New to Crypto? Your Compass to Bypass FOMO

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Decentralized On, where lifelong friends Chicago and Disco navigate the ever-evolving crypto landscape With genuine curiosity and a commitment to nuance. As our North Star, we offer clear-eyed exploration. Our goal to empower listeners with the tools and insights needed to flourish in this decentralized age.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Hello, hello, hello everybody.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Aloha, happy to be here, it's exciting. I hope everyone's had a good week so far and I'm happy to kind of delve into this topic and to this show, chicago.

Speaker 2: 0:36

I am excited to delve into this too. This is the more shows we do, I feel like, the more we're like let's just rip the rip the bowling bumpers off and go free form and just see where it takes us.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Yeah so it's not. This is a little bit of a different sort of format. It's gonna be more free-flowing conversation today, but is there anything since we've last convened with a program? Is there anything that's been inspiring or brought some joy to your life that you'd like to kind of mention or share?

Speaker 2: 1:11

Yeah, there was a. It's funny when you listen to music and bands. Fish has always been one of my favorites. They actually played next door in a literally in a living room of a fraternity house when I was in college and so caught the tail end of them still being small and they were one of my favorite bands through college and probably into my 20s and even 30s. But at some point I'm not afraid to kind of move on and taste change. And not that I don't love them, but I didn't.

Speaker 2: 1:41

You know, it's like I think we talked about Peter Gabriel, like I didn't keep up with every modern album and in this case that could have been a mistake. I played golf and had a nice walk in a beautiful late warm fall day in the Chicagoland area and we were just the guy I was with was playing a lot of like super obscure, mellow Pink Floyd stuff and I'm like you know I think it was either Echoes or one of those really mellow instrumentals or maybe it was one off dark side of the moon. I'm like you know this, like sometimes I feel like this is the song that would greet me like going to heaven. And he was like oh, no, no, no, you want to hear that song. And he played a song called Petricor by Fish on an album called it's something with a boat on it.

Speaker 2: 2:29

I'm going to totally screw it up, but I didn't listen to newer Fish albums anymore and it was like a 13 minute song and it's got. You know, it's almost like a little orchestral movement and it was. We listened to it there. It was a beautiful song and I just listened to it again jogging this morning and I'm like, oh, this, this is growing on me even more. So it's just a beautiful piece and it reminds you about the, the better stuff in life, when a lot of things right now it seems like going on in the world are are not so much.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Yeah, music is, music's a lifeboat and music can, you know, really kind of help everybody through different times and it's weird. I have that thought sometimes, like too, where I'm like which song you know what is going to be at my funeral, or like which song is you know kind of in different songs at different times. You know, definitely fill that void to answer the question myself.

Speaker 2: 3:25

I'm asking are we going to get there?

Speaker 1: 3:26

Okay, well, I just figured I'd move her along. We have things to get into, but I was. I spent a handful of nights in lower Manhattan last week and there's something it makes me wonder sometimes. You know, is it the place or certain places that spark creativity, like, is it the area, like, is it just like a natural place where you're creative, or is it, you know, kind of the coming together of people from other places to that place, or whatever it may be? But it's undeniable that you know there's certain places and I would consider, you know, I stayed just on the edge of Chinatown, at the Bowery and Canal, and you know I just started thinking about.

Speaker 1: 4:06

You know, recently you had kind of the 2000 to the 2010 kind of indie sleaze movement come out of there and you look at all those bands and made some great music, like LCD sound system and the strokes and yeah, yeah, yeah and all that. And then you just go back, you know another couple of years and then you realize, okay, that's where you know almost the same area that, like television, and all those guys were coming up with kind of the post, the post punk movements and all that. So I just got really inspired and I'm just thinking about how you know there are places that are worth kind of visiting because they do kind of revitalize and retap, you know, some of your creative juices. So they're very kind of, you know, fruitful to. You know spend some time just kind of absorb that energy and hopefully I can end up, you know, getting a little more creative from some time spent there. So we'll see.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Yeah, so it sounds like, yeah, these creative hotbeds. Yeah, I think it's definitely both it's. You know, I think a place certainly has a vibe of its own. But you know, I would lean, probably just like I'm like 94, 6 music, the oral beats to the lyrics, like I would say, the people make the place. But the place, I think, carries a spirit of its own too.

Speaker 2: 5:21

You know, in New York there's so many people and there's so many creative people congregate together in tight quarters and they have to get creative with how they you know their bars and their entertainment clubs and their plays and all that Like you've got to be super creative in those tight spaces and it creates some of the best shows I've seen where, like off Broadway stuff. In my corporate days our headquarters used to be kind of in smack dab in midtown and we'd go to these plays. I couldn't tell you the name of them, but like it start with like you standing in a room with like a cray paper above you. You're just standing as an audience and then all of a sudden people are flying on ropes as like silhouettes above you. You're like this is going to be interesting.

Speaker 2: 6:08

So, I mean it's just so cool and you can't describe that to anyone unless they've kind of experienced that creativity and it makes you realize like there is way more ways than getting from point A to B with creativity and how beautiful and crazy and windy life can be.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, but there are also places where there aren't necessarily a lot of people that once you enter them, like and I hate to use the I'll go license plate on it but you get into certain parts of New Mexico and it is a land of enchantment. You're just like I've never seen, you know felt that sort of sky. You know Mesa, like it's a totally different vibe but it gives you more spatial right. So it's like it's kind of the antithesis to like the Lower East Side or something where it's, you know crazy old and you know compact and old streets and everything you get to, like, you know, by Taos or somewhere like that, and you're like dude, this is pretty magical too. So you know just, you know when the world's tough and things are and things are can bring you down. You know, try to try to find ways to look at creativity and appreciate those who have created things that are of comfort and kind of want to push the world forward. I guess would be my little soliloquy.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Then reground yourself and, however, whatever that means to you, whether that's urban or rural, or you know, out in the mountains. Like you know, we were talking about one time we drove out to Creston, colorado, which is, I think it's like three or four hours south of Denver, and that drive like sometimes you get in these, these planes with the mountains, is the San Cristo mountains, is the backdrop, and it's so big and so grand. You're just your jaws just open, you're like you're driving in the same area seemingly for an entire afternoon and you're just like a little, a little like flea going across this massive landscape. So yeah, creativity is definitely everywhere and it's inside, outside, all around.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Yeah. So again, we're going to do this a little bit differently. We, meaning Chicago and I, are often talking about you know, what do we want to do for the next show, or you know, what topics should we cover, and oftentimes we end up just saying, hey, that could have been a show right there, and we were. I was, I was talking to Chicago a couple of days ago and I know I know we've talked about this before in a couple of the other episodes, but we entered into, kind of the crypto atmosphere or crypto space at slightly different times and that's kind of always underneath, you know, the, the texture of this show and the dynamic of the show, and I sometimes specifically now just wanted to kind of pick Chicago's brain, um, knowing that he's lived through a couple of cycles and has understood more than I have.

