Life Changing Money: "You Have No Idea What's Coming With Bitcoin & Crypto In 2025" | Raoul Pal
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Raoul Pal, a globally recognized macro investor and co-founder of Real Vision, outlines his journey from traditional hedge fund sales at Goldman Sachs to becoming a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency. His career began in the world of macro investing during periods like the 2008 financial crisis, where he witnessed firsthand how systemic failures disproportionately affected ordinary people while gatekeepers profited. This realization led him to democratize high-level financial information through Real Vision and eventually embrace Bitcoin as the solution to a broken system characterized by excessive debt and central bank money printing. Pal argues that cryptocurrency represents the fastest adoption of any technology in human history, growing at 113% annually compared to the internet's peak growth rate of 63%, suggesting it could reach one billion users soon if current trends continue. The core argument presented is that Bitcoin offers a unique opportunity for wealth creation across all income levels due to its exponential nature and digital scarcity. Pal emphasizes that while short-term volatility can be terrifying, long-term holders who utilize dollar-cost averaging based on a solid thesis will succeed without needing market timing skills. He illustrates this with the example of his sister-in-law, who learned to ride out price drops by consistently buying in, eventually doubling her investment amount during corrections. To manage psychological stress from these fluctuations, Pal recommends viewing charts on logarithmic scales over long timeframes (5-10 years), which reveals that massive percentage swings are merely noise within a smooth upward trend similar to Amazon or Facebook's historical performance. Pal strongly advises against using leverage in the crypto market due to its extreme volatility compared to real estate, warning that borrowing money can lead to liquidation during inevitable 50% corrections even in bull markets. Instead of complex financial instruments like derivatives, he advocates for a simple strategy: invest only what you are prepared to hold long-term without debt and focus on major assets with crowd validation like Bitcoin and Ethereum. He shares his personal experience of initially investing small amounts (1-2% of net worth) as "schmuck insurance" before increasing exposure once the thesis remained intact, demonstrating that conviction allows investors to ignore short-term market panic and capitalize on break-even points shifting lower during dips. Looking beyond simple asset ownership, Pal envisions a future where tokenization transforms communities into self-sustaining digital economies with their own currencies, rules, and missions. He cites examples like the Nouns DAO, which raised millions by selling scarce NFTs to fund community projects without traditional venture capital or banks, effectively bypassing old intermediaries. This model extends to entertainment industries; he predicts that artists and creators will soon tokenize IP directly from fans, allowing communities to own a piece of success rather than just consuming content created for shareholders. Pal believes this shift represents the end of the current VC-dominated ecosystem and paves the way for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) where value flows back to participants, potentially disrupting giants like Disney as they attempt to adapt their business models to these new community-driven economies. Finally, addressing regulatory concerns regarding securities laws and the Howey test, Pal expresses frustration with outdated 1930s legislation that favors wealthy institutions over individual innovators. He predicts that demographic shifts among millennials entering power will eventually force regulators to recognize digital assets as distinct from traditional securities, focusing instead on combating fraud rather than restricting investment access based on wealth status. While acknowledging that prosecutions and regulatory hurdles may slow progress temporarily, he remains optimistic about the inevitable evolution of laws to match technological reality. Pal concludes by urging listeners to explore free resources like Real Vision Crypto to educate themselves before making decisions, emphasizing that understanding these transformative technologies is essential for anyone looking to secure their financial future in a rapidly changing global economy.
Read the full video transcript
Raoul Pal, welcome to the show, man. I
am super excited to talk to you.
I'm really excited to be here. It's
going to be a lot of fun, I think. All
right. So, for people that don't know
who you are, you're a globally
recognized macro investor, master
investor as well,
co-founder of Real Vision. But, if you
don't mind just walking people through
a quick synopsis and for anybody
um that isn't used to me talking about
finance and cryptocurrency, I am just on
a mission to get people to understand
what I think is happening now, which is
uh
I've heard you use these words, and you
are a far better person to listen to
than me,
but that there's a a massive wealth
transfer happening right now that gives
people who have traditionally been
disenfranchised a chance to get in. So,
everybody, even though
you know, this is sort of beyond the
scope of my traditional mindset
conversations, I think it's one of the
most important conversations to be had
right now. So, with that, Raoul, if you
don't mind giving us the background,
that'd be amazing. Yeah, I'm going to
give you a background about me and why I
got into crypto as well, as that's kind
of where we're going with this
conversation. So, my background was 30
and 31 or 2 years financial markets. So,
I grew up in that world. I grew up in
the world of what is known as macro
investing. Macro investing is when you
look at all the asset classes everywhere
around the world, so bonds, equities,
commodities, currencies,
um credit, all of these things, and you
try and look for what is the best return
you can get.
Maybe that's in India. Maybe it's in
China. Maybe it's in the US. So, that's
the mindset. We have this 3D
ever-evolving jigsaw puzzle in our heads
of the world driven by the global
economy, hence why it's called macro,
cuz it's macroeconomics.
So, it's driven by the business cycle
trends of the global economy. So, I did
that. I was on the sales side for many
years.
I ended up at Goldman Sachs, where I
started and ran the hedge fund sales
business in equities and equity
derivatives. My whole career basically
had been getting to know the the most
famous hedge fund managers from kind of
1990 to 2000, it was like being taught
acting by Robert De Niro or, you know,
Lawrence Olivier. I mean, it's
ridiculous. Like, you know, my my daily
calls would be Stan Druckenmiller, Paul
Tudor Jones, you know, the guys at
Soros, etc., etc., etc.
