasing in value or it's scarce where there's less of it,

(00:29:59):
then it creates abundance because things are actually priced less,

(00:30:03):
which it takes a while.

(00:30:05):
My brain still goes, what?

(00:30:07):
It breaks my brain.

(00:30:10):
If you know, let's pretend that we could all have good lives and be healthy.

(00:30:13):
It's not that we're going to be poor.

(00:30:15):
That's not what it means.

(00:30:17):
But if things were abundant, I'm like,

(00:30:19):
Well, that would solve a lot of problems.

(00:30:21):
Exactly.

(00:30:22):
Exactly.

(00:30:23):
Yeah.

(00:30:24):
And we valued effort and work that people put towards something,

(00:30:27):
regardless of who they are or where they are or what country they're in.

(00:30:30):
Um, that flips a lot of things on its head.

(00:30:33):
So yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm behind Bitcoin.

(00:30:34):
It's not just like a geeky fun thing,

(00:30:36):
but as I get deeper into it and learn more,

(00:30:38):
I'm like,

(00:30:38):
this really has capacity to change a lot of things.

(00:30:41):
Yeah.

(00:30:42):
I mean, making people mad at you because you are printing

(00:30:46):
us dollars out of thin air when the it's essentially the world's reserve currency.

(00:30:51):
Right.

(00:30:51):
Right.

(00:30:52):
For now.

(00:30:53):
Right.

(00:30:54):
Yeah.

(00:30:54):
Of course they're going to get mad at you.

(00:30:56):
They're holding billions.

(00:30:57):
Who knows how much and holding our debt in 34 trillion.

(00:31:02):
Right.

(00:31:03):
Exactly.

(00:31:03):
And it's being, it's less and less.

(00:31:05):
And I did read somewhere that we are purposefully devaluing it.

(00:31:09):
So our debt number is technically a lot less.

(00:31:14):
Yeah.

(00:31:14):
Yeah.

(00:31:16):
I'll get the numbers wrong, but it's roughly like this.

(00:31:18):
Our federal budget, let's call it $2 trillion a year.

(00:31:21):
The number's wrong.

(00:31:22):
But we only have like $1 trillion to pay it.

(00:31:25):
So we print another trillion so that we can run our...

(00:31:29):
We're in a government, right?

(00:31:31):
It's just like, what?

(00:31:33):
It's funny money.

(00:31:34):
Make it up.

(00:31:35):
Right.

(00:31:36):
Yeah.

(00:31:38):
Right.

(00:31:38):
Exactly.

(00:31:39):
Exactly.

(00:31:40):
So deep and more than most people go into.

(00:31:42):
And we're not talking, taught about money in elementary school in any way, shape or form.

(00:31:46):
Right.

(00:31:49):
Right.

(00:31:49):
Right.

(00:31:49):
Yeah.

(00:31:50):
Right.

(00:31:50):
Give the credit card.

(00:31:51):
We give credit cards out, but that's about it.

(00:31:54):
Yeah.

(00:31:54):
And, and just bury yourself in debt.

(00:31:56):
Yeah.

(00:31:57):
Right.

(00:31:58):
Because that's how the banks make money and they run the country.

(00:32:00):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:32:01):
Exactly.

(00:32:03):
So you did say a couple of things about digital energy.

(00:32:08):
Yeah.

(00:32:09):
What do you have to say to the naysayers that about that the Bitcoin and its energy?

(00:32:17):
I think that's a bunch of crap because if you pull in the data and you look and see

(00:32:25):
how much energy Visa,

(00:32:27):
Capital One,

(00:32:29):
American Express,

(00:32:30):
these huge high rise buildings that have thousands of employees that are sitting in

(00:32:35):
there day in and day out.

(00:32:38):
I bet you their energy footprint's way up there versus Bitcoin.

(00:32:42):
Yeah.

(00:32:42):
No, you hit the nail on the head.

(00:32:43):
The site I love to use, there's a study done by Cambridge.

(00:32:48):
So Cambridge University of England,

(00:32:49):
super renowned,

(00:32:50):
legit university,

(00:32:51):
has done a study that I think is the most non-biased one.

(00:32:54):
It's always updated.

(00:32:55):
It shows all the energy in the world.

(00:32:57):
And it's pretty close, I'd say within 5% of the Bitcoin energy usage.

