#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards

#222 (HIW #11) - Bitcoin: From Digital Currency to Financial Powerhouse

Jordan Edwards Season 5 Episode 222

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Bitcoin's incredible journey from an obscure digital currency to a recognized asset class is a story worth exploring. Join us as Sang Kim, co-host of "Health is Wealth," unpacks Bitcoin's evolution from its inception by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to its current standing in the financial world. With its value soaring from $7,000 to over $100,000 since 2018, understanding Bitcoin's limited supply, the mining process, and the economic factors driving its popularity becomes essential. Together, we discuss the transformative impact of Bitcoin on traditional investment portfolios, comparing it to gold with an optimistic outlook for even higher returns.

We dive into the strategies behind Bitcoin investment, from technical analysis to dollar-cost averaging, while acknowledging the inherent volatility of digital assets. As financial institutions and ETFs like BlackRock and iShares embrace cryptocurrency, the legitimacy and options for diversification in investment strategies continue to grow. Our conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding personal risk tolerance and potential security risks, offering insights into cold storage solutions and the role of ETFs as safer alternatives. Whether you're a seasoned investor or new to the world of Bitcoin, there's much to learn about its potential for financial freedom.

This episode also touches on the influential figures and regulatory developments shaping the cryptocurrency landscape. From Michael Saylor to the Winklevoss twins, we explore the impact of early adopters and the importance of staying informed in this rapidly evolving market. With accessible platforms for hesitant investors and the growing role of financial advisors, we highlight how Bitcoin can serve as a hedge against currency devaluation and a tool for financial independence. Tune in to discover why Bitcoin remains a captivating topic and how it might just redefine your approach to investing.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, what's going on, guys? We have a special guest here today. We have Sang Kim. He's the co-host for the Health is Wealth and we're on episode 11, episode 11 of the hashtag clocked in with Health is Wealth, and today we're going to be diving into the world of Bitcoin. Whether you're under 30 and tech savvy, or you're over 50 and curious about the future of money, this episode is going to be for you. I want to note that this is not financial advice. It's only for education and entertainment purposes. Only, sang, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm doing okay. I'm up here in London, ontario, canada. We got a little bit of snow outside, but it's know fairly mild. It's above, uh, it's above zero, you know, maybe about two degrees celsius, and I just got back from a curling match, so that was kind of cool and we won today.

Speaker 1:

So, oh, congratulations so this was good. Yeah, congratulations, that's awesome yeah yeah, it's uh.

Speaker 1:

It's been chilly here in tampa as About 45 in the morning, 60 during the day. But let's dive into the Bitcoin and why Bitcoin's been super relevant as of recent. I mean, it's been around since 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the white paper. At that point it was something of no. No one really knew what it was. He just kind of put it out there. Some criminals were using it, um cause, that's how early acceptance kind of works with stuff, and then it became more of a suitable uh solution to some of the issues going on today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah, you know it's. It's one of these things you know. If you're under the age of 30, you probably watch a ton of videos on Bitcoin, and if you're over the age of 50, you know, you probably heard about it, but maybe you haven't invested in it yet. But you're thinking that you know it's in the, it's in front of the news almost every day.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So it's, it's relevant, right, and, being a former portfolio manager, you know it's something that you have to have an opinion on and and address, right, but there's no question in my mind that it's here to stay. It's a real investment, it's a real asset class. It's, um, you know, and and we can get it, we'll dig a little bit deeper, but, um, it is just. It's not this, you know. You know this overnight success type of thing, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, it's been trading ever since, I believe it was January 2009,. I believe, yes, the first trade actually was done, right yeah?

Speaker 1:

So what's that?

Speaker 2:

right, you know we're going to be coming up on what's that? 15 years. Yeah, it's going to be almost up on what's that 15 years. Yeah, it's going to be almost 16 years that it's been in existence, and I learned about it first. I was at a Tony Robbins event, the finance conference with the Platinum Partners, so this was February 2018. And there was an expert panel talking about Bitcoin in 2018.