Speaker 1: 9:05

You know, I don't have that perspective. So I thought it'd be interesting, instead of it just being a conversation offline between the two of us, to kind of open it up in case there's any kind of pearls or anything that could come up that could help people that are potentially looking to get involved with you know, kind of becoming part of the ecosystem and understanding it. So it's not a traditional, you know, deep dive show. It's more just kind of a I don't want to say a Q and A or a lunch with somebody, but really just kind of the conversation between the two of us, and I hope that I can gain some information and some guidance on some things that I've been interested in and curious about and didn't really know where to go to ask.

Speaker 2: 9:43

So yeah, and this is a two way street too, because I think one thing you know, it's not like I got in in 2011 or 2012. I mean, it was 2015,. Early 2015. I always thought it was 14, but I looked at my first transactions and it was 15. So I have to, I have to be in that class. But you know, it was a bear market and it was a different era. But you know, I don't think like I hate it when people say like dude, everybody here is still early.

Speaker 2: 10:10

But I mean it's, in the grand scheme of things, like it's true, you can't uninvent, you know cryptography. You can't uninvent the blockchain and the creativity that's going on it. They're not going anywhere. They have been, you know, they're out there and and it's, it's amazing. So I will also learn a ton from you. So this definitely isn't just a tea with Chicago, because I have biases, that and you know, as you go on, you you pick your favorite chains, you pick your favorite. You know, in our case, like NFT collections and and you know, maybe this is just another phase, but you know you kind of concrete or your opinions get more solidified and that isn't always a super healthy thing. We're not one chain. On this show we're actually at the core, probably if it's on the crypto side, probably two chains, ethereum and that whole ecosystem with L2s and Bitcoin. But I think, as we go on there are probably others that a multi-chain world is a more decentralized world. So I'm all for it and I could learn from that too.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Let me ask you this question, which I've been wondering for a while when you first bought Bitcoin, did you get the long code like the password that you had to save, or was it at that point?

Speaker 2: 11:41

Oh man, it was through a centralized exchange. So, yeah, it was exciting at that stage. I don't know when I put it to the hardware wallet. Obviously that's like that second step. That's such a big deal. But when I first bought it it was Andreas Antonopoulos I mean, that's who we all listen to. But there was also another guy. That was what it really clicked for me. He just disappeared and probably does his own thing now.

Speaker 2: 12:16

It doesn't need to be that public now because he got in so early, but his name is Trace Mayer. He used to tell these stories about. His dad was one of those guys. He's like I'm not giving you money for this, that or the other. It's like go earn it.

Speaker 2: 12:32

It was a perfect example of a guy young, being an entrepreneur very early. He got it. He was a gold bug forever, but then he got into, you know, he went back to the Swiss economists and he learned about money and he's the one who educated me about money and he was the first one who said like I believe it was like the seven network effects of Bitcoin and it was just like how each one just snowballed into the next and just made it more and more. You know the immutability, the using it for commerce but also using it for savings with gold, and I'm not going to do it justice at all. I probably should have looked it up here before I went on, but it it from an economic standpoint, it made me realize how like it serves, its scratches, so many itches for society. You know, obviously finance first, but it's, it's so far, even beyond that. We've just scratched the surface and I know we hit that it in our decentralization, show the history of decentralization.

Speaker 2: 13:35

With education, energy, I mean decentralization and cryptography to open things up to the people and just for the transparency, for for politics like dare to dream. But I mean, how amazing would that be like to know and see the flow of where your money spent and then a whole generation of entrepreneurs can create dashboards like here's where your money is going and here's who's effective, here's who's kind of shady and here's where money seems to be disappearing in some strange black hole.

Speaker 2: 14:05

So you know, dare to dream and that's a I hope in my lifetime. We get far more transparent with that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 14:13

But so that was. So. That kind of spirit in ethos was about, you know, kind of pure decentralization and the excitement of transparency and you know just how that can go. At that time it was really like it was really Bitcoin and you know, up to a certain point right. And then you know, was it next to Ethereum that was kind of introduced to the space. Overall, is that were those kind of the two players and then NFTs came into play? Is that kind of the progression?

Speaker 2: 14:45

Well, it was for me, but yeah. So Bitcoin I'm really lucky because I got into Bitcoin in, you know, early 2015 was after the Mount Gox fallout, so that was the last bull I came. I honestly don't even know if I came a year after that or six months, but whatever it was, it was in just a crab, you know, $200 Bitcoin and it was just. And my brother I gotta give a shout out to him, I love him very much. He's the one who got me into Bitcoin. I think he listened to Andrea Santinopoulos I think it was a Joe Rogan episode and then I listened to that and it was like three hours and I was just like more and I found if you remember, you obviously know who he is Morgan Spurlock. He did he's the one that did Super Size Me Wait McDonald's for a month and then said like he was pre-diabetic, like really, but obviously you know at the time, you know people need to see that and he's a charismatic guy.

Speaker 2: 15:53

He did a lesser known show after that whole thing. He did a series called I think it was called just like 30 days or something, and he would do something for 30 days, like he had a job that was minimum wage and he had to, like, take the bus every day. I mean it was a good show. I honestly don't know how he finagled crypto in there, but somehow someone got him into it. And he was really good at using animations and these visual diagrams to really make it simple, like here's what a blockchain is. And it just showed like almost this conveyor belt with like dollars going on there and say like they'd lock in and you'd be like okay, I can mentally wrap my head around that, but that combo, I'd say, of those three, and then just listening to Andreas, anything I could from him and that's, I assume, how most of us were.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Then I just like I entered the bear. So I don't even to me, it's not like I didn't even know I was in a bear, because I just looked at it. I got very lucky because most people come in at the top and was that skill? No, I just that's. When I came in, it was just pure blind-ass luck that my brother had heard that thing. He was intrigued and you know I'm, my brother's very tech savvy, but you know I'm, I'm and I love you, bro, but I'm definitely more tech savvy and he's introduced me with security and with like he's introduced me to some of the coolest stuff. So it's it's. It's neat that there are things he is way smarter and he's got a sniffer, that's that's very cutting edge and stuff like this.

Speaker 1: 17:33

So it's just lucky that we did it. Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like people that are going to be kind of hooked on. You know, exploring this, this, this world. It really is just a matter of when you get kind of turned on to it, you know, and if you're the sort of person that is going to become interested, then you start going down the rabbit hole and you start it starts becoming very immersive, and I don't know if it's necessarily, you know, maybe it's fate or whatever it is on when your life intersects with it. But I know that, for me, I had somebody be like oh dude, are you crypto's crazy? And it was like you know. He's like look at this, it's just always popping. He's like it's 24 seven. Like you would totally be into it, dude. And I'm like well, I'm like what's crypto?