So, that was it. Plenty of crises and
exciting stuff happened over that
period, very macro. Then I decided to
make the switch in 2000. I saw the
recession was coming and I wanted to
invest and make money from it. So, I
moved to one of my biggest clients,
which was the biggest hedge fund firm in
Europe at the time GLG Partners. And I
started and ran the global macro hedge
fund there. So, that was now me taking
these bets on a global basis over that
kind of very rocky period of 2000, 2001,
2002, 2003 and 2004. Then I decided I
had enough and I moved to the
Mediterranean coast of Spain
and started writing macroeconomic
research. I'd been around the hedge fund
business longer than most people at that
point. And I had a huge amount of
experience both in knowing all of the
players and also being a player myself.
So, I started writing saying from that
perspective,
macroeconomic research called the Global
Macro Investor, which I still write 17
years later.
And that's read by most of the world's
most famous hedge fund managers,
sovereign wealth funds, asset managers,
that kind of stuff. Really privileged
position.
And it's that privileged position that
got to me where I am today, why I
started Real Vision and why crypto,
because they're all part of the same
thing.
So, there I am, 2007, and I'm thinking
the world is about to fall apart and I'm
writing about it.
And, you know, I'm one of the people
that was,
you know, on the right side of that. And
a lot of the people in the film The Big
Short were clients of mine. And we all
kind of knew what was going on.
The world falls apart.
Tons of people make tons of money out of
it. Tons of people lose their entire
livelihoods.
This is not good.
And it's not
And so, I started asking the question
cuz people come up to me in the street
and say, "Why didn't we know?"
And I'm thinking, yeah, why did I know?
Well, fine, I've got a lot of experience
and I managed to piece together the
jigsaw puzzle,
but why does nobody else get to know
this knowledge?
This was wrong.
And this was the rise of Occupy Wall
Street. This is the rise of the anger of
we're being screwed somewhere. We don't
know how we're being screwed.
And I I believed in that, too.
Then I was in Europe for 2012.
We almost lost our entire banking system
plus the EU itself.
I remember having to go buy a generator
and dried food cuz I thought we were
going to follow
uh Cyprus and we were going to lose the
banks.
Over one weekend, we would have lost the
banks on Monday. The IMF forced Spain
into taking an $18 billion bailout,
which rescued in time. Then eventually
we end up with this Draghi, I'll do
anything, you know, that it takes to
stop Europe falling apart essentially,
and that stopped the tide.
But the same thing happened. I was at
the epicenter of it. I knew it was
coming.
We all made money out of it. And
everybody around me and I was yelling to
everybody, "Listen, you've got to be
careful." You know, friends of mine got
destroyed in that in Spain. The property
market imploded. Everybody's a real
estate developer. You know, everybody
got killed.
Friends went bankrupt and they were
like, "Why didn't we know?" And at first
I'm like, "I have been telling you this
endlessly."
But because I wasn't on television at
the time,
they didn't take you seriously. I'm
like, "It's bizarre, you know, I write
stuff that the world's most famous
investors read, but if I'm not on
television,
for an average guy, I don't have
credibility." I'm like, "Okay."
I at that point started having two
tangents, which is realizing I need to
do something about it.
That this this this Barrett information
level, that one group has everything,
everybody else has nothing.
And the other thing is I needed to make
the world safer because we're kind of
screwed.
Because of this over financialization,
all the debt, that we could lose the
system at any point. Nothing had gone
away. The printing of money was just a
way of wallpapering over the cracks that
the that the earthquake had left behind.
So, I'm like, "Okay, what can I do?" So,
the idea I had with a bunch of people
was to try and set up the world's safest
bank.
Um and I tried to go and do that. It was
slightly arrogant or stupid probably to
try to do cuz it's not easy.
And we got together quite an amazing
group of people still. We tried in
Singapore, we tried in Switzerland, we
tried in the US, we tried It was just
hard to do.
The system is not there for you to try
and change.
And so, in that process, a friend of
mine, one of my
clients, tapped me on the shoulder and
said, "You should take a look at
Bitcoin." This was 2012. And I'd been
aware of Bitcoin. And I took a good look
at it. And he explained to me both the
store of value proposition and the
blockchain element, that anything could
be trusted on the blockchain.
I looked at this and I'm like, "Oh my
god, this is the future of that we
need." Because the problem we've got is
when a firm like Lehman Brothers goes
bust, nobody knows who owns what.
And somebody's going to get screwed in
that equation. Just one of the very
issues at the center of the system.
Nobody knows who owns anything.
So, I started looking at that and I
wrote I started writing articles and
invested in it first time in 2013.
2014, I started Real Vision because I
wanted to democratize the very best
financial information.
Nobody gets access for an hour to the
world's most famous hedge fund managers
unless you
invested a hundred million dollars. Real
Vision changed that equation entirely
and said, "Listen, forget all these
sound bites on CNBC of three minutes.
It's worthless. We're going to give you
an hour of the world's most successful
investors, the best independent analysts
and strategists,
and then you have a level playing
field."
And that was a game-changer. I mean,
since Real Vision started in 2014,
there's probably been 200 podcasts
that's copied that model.
So, this is this movement. There's two
things. There's the democratization of
information.
And then there's crypto. So,
crypto as it starts building out as an
ecosystem,
you start to realize that
okay, this is now the fastest adoption
of any technology in all recorded human
history.
Dude, you you have to say that again.
This is this is the idea that's gotten
me
obsessed with you, with crypto is
you talk about how there's something
broken. We're getting screwed and we
don't understand where.
And
now this new thing has come along, but
it's it's entering the system at a
moment where it's sort of peak distrust.