(00:33:01):
It's at, right now, globally, 0.6% of the total energy usage.

(00:33:06):
So

(00:33:07):
You know,

(00:33:07):
I would argue ninety nine point four percent might be the problem we want to go

(00:33:10):
after and not the point six.

(00:33:11):
But that aside, you know, anecdotally, we don't get concerned about I have an electric car.

(00:33:19):
We don't get concerned about plugging in electric cars and that hit on the grid.

(00:33:22):
Right.

(00:33:22):
That's a popular thing because it reduces CO2 and it's culturally popular right now.

(00:33:26):
Right.

(00:33:27):
And Bitcoin's a little unknown.

(00:33:29):
It probably uses a little more energy.

(00:33:30):
It's around 20.

(00:33:32):
trillion watts per hour a year for all the Teslas plugged in in the US.

(00:33:38):
And we're probably at about 25 for Bitcoin.

(00:33:42):
It's a very, very small percentage.

(00:33:44):
It's creating value.

(00:33:45):
The other thing is I'm pretty deeply geekily involved in Bitcoin mining.

(00:33:50):
All of my miners are using renewables and there's more renewables that can be used.

(00:33:55):
I'll explain why in a moment because of Bitcoin.

(00:34:00):
Take wind turbines, for example, right?

(00:34:01):
When the wind's blowing, they're going, they can produce energy.

(00:34:04):
When the wind's not blowing, they can't.

(00:34:06):
The grid wants a stable energy, right?

(00:34:08):
When you flip the switch on, you just want electricity to flow.

(00:34:10):
It can't have that variability.

(00:34:14):
The cool thing about Bitcoin is that additional energy use, it can use right away.

(00:34:19):
So you can actually build a larger wind farm because you can sell that wind.

(00:34:23):
You can build a larger grid.

(00:34:25):
because the energy is there to use it.

(00:34:27):
So it's actually better.

(00:34:28):
It's a weird sort of subtle thing, but it's better.

(00:34:31):
The last thing I'd say on energy, I have a buddy in Texas that just started doing this.

(00:34:36):
So flared gas,

(00:34:38):
when you take natural gas up and you see like these burning things you drive by in

(00:34:42):
the sky,

(00:34:44):
that's putting flat out methane,

(00:34:46):
right,

(00:34:46):
in the atmosphere.

(00:34:47):
It's probably the worst gas to put out in large volumes.

(00:34:51):
And they're burning that off as part of the natural gas mining process.

(00:34:56):
He has a Bitcoin mine he just started,

(00:34:58):
and there's lots of these,

(00:34:59):
where instead of that flaring up into the air,

(00:35:02):
that's going to a generator and it's powering his Bitcoin farm.

(00:35:05):
So total waste methane is being taken out of the air by Bitcoin miners.

(00:35:10):
So, I mean, it's a small percentage.

(00:35:13):
There is energy usage.

(00:35:15):
I would not want to live within a Bitcoin farm.

(00:35:18):
I wouldn't want to live within a manufacturing car production place.

(00:35:23):
You don't want to live right in it.

(00:35:25):
But it's clean.

(00:35:27):
It's literally a fan going through a shoebox.

(00:35:29):
It doesn't produce CO2 any more than plugging in your electric car produces CO2.

(00:35:34):
And yeah, there's a lot of naysayers.

(00:35:35):
There's a lot of noise.

(00:35:37):
Some of the altcoin CEOs are funding things to get more noise out there.

(00:35:42):
But

(00:35:42):
It's not bad.

(00:35:43):
I'm kind of an environmentalist too.

(00:35:45):
And I have like zero qualms about Bitcoin mining from an environmental standpoint.

(00:35:50):
I mean, none.

(00:35:51):
Right, right.

(00:35:53):
And yeah, I think Bitcoin mining does incentivize more investment in the energy grid.

(00:36:01):
Oh, big time.

(00:36:02):
I mean, I know Texas has a lot of issues with energy grids.

(00:36:06):
They totally do.

(00:36:07):
And-

(00:36:08):
I can't remember.

(00:36:09):
I think it might've been last year.

(00:36:10):
They had all those winter storms.

(00:36:12):
Right.

(00:36:13):
They needed all that power.