Speaker 2:

And Bitcoin was trading. Let's say it was trading somewhere from $7,000 to $9,000 at that time and today it's trading over $100,000 today in US dollars, of course.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So you know that's more than a. You know that's more than a 10x in six years yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's it's. This is this is really interesting right, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent for me. I actually got introduced in I believe it was 2017. But what was going on then at that time was everyone was rushing to all these other cryptocurrencies. So, you would buy the Bitcoin and then you would transfer to the other currencies to try to get a meme coin or whatever it is to have a 50x return, and what people didn't realize was mean majority, a good amount of bitcoin like millions.

Speaker 1:

There's only 21 million of them, so it basically works is you have to mine for it, which basically means it's like an algorithm where you have to go in, you have to have these supercomputers and basically, if you get the code correct, you get rewarded. And it's been going on since since the existence, since it's uh originated and there's only 21 million of them, and what would end up happening is people there would be these miners, so the minor miners would. The crypto miners would go and uh do the codes and they would get rewarded, and sometimes they would get rewarded. You always get the same distribution, but there's this thing called the halving. So the halving happens every four years.

Speaker 1:

The fourth one happened in April of this year, and what that means is that the rewards that the miners get are cut in half. So what that means is that it's a supply shock thing, so it stops rewarding as much, because it's going to take longer and longer to get to the last 21 million total. I believe there's 19 million out right now, but then there's been reports of at least several million that are lost just lost because people didn't know the codes, people didn't know how to keep the information and then, as of recent of this year, the financial institution started taking it on and it became ETFs and they started underwriting it and doing all of these different things. And so saying for you, from your perspective, what do you think the real reason that Bitcoin's like catching attention? Why are people interested in this?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like, when you think about it, right, as the US economy, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada as well started to really print a lot of money, right? So basically devaluing the US dollar, the Canadian dollar, by printing more money in circulation, right, yes, so really, when you think about it, when there's more dollars out in circulation, it doesn't have the same value that it did before they printed the money. So you know this printing of money effect and not having the dollar go as far. So now you know people were thinking well, you know, is this going to continue? Right, the printing of money? Right, and devalue my dollar. So I can't get as much stuff, goods and services purchasing power with this dollar. So I think, especially the younger generation and the people in these niche markets, like the gamers, right, I mean, they've been exposed to mining of Bitcoin for a long time because it's in the gaming environment, right?

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So it's a culture of mining and getting rewarded for this work, right when the mainstream people didn't really understood what that was all about. So really it has to do with this trust issue. So the fact that there's only 21 million Bitcoin forever, it's been designed that way since the beginning that there will not be any more Bitcoin after all of it's been mined and, like you said, there's 19 million plus Bitcoin that are up in circulation and it's less than 2 million that's available to be mined.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, there's a lot of trust there.

Speaker 2:

There's trust in the system and it's secure.

Speaker 1:

And it's secure, right, and it's probably one of the most secure systems from the us perspective, like I was just looking at pulling this fact up. So in 1929, the us debt was 17 billion dollars in 1929. By the time it got to 1982, that's the first time we hit a trillion dollars of debt. Now, back in 2018, when you were telling us that you found out about Bitcoin, there was $21 trillion in debt and we were going up about a trillion a year in debt, then $28 trillion, then $30 trillion, $33 trillion and now there's I believe the numbers aren't out for 2024 yet, but I believe it's $39 trillion.

Speaker 1:

Now what that does is that completely, or $35 trillion? I apologize, but what that does is that completely devalues the money that you're holding in cash. So what that means is that if you're holding a lot of cash like a lot of people are like, oh, I want an emergency fund and I want to. I feel comfortable when there's cash in my bank account. But if you're holding cash every single year, it's becoming worth less and less and less.