Speaker 2: 18:16

And he's like he's like all the wrong reasons. He's like dude, it's super addictive and yeah he's like you can't, you can't lose your like that. Right there is the red flag.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Yeah, and he's like, it's like, yeah, we're. You know, it's like the Vanderbilt's getting the railroads for the next. You know, and you got to, you got to get in and I was like, well, where, how do I do it?

Speaker 2: 18:34

And he was. I mean, and he was right. I mean, he was right, probably at the wrong time, like everybody is like, can't the, the, the FOMO? The ability for FOMO to hijack our brains, to get into something is so strong it's not even funny, and it's so when, like when did you so? So your buddy got you and had he already been in a while, or did he?

Speaker 1: 18:58

just jump in at the top too. He got in and you know, he got in maybe a year before me, so he already had. You know, upside he's like dude. I feel like it's illegal. You know, like I can't believe I made that today, I don't know how, and I'm like, well, I want to see what this is about and I like, I like money. So, oh, let me move, you know. Let me, you know, find something in the pillows and throw it into.

Speaker 2: 19:18

You know retirement funds, I can get a little bit of retirement.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Yeah, it's at 64,000, but it's going to be 10 million soon, so that's a great deal, Right.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Right.

Speaker 1: 19:26

Yeah, but I will say, you know I got in, I, I got in right when it was really frothy and I, you know, invested in some of the ones that were buzzy because I knew nothing, you know, like Luna, and you know I got burned on that.

Speaker 1: 19:39

But I consider it lessons learned and you know, you look at how much people pay for business school or whatever it may be Like, you know, if I'm okay taking a couple hits on it, you know, and some slaps, because I, I, I got the bug and I never felt that it wasn't going to come to life and understanding.

Speaker 1: 20:02

I think I kind of had a little bit of a crutch because I was able to kind of tap into crypto, twitter, which you know, who says that that's such a great feeling or great thing, but it did serve a purpose to find other people to kind of say, hey, we're going to get through this. You know the Wagme or whatever it may be, and it kind of felt like I was part of something and you know I had no interest in walking away. I had interest in what can I do while it's a bear, so to speak, because all the people I kind of respected and learned to respect over time in the space were like dude. This is how it goes. It cycles, you know, and people are kind of very not bullish on it.

Speaker 2: 20:41

Who were you talking to? Because my and we'll get into this later but my connection with people in the early days I didn't really have like if I found someone to talk to about crypto, like it was during COVID. There was a guy in my town who, like I, had an old file cabinet in my office and he and his wife picked it up and somehow I figured I was a crypto and I his wife was literally holding the card, like they had the things sticking out of the trunk. I'm like, well, what about this coin? You know, like I couldn't get enough of talking about, like you and I should, we should go on COVID walks, and I think it was almost where he was like enough, I'm backing away now, so I didn't have that connection.

Speaker 2: 21:21

We'll get into the NFT side of it a bit, but what? What made you stay? I think that maybe it was.

Speaker 1: 21:29

I've always been and I know it's going to sound a little, but I've always been a lifelong learner, like and I always am looking for something that has me, and what's crypto? And I guess I'll just say crypto but what it offered me was I could finish you know it's a weird metaphor, but like I could finish the book and then there'd be the sequel and I'd want to read that too, and the fact that it just kept leading to more things to understand and to learn. It was just helped me as an insatiable person, you know. So it's like, okay, well, I think I figured that out, but oh my gosh, now I need to learn this, and that's a whole other thing, and I'll say that, you know, some of the existing Podcasts or media platforms were helpful for me, you know.

Speaker 1: 22:14

So, spending time listening and trying to learn through a bankless roll up or at the time, you know, listening or watching some of the Real vision stuff. It just felt like there was enough of almost like a university, so to speak, that I could understand and learn this stuff. And it's very decentralized in my mind. When we talk about like education and decentralized education, it's like All you have to do is keep digging and there's, there's resources there, and when you get that kind of you know it's like going to the gym and you start seeing it paying off, like I started feeling like I was understanding things and it made me really excited. Now I have to deal with the patient part of it, of being like, okay, everybody talks about how fun it is or, you know, just wait for the bull. I'm like, is there going to be one?

Speaker 2: 22:58

I want my first party. Like, you showed up at the party and like, literally like the last beer was drunk and and all of a sudden, like the, the sun just starts gleaming over the horizon and and then you're like, why is everybody cleaning up? They're sweeping the floor, the lights are flashing.

Speaker 1: 23:19

I'm like dude, I'm in, I'm ready you know so that and that's you know kind of what I'd love to just, you know, kind of ask you a little bit about, because you, you're, you're, you're kind of talked about how, like Bitcoin and Ethereum or you know kind of cores in your mind and I don't know from a investment perspective, where that is, you know, or how you look at that.

Speaker 1: 23:39

But on my side I kind of see, you know, I almost feel like I missed the party on those in terms of going up. So sometimes I'm more interested in some of the other things that are developing and you know, but when I talk to people that have been around in the space longer, they're really seem to be very wary of, you know, if other chains are going to make it, and I don't know if that's because there was a time, like maybe in the last bear market, where things went to zero and never came back and only those did. And you know, I'm sitting there holding Some things that I got at the top and I don't know I have some faith in some of them are good projects that will survive. So it just seems like it's such a different potential ecosystem in the next couple of years and I would just love kind of your. Your take on that.

Speaker 2: 24:28

So what? What do you want me to answer? What's what do? You want me to answer first.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Do you think that if you were coming into it from my timing, that you would put your all of your weight, so to speak, towards just, you know, bitcoin in the theory? Or would you be interested in, you know, maybe looking at trying to get some NFT Collections at a better entry point because of the bear market? Or, you know, altcoins, you know, if I look at it, with like a we talked a lot or anything like that, or chain link or some of those, or you know, swap, you know just those different kind of opportunities, it's like those haven't really run to the point that the Bitcoin in the theorems have. That, you know have helped people that kind of wrote that ladder up. So where would you Think of you know kind of placing some some weight, so to speak, moving forward, as someone who was just, you know, trying to get a foundation?

Speaker 2: 25:33

Yeah, that's a good question. It's hard because you can't know and unsee all that you've seen. So I know that this is going to be biased, but you know, I guess let's look into that. Like, have I been burned on so many different tokens and NFTs like yes, yes, yes, yes, like I've been, even if you start in a bear and I guess this would be my third bear, but the first one is when I started in. Like, when you start in a bear, it's not a bear to you, because if it goes from 200 to 300, you're like that's your bowl right. So that whole ride I got to do from 15 all the way to 2017 I honestly don't even know what year what was the first crash was 17 or 8, like the beginning of 18 or something.