(00:36:14):
So all the Bitcoin miners said, all right, we'll shut it off.

(00:36:16):
Yeah.

(00:36:17):
They shut it off.

(00:36:17):
Boom.

(00:36:18):
That grid stabilized and all that extra energy that Bitcoin was using.

(00:36:22):
That would have been, you know.

(00:36:24):
Oh, it's a hundred percent right.

(00:36:25):
And the grid wouldn't be that big if they weren't Bitcoin demand.

(00:36:28):
And yeah, you're right.

(00:36:28):
Texas has a ton of, actually it's the largest producer of wind energy in the country.

(00:36:33):
It's kind of amazing.

(00:36:34):
They built lots and lots of wind farms along the coast coastline there.

(00:36:37):
So it's one of the better places for wind and they have more capacity than they know what to do with.

(00:36:41):
So those turbines are just sometimes sitting there freewheeling.

(00:36:45):
Right.

(00:36:46):
It's kind of sad.

(00:36:46):
If you're going to go to the effort to put that up.

(00:36:48):
I mean, let's use the energy.

(00:36:50):
Just like if you're going to put a dam in the river, let's use the hydro.

(00:36:52):
You've already screwed up the river.

(00:36:53):
So let's use the hydro.

(00:36:54):
Exactly.

(00:36:55):
Right.

(00:36:57):
Um, this is just, this is a question that just popped into my head.

(00:37:00):
What happens to, okay.

(00:37:02):
So that grid is increased because of Bitcoin.

(00:37:04):
What happens when the miners do shut off?

(00:37:07):
What does that extra excess energy?

(00:37:10):
What does that do?

(00:37:11):
Yeah.

(00:37:11):
It's there's only enough energy on the grid for the needs of the grid at the time.

(00:37:16):
It's there's tons of, so, um,

(00:37:18):
The West Coast, the East Coast, and Texas have their own grids.

(00:37:22):
And there's literally only enough energy for it.

(00:37:25):
So if you don't have enough, you have experienced brownouts.

(00:37:27):
If you have too much, it pops breakers.

(00:37:30):
So when the Bitcoin miners turn off,

(00:37:33):
the grid operators,

(00:37:35):
you know,

(00:37:36):
if a large farm,

(00:37:37):
I mean,

(00:37:37):
this would take a really big farm for it.

(00:37:39):
They deal with fluctuations all day long.

(00:37:41):
But if a really large farm were to go down, they would actually curtail energy production by other sites.

(00:37:47):
whether it's gas or coal or solar,

(00:37:49):
whatever,

(00:37:50):
and say,

(00:37:50):
Hey,

(00:37:50):
instead of operating 150 gigawatts,

(00:37:52):
I need you at one 48.

(00:37:53):
Uh, yeah.

(00:37:55):
Electrons.

(00:37:56):
Like there's a really funny animation.

(00:37:58):
You define it, but electron all energy is an electron.

(00:38:00):
So they come from the source of generation to your light switch, your computer, whatever else.

(00:38:05):
And then they actually go back home.

(00:38:06):
There's a little circle.

(00:38:07):
Um, so when you mess up that circle, those electrons are going to go somewhere else, right?

(00:38:11):
So you want to make sure that circle's really healthy.

(00:38:14):
You don't want that circle going through your house or if there's a downed power line,

(00:38:18):
please don't get near it because the electricity will go right through the ground

(00:38:20):
and hurt you.

(00:38:22):
But yeah,

(00:38:23):
that's what happens is if any large industrial thing dropped off the grid and

(00:38:28):
dropped demand,

(00:38:28):
the grid would have to adjust down.

(00:38:31):
But adjusting down is okay.

(00:38:33):
Absolutely.

(00:38:34):
Right, right.

(00:38:35):
Brownouts, that's what you don't want.

(00:38:38):
Right.

(00:38:39):
You don't want enough power and Bitcoin creates that.

(00:38:43):
Yeah.

(00:38:44):
And it's probably the easiest.

(00:38:45):
You hit it so well.

(00:38:46):
It's the easiest industrial thing.

(00:38:47):
Like you can turn it right off and it won't hurt anything.

(00:38:49):
You can't do that with a chemical plant or a car production plant.

(00:38:54):
It's going to be at least an hour for them to ramp down all their stuff safely.