Speaker 1:

And that happens when you go to the food store or when you go buy a house or you get a car and you start to realize that a ticket to an event is not $100 anymore, it's $200 or $400. And getting a car note the average car note's like $700, which is just incredible. So you start to sit there and think to yourself what can I do to protect the money that I've earned? You know what I mean and by the end of this podcast you'll understand what Bitcoin is, why it's important and how it might fit into your life. So I just bring this up because I think it's so important for us to realize that there's so much that is underlying. It's not when. I like when when Sang grew up, where it's just work a job, make enough money and you're good, like it's getting to the point now where everyone has to invest. Everyone's got to do a lot of these things just to recoup, because wages are not going up nearly as quick as other people are.

Speaker 2:

Correct, correct, right and and if you look at, you know what is Bitcoin, you know, let's look, let's look at that. And really, bitcoin is digital money and it's decentralized and it's based on this blockchain technology, right when there is. You know, this blockchain technology is a code and when you buy and sell Bitcoin, it is on this ledger right. You know who's bought it and who has sold it and all the transactions. And it's controlled, not by the government by itself. So the system is intact.

Speaker 1:

So it's decentralized, meaning that it is not run by a central group like a government organization or a company so, which limits a lot of the risk, because now you don't have the CEO, who did something wrong and gets arrested, and now the stock plummets. There's no one there, so there's no ruling. The other big thing, the big transition that I've seen regarding Bitcoin, is that people originally viewed it as digital money. They wanted to see a change there, but I think what's turning to it is digital capital or digital gold.

Speaker 1:

Because now it's starting to turn into something that it's like I'm not gonna pay for this, like it's not supposed to be a mode of transactions and people. Funny enough, back in the day, there was someone who they call a Bitcoin. Like today, there was someone who spent 10,000 Bitcoin on a pizza and they got it delivered to them. That was years ago and the point is that Bitcoin isn't that anymore, but now it's more of a capital preserver for you. And there's people like Michael Saylor saying that he has estimates that he thinks it's going to go up 29% a year ARR over a 21-year period, which is unheard of in regard to markets going up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think, yeah, likely. Right now, people are viewing that as a better way to have an asset class similar to gold, and it's got a store of value, right, and we know what game we're playing. There's only 21 million of them available, right, and I think when we see leaders like Michael Saylor making a commitment, he is, eventually it will become a platform for other uses. You know, with Bitcoin being the asset backing up. I'm not sure if you saw that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, exactly 100%, and the major thing is that a lot of people are they're like I don't get Bitcoin, I'm not sure what it is, but when you start to realize that you can have something that goes up that much and it's a lot like, one of the big things about crypto is that it's not your keys, not your wallet, which is what a lot of people say, and what that basically means is that back in 2022, a lot of the banks were going under, and what that meant was that people had their money in their banks. A lot of them got the money returned, but it's still a delay and it's a scared thing where you don't know where to leave your cash. And so what a lot of people did there was these ledgers, um, where basically you're your own bank and you would put the information in and it's what you kept and it's how you keep. So a lot of people call it like cold stores. There's cold and warm. Warm is when you're on a platform, and then cold is when you put it on your own USB drive and it's your own quote, unquote bank account, and what people enjoy about that is the freedom to take it anywhere. You don't have to go. You don't go to on an airplane. You go with your ledger. No one says anything to you. If you go and buy a building, you can't just pick up the building and be like, let's go. So there's a lot of.

Speaker 1:

It leans very much into this freedom component that a lot of people are looking for, especially in the under 30 range, where it's like dude, I don't want to be bogged down by all these things. There's so many responsibilities and there's so many different ways of looking at it. But to be sitting there with so many assets like you get a car cool. You got to go. Get the oil change. You got to do the maintenance. You get a house you got to get a new toilet. You got a new toilet, you got the AC. That goes out Any of the issues.