Speaker 2: 26:22

I think I'm 17 when it tanked, okay, so that was huge. And then that first bear, you know, that was the first one I felt. But if I guess, if I gave advice and again I'm biased with with Bitcoin, ethereum so someone new coming in who's never experiences before, like how would I help them speed run this? Yeah, I guess I would wait it heavier Bitcoin, ethereum if I didn't have the knowledge I had. Now I know I would be looking at shitcoins, but I would want to, you know, because I want that huge return and like I would feel like I'm missing out. But I guess I feel like this, this next generation of people coming in or people kind of dip in their toes a little and looking in now I would say Ethereum, you know, is for the most part a deflationary asset right now. It's it's it's the supply of it, it's it's actually going up this week but, you know, because we're kind of a lull right now, but for the most part it's, it's gone down since we went to proof of stake. So I would definitely I would buy Ethereum and Bitcoin I don't know what the ratio would be and I would stake Ethereum because to me, yeah, the altcoins and I hate that term, everybody hates that term, because because there's there's 95% just garbage out there or stuff. Even if it's not garbage, it's probably never going to take off, but there's. There's probably 304050, whatever the number is there's. There's a lot of interesting chains and use cases and you know, but I'm biased to more Ethereum, l2 and to me, ethereum. So you've got optimism, you got ZK rollups, you have so many things on Ethereum that that are layered on top. Now, to me, I don't see theorems, only a base money, because it's so many more things than that, but to me, a depreciating asset where I can stake and have what you can call it a bond or an annuity and I won't say it's guaranteed because more and more stakers are coming in now, but I've I've started staking more and more there and I feel like with you know, everybody sees it.

Speaker 2: 28:34

The next big thing is and whether it's not approved or not, the ETFs are at some point they have to come. They're in the rest of the world, canada's got it, europe's got it. We're the only ones who don't have it, and I don't think the SEC has too many arrows in the quiver for whatever reason they're stopping it to stop it, and that's probably nine shows right there to discuss like who's behind this and why. But I think, with Ethereum and Bitcoin, with the ETF, I think we're. We already saw surge, you know, this week up to whatever 35. A peak to know it's 34, whatever it's. It's hovering around there.

Speaker 2: 29:08

But I think there's a ton of room to run. A member of the area is going to get an ETF to and then people are going to be like jump over there, so so that's why I would pick those. But yeah, you're right, like you know, I went through a chain link phase. I think I bought some, or maybe I didn't like because I think it was during the, the 2017 bull, and I'm like. But mental note, like, yeah, this is, this could be a very important underpinning of everything that's going on. I haven't researched in a while, so I couldn't recommend or not recommend it right now.

Speaker 2: 29:38

But, like A lot of times, what I look at is like I'll try and dabble and altcoins, but, like you mentioned Uniswap. So Uniswap is is you know it's. It's a genius, it's a dex you are. You can change Ethereum For a multitude of different tokens seamlessly and it just works. And there's a bunch of dexes out there that people don't talk about as much. But you know, if you buy the Unitoken you're you're buying kind of a governance token. Now could they unlock that to give you a cut of those profits? We got to wait and see what happens in America with the SEC, but if that was the case, it'd be a no brainer right, like that'd be another annuity you would buy to get, to get these funds coming to you with a smart contract. It doesn't take accountants and it doesn't take a whole back room bureaucracy to send you the, the, the funds or the assets that you gain on that the interest.

Speaker 1: 30:36

I think it's there's kind of a theme that I've noticed in talking about this and it it's it's very helpful for me to understand it from this perspective, which is there are opportunities potentially to Get involved with annuities and to kind of create, you know, newer style annuities with inner. You know how you, you know invest, so to speak, in some of these things you know and you know exactly right. You know, like staking is essentially an annuity right, and then there's different outlets. So, like for someone like me, I don't have the war chest of Ethereum to like start at the level of building my own or doing my own in-home kind of node and staking. From that perspective, I'd love to get there and that's something I'm hoping to do. But if I look at the central exchanges, like a coin-based to stake, or then there's the rocket pools and the LIDOs and things like that.

Speaker 2: 31:39

Yeah, the liquidity providers, which is way more decentralized. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:43

Yeah, like I'm just curious, like I think I need to look at it from the perspective of how can I try to get annuities out of this and base it on the success or the utilization of different platforms or blockchain. So I think that's kind of making sense from Ethereum and you might. As long as it's deflationary and everything's going like that, then you're right, that does seem like a relatively safe bet. But then I get confused, as you were saying about like oh well, you have Uniswap or you have these other tokens. Yeah, op, there's a million of them, yeah, and it's hard to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 32:20

It's like so they're saying all these things are being built on optimism or whatever it is. Does that mean that's going to reflect in a significant rise in the token or not? Like that's kind of the question that I keep trying to figure out, and I guess what you're kind of indicating is kind of hedge your bets on the bigger, on the ones that are more of. The path is in place and you see that, especially with the ETFs, knowing that then other people, those entities, are going to have to secure their own allotment of it in order to make it come to life.

Speaker 2: 32:54

Yeah, remember too, though, like Ethereum with optimism, zkrl those roll into Ethereum as the base layer for security. So to me, like if everything on top of Ethereum, coinbase's base, everything rolls down, and if you didn't have Ethereum, you couldn't have your layer too. So for me, it's like I'm probably more conservative than most people. Like in the whole NFT boom, like, yeah, I could show you a big, big catalog of stupid things I bought and bought too many of, but I never over did it and bought like 182 of these and just where you literally can't get rid of these things. But to me, ethereum is something. There's so much infrastructure now stacked on top of it that to not stake it. And to your point, I think, if I knew then what I knew now, yeah, I probably would use. I think I'd go rocket pool over Lido, just cause Lido has like 31.6% of the entire ETH staking pool, which obviously raises alarms at the lack of decentralization there. So I would probably use someone else only if for that. But Lido's got a powerful pool and you can stake less than 32 ETH. Cause for newer people to crypto. To be a solo validator, to be a really independent validator staking the Ethereum network, you need 32 ETH, which is, in today's dollars, roughly 60 or $58,000, whatever. It's not cheap, so you gotta kind of be all in, but the beauty is you could stake on one of these. It's more liquid, you can get in and out at will and you can make your three or 4% and kind of build up the nest tag that way.