(00:38:58):
Whereas Bitcoin, you can literally pull the plug or flip the breaker and you're done.

(00:39:02):
Yeah.

(00:39:03):
And in regards to that flared gas, I read about why they do it.

(00:39:07):
They flare gas because it would cost more to take that gas and then go sell it.

(00:39:13):
You know, get a truck all the way out to these mining sites.

(00:39:17):
Nowhere to store it.

(00:39:18):
Yeah.

(00:39:18):
Nowhere to store it.

(00:39:19):
So they're like, all right, it's either I pay this guy that drives this truck.

(00:39:23):
Right.

(00:39:23):
You know, 100 bucks an hour to drive out here 10 hours to this remote site.

(00:39:28):
Right.

(00:39:28):
Fill their tank up.

(00:39:30):
Right.

(00:39:30):
And drive all the way back.

(00:39:31):
It's going to cost me $10,000, but all I got to do is just burn it.

(00:39:35):
Right.

(00:39:35):
Well, of course they're going to burn it.

(00:39:37):
But now you're incentivizing actually utilizing that gas in a cleaner manner by

(00:39:43):
running it through a clean generator.

(00:39:46):
Yep.

(00:39:46):
That can then power a little mini Bitcoin farm.

(00:39:49):
Yeah.

(00:39:50):
That is awesome.

(00:39:51):
It's pretty cool.

(00:39:52):
Yeah.

(00:39:53):
It's nuts.

(00:39:55):
But see, how do you...

(00:39:58):
how can you dog Bitcoin when there's all this like insane innovation coming out of it?

(00:40:05):
Yeah.

(00:40:05):
Like they were never doing things with that gas before.

(00:40:09):
No.

(00:40:09):
Now all of a sudden you're incentivizing.

(00:40:11):
All right.

(00:40:13):
Instead of burning that in a dirty way, which is a fire, you know, right.

(00:40:18):
And probably dangerous.

(00:40:19):
Yeah.

(00:40:20):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:40:21):
You're going to sit there.

(00:40:21):
You're going to put a nice high end clean generator there that will power these

(00:40:26):
miners and you're going to make money off of

(00:40:28):
Absolutely.

(00:40:29):
And, and secure the network and secure the network.

(00:40:32):
It's, it's, it's kind of a win all the way around.

(00:40:34):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:40:35):
Exactly.

(00:40:36):
Well, I, I've learned a lot.

(00:40:38):
Certainly.

(00:40:43):
But I mean,

(00:40:44):
based on what we know of you,

(00:40:45):
you have helped 60 everyday investors participate in the complex world of Bitcoin

(00:40:49):
mining and helped other Bitcoin investors create 352 million in generation wealth

(00:40:54):
for their families.

(00:40:55):
I mean,

(00:40:56):
to kind of close out this segment here,

(00:40:58):
what advice would you give someone just starting out on their crypto journey?

(00:41:01):
Bitcoin journey.

(00:41:03):
Yeah, well, you said it all.

(00:41:05):
I mean, you know, the nice part is you can start small.

(00:41:10):
It's normal to be afraid.

(00:41:11):
There's a lot of info.

(00:41:13):
There are a couple places that I, there's a lot of good on ramps, right?

(00:41:17):
So I'll name one and someone will name three others.

(00:41:21):
I would say Swan Bitcoin, River, and Unchained are places I would trust.

(00:41:26):
They have free information.

(00:41:28):
They're well done.

(00:41:30):
They only do Bitcoin.

(00:41:31):
They're not doing altcoins.

(00:41:32):
The gotcha with the Coinbases and the Geminis and all that is you're walking into a casino, right?

(00:41:38):
You're going to get sidetracked by the video game machine and go play that and be

(00:41:41):
sad that you lost money.

(00:41:43):
So, I mean, that's where I would start.

(00:41:45):
There's a lot of great books.

(00:41:47):
There's local meetups everywhere in the country and in the world.

(00:41:50):
And just think about something simple.

(00:41:53):
One simple exercise I do is like if you were not to go to Starbucks one day a week

(00:41:56):
and that five or eight dollar latte you just put into Bitcoin,

(00:42:00):
if you just did that for five years,

(00:42:02):
which sounds like a lot,

(00:42:03):
but if you did that for five years,

(00:42:05):
you'd probably be a millionaire year 10 or 12.