And peak sort of throwing your hands up,
you're giving up. You tried occupying
Wall Street, it didn't work. Uh you you
don't even know
in Donald Trump, you've tried voting
voting in Joe Biden, you've tried
everything and
nothing changes. So, hit people with
that quote again because this is
something that and I'll I'll give my
background for people that are hearing
me talk about this stuff for the first
time in a minute. Um but but that quote
about this being the fastest adopted
technology, I think it's important. The
internet
from 1990 to 2000 grew at 63% a year.
That was the fastest adoption of any
technology in all recorded history.
Prior to that,
mobile phones
was the other one.
But what happens is the internet
technology and the mobile phone
technology allows for these
networks to be built.
And once that network is in place, it's
faster to build the next next network.
So, in India, for example, they've just
basically given out free data to every
mobile phone in India. So, guess what?
Uh they data usage is the highest in the
world. And so, their internet scaling
becomes faster.
So, this So, the internet was huge, as
we all know, and it remains huge. So, at
63% a year, it then flattened out over
time as more and more people got
adopted. So, at 1997,
it was growing at 63% a year and there
was 140 million users of the internet.
In 2021, there are 140 million crypto
users
and it's growing at 113%
a year. Jesus. Double the speed. Now,
this is where humans struggle.
Linear numbers and exponential numbers.
Because it's exponential,
it means that growing at 113% a year,
we're going to go from 140 million
people to a billion people by 2024.
Jesus Christ. I mean, so so So
So when you go back
and what you how are you introduced to
all of this? So if you know
that something is being adopted at this
speed and it's a network of money
at its core
and you can buy infinitesimal fraction
of it, so everybody can buy 10% of their
net worth,
then everybody who takes this
opportunity will probably have the
biggest opportunity
in history. Other part that I want
people to understand is that it's also
coming at a moment where somebody like
you no longer has to convince a
gatekeeper to let you on TV, that you
can just spin something up because the
other part of this equation is what I'll
round to YouTube. So it isn't exactly
YouTube, but it's that idea that you can
put out this long-form content that's
video that allows people access to ideas
and information that they never would
have had before. And getting people to
see that you're you're now moving into a
new phase where you and I I think share
a similar sense of like, okay,
entrepreneurship was very good to me. It
changed my life. It made me
fantastically wealthy. And now I'm
looking around going, "Hey, there's
nothing that special about me. The thing
that made me successful is I'm a
relentless learner. So I'm just unafraid
to embarrass myself, to fall down, to
look stupid. And because of that, while
other people are laughing at me, I'm
laughing on the inside cuz I'm like,
"Motherfucker, on a long enough
timeline, I'm going to win because I'll
learn and I'll figure this stuff out."
So now you get a group of people like me
who succeed tremendously in a system
where I'm looking around watching
everybody else struggle and I'm like, "I
will tell you everything I know." Like
I'll just give it out as fast as I
[ __ ] can because I want to live in a
world where other people can rise up.
For whatever reason I I just am
emotionally incentivized to also see
other people succeed. And so
you're now in a position where someone
like you who who essentially
could have retired, you know, lives on
this tropical beautiful island and like
does not need to be doing all this
re-engages with the world and tries to
give people that information. And so you
get this
Go ahead.
I I did a piece that was probably the
most viewed piece I've ever done on
YouTube. It's like, I don't know, 2
million 2 3 million views called the
retirement crisis.
And it resonated cuz I I kind of showed
how people People haven't seen it, check
it out on YouTube. It's well worth your
time. And it's a long time ago, it
predicts a lot of what's going on now.
And um the point being
is that there's a bunch of retirees, the
baby boomers, and they've kind of
screwed it all up cuz they've got all
the debt. Um they've got too much equity
exposure. It's really hard for them to
retire. This is why the Federal Reserve
don't like equities going down because
you've got this richest
group on earth who are kind of stuck.
They never got enough money to retire
on. But I want to look through the eyes
of the millennials.
So they are 32 years old at the same age
their parents at 32, the baby boomers,
had all-time cheap valuations of
equities, all-time cheap bonds, all-time
cheap credit, all-time cheap property.
Right? So they couldn't help but make
money. They kind of screwed it up cuz
they actually ended up going into debt
as well.
But they couldn't help but make money.
So then the millennials had the
opposite, all-time record valuations of
equities, all-time record valuation for
bonds, all-time record credit, all-time
record highs in in
So I'm like, these guys are screwed
unless something else comes along.
And that thing is crypto.
Because the future expected return of
crypto, it's been growing at 213% a year
in returns. I That's how much it makes.
Even though it's very volatile,
sometimes it's down 70%. Over time,
you're making 213% a year.
It has grown as an asset, it's gone up I
think it's 2 million percent since
inception. No other asset in all
recorded history has ever done this. And
we haven't even started. I still think
there's probably another 100X from here.
Not even the baby boomers got given
that. The S&P didn't go up 100X since
1980.
So,
this is the magnitude of what's there.
So, I'm screaming from the rooftops
saying, you might be cynical, you might
think you don't understand it, you might
think
you can't afford to play in this,
but you have to listen because this is
the opportunity. You can't come back to
me in 10 years time and say, well, we
missed all of that. All the rich people
got richer. No, you, I, everybody else
is saying now is your time. Don't be
irresponsible, you know, dollar cost
average, do all the right things, but
here is your opportunity.
This is the biggest opportunity I've
ever seen. And I'm going to take
advantage of it, and so should everybody
else. This is not rich or poor, this is
an every person opportunity, and we've
never had this before, ever.
Dude, you just gave me like sustained
chills.