Speaker 2: 34:57

Yeah, is it slow? Yes, but I'm also a believer that the fundamental value of Ethereum goes up, because I'm not looking at it right now but, like OP, like I really like that chain, that layer two for Ethereum. But there's I think there's a billion outstanding tokens. It's a lot. So I'm like a billion's a big number, a trillion or 500 billion. Some of these tokens, you're like how, and you hear and I'm not picking on OP specifically but some of these chains, like the founders take like 40, 50 or 60% like. To me that's a lot like the founding teams. To me that's like VCs being like oh, this is like let's get the free money while it lasts. But obviously, polygon, op, zk, a lot of these layer twos, they're awesome and they're so much stuff being built on top of them, or what Coinbase did with base, like there's so much potential there for all these layers, like, honestly, I thought Disney, they hired a guy a couple years ago. I think they recently fired them and I know at some point we'll probably look into this. But I thought Disney in the NFT space, like the amount of cool stuff you can do with these immutable NFTs.

Speaker 2: 36:13

Or for people who are less knowledgeable, like these badges that you own, or almost think about a QR code in your phone that is yours. You own it as like a super fan or collector of Star Wars or Mandalorian or that new one that I absolutely love. I'll think of the name of it but you could go in and have a totally different park experience and they could have 10,000 Stormtroopers and you could collect those. I mean, we obviously grew up as the Star Wars generation, not the Jar Jar generation, but the original, which is episode four, five and six, which I had to explain to my son the other day. He's like wait, jar Jar wasn't the first one. I'm like no, it's episode one, but it's you know.

Speaker 1: 36:55

You can't escape Jar Jar. It's like, come on, I'm talking like R2D2 back in the day and the Sandmen, the Sandtroopers, or the Sandmen, they scared the crap out of me.

Speaker 2: 37:07

Frisco. They're called Tusken Raiders.

Speaker 1: 37:09

There we go, there we go. Maybe I was giving you one there, okay.

Speaker 2: 37:14

Yeah, just the fact that I got to say Tusken Raiders is kind of exciting.

Speaker 1: 37:19

Yeah, I remember leaving school in fifth grade to go down to see the Jedi premiere. That was kind of cool.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Yeah, that was fifth, wasn't it? And do you know that it was called? And the posters were out and everything in the movie theaters it was called Revenge of the Jedi and they changed it to return of the Jedi because revenge was too strong of a like. Revenge was too strong of a word and he changed it, or somebody changed it, think he had pretty much entire creative control. So I assume it came from Lucas himself.

Speaker 1: 37:46

So I didn't know that, so I convinced him to do it.

Speaker 2: 37:49

Yeah, it was literally like the posters were literally up. I don't know how they changed it in the actual movie that fast, but it was. Maybe they were promoting it with posters for like a year, because how else did you do it?

Speaker 1: 37:59

best.

Speaker 2: 38:00

Because things stayed in theaters forever. So that's why I'm so biased. Bitcoin ETF the big guys are gonna come in the Black Rocks who manage trillions of dollars in assets, which I mean trillions in assets Like that the fact that a company manages something that starts with a T is that's a mind-boggling number.

Speaker 2: 38:23

But these guys are coming in and they're big, and that's why you saw the big pump there. They're already starting to buy, or at least that's the speculation right. So if they're buying, I mean, think about it Fidelity's gotta jump in All of these. There's 10 or 12 of them.

Speaker 2: 38:37

I think that hopefully all these ETFs will all get approved at the same time for a Bitcoin ETF, so they have the underlying asset to the Bitcoin that people like what I would say to a newcomer if you have a retirement fund, even if you put, or a pension fund or whatever, this is not financial advice. But even putting one, two, three percent in as just a hedge against the bond market, people think that 40, 50, 60 year run is kinda run its course, like these to me are the new bonds, because it's code, it's not. It can't be manipulated by central planning and central.

Speaker 1: 39:21

You know the Fed and the user, and I did look into it. I believe they do have to have the underlying asset, so they do need to accumulate it. So I guess mathematically that does kind of make sense. Well then, price will rise when availability shrinks right, and I understand.

Speaker 2: 39:40

Well, think about it. There's 16 million Bitcoin, like. The only analogy I can think of that fits is like think of a tube of toothpaste that's half full, you know, and you're trying to squeeze it out. And then take literally a steamroller, like if you start throwing billions in all at the same time, like that squeeze and that demand on those assets. Remember, I mean, the central exchanges don't hold a majority of the Bitcoin by any means. Most of it is off the central exchanges, so it could squeeze that and Ethereum could squeeze and these other coins, like you're right, there are coins out there. If you pick the right ones, that will probably 10, 100, 1,000 or more X. I'm just not. It's not where my interest is and I don't know if I would be able to get it right. But if I did stumble on one that I thought was like wow, that's like a lynchpin of how everything's going down, yeah, I would definitely dabble and buy it. And then it would 100 X and I'd be like why did I only buy like $290?

Speaker 1: 40:53

of it Like I should have put 10 grand. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 40:56

I mean, that's what I do with Bitcoin. I'm not super rich, I didn't buy a lot, I just had enough to play with Bitcoin and Ethereum and it made me interested and excited to kind of have more. Like I'm dollar cost averaging in now just like everybody else. I'm just happy that I grabbed like a little sliver at like 2,999, you know, 2,900 before 30 because it went to 35. Like I'm in the same boat now. You know like, honestly, had I bought what I bought back then and just dollar cost averaged and didn't staked and do anything, I would be far wealthier now, like a lot of it. Like I burned on NFTs and that may pay off in the long run.

Speaker 2: 41:41

But you know, I don't know if we want to cross over to that yet. But the first bear market I was in from 2017 to 2019 was lonely. You know, like I didn't have a lot of people to commiserate with now in the NFT space and we can get in the history of how it all unfolded for me. But like now I have people to like laugh with, commiserate with, be sarcastic with. Like the big joke the other day at when it went to 35,000, we all woke up and saw this. Like all of a sudden the Twitter timeline, like a lot of people who seem to have been elsewhere were like hey you know, here we are, I never left.

Speaker 1: 42:19

Here we are. We're gonna do it. Let's go.

Speaker 2: 42:22

Yeah, and I think I wrote. I was, like, you know, into those we say welcome and it's not like I was posting more in the bear. But you know, you and I found this show. We found something to harness our creative energy and talk about it, without just trying to tell people and pump things and try and get people like, oh, buy this or buy that, Like we're just learning and we're having fun along the way.

Speaker 1: 42:49

I mean, just this conversation has helped me because I do think that it's difficult to lasso in the side of you and I'm speaking the side of me that wants to get the moonshot right, and you know that the Twitter timeline and how that's all put together is basically they know how to the influencers know how to kind of put just a little bit out there on something that you're like well, I don't wanna miss that. Everything's going on over there, you know. So it's like it's and I couldn't. I was thinking about that, like that would be so different when you know, if I was in five years ago or whatever, and it was like you'd totally be on more of an island, and it kind of feels like the NFT, you know, brought people together in terms of being able to, you know, communicate and be like hey, dude, we're in this together.