Speaker 1:

When you have the Bitcoin, it's just in the ledger and it makes a yeah. So it's this point that a lot of people want freedom. A lot of people want to have this ability to leave with their assets. They want to be able to go on the spring of it, like in. Prices have never been cheaper than they are today. That's why you have so many people traveling. People don't want to have be bogged down by cars that have oil changes or houses that need a new AC or a new this or a new that. So the Bitcoin has such low maintenance on it, which makes it pretty incredible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I said earlier, it's an asset class that's going to stay. I do believe that there is still a ton of upside on it, but the caveat here, right you know what's the upside, what's the? Downside to Bitcoin that it is very, very volatile. So if you are not an expert trader, you know, with Bitcoin, I mean, it's very, very volatile, right. And even if you're a buy and hold person, like you know, you could have bought it for 50,. You know, around 60,000, 50,000. Back in I think it was around 20, right Even.

Speaker 1:

October, November yeah, it dropped.

Speaker 2:

And then it plateaued around 50 to 60,000 and then the next surge. So it's one of these things where I think there's a couple of things it's important to understand. Just a little bit of technical analysis in the sense of where is Bitcoin on this charting, you know process, right? So that at least if you are a long-term buy and hold, if you understand where we are in Bitcoin so likely we're going to see a bit of a correction here after you know we're up in the $100,000 range, right? So I think there'll be another entry point around, probably you know the mid $80,000, right? So if you're looking to invest in it and this isn't advice right? So if you understand technicals, you may be able to find a better entry point for a buy and hold position. But for long-term buy and hold position, I wouldn't be buying it over $100,000 at this point. I'd be a little bit more patient.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but another it all depends on your time horizon and it depends on how you go about it. So, like, a super easy way to do anything is just dollar cost averaging. So if you've been maintaining that dollar cost average, it really opens up a wide variety of easy ways to do it. And then even with, like, what do you think saying about all the ETFs and about financial institutions accepting it and BlackRock and all these different people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think. I think it's great because you think about it. Right now there's more buyers and sellers in the market. That is very healthy for cryptocurrencies, right. So we want more players trading it, because now it's even more legitimate, right, and it's accessible by institutions.

Speaker 1:

Right yeah.

Speaker 2:

So if you're an institution, you can go buy. You know the iShares Bitcoin ETF Right and that's iBIT and it's over $30 billion of AUM right now. Assets and registration right. So it's massive right. But I think you know, if you look at from a portfolio management perspective, right. So let's say let's say you're working with a financial advisor. Well, you know, and he's a, he or she is a portfolio manager. Well, you're not going to have 50% of your money in Bitcoin yeah, portfolio, because that's not how portfolio management works.

Speaker 2:

Right, Now, if you decide to have a lot of Bitcoin. You make that personal decision Right, but it's not likely going to be working with an advisor because they won't allow you I mean, the institutions will allow you to have 50 percent of all your investable money in that asset class.

Speaker 1:

Right yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, even if you, even if you don't know what Bitcoin is, but you sort of believe in it, you know, like, why not have two or 5% of your investable assets in it as a way to have a different asset class? And I do personally believe it's better than holding gold. And you know a lot of investors might have uh, you know gold is done very well this year. They might have five percent allocation in gold, right?

Speaker 1:

yeah so maybe you've got you know two to five percent allocation in a bitcoin etf with your advisor and I think yeah I actually had a gary cardone uh, grant card's brother on the podcast and he's been really big into crypto and he was talking about how he spoke to some financial advisors that what they were doing they were actually taking people's retirements and putting, plugging some of it into the ETF. Yeah, absolutely, he's like. The funny thing is that when people get the reports, those are probably going to be their best performing asset, so they're going to want to buy more. So it comes down to this thing of like there's a set supply and nobody can add to it, nobody can delete it, since there's no individuals interacting with it. It's this idea of whatever you do, if you do it long term, you obviously don't want to do anything short term, but if you do it long term, you could see some very outsized opportunities there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you're under the age of 30 and you understand Bitcoin, you've been through, you know the big ups and downs and you're patient and you're thinking about a long term time horizon like 20 years, 30 years, of holding it and adding it dollar cost averaging. I, I think it's. You know, you know, I think it'll outperform. I think it'll grow faster in 30 years than your condo in tampa bay. You know, I think it'll outperform it like hands down 100.

Speaker 1:

So then you get into this thing of like like.