This is not rich or poor, this is an
opportunity for everybody, but you
really have to move on it. So, I'll tell
my own story. So, for anybody that is
pushing back, feels late to the party,
whatever, find some solace in my like
willful ignorance. So, I have always
seen myself as good at making money and
terrible at investing money. Now, you
have to be very careful what story you
repeat about yourself to yourself, and I
just kept saying that. Like I'm I didn't
want to focus on learning about money.
Math doesn't come easily to me. I don't
like whatever that ability is to
conceptualize numbers, I don't have it.
So, it's like I really struggle with
that stuff. And one of my employees was
like, "Tom, are you looking at crypto?"
And I'm like, "David, I'm just not
interested in investing. Like, it's not
It doesn't speak to me at all." And And
he just kept coming back. Like, "Tom,
you really need to look at this. You
need to look at this." And I'm like,
"David, how many times do I have to say
it? Like, I don't find this interesting.
I want to build a company and I'll make
Yeah, I've already made myself wealthy.
I'll continue to generate wealth and
help other people by building this
company. I'm not going to look at it."
And then I had been introduced to the
idea of digital scarcity about 6 years
ago. And I thought, "Ooh, that's going
to change my business." And then but the
technology wasn't there and so or I
should say the networks weren't there.
And I promptly ignored it. And then when
it popped back up at the beginning of
2021, I was like, "I'm all in." Cuz I I
understood what it was going to be.
So, I start researching NFTs, the
technology behind it, and that
inevitably leads you to the blockchain,
of course, which then leads you to
crypto, which then I was like, "Wait a
second.
What? Like, this is literally somebody
is essentially going, 'Hey, you know,
all those things that make gold like
this wonderful store of value? We're now
moving that onto computers.' And so,
I've been saying for years technology is
a one-way street. I'm a total like
techno-optimist. There is no going
backwards. Like, this only moves
forward. So, now I was like, 'Wait.
People are digitizing money?' And then
the poor David, who'd been telling me
for God knows how long, 8 months, that I
needed to look at it. I was like, "What
the hell?" So, I start researching
hardcore about what it is. And I'm like,
"Wow. Not only do I have a a fiduciary
responsibility to myself and my family
to learn about this,
I now felt absolutely compelled to tell
people one simple thing. Research it.
You may decide that it doesn't make
sense cuz I don't think I'm smart enough
for people to listen to me. I I do think
that you're smart enough for people to
listen to you and you're certainly
educated.
But even if they reject it, like there
there is this moment of you pull back
the curtain and you see the Wizard of Oz
and you're like, "Oh my god, this is
going to change everything." And it's
it's like a dime drop on how it works.
And that's when I was like, "Whoa, I
have to move on this and I have to tell
everybody." So like you, I'm screaming
from the rooftops. I just don't know how
to do it as intelligently. And what's
what gets worse about this is this
affliction, this crypto affliction we
all get, right? The rabbit hole, as it's
known. You start with understanding
money,
which most of us don't think about. Then
you kind of understand how we're getting
screwed by central bank printing
and the the debt-laden economy and what
it means.
And then you start saying, "Okay, well
that's Bitcoin. And then what's this
Ethereum business?"
And then you start realizing
decentralized finance. You're like,
"It's kind of a finance thing, but
that's kind of cool cuz I can get yields
now. You know, I can get instead of
getting zero in my bank account for my
hard savings, I can now get 6% a year.
Wow, that's a difference. It's like
going back 25 years in time."
And then suddenly NFTs come
and community tokens.
And suddenly your mind is completely
blown that this is not just money. It's
the entire exchange, transfer, and
storage of value
for the internet.
Whole business models are about to
change massively because of what this
technology
unlocks. And then once you get that your
head around that, you're like, "Oh god,
I can't even hold this in my mind any
longer. It's so big."
Um and that it's not just buy some
Bitcoin, I'm going to make some money
over time.
You know, it's actually an entirely
parallel financial system
and business structure for the world and
it's being adopted faster than anything
we can ever imagine.
So, walk people through what is it and
let's start with Bitcoin cuz I want to
take care is to differentiate between
Bitcoin and Ethereum. Um and I guess
full disclosure to anybody listening, my
uh I invest in essentially three things,
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink. I I'm
a use case maximalist, I guess. Uh and I
understand those three. I'm not saying
they're the only three, I'm saying
they're the only three I understand well
enough to invest in. Um what is it that
makes Bitcoin interesting enough that so
many smart people see this as ultrasound
money and what does ultrasound money
mean?
The world has a history of money
whether it's backed by gold or not
where government
gets themselves excessively into debt.
And they devalue the money.
So, the Romans used to clip the edge off
the coins so there was less gold in each
coin.
And eventually people would lose faith
in the coins cuz they'd blend them with
silver and then blend them with copper
and you know, the coins were worthless
cuz that was supposed to be worth the
value of the of the denarii in Roman
times.
But governments can't help themselves.
Humans, we're just humans, right? Humans
are fundamentally flawed creatures and
we always will be.
So, then we have the gold standards, you
know, the US and the UK are on gold
standards, World War I,
World War II, we all have to leave it
cuz we've got too much in debt again.
We've overly financialized yet again cuz
humans love leverage above all things.
It's kind of sex and leverage are the
two things that drive humans for some
reason.
Then
we adopt a new system which has been
around before but it keeps getting
abandoned called fiat money. Fiat
money's money not backed by anything.
It's backed by the promise of the
central bank paying it. So, that's the
dollar bill that we all are familiar
with and every country in the world now
adopted fiat currency.
But,
as with everything,
if you're really thirsty and I gave you
a bottle of water
or sold it to you,
you'd probably pay me 10 times too much
for that bottle of water.
If I give you a million bottles of
water, they're worth precisely zero to
you.