Speaker 1: 43:44

And I know that's a cliche- but sense of camaraderie though you know what I mean and like like-minded. It's there for sure, yeah. And then it's like now do you think that all of the NFTs like do you think when the market changes or there's a bowl or a new kind of thing comes about, do you think that the older NFTs are gonna be irrelevant and it's like kind of wait for a new wave of drops and stuff and do that. Or do you think that there's opportunities to kind of bargain shop some established ones? That's kind of where my head's at. It's like I don't know, do I wait until there's a new wave, or are there ones that make sense? And I guess that's a tough question.

Speaker 2: 44:25

I don't know if I'd wait. Yeah, again, I might be biased To me if you look at it with like a 20 or 30-year horizon. I don't plan, even though I would be far more well off if I had just held my Bitcoin and not bought Ordinals, at least in today's dollars or Ethereum. I don't regret buying them at all and I'm glad I held them and it's introduced me to so many new people and I'm going to hold for decades because I like them. They're interesting to me, but I don't. You have to.

Speaker 2: 45:02

That's why and you've asked me this question a lot and I don't know if you've noticed and whether this is conscious or subconscious I've never not only have I not given you an answer, often I don't even respond to it, not to be a jerk, but also, like you got to figure, when you're ready to pull the trigger, I will definitely be there rooting you on and giving advice to the best of my ability, but I can't decide what community is best for you, because 95, maybe that's high, but call it, at least 50% of the people in these communities are. There's a lot of BS out there and there's a lot of folks who are all about them and being influencers and you know, like I said, I can't. A lot of these influencers I can't stand. Like you know, in the ordinal space there's most of the people who have the loud, the biggest megaphones are. They don't represent my view and I don't think they represent the view of some of the savviest collectors in the space.

Speaker 2: 46:09

So I would say to you, like I, I would start looking now before the next bull, because with new mince, yeah, new creative stuff's going to keep happening. But to me, like the legacy stuff, like the crypto punks or the ordinal punks on the Bitcoin side or Bitcoin rocks and I'm not saying you start there, because I mean these things are several Bitcoin each, but I'm saying I think, as this ecosystem develops and as NFTs are used for identity, for movie or for sorry music tickets and collectibles at you know your favorite band and stuff and on and on and on and certificates that you know, like we're waiting for for the course we took in NFTs and the metaverse. Like I think a lot of the coolest stuff is already out there, but you have to figure out what kind of collector you are. Like we've gone through a lot of it. You know we've talked about Ethereum NFTs.

Speaker 2: 47:12

A lot of them are pointers and off chain like, but there's a story element to that that that Brendan taught us right, like with it, with a lot of collections, like it's not that that totally off chain. Even off chain centralized, it's not bad. It's just not my preference anymore because 10, 20, 30 years down the line, like I know I pick on D gods a lot, but is that D God going to be there in 20 or 30 years? Like maybe I don't know. I that? To me that seems a doubtful.

Speaker 1: 47:45

Let me ask you this, then, because I know I've tried to ask you a few times and now we've now even now it's been exposed that I'm not getting the answer that that I seek. Let me ask you this how would one Chicago, or how did Chicago, go about getting the feel for a community before you pulled the trigger, so before you entered into the crypto punk space? How did you research or understand that that was a community that you wanted to be a part of when you were on the outside prior?

Speaker 2: 48:24

Good question. I mean, my first mint was I never paid attention to NFTs. I was more into DeFi and really just in the Ethereum and Bitcoin. But then, you know, I started listening to Bankless more. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool, you can do stuff with Ethereum. And then I started learning how Ethereum actually worked. I held it for years and I'm like I didn't realize that I was a Bitcoin maxi, but I was just like Bitcoin's awesome in Ethereum's, like this other thing that they're playing with the sandbox and I have. I think it'll do well and Andreas told me it'll probably work. So I did it.

Speaker 2: 48:58

But my first mint was nuclear nerds and I literally saw one of the founders post a joke and it was funny. It was like there was this whole thing where, like Pepsi, budweiser and two or three other big brands, there was something that was referenced to Web 3. And the dialogue between these three was literally like eight seconds apart. So it was like the same PR firm organizing this. The companies are probably like, whatever, yeah, web 3, just go do it. And they were like, hey, wag me, we're all gonna make it, gm, gm and it was like the most cliche stuff. And this the nuclear nerd founder just said cringe 3.0. And I was like, and, as my dad would say, like it was perfect. It was absolutely like he said, in the least amount of characters, like get out of this space, you know, and Bud Light put the noggles in the Super Bowl, so like that, they, they've got a legitimate like that. That's. That's more OG than I was like. I wasn't in the denouncing and I wasn't following yet. So you know, it's all relative.

Speaker 2: 50:11

And then I started scrolling the nuclear nerd timeline and I just like I don't know why, I just my that's when my brain got hijacked and I got hooked. And you know I won't get into the whole story, but I made a lot of friends there. I bought a lot of art from a lot of the people who are nuclear nerds. Holders, were artists and creatives and they were just like, like that gave them the permission and I put that in quotes because obviously they didn't need permission but it gave them the license to be a license to be creative again and to really and this one guy co, we did these beautiful sore graffiti and oh man, lanko has some beautiful pictures. I've got a couple behind me. Maybe when you're talking I'll go back and scroll a couple. But there's so many, so many Macs up in in Tromsko who does these beautiful tours of the up in the sky, of the what do?

Speaker 1: 51:10

you call them Northern lights, northern lights.

Speaker 2: 51:13

Thank you?

Speaker 1: 51:13

Yes, of course.

Speaker 2: 51:14

And I have a picture of old broken down like ship that's with the northern lights in the background. So like I got to know these people and I got to, it made me realize you know, my mom is an art historian her whole life and it made me realize how much I love art. But I like to know the people behind the art that that I buy and that made it more accessible and I became friends with these people online. Now I will finish by saying I'm definitely disappointed in how the nuclear nerds that the draw I mean the market was tanking this the spring anyway, but they did a drop and like tripled or quadrupled the count. They they didn't even mint out and it was just. It was such an obvious, complete fail.

Speaker 2: 52:00

But since then I got into a zoo key and met so many great people there and then you know that was kind of my community. I've always I've never been in the center of the community because, like you know, with families you can't. You can't be on Twitter all the time, like you have to pick your times to be on it. But there's a lot of people I really liked there and to this day there's a lot of people that that I, I really like. And then you know, the more you get into it, I think, the more you look back at the history of it. And that's when I saw a crypto punk. And you know now that I guess my face is doxxed.