(00:42:07):
That's the power of Bitcoin and long term holding your money.

(00:42:10):
It doesn't take a lot.

(00:42:12):
People that don't have much can really do well.

(00:42:14):
So that's where I would start.

(00:42:15):
And Swan Bitcoin is one of my favorite only because I know those people well,

(00:42:20):
but I know River and Unchained are great entry points as well.

(00:42:24):
So let me ask you a question.

(00:42:26):
Yeah.

(00:42:27):
What is your price prediction within the next five to ten?

(00:42:31):
We just argued about this yesterday.

(00:42:35):
Yeah.

(00:42:36):
So folks listening, every four years, there's a bull market.

(00:42:40):
Every other two years, there's a bear market.

(00:42:41):
It's a cycle.

(00:42:42):
And people freak out.

(00:42:43):
Oh, Bitcoin's going to nothing.

(00:42:44):
I'm like, no, it's the bear market.

(00:42:45):
And two more years, it'll be the bull market.

(00:42:47):
It's like a wave of swell coming in.

(00:42:49):
Did you listen in to our argument yesterday?

(00:42:52):
No, I wasn't.

(00:42:53):
No, but I would say, I mean, we're going to hit six digit.

(00:42:56):
How big we go is really hard to predict.

(00:42:59):
I mean, I think it'll go at least 150.

(00:43:01):
I have friends that say that it'll go 250.

(00:43:03):
I'm like, really?

(00:43:04):
Yeah.

(00:43:06):
My time horizon is 2030 plus, you know, so I'm looking at when Bitcoin is six and seven figures.

(00:43:12):
I'm holding until then.

(00:43:14):
But I think in this cycle, I would not be surprised if it goes 150.

(00:43:20):
A couple of good people I trust think it's going to go to 250.

(00:43:24):
It's fun to watch, but I'm also like watching my own like human instinct behavior.

(00:43:28):
I'm like, Chris, you're holding for one million plus.

(00:43:30):
Yeah.

(00:43:32):
So you do you actually do believe that in the longer term that it'll be one million plus?

(00:43:38):
Oh, yeah.

(00:43:38):
Yeah.

(00:43:39):
I don't have any doubts.

(00:43:40):
I used to have some doubts and I just I've studied more and thought more and seeing what's happening.

(00:43:45):
Sorry, I'm staring at her.

(00:43:47):
Yeah.

(00:43:47):
No, you know, I'm cautious.

(00:43:49):
I wouldn't put everything I have into it at all.

(00:43:52):
But it's how I'm going to leave.

(00:43:53):
It's how I am leaving generational wealth for my kids and when I have grandkids as well.

(00:43:57):
I mean, that's, you know, I hope it changes the world for them.

(00:44:01):
Right.

(00:44:02):
And I don't know that my U.S.

(00:44:03):
dollar stuff will.

(00:44:04):
Right.

(00:44:04):
In the same way.

(00:44:05):
Yeah.

(00:44:06):
And you know what?

(00:44:06):
You know what else that we didn't really touch on was holding your own keys.

(00:44:11):
Yeah.

(00:44:12):
To that wealth.

(00:44:13):
That is an insanely.

(00:44:15):
So powerful.

(00:44:16):
Awesome, powerful concept that a lot of people aren't.

(00:44:20):
No more.

(00:44:21):
You know.

(00:44:22):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:44:24):
When you log into your bank online, all you're seeing is a balance, and it's an Excel spreadsheet.

(00:44:29):
You don't know if that money's actually there.

(00:44:31):
It's not.

(00:44:33):
Right, exactly.

(00:44:34):
It's being lent out.

(00:44:36):
They're making money off your money, and you get a little teeny bit of interest.

(00:44:40):
Right.

(00:44:41):
But Bitcoin, you can literally hold your own keys.

(00:44:43):
Oh, this is a totally different topic.

(00:44:45):
No, no, you're right though.

(00:44:46):
And it's for most folks when they're new, I just get them on.

(00:44:49):
And then after that, yeah, here's how you take self-custody.

(00:44:52):
Yeah.

(00:44:53):
And people get a little scared of that.

(00:44:54):
We're used to like banks feeling like they're safe and we're brought up to think

(00:44:57):
that banks are safe and they're really not.