So, scarcity has value. That's arts,
that's cars, that's
almost anything.
Um humans value scarcity. For whatever
reason, we do.
Um and so,
if you're printing too much money,
you're creating less scarcity. So, yes,
there's money everywhere.
But, the money has less value.
So, once you understand that,
you say, "Well,
what does it mean? The dollar hasn't
collapsed. It's kind of where it was
versus the euro in the last 5 years or
whatever it is."
And then you say, "Huh,
but my $50,000 salary
now can buy me much less shares in
Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft. In
fact, units of the S&P 500, I I suddenly
can't buy as much since 2008. It's a
fraction. I can buy like
a third of what I could.
Same with real estate. Same with gold.
And then you're like, "Huh,
assets have suddenly got expensive. They
haven't.
The value of your savings has gone down
or your money.
So, you can't afford to buy assets. What
is an asset? An asset is deferred
consumption from the future.
I buy a house.
I sell it in the future. I get to
retire. Whatever the the the things are,
right? We don't buy the S&P because we
want to hang it up in our wall. We buy
it because we want to sell it at a
future date to realize money.
So, that means our future selves are now
poorer. That's essentially what this
means. That's what currency debasement
is.
So, Bitcoin comes along in 2008, in the
middle of the crisis. It's kind of like
it was perfectly prepared for this and
said
Satoshi goes, "Hey, look at this.
I can create an algorithm
that only creates so much of this thing,
the Bitcoin,
and it can never vary. Ever.
So, therefore, this is scarcity that
humans can't [ __ ] around with.
Now, humans have this propensity to [ __ ]
around with scarcity because they're
economically incentivized to do so.
Here, they can't.
So, then they become economically
incentivized to own this asset
because it's scarce and it cannot be
changed because it has this consistent
supply curve and a limited number.
So, Bitcoin becomes this great store of
value.
And it would look like gold cuz gold's a
good store of value. It's worked for
thousands of years. But, Bitcoin has
this other thing to it. It's a network,
which gold isn't.
And it's technology, which gold isn't.
So, we have use cases and the benefits
of building a network. So, suddenly it
goes up exponentially in price.
Roll on to 2015
and suddenly somebody's looking at the
blockchain
and they start saying,
"Imagine if these bits on the
blockchain, which is where you record
the ownership of something. In Bitcoin,
it's Bitcoin itself.
What happens if we could put a contract
in there?
Because humans live off contracts. You
know, everything is basically a contract
in in our legal terms."
And that was the rise of Ethereum. It
became a platform where you could
programmably change the blockchain. Not
the attributes of the blockchain. You
couldn't remove anything off that
ledger, but you could change the little
holding buckets and say, "Well, it can
look like this. It can look like that.
It can adapt to this."
And those things were verifiable as
well, so they couldn't change.
So this created a theory which became
the platform. So if you think of Bitcoin
as the store of value, this very
pristine beautiful thing,
then you think of Ethereum as also a
very beautiful thing, but it's a much
broader application because it's like
programmable money.
Yeah, there's one concept that I want to
nail down here and if you think I'm
crazy, let me know, but
when I think about so I've worked in the
inner cities a lot and you begin to
realize, wait a second, the generational
poverty is a mindset knowledge problem
far more than it's a money problem
because they manage to pass on a
likelihood of being poor. And so when
you think about, okay, well, right now
in
the in the US for sure and I would
imagine most of the Western world that
your zip code is the number one
predictor of your future success more
than your IQ, which I'm just not willing
to live in that world, but that's a
really fascinating phenomena. And when
you begin to ask the question, how is
that possible? So you have
extraordinarily smart people that
regardless of their IQ are going to be
trapped in a poverty cycle. Why is that?
And some of it has to do with what a guy
named Geoffrey Canada discovered in
terms of the language centers of your
brain and if you're not hearing enough
words when you're an infant, just the
language centers don't develop well and
you're going to have a hard time
interviewing for jobs and climbing the
sort of traditional corporate ladder in
that way. Uh and then they just also
help you with communication, but the
other part is what is what I call your
frame of reference. What do you believe
to be true about yourself and about the
world? And one of the ideas that fails
to get passed on in that poverty cycle
is an idea of ownership. And once you
understand ownership, now you get into
that cycle that you're talking about
where you can you can sell something in
the future because you own it today and
you hopefully buy low and then sell
high. And that really is like just the
dead simple equation and I
just a plan to flag that we'll come back
to and hold all these ideas in my head.
You had mentioned earlier as like a
throwaway that a lot of wealth was
generated in the collapse and of the
economy. And so I want people to
understand that this is a game and I
don't mean that in any sort of
derogatory way, but it has rules and if
you understand those rules, there's
always an opportunity especially in
moments of disruption. And we're living
through this incredible technological
disruption right now. Okay. So, back to
this idea of ownership. So, when I look
at Bitcoin, what I see is something that
I can own, right? There will only ever
be 21 million of these. Now, like
anything as Noah you you've all Noah
Harari says, even money is just a story,
right? It's a fiction that we all tell
and it only has value when we agree that
it has value. So, Bitcoin has that same
sort of
Achilles' heel that if tomorrow
everybody stopped believing that owning
that has any value, then it would have
no value.
But we have this ultra scarce thing that
the last 10 years have proven people
believe has value and you can own a
piece of that. And as we go, if it is
true that more and more people will pour
into this digitization of
economic value essentially, then that
those 21 million units are going to
become hyper scarce and hyper valuable.