Speaker 2: 52:30

I'm like hey that's me Wait, but that's listed way above floor, that's like almost double the floor, well, you know.

Speaker 1: 52:39

And like hijacked brains, like I can make this work somehow.

Speaker 2: 52:45

And I got hijacked and a lot of the Bitcoin I held early. I transferred over to Ethereum to, and that's not the only thing I did. I had some wins with the zoo key but I that's how I got my crypto punk by old Bitcoin and then paying the tax man hefty sum of you know what's. If you go from one coin to the other, you pay capital gains on what you you know, on what you bought it for.

Speaker 2: 53:06

But you know, I was like I want to spend it on on things that are interesting to me.

Speaker 1: 53:13

Yeah, I think it's fascinating because before I even thought about anything, you know, before I heard the you know the Vanderbilt's were building, you know and to jump in, I was going to switch my job and my job, my goal, was to open an art gallery and a traditional art gallery, like that was in my mind. And then it's just kind of congruent in a in an interesting way that, you know, there's this transition to digital art which you know I just haven't, I think, because I've done a lot of. I take the leap on traditional art without any issue, you know what I mean. Like if I see something and you know I understand it, like I'll, I'll invest and purchase it because I know, and I've never regretted it, because every time I walk by it, each day, you know, I feel a little lift from it and it gives me. It gives me that.

Speaker 1: 54:05

And I think that I've been a little reluctant to make the transition in my mind of accepting art as art, whether it's, you know, traditional or it's digital, and I think that's kind of something that I'm getting closer to making that, that transition, and it's something I think about, and I think we talked about this briefly, but I think I'm waiting to have, like a true opportunity for a good gallery digitally, you know, like, and trying to make that come to life.

Speaker 1: 54:37

And I'm trying to learn more about who's building that sort of stuff and I'm very excited about how that's going to come. And I know I'm not, you know, I'm not Mark Zuckerberg or anything, but I do think that it's tied to kind of this notion of the metaverse which you know, when I got into, you know, at the frothy, whatever that was, also, I think I heard about crypto the day. I heard that they were changing the name from Facebook to meta. So that was when it was like Whoa, this is all happening, like Facebook's changing, and then my mind was blown like where is all this going to end up and where's this going to go?

Speaker 1: 55:10

And I need to get a seat at this table, Like I love it. So I appreciate the context and it's just helpful to talk to you know, have a conversation with someone who's had a little more, you know, miles on the tires, so to speak, and has seen it. And can I think what I'm getting from you is be wary of FOMO, look for quality, and if you talk about Ethereum, I don't know why I haven't really registered it. Ethereum all ships rise. If the L2s do great, Ethereum is rooting for everything to go. So there's no. Hey, you got to side hedge as much as I thought before Like, oh, I got to get out of this.

Speaker 2: 55:51

The more activity on that chain, the more Ethereum at the base layer settles it, the more activity, the more that gets burned and the more staking rewards you get. It's like it's the perfect flywheel, you know. But I will answer you directly in one sense, Like if I was starting over right now and I didn't know anything and someone like a big brother gave me like perfect advice, I like, and you wanted to get in with an NFT, just like a smaller sized one, I would say MF'ers, I love, like it's CCO, you know, I think CCO is a very interesting way to have art.

Speaker 2: 56:33

Like Biskie was saying, this art can be reproduced, it can be used in any way by any person, whether you own the NFT or not. Like I just think that to me stands the test of time. But if you look at the bear market, whether we're coming out of the bear or not now I have no idea. But art has done better than the NFT collections by far, like some of the older art has held. Well, you know, obviously when you're in this community you kind of want to have a PFP because, like having a face for whatever reason, whatever that thing that character, whether it's a crypto punk or or when a Matt Fury, you know, the guy who made Pepe one of his weird, awesome creations.

Speaker 2: 57:14

Like I don't know, I don't, I don't know if it matters, but I think that there's a lot of communities out there that you would definitely vibe with and then there might be, there might be something new that's groundbreaking. But if you're trying, waiting for the next bull, I mean you see the trap you're putting yourself in, you're waiting for the next bull and then all the, all the grifters come out with these mints and a lot of honest people like are you going to be able to discern the difference? Because when your brain gets hijacked, that FOMO is so strong and it doesn't matter how many cycles you've been in Like I get hurt all the time.

Speaker 2: 57:51

There was one the other day. I was like, wait, this is a nice new take on Ethereum by being able to change your PFP and change the pointer. It's a clever idea, did I meant no, it was yesterday, I forgot. But I'm like, like you got to ask yourself the question, like in a year when the lens is, the lights are not shining on that thing at launch, like could you buy it then? Yeah, like is it going to? Is it going to keep 10 Xing? Maybe not.

Speaker 2: 58:23

Some, some might like a zookeeper kept going up, but then even that, came down, so, like everything has to be in the sun, I agree with that and you, you've got to find something that you really want, and whether that's art, for a while, I mean, it could be that, or or, like I don't know that's why, like the MFers, that's that I would definitely pipe.

Speaker 2: 58:44

That's what I would personally buy. I'm trying to think maybe one of Matt Furie's I can't remember the collection, but they're the goofiest. They just look like the Sesame Street of the LSD era, like they're just weird but they're awesome. So maybe one of his things. But those those are my. Those might be in the ether, a couple of ether, but there's. There's so much cool out there that you know you just got to pick the things that that you want.

Speaker 1: 59:10

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense and you know, even just listening to you answer that I was like waiting for the next thing, what's going to come. It's like we already did a show on one of those and you know, ordinals are however many months old, and you know that's come in. And you know I, I I'm a little mesmerized by the whole kind of some of the, the benefits or the differentiators of the ordinal side of things in terms of the inscription numbers and you know, the chest first checkers and kind of looking at it that way.

Speaker 1: 59:38

That, you know, maybe that's what'll happen, but I don't know. I really appreciate, you know, just being able to have kind of some, some open questions and just you know a little bit of it just kind of helps to pace me a little bit when I'm sitting down in my little office and looking at things and seeing charts and hey, this is going to moon and this is going to go and this is going to zero, and you know what is it? I don't know. And it's kind of comforting to know that that people who have been around and in it a little longer still have to, you know, be disciplined and, and you know, play by the same rules of you know, really watching out for the FOMO like and understanding how your mind triggers your potential actions. And I think it's a great point.