(00:44:59):
But the power of being able to transact anywhere, anytime for anything, it's incredibly powerful.

(00:45:08):
And to hand it over to your kids,

(00:45:10):
and I'm not advocating doing anything illegal,

(00:45:12):
you can have a trust and a will and all that structure.

(00:45:14):
But it's very easy to do that versus I've dealt with,

(00:45:19):
you know,

(00:45:19):
family dying and passing away and dealing with lawyers and banks as a nightmare,

(00:45:23):
even if you have stuff in order.

(00:45:25):
Absolutely.

(00:45:26):
Right.

(00:45:26):
Here's the transaction.

(00:45:27):
Go and put it in the wallet.

(00:45:29):
Yeah.

(00:45:30):
Yeah.

(00:45:30):
Other than that, I'm just a little bit of a Bitcoin maxi.

(00:45:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:45:36):
Well, you have been a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate it.

(00:45:39):
I know Russ is having the time of his life right now.

(00:45:41):
Absolutely.

(00:45:42):
Appreciate everything that you've given us.

(00:45:44):
And we also know that you have a new book out.

(00:45:48):
I do.

(00:45:48):
Your bullshit resilience at work.

(00:45:51):
I like it.

(00:45:52):
Yeah.

(00:45:52):
Tell us about it.

(00:45:55):
I'm excited.

(00:45:56):
It comes out here.

(00:45:57):
It should be out in May.

(00:45:58):
So it's with the editors right now.

(00:46:01):
I wrote two other books because I wanted to serve people.

(00:46:04):
So one is about my journey with autism and my sons.

(00:46:07):
One's about Bitcoin mining.

(00:46:09):
And this one's about dealing with bullshit at work.

(00:46:11):
And if we're being honest,

(00:46:13):
I think we all complain about,

(00:46:14):
we spend so much of our life talking about,

(00:46:16):
I'm boss.

(00:46:17):
I mean, I do that, right?

(00:46:19):
And we come home and it's, I think a lot of times,

(00:46:22):
a stressor hits us.

(00:46:23):
We don't have the skill to handle it.

(00:46:24):
And so we just kind of bitch and moan about it.

(00:46:26):
And so for folks that don't want to stay bitching and moaning about it,

(00:46:29):
I walk through about 13 different skills that you can use.

(00:46:34):
I talk about side hustle or not side hustle.

(00:46:37):
I've had good ones.

(00:46:38):
I've had bad ones.

(00:46:39):
So I walk people through that.

(00:46:41):
And then if it's really time to go,

(00:46:42):
which sometimes it is,

(00:46:43):
I'm not advocating to stay in crap forever,

(00:46:45):
but

(00:46:46):
you know,

(00:46:47):
when you do really need to go,

(00:46:48):
or it's a situation that's just illegal and immoral and you need to get out,

(00:46:51):
like here are the 10 steps to think about.

(00:46:53):
Cause usually in those States,

(00:46:54):
we're like emotional and pissed and we're not like thinking through,

(00:46:57):
and we might make a lifelong mistake.

(00:46:59):
Um, you know, maybe burned our bridges too bad.

(00:47:02):
So I walked through that.

(00:47:02):
So that's, that's it.

(00:47:04):
There's a lot of anecdotal stories that, um,

(00:47:07):
I've gathered from all my friends and family.

(00:47:08):
I've changed all the names.

(00:47:10):
But it's a mix of humor,

(00:47:13):
but also giving people some skills that they might not have thought about or had.

(00:47:18):
Sometimes we do have to endure,

(00:47:21):
for whatever reason,

(00:47:22):
an unperfect work environment for a few months or a few years.

(00:47:26):
And so how do you stay happy and healthy in that?

(00:47:29):
Not sell yourself out.

(00:47:31):
Um, you know, and not, not swear and scream and over drink or anything else too, but how do you do it?

(00:47:37):
So that's what the book's about.

(00:47:38):
Um, and it's just stuff I've learned along the way and had smart people mentor me on.

(00:47:43):
I just felt like I needed to share it.

(00:47:44):
So that's awesome.

(00:47:45):
It's coming out probably about May this year.

(00:47:47):
Okay.

(00:47:47):
And where, where can they get it?

(00:47:48):
It'll be on Amazon.