Now, the great news is that you can
fractionalize it so you don't have to
own one, you can own some tiny tiny tiny
uh fraction of it. But now you you have
ownership. So, you're able to buy
something now that you can own as it
appreciates in value and then you can
sell it later. And so it becomes just
this buy and wait game that real estate
maybe still is, but that's why real
estate has worked over time. You owned
it. You could also live in it, which is
certainly advantageous. And then the
expectation was that it would go up in
value.
When I think about
Ethereum,
at first I was like, okay, I like how
much, you know, we haven't even talked
we haven't named Metcalfe's law. You've
talked about it, but this how you can
value something based on its network
adoption curve.
And so, I could see there was something
going there. And then when I got into
NFTs, I realized I just had to buy a
bunch of Ethereum to use it. And so, I
was like, okay, well, wait a second. If
I'm over here like scrambling just to
buy it to spend it, I'm like, this is me
being able to buy into the dollar when
it's like new and nobody's sure if we're
going to use it. I thought, whoa, I
would take that opportunity. So, that's
how I see the difference in the two. One
is just sort of straight ownership of
something and then one is like, well, I
know people use this and because people
use it and there's controls around the
supply that the odds are that it will go
up in value.
Ethereum's kind of like owning a part of
the internet.
It's
as you said, I mean,
everybody has to use Ethereum basically
that uses this crypto rails unless
you're just in the Bitcoin world.
But everything that we've talked about
and everybody will have even if you're
not very familiar with the space will
have heard the term DeFi or NFTs or
tokens. And basically, most of that is
still being built on Ethereum.
And as you said, the network, so what is
this Metcalfe's law that you and I have
referred to?
Met- Metcalfe's law is
it really started to become understood
in the '80s and then much more so as
mobile phone networks started these
giant connected networks, right? Because
digital technology allowed networks to
connect. Before it's human, we couldn't
connect with each other in the same way.
So, networks connect with mobile phones,
suddenly they explode in value. You
know, all these phone companies, huge
companies.
And if you added them all up around the
world, they'd be worth tens of trillions
probably. We just don't even think of it
in those terms cuz they're fragmented
networks.
Then the internet comes along, this free
network, and everybody builds on top of
it and they create network effects like
the most classic example is Facebook.
Facebook connects us with friends and
family and in exchange they get your
data, they sell you adverts, and they
So, you've got a bunch of people using
it,
bunch of businesses now building on it,
and this advertising monetization
structure. Shareholders get rich, the
uh you and I get to
unfortunately meet somebody from
university that we don't want to talk to
that we met 20 years ago, and we're now
connected with again, you know? It's
that.
But, the network that Ethereum and
Bitcoin does is different. You're the
owner of the network and the user.
So, as a user, like you said, with the
NFT, you're actually owning a share of
the network itself.
So, everybody uses it, owns a part of
it.
Therefore, if the network's going to get
used a lot,
you're all going to get rich, and the
value of the network's going to go up
massively. And the more people build
into connections, so
the Metcalfe's law is not only just the
number of nodes, I mean, the number of
users, but how much they connect with
each other? Well, you're seeing it cuz
there's NFTs and there's DeFi and
there's all of these applications or the
store of money aspect. These things all
together and and then there's the
linking of all of these, like Chainlink
or, you know, some of these other
protocols, um Polkadot, they're linking
all these ecosystems together. So, I can
send you a dollar instantaneously, and
we have no idea whether it went on
Bitcoin rails, XRP rails, Ethereum
rails, and guess what? We don't care.
I promised you a dollar, you want to get
the dollar instantaneously. That's
interoperability, that's all coming.
So, this is what Ethereum is about. It's
the magnitude of this network where
everybody's developing everything on top
of it, and it's scarce supply. So, it's
seeing an even faster adoption rate than
Bitcoin now.
Um for for the reasons that seem pretty
clear, because it has more use cases
than currently the Bitcoin blockchain
does. Doesn't mean Bitcoin blockchain
can't in due course,
but right now, there's a lot more use
cases in Ethereum. It's super exciting.
Do you think that Bitcoin would need to
do something like that in order to
retain its value proposition?
No, I think its value proposition stands
above all things.
It is pristine, it's pure, it is what it
is.
Um and you know, the way it's so
impossible to change any of the
attributes of Bitcoin makes it a bit
clunky.
And that clunkiness is its beauty.
It It is so secure. It's the most secure
of all protocols. So, let it be what it
wants to be. Now, people are building
things like the lightning layer, which
allows you to do lots of fast payments
over the top. Maybe that scales. Maybe
it doesn't. Doesn't really matter. That
store of value
for every person to think of
like it's owning a piece of Manhattan
real estate
at low prices.
That's never going away.
Not in the conceivable future because
humans have now said it has value and
it's being adopted very fast.
So, no. Ethereum's a very different
thing. It doesn't compete.
That's how I like to think about it. And
unfortunately, when you go online,
people will tell you, "Well, it's
competing and it's not as good." You
have to ignore all of that and look at
the whole space overall and say and just
be honest saying, "We don't know where
this is going to be in 10 years time."
And like you say, "So, therefore, I can
own three of these things and
probability is I'm going to capture of
large parts of this and maybe I'll adapt
in due course."
Yeah, one thing
Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so it's it's
don't over force the narrative. Just be
broad, be open
and always be learning as you as you
rightly said because we don't know. This
is all new and it's happening at
lightning speed.
Yeah, that's the thing that I I am
certainly most attracted to with you and
the way that you are and seems to be
something that people echo a lot about
you is you're very open-minded.
Is your open-mindedness the reason you
have been successful or is it a response
to the struggles of getting to where
you've gotten in your life?
I you know, it's it's I think it's part
of it is my background.
You know, my father's a first-generation
immigrant from India. My mother's a
first-generation immigrant from Holland.