Speaker 1: 1:00:25

Very few times have things launched and there not been another entry point. So it kind of defeats the purpose of FOMO or defeats the foundations of FOMO. So I think that you know, if there's one lesson that I'm picking up, it's like stick with, you know, stick, stick with things that can build upon themselves and can generate a return. Don't be, you know, looking for things that are too good to be true, aka what I had going with, like Tara and Luna, when I, when I got out, I was like it just, it just keeps going up. I don't know what it does, but it keeps going up, and you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:58

Yeah, the thing that stinks for new people is like they. If they do get into Luna and get into these crappy coins that were, you know, not that I could have told you then. Like, is it a scam? I would have told you to stay away from it. But like or like SPF, I didn't pay enough attention to him because you know I'd been around long enough. I'm like like the grifters. It's just like the phone the I don't want to say the cream rises, because that's a compliment, but like the, it's almost like the FOMO grift rises and then they get scraped off Like. That didn't even remotely surprise me and I think most people in the business be like I'm not giving this glitzy new SPF my money.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

Like when, when I had, you know, when the Thanksgiving conversations come around and people were like you know, where should I buy? Like FTX has all these Tom Brady commercials. Should I buy there? I'm like I wouldn't. I'm like I'd use Coinbase because that's the one. I know they've been around longer and you know they haven't done everything right. But security isn't boring. I would say them or Kraken are, are, you know, safe places to do it. And I think Coinbase is around a little earlier and that's that's when I started buying there. So it's like in the FTX, you know, thank goodness, you know. I think I even told my cousin or one of my brother-in-law is like, yeah, I would just stay away from that. And even when it went down, I'm like wait, I told you not to use that, right. He was like, oh yeah, I'm like okay, good, I'm like just get a hardware wallet if you can. Like I wouldn't keep it on any central exchange right now because who knows if Coinbase could fall. But yeah, obviously they didn't and they were fine.

Speaker 1: 1:02:32

But you know, I it's.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

I don't, I don't ever want to. I don't ever want to give someone like the wrong advice, but I would. I would ask you and turn around like for someone new to crypto, what would you like? You know if if we see any ETFs approved, obviously, but this fall, you know under the hood, a lot of these massive funds like BlackRock are accumulating Bitcoin and all crypto is going to rise, obviously. What advice would you give a new person coming in?

Speaker 1: 1:03:02

I I think I said it before. I think my biggest takeaway is operate with an element of discipline and don't just look for it's like, you know, the gambling sites. You know you can do the hey, you know, open a DraftKings account and put a hundred bucks in and we'll give you 300 and free bets. They know they're going to get it back and they'll push like parlays on you. So I'll almost equate some of these to yeah, it'd be great to do a parlay, but you got to get all three things right to get the payout on that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:32

So, kind of looking at it from that lens and then going into, you know, hold something and taking the notion that and it's cliche, we mentioned it before that it is still so early, you know. So, buying, you know Ethereum, now you're still kind of way ahead of the general population and you're not. You didn't really miss everything. You missed the couple of linings beforehand, but that doesn't mean that you can't. You know, do well and be a part of something that may be more stable. And I think the notion of the deflationary and the limited supply verse, you know seeing token airdrops, you know every so often from some of these other places where it's like hey, it's like well, that's going to devalue what I have. It's kind of the same thing with the, with the NFTs, you know dropping, you know collections within it, and diluting the going from 10,000 to 30,000. It's like well, great. So it's kind of the same way to look at that, I guess.

Speaker 2: 1:04:28

Yeah, that's a good point, and remember it. Like during COVID, you know, bitcoin went I don't remember what it was before that. I know it was at 68 at some point, but it went from like 20 different and for a couple of days it went to like $4,000. And I was like well, I'm in.

Speaker 2: 1:04:46

You know like I'll gobble in. So the longer you're in, the more you realize like and I still follow and make big mistakes. But you realize like, just be patient. You know, but if you're getting in for the first time, like, and it's going up, just buy a little, like, just start dollar cost averaging in. Never put in more than you can afford to lose. You know, I feel like this is the end credits right now, but just get in so you can understand what's going on, cause if you have it, then you're, you might get a hardware wallet and then you might transfer it away from a centralized exchange and realize like you literally have just become your own bank and there's nothing more freeing and invigorating than knowing that you hold the private keys to your own bank and to your own Ethereum or Bitcoin or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 1:05:36

That being said, there's nothing that I've experienced that was scarier than the. Where is it of transferring for the first time from a exchange to a wallet, like what happened? You know, it's like.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

It's like you know, and as you said, you know, you're like, you know, like doing that by yourself, it's almost the right of passage. And once you do it, then then the light bulb also goes off. It's like, oh, wow, this is how it works. So yeah, having that you know and having that you know, kind of that's safe in your hand, is pretty, um, pretty liberating when you really think about things. So I again I think we could go for hours and hours, but I picked up a lot from this and it really was kind of a steady me down a little bit, and I think it was time because, as you said, like the timeline's starting to pop and you're starting to see, you know, big words and big companies and billions and billions and trillions of assets coming in, and you know it's easy to get kind of hyped up and hopped up and I think just having some anchoring and and and and really understanding what sort of you know collector or investor, however, what you want to be, and just kind of holding yourself accountable, is pretty much the key takeaway that I'll take.

Speaker 2: 1:06:46

Yeah, and the best part about it is honestly, the to me, looking back, the learning whether it was crypto or NFTs or just security crypto. Without cryptography we wouldn't have like online banking, we wouldn't have e-commerce Like it's everywhere. It's just. This is the next iteration to streamline and make more transparent and immutable. Meaning can't be changed, it's locked in that everyone you know can see. It's just, it's this. This is an evolution of what we've already had and you know we'll throw Phil Zimmerman out again.

Speaker 1: 1:07:23

I was going to.

Speaker 2: 1:07:25

What an amazing guy you've never heard of. Like. Had he not kind of fought the government and made cryptography legal, we wouldn't have any of this stuff. So it's it's. It's a cool thing, and I love learning. Learning is the best part of all of this by far.

Speaker 1: 1:07:40

I know and it's kind of what you know, what I was saying where it's like I'd rather have this education and, you know, have to, you know, take a couple slings here and there or whatever, but to be able to learn what I've learned and to be able to be as fulfilled from a just kind of exponential thought process of like, hey, you know, and, and the wonder of what can be and where it's headed, is like, for that I'm, for that I'm thankful for, for, for getting hyped into it at the top of the top of the froth and I'll be patient and see where things were, things had.

Speaker 2: 1:08:13

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:08:14

Again, as always, this is a show is for entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. As you can hear us say, it's important always to do your own research and to make sure that you're taking care of yourself and not getting over your skis, so to speak. So be careful out there, be smart and have as much fun as you can. I'll say that.

Speaker 2: 1:08:35

Yep, Take care everybody Until next week.

Speaker 1: 1:08:37

All right, bye, bye.