Speaker 1:

The way I view it is having multiple retirements. So I'm like, if you can get a certain amount, then you have another retirement window which becomes very, very interesting, where there's been uh an opportunity before the all of the guys on wall street got their hands on it. Like this is the first time common people are able to get exposure to something and it's still they're still not involved completely, so it gives you this real opportunity of like, wow, like there you could be way ahead of the curve, because even the us they were talking with trump being elected he's talking about having a reserve, which would basically be I mean, I believe they have like 200 000 bitcoin at this moment that they seize through different uh platforms and they're they're gonna start buying, and if they start buying and they're going to start buying, and if they start buying and there's a majority I believe it's over 50% of Bitcoin hasn't moved in the past two years and what that means is that a lot of people are just holding cold storage, so a lot of people are not selling this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think you know, you know and people, it will become ubiquitous and easy to move. You know, move the Bitcoin around even more, so Right, and you know it's fairly. You know it's a lot easier now than it was several years ago. 100%. But once again, if you're holding it in cold storage, like on a USB, and someone steals it, you have a couple of million dollars. Well, guess what there's?

Speaker 2:

a risk factor there 100%. Put it in a safe, in a secure safe, like maybe even at a lockbox in a bank a safe deposit box.

Speaker 2:

That's what I would do personally, and I own Bitcoin and Ethereum through ETFs because I just think it's for me, I feel safer, I'm more old school, it's safer for me, like it's, you know, for me, I feel safer, I'm more old school, it's safer for me, like because you know just the thoughts of it having a cold storage and losing it oh my God Right, so it's not without any risk. But I think you just you've got to manage the risk and you know, do it, uh, you know, and purchase it the way that you like to purchase it, what you're comfortable with right, but, like you were saying, it's becoming so much more accessible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like, at this point it's significantly more accessible and there's many stocks on the open market that you could purchase, that track it. You can get all of these different exposure points.

Speaker 1:

So it becomes super interesting um, and and I believe that's one of the reasons that it's becoming more and more accessible, because people are starting to put their stamp of approval on it and it becomes a very interesting point where there's no like. I was talking with, uh, one of my mentors. He's 79 years old and he was like I don't really understand it. He's like the biggest issue I had with it is that the government didn't back it, because that was the reason that people like the dollar and that's the people like the Canadian dollar and that's why people like the euro and all of these different things.

Speaker 1:

The government back them, but there's starting to be a trust issue with how they're allocating the funds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and you know what, and it's one of those things, right, like with investing, you have to be comfortable with it, right? Everyone has a different risk tolerance. Yeah, and everyone has slightly different values, and you know. And then that's important because you have to understand how you make decisions.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And you have to be in values alignment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And if you're not a high risk taker and you don't understand Bitcoin, you know what. Don't invest in it right, it's like any other asset class right. You know, and it doesn't mean it's wrong or right, but you do have to invest within your. You know your big three right your risk tolerance, your time horizon. So when do you need the money? Right? And and also, you know, you know for what goal is that money for?

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Right. So when people give advice around money, you got to be so careful because it's usually out of context. You don't know the person's values, how they make decisions, if they're risk tolerant, what they need, the money for, their time horizon Right. So you know. And then that's why I'm a big fan of you know people working with financial advisors, because it keeps you in the game when the markets are down. You want to pull money out, but they keep you in the game. Yeah, it removes the emotional.

Speaker 1:

It removes the emotional component of it.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and it's all about in a longterm, you want to stay in the game because it is very hard to market time, and that's why, portfolio manager, if they like a position like Nvidia, they've got a long-term hold on it right and then they'll trade around it right, so they'll take profits off the table and they'll buy some more with maybe half of it you know, the top half of it or maybe 20% of it, but they'll trade around the position.