They met on a blind date in Birmingham
in the UK. I've lived in India. I've
lived in Spain. I
grew up in the UK. I've lived in
the Cayman Islands. I've traveled the
world.
Um so, it forces you to be open cuz
you've got different religious
backgrounds there. You got different
massively different cultural
backgrounds.
Um all of this stuff forces you to be
open-minded. So, I'm generally
open-minded by nature just because of
that. And macro investing
is all about being open-minded to other
possibilities.
So, once you learn the trick that it's
okay to say you don't know, but I think
this might be how it plays out. So, you
think in what's known as probabilistic
terms.
Then for that to happen, for you to say,
"Look, I think there's a you know,
there's a 80% chance that Bitcoin over
the next 5 years is going to $250,000.
That's a reasonable odds.
What's the 20% chance that it doesn't?
Okay, so you need to open have both of
those things in your mind at any one
stage and be assessing them.
I learned that from the book
uh
I think it was
The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros,
who was probably the most famous of all
of the macro investors.
And he would talk about this a lot that
you have to have these kind of logic
trees of think of probability trees.
And once you understand that, you can
even bet against yourself,
which is really hard to do and I can't
do it. But some of the best traders can
be, you know, long the S&P. They think
the rising, but then they think the odds
of it falling are getting higher and
they start selling against themselves.
It's like it's it's very hard to do.
But that kind of investing teaches you
to keep an open mind cuz you're looking
at the whole world
and you have to know that we don't know
the outcome.
And anybody who tells you
that they know what's going to happen
is just a fraud.
It's just the open-minded say, I don't
know, but I think, and this is why I
think. That's all you need to do. That's
open-minded in a nutshell, admitting
that you are fallible.
Yeah, I think that that is
extraordinarily smart. Um one thing that
I've noticed about entrepreneurs is the
most successful are the ones that are
able to hold competing ideas in their
head at the same time.
And you So uh when I'm teaching
entrepreneurship, one thing that I talk
about is okay, you have to have this
narrative. So you you have a goal,
you're trying to get there, you know
where you are. There's a chasm between
where you are and your goal. Your goal
is probably uh you know, skate to where
the puck is going to be. So it's
something where you're making a bet
about how either culture is moving or
technology is moving. And then you have
to create a narrative that says, this is
how I'm going to go from where I'm at to
there. And what that narrative does is
it it smooths out some of those like
leaps of faith that you're going to have
to make in order to get where you want
to go. But then, you know, bringing this
back to um somebody in the finance world
that I've learned a lot from, Ray Dalio,
where he had that just catastrophic
learning event where he realized, you
know, we had all this conviction about
something that was happening in the
market and he ended up being wrong and
it just obliterated his company. And
he realized, okay, you can believe
you're right, but you have to hold open
in your mind, how do I know I'm right?
And constantly be looking for
disconfirming evidence. So it's like I
tell people, you have to have all this
conviction. You have to be able to lead
with conviction. You have to be able to
go into something believing this is
going to work. My narrative is true.
That's how I'm going to cross this chasm
to get to my goal. But [ __ ] you
better have open in your head this idea
of I have to challenge this narrative. I
have to constantly look for the the
ideas and reasons why I'm wrong. And if
you can't do both, race forward with
conviction and constantly battle test
that idea, you are in trouble. And
that's why being an entrepreneur is so
damned hard.
That narrative of entrepreneurship is
start thing in garage, borrow money off
parents, or start it on your credit
card.
Three years later, billionaire.
Right, that's the narrative and then you
write your book on on how I manage my
company. Right, that's actually not
true. The best book ever written on this
is Ben Horowitz's the hard thing about
hard things.
What you have to do is battle
both your assumption, as you say,
and test it endlessly. You have to be
paranoid, excessively paranoid, but
still confident in that you're right.
And you also have to accept the risk of
failure, cuz the moment you accept the
risk of failure, which is very high in
startups,
you'll stop hedging against it. Once you
stop worrying about failure as the
narrative, you tend to attract it.
It's a really difficult thing. People
who fear failure above all things tend
to fail more.
People who don't look at failure and
just look at the moon shot tend to fail,
too. It's the people who can see failure
as a wolf behind them
and the testing of the ideas, but still
having conviction and maybe changing
path because the wolf is catching up,
they tend to fail less. But it's hard.
Makes you feel sick. You don't sleep at
night.
And that's the end of the beginning of
Ben Horowitz's book.
Basically is two pages of what that
feels like. It's called the struggle.
And that the struggle is probably the
most profound two pages in all of
entrepreneurship, and it's true and it's
hard.
Yeah, that's a great book. Um so going
back to investing, I want to lay out for
people that might be new to this,
they're not seasoned investors.
The idea of dollar cost averaging was
extraordinarily comforting to me um and
I'd love to go into what it is, why it's
useful and whether you think that
applies to what's happening in crypto.
So there's a mythology of investing.
The mythology of investing is hedge fund
manager George Soros
spots the opportunity, gets in at the
right price, makes a fortune.
The reality is
most people have no idea where the price
is going over short term.
So what happens is you buy something,
you put all your money in, you've saved
up your 5,000 bucks, you've put it all
into Bitcoin, Bitcoin falls 50%, you
panic, you sell it.
You feel terrible, Bitcoin goes back up
again, you felt feel even worse now, you
can scrape together, you know, you've
you've lost, you know, half of your
money now and then you've you you
you keep compounding these errors,
right? It's called market timing and
market timing is extraordinarily
difficult, you know. I I do some market
timing
because that's been my job and 30 years
I've done more than my 10,000 hours, a
lot more than my 10,000 hours and that
doesn't make me very good at it either.