(00:47:49):
All my stuff's on Amazon.

(00:47:50):
Okay.

(00:47:51):
Awesome.

(00:47:51):
Awesome.

(00:47:52):
so digital and paper or yep kindle and paper yep totally sounds good okay so mark

(00:47:58):
it down in may we're gonna read your book and we'll do a book club in june and have

(00:48:02):
you come back talk about your new book we'll talk about the bullshit yep yeah yeah

(00:48:07):
yeah seriously i could have used it all of what less than a year ago at this point

(00:48:11):
i went through a really hard work experience but

(00:48:15):
to kind of segue to the question about your book here, not my past.

(00:48:20):
Um,

(00:48:21):
so what do you believe is needed for someone to be successful in the workplace in

(00:48:24):
today's environment?

(00:48:25):
Wow.

(00:48:26):
Um, I Bitcoin, but I think resilience is lacking and it's not just like financially.

(00:48:34):
We don't really teach resilience, like how to get through stuff.

(00:48:37):
And maybe we don't have the strong family fabric that we used to have, whatever, but it's the, um,

(00:48:43):
The folks I'm working with that are younger in their careers,

(00:48:45):
it's not because they're young,

(00:48:46):
but they just don't have that resilience yet.

(00:48:50):
You know, and it's maybe like a time preference, like I need something to change right now.

(00:48:54):
So, I mean, some of it is stepping back and reflecting on it.

(00:48:59):
What can you do?

(00:49:00):
You know, can you do something about this?

(00:49:02):
Because a lot of times we go as humans, myself included, we go to victim mode.

(00:49:06):
They did this to me.

(00:49:07):
I'm like, OK, get yourself out of victim mode, you know.

(00:49:10):
What's an action you can take?

(00:49:11):
How can you perceive what's happening?

(00:49:13):
Now, if it's flat out illegal and discriminational, I'm not talking about that.

(00:49:17):
Like that's get out, sue the hell out of them, right?

(00:49:20):
That's a different world.

(00:49:21):
That's the outlier, you know, 100%.

(00:49:25):
I think the other though is there's so many options right now,

(00:49:29):
gig economy,

(00:49:30):
side hustle,

(00:49:31):
other things that you can do that you can take action on that explore some of that,

(00:49:37):
right?

(00:49:38):
And spend your life energy there.

(00:49:39):
It doesn't mean leave your job necessarily, but play with Bitcoin mining, right?

(00:49:43):
If that's your thing or if it's art or whatever else,

(00:49:45):
like don't put all your blessed life energy into the job if you absolutely hate it.

(00:49:52):
But also don't like,

(00:49:54):
don't hop place to place to place because sadly we bring all our crap with us from

(00:49:58):
place to place to place.

(00:49:59):
Right.

(00:49:59):
I'm like, huh?

(00:50:00):
Why is the same thing showing up?

(00:50:01):
I'm like, Oh, cause I'm here.

(00:50:02):
All right.

(00:50:06):
Long answer to your question,

(00:50:07):
but I think it's just,

(00:50:08):
um,

(00:50:09):
you know,

(00:50:09):
building up like those survival kind of resilience stuff and building yourself up

(00:50:14):
and then maybe making the work thing that we all bitch and complain about a little smaller.

(00:50:19):
you know, maybe give a little less energy.

(00:50:21):
And if we're really,

(00:50:22):
really going to go for it,

(00:50:23):
that person at work that we villainize or can't stand,

(00:50:25):
maybe just thinking like one,

(00:50:27):
like tiny,

(00:50:28):
nice thing about them,

(00:50:29):
or even open to the possibility that there might be something nice about them.

(00:50:32):
That's somewhere else on the planet.

(00:50:34):
It's, it's weird.

(00:50:34):
Those little tiny shifts.

(00:50:36):
It's like, we start doing stuff different, you know, like someone cut us off in traffic.

(00:50:40):
I'm like, Oh, effing asshole.

(00:50:41):
I'm like, wait a second.

(00:50:42):
Maybe they had a shitty day and didn't see it.

(00:50:44):
Right.

(00:50:45):
Or their cat died or something like, let me just back up and get off my stuff.

(00:50:50):
Yeah.

(00:50:50):
And that, that it's hard.