Speaker 2:

But they like the position, they've got a long-term buy and hold right. Yes, so even if you're a trader, right, and you like the position, like an nvidia, like I believe in nvidia, right, so yeah, and then you trade around it, right and that's. And you can do that with bitcoin too, as you become more sophisticated if you're doing it yourself, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent. And the really interesting thing about Bitcoin, when we start diving in deeper, there's like a few different things that we also haven't touched on. We haven't touched on the crypto markets, open 24-7. Yes, you can do transactions on Saturdays and Sundays and no one's going. No, no, yes, it's huge. You can do transactions on Saturdays and Sundays and no one's going. No, no, it's huge. I mean the fact that you can do all this stuff real time is insane.

Speaker 1:

It also has no borders, so like, there's no constraints on the borders, and obviously the upside opportunity is there as well, but I mean, you also got to be. So it becomes very interesting when it's the first thing, because we look at it just from our perspective right, the US and Canada. But what about the rest of the world? There are countries that are utilizing this so that they can get their currency in line, because their currency. There's people that are literally in Africa, where you will go to lunch, the burger let's use a burger, for example is 20. By the end of the meal it's 25 and you're like what?

Speaker 1:

Like I? Because the currency is moving so fast. So when you're in some of these high risk areas, where or there's countries that literally will take your money, they'll take your money from you, and we don't really experience that with the US or Canada. So it's just. These are the reasons that this is becoming accepted, because a lot of people it's out of necessity, they need an alternative and you can't carry around 10 tons of gold Like you can't carry it, like it's a pain in the butt to move. This is a very easy thing to move but, like you said saying, there's a lot of risk to that yeah, yeah, and and the other.

Speaker 2:

You know, the other big benefit of bitcoin is is that you can uh transfer bitcoin, of Bitcoin, almost instantaneously to anybody around the world.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And you just need to know a code right, yeah. You copy it and then you send it to them and it's in a secured system, right, and then they receive it, whereas if you're trying to send money from Canada to Africa or Canada Europe, there's a lot of fees, right, so there's transaction fees all the way to the end user.

Speaker 1:

Because everyone's collecting on it. Yeah, I mean exactly.

Speaker 2:

So it's very, very efficient that way, and I just love the blockchain that way, and that's where I just love the blockchain and yeah, it's so cool, right, and it's here to stay and there will be some other. You know, I mean the us with trump, I do believe they will have a digital us dollar in some form right and it'll be even more efficient than the current way that money is moved.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%, 100%. But I mean, like you mentioned before, and I don't think we really got into it but so there's the halving and then there's cycles. So Bitcoin will go up 500%, but on numerous, numerous occasions it's dropped 80% in value. Yes, but you start to realize that and that becomes the buying opportunity, because it's very interesting when people sit there and go wait. Isn't it at the top, or is this the top, or is this the whatever it is? The main one, you said, is what is your risk tolerance? What's the time horizon? No-transcript. So 100%, because it can be very intense, like it's at the point now where it's who is going to drop a hundred grand and buy a coin. Like you know what I mean. Maybe, maybe not, it all really depends. But how many people even have that ability to do that? It's becoming more and more limiting where it's going to be corporations.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be countries, it's going to be these different people, but if you have some exposure to this, it's going to be these different people, but if you have some exposure to this, you can. You can maybe be on the ride, yeah, yeah, and as the US, the outcome of that is more trust in the crypto systems. So, and then you have more institutions coming in and yes, and like Michael Saylor, right, there will be more companies that will have that will own Bitcoin. There's no books, right?

Speaker 1:

And we will see it in more countries corporations it's going to happen. Just to give a perspective, it's not just like because we keep saying it was so. Michael saylor runs this company called strategies and I just want to give a chance on this. So he's been running micro strategies. Back in 2020, he had about half a billion dollars in cash and his company does pretty well and he's like well, I could sell the company or I could take a risk because we don't know what to do with this money, because nothing's appreciating fast enough to maintain the money. So what he decided to do was go in on Bitcoin and at this point now he has $40 billion in Bitcoin and about $50 or $60 million in US dollars.

Speaker 1:

So my point being here is that he is all the way in and what that does is now it trades as a proxy for other people who want to get exposure to it. Without, they can't buy it. But the other big thing is, as you were mentioning, with the regulatory uncertainty by the big institutions doing the ETFs. That limits a lot of the risk. Like Gary when he was on the podcast, he goes I'd rather buy at 60 grand with limited risk of it being like shut down or anything like that, than buy it at 15 or 10 or 5 when you don't know what's going to happen to it exactly. So.

Speaker 2:

So it's a lot of the risk has been removed at this point for it um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, correct, and and yeah, that's a really good point, right, the people that were buying Bitcoin, even at a thousand to five thousand dollars? Right, they were. They were taking a big risk because the future was very uncertain at that point, right, so, but if you believed in the, you know the concept of it, like the, who are the twins, the Winklevoss twins it like the uh, who are the twins?

Speaker 2:

the, the winklevoss twins? Yeah, yeah, the winklevoss twins, right, and they got in at 2012, right after they sued facebook, right, and, and you know, took a several million dollars worth. And I heard their story for the first time not too long ago oh, really, they were on a beach somewhere, right? Some you know, some you know real nerdy guys talking about bitcoin and they they made a compelling argument for for the twins to invest in bitcoin at that point in time and they really liked the idea. So, back in 2012, they they invested millions of dollars into Bitcoin and now they're billionaires. Now, right, but they took some of their money, right, and took a risk, right, but they believed in the, you know, they believed in the white paper. They believed in the white paper. They believed in the concept of it and the fundamentals of it, right, and they bought and held for a long time and took some profits along the way.

Speaker 1:

But, you know, you know, yeah, I think the the major thing here is really understanding of, like most people want to buy bitcoin to get rich. Right, that's what most people want to do. They want to make money. But when you start to look a little bit deeper on what Bitcoin is, you start to realize that it's a very freeing mechanism. It gives people a lot of independence and it allows them to do what they think is best, because it is crazy that you do make money each day and you work your job and then it keeps getting devalued, like it becomes a very interesting piece there where it starts to realize of, like, what do you really want to do? How do you want to live your life? How do you want to do these things?

Speaker 1:

To express the tippy, tippy iceberg of what is going on with Bitcoin and why it's relevant and why maybe you should spend another few hours looking into some of this stuff. If it's something of interest, because a lot of people aren't talking about this there are a lot that are, but you just want to be in the know of, like what's happening and what's going on right now, because we're in a very, very exciting time and there's a lot of things that are changing, and if you're not in the front area, then by the time you see it, it might, might be a million dollars and you might be. Oh, I wish I had something like and it's this. It's this thing of you never really know where anything's going, so you just have to be able to prepare and be situated for what you think is the best move.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you prefer not to buy Bitcoin directly, like a platform like Coinbase or here in canada, there's a couple of different ones, right, I've used newton, uh, here in canada and, um yeah, and they've been around for a while, so it is a lot easier to to purchase cryptocurrencies now. Yeah, but you can buy some etfs.

Speaker 1:

You could buy it on like fidelity. You can do it on all of you could buy it on like Fidelity. You can do it on all of these different platforms. You just have to set up the crypto portion of it. But it's giving a lot of exposure to what is possible and you start to realize that I hope this is just an intro to like. What you guys start to realize is like oh, maybe I should look into this a more, maybe I should learn a little bit more about this. Maybe I could see what's going on. Um, because there the amount of people who were like yeah, I put one percent of my assets into this and now that's 10, 20, 50 percent of their portfolio, is so many. If you stayed in the game for 10 years, then it's absolutely. If you've been in the game for four years, it's absolutely. Yeah, every four years since its inception it's been going up yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, yeah, it's, you know it's it is. It is very interesting because I remember her, you know, trying to understand Bitcoin. When I first got exposed to it, I kind of went, oh my God, what the heck is this thing?