(00:50:53):
It's super hard to change your mindset to that, but it's necessary.

(00:50:57):
You gotta, you gotta kind of get thick skin.

(00:51:00):
Yeah.

(00:51:00):
Without numbing yourself to certain things.

(00:51:03):
Cause you're allowed to have emotions.

(00:51:05):
A hundred percent.

(00:51:06):
But don't overdo it.

(00:51:08):
You know, a hundred times.

(00:51:09):
Exactly.

(00:51:10):
Exactly.

(00:51:11):
Maybe 10, but not a hundred.

(00:51:14):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:51:15):
Yeah, I've always I've had, you know, everybody's had work issues.

(00:51:20):
And one of one of the issues that I had,

(00:51:24):
I was told to,

(00:51:26):
you know,

(00:51:26):
think about what they might have going on.

(00:51:30):
And I'm like, you know what?

(00:51:32):
I really do need to do that because this person may or may not have a lot of health

(00:51:39):
issues or family issues.

(00:51:42):
And yeah, they might be grumpy.

(00:51:43):
They might have said something that was.

(00:51:46):
not nice, but right.

(00:51:48):
Big deal.

(00:51:49):
Right.

(00:51:50):
You know, let's move on and, and keep working together.

(00:51:53):
And if you bring it up to them, usually it fixes the problem anyway.

(00:51:59):
Often does.

(00:52:00):
Yeah.

(00:52:00):
And it's funny how,

(00:52:01):
you know,

(00:52:03):
I know for myself and I think just of everyone I've known,

(00:52:05):
it's like,

(00:52:05):
we've had that one bad boss or one bad work situation.

(00:52:08):
We probably told the story like a hundred times.

(00:52:10):
Yeah.

(00:52:11):
Like why am I wasting my precious life energy on this planet?

(00:52:15):
like reliving that a hundred times and i've done it like i'm not like saying i'm

(00:52:18):
better than anyone or anything here but for sure but it's just dumb what the hell

(00:52:24):
yeah you're living in the past it's like that's over yeah exactly well you have

(00:52:31):
certainly enlightened russ with this topic and you have educated me with all the

(00:52:35):
bitcoin stuff awesome we have one last question for you chris this is a fun one

(00:52:40):
This is the one we ask all of our guests.

(00:52:42):
If you won $10 million tonight, what is the first thing you would do tomorrow?

(00:52:47):
You can probably guess I'd buy Bitcoin.

(00:52:50):
You know, I would probably put 9 million flat out in Bitcoin and I would do a million in Bitcoin mining.

(00:52:59):
There's a, the other thing about Bitcoin mine, it's a tax write-off.

(00:53:01):
So if you do it as a company, the energy spend and the minor spend is a business expense.

(00:53:05):
So you actually can,

(00:53:07):
make your Bitcoin investment a little bit larger that way.

(00:53:11):
learn something else.

(00:53:12):
Yeah.

(00:53:13):
Yeah.

(00:53:13):
So,

(00:53:13):
but yeah,

(00:53:14):
I would put 9 million in that and I would probably disappear to El Salvador,

(00:53:19):
some country that has Bitcoin as its currency.

(00:53:22):
What is it?

(00:53:22):
El, El, El Zante is, isn't that the, the Bitcoin beach over there?

(00:53:27):
Yeah.

(00:53:27):
I was looking at that.

(00:53:28):
I was like, man, we got a vacation.

(00:53:30):
My bad.

(00:53:30):
Right.

(00:53:30):
Yeah.

(00:53:39):
Well, again, Chris, we can't thank you enough for joining us.

(00:53:42):
Like this has been amazing.

(00:53:44):
And seriously,

(00:53:44):
when your book comes out,

(00:53:45):
I do want to have you back and we can talk it through and go over all of our

(00:53:50):
experiences together,

(00:53:51):
do a little therapy.

(00:53:55):
And we'll talk about all time highs in June.

(00:53:57):
That's right.

(00:54:00):
There you go.

(00:54:01):
So I do hope you come back and talk to us again.

(00:54:03):
Thank you so much.

(00:54:05):
Yeah, you bet.

(00:54:05):
My honor.

(00:54:05):
Thank you.

(00:54:07):
Thanks for listening to the Unfiltered Union.

(00:54:10):
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(00:54:12):
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