Speaker 1:

And then after 20 years in financial advising, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

It was so hard to understand, Right, so I started to do a lot of research on it, right. I started to do a lot of research on it, right, and to the point where I got comfortable and actually bought some through ETFs, right. And it's interesting, right, because there's this fear, part of the unknown. But when I started to read more and more about the fundamentals of it right, and heard the story of why it was created and the use case for it Right, it just made more and more sense. And then and then, you know, I met Michael Novogratz. He runs a galaxy. It's, it is, it's basically a company that is like a custodian and it does administrative services for financial institutions that want, to you know, sell Bitcoin.

Speaker 2:

Hold it right. Be, a custodian for it, and he's a billionaire now right, oh wow. Yeah, yeah, and he came from Goldman Sachs, but I met him in 2018. I met him in 2018 and he sort of made it even more legitimate for me, for a guy of his stature, to lead Goldman Sachs and to go all in on crypto.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

By creating this platform company.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that I just kind of went well, you know he's a smart guy and he's done really, really well, and actually the first crypto ETF in the world was actually created in Canada.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

Purpose investments through an ETF Right. So it was a purpose Bitcoin ETF in the entire world. So it was traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange so institutions could have got uh exposure to it. You know uh to the first etf right absolutely.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I forgot to mention is that the the creator of it, the white paper, satoshi Nakamoto. He's anonymous. Yes correct, he literally created this and then disappeared.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and.

Speaker 1:

I think when people hear that, they go what?

Speaker 2:

What do?

Speaker 1:

you mean that's the craziest thing is that it's not, it's got nothing to do with him. So there's no individuals that can some like get in trouble or do anything wrong that could ruin it.

Speaker 1:

Because it's just technical, it's just a software that runs on its own yeah, and then there's the miners and there's the people who interact with it, and everyone's just utilizing different avenues to get involved with it. But it was this idea of like. The fact that it went from a few pennies, or less than a few pennies, to even dollars is insane. The fact now that it's at a hundred thousand dollars is like it's very to me so in under 30, it's very much proven and I think that there will be definitely more acceptance of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I find it's fascinating. So when I first heard about this idea of Bitcoin mining so these actual, you know nerdy guys that have bought a whole bunch of these computers, fast computers, to mine for Bitcoin, right, yeah, to me that was fascinating. Right, you know, solving a math problem, and these computers are solving these math problems and when they solve them they get rewarded. Right, it was like a video game, right, literally, you know, just like a video game, right. And then I thought holy mackerel, right. And then I kept thinking from a business case okay, what a video game, right. And then I thought holy mackerel, right. And then I kept thinking from a business case okay, what are their expenses? Right, you got computers, you set them up.

Speaker 1:

The electric bill.

Speaker 2:

Electricity right, so they consume a lot of electricity. So if you can be near a power plant or free electricity, you know, from solar to hydro, nuclear, even better. Right, like the big AI companies. Right, they're collaborating with nuclear companies. Right, for their data centers. But you know and you thought, holy geez, you know, yeah, this is legitimate right. And the fact that there are publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies too, yes, mara.

Speaker 2:

This is. This whole ecosystem has been around for a number of years now and it's like very, very fascinating, right A hundred percent. I just want to.

Speaker 1:

You bring up a major point that when you start getting exposed to something new, you think, oh my God been, how did this happen? How did I not hear about this? And, like you're saying, there's a lot, a lot of stuff going on around this and a lot of people are talking about it, and they've been talking about it for many years. As it's coming up on its 15th, 16th year, um, so I think it's something awesome saying do you have any final thoughts?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, like you know, I just think, hopefully, you know, for the listeners out here, if they haven't, you know, invested into Bitcoin, you know now might be the time to look into it a little bit deeper, into it a little bit deeper. Or if you have, um, owned some bitcoin, you know, I I do think there's some good entry points, you know, for the long-term buy and holds right, um, but hopefully you got a little taste of it and maybe it's motivated you to dig a little deeper and and to understand it a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And guys, what are your thoughts for the audience? What are your thoughts on Bitcoin? Are you already invested? Are you just curious? Let us know. You can shoot me an email at jordanedwardsconsulting and I'd love to hear about it and we could bring it up on the next. Health is Wealth.

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