I'm not bad at it in long-term
investing, I'm terrible at short-term.
So what is dollar cost averaging? Dollar
cost averaging is basically what
everybody does with their 401k. The
problem is with 401ks or retirement
funds is nobody cares about them.
You don't know what's in it. You have to
have no ownership. You just put some of
your salary away and it goes in this
mythical thing that you probably assume
won't be worth as much money as you hope
it is.
That's what that's become.
And you put it in every month.
Why do you do that? Well, because you're
averaging all of the the highs and lows
over time because markets tend to do
this.
So, you're kind of indifferent. In fact,
you love it when it falls because you're
buying more units
at a lower price because your game is to
own as much as you can
at the lowest possible price.
But, if you don't know how to market
time and 99.9%
of people don't and can't and shouldn't,
then you just average in over time and
magic will happen.
You just average a beautiful price over
time. And had you done that in the S&P
or anything else, you'd make money. Now,
what's so lovely about Bitcoin is it's
not a passive investment like your your
retirement fund
because your retirement fund you can't
access until later. So, you kind of
write it off and you you know,
everybody's heard that it's never going
to be worth as much as it should be
anyway. So, it's become a bit of a pain
as opposed to a something. But, this you
own.
You live and breathe that volatility.
And you live and breathe those gains
when they happen. And you will be like
wide-eyed.
I did it to my sister-in-law. Forced her
to do this. I said, "Listen, I'm going
to make it easy for you. Just going to
open a PayPal account start that way."
And she had some savings um she could
take out of another thing. She had like
5,000 bucks, 10,000 bucks.
And she put it in and we got the timing
relatively right. So, it shot up a lot.
And then she got in about 13,000 in
Bitcoin. Whoa.
17,000. Yeah. And And she shot up a lot.
So, she's like, "Wow." And then it falls
a lot. And she's calling me up saying,
"What do I do? Should I sell some?" I'm
like, "No.
You keep putting in part of your
paycheck."
And
after all of these falls, these several
falls, she starts to really understand.
And when they start falling a lot, she
starts doubling the amount that she
would have normally invested.
And now she's taught herself to invest.
Next thing I hear, "Oh, well, I bought
some Ethereum."
And this is how I'm dealing with that.
So, she's now looking at two different
things and she's now thinking about the
asset allocation. What's going to
outperform? Ethereum or
She knew nothing about this stuff. This
is a year and a half. And she now
understands because of that dollar cost
averaging and taking ownership that you
exactly as you said, once you actually
own something that 401K you don't
actually really own. It's like some
other guy does something with it. And
hopefully he makes money. This is you.
You're taking responsibility for your
own finances. That's so empowering.
One thing that I think is really
important that I haven't heard people
talking about and just because my mind
is so simplistic when it comes to
investing
is I look at the stock market and I've
got a money manager and like all that
and she's trying to explain to me puts
and calls and all this. I'm like, "Oh,
this is so [ __ ] confusing. I don't
want to think about this. I want to go
run my business."
And so, I yeah, I just never wanted to
get on the phone and talk about it. It
was just too complicated.
Part of the glory of what's happening
right now in Bitcoin is if you stay or
crypto, if you stay sort of at the top
of the ones that have the most sort of
crowd validation cuz you can get into
the deep weeds on what's going on in
altcoins, but if you just stay at the
top which has massive crowd validation
and you go, "Okay, I'm going to buy
a bit of Bitcoin. I'm going to buy a bit
of Ethereum." And then you learn like
your sister did about the volatility and
like how to ride that wave and to
recognize and and for anybody listening,
if you're new to this idea
have a thesis.
You dollar cost average based on your
thesis. So, here is Tom's overly
simplistic thesis.
That I believe that
technology is a one-way street that very
few people are in cryptocurrency right
now.
I believe that over time it will take
over some massive percentage of
the financial system. So, let's say that
it goes to
I don't know, become a $10 trillion
asset. So, I can buy that. I don't It
doesn't take an extraordinary leap of
faith. It's at just below, I think, 1
trillion as of the time that we're
recording this. So, I'm like, "Whoa, 10x
my money?" Like, that would be
incredible. Okay, well, as long as I
believe in that thesis, I want the price
to drop. So, when the price drops, I'm
not panicking. I'm like, "Yeah, buddy."
Because, like you said, now the amount
has gone down. So, when I first got into
this, it was the height of the euphoria.
Like,
Bitcoin was just going to the moon. It
was just insane. And so, I was like, "Oh
my god, I have to buy into this." And
so, I bought in. I started dollar cost
averaging. And the price is going up,
up, up, up, up. And I'm still dollar
cost averaging. And I'm like, "Oh man,
should I be going faster? Like, the
price is going high." And I'm like, "No,
no, no.
Dollar cost averaging, you never know
what's going to happen."
And then, boom. Whatever happened, you
know, I guess it was like a month ago, 6
weeks ago, or something like that. It
just [ __ ] went down like 30, 40%. And
I was like, "Oh, thank god. I still have
One, my thesis is still intact.
Two, the amount of money I was willing
to invest, I haven't hit yet. So, now at
this much lower price, so what I am
training myself to be obsessed over is
the the break-even point. So, if my
original break-even point was, let's
say, $52,000 for Bitcoin, as it came
down and I kept buying in and buying in
and buying in, now my break-even point
goes from 52,000. I got it down to like
30-something.
And so, I'm like, "This is incredible."
So, now that we're riding that wave back
up, and I'm telling my wife, like,
"We're up this much in 48 hours. We're
up this much in a week. We're up this
much in 10 days." She's like, "What?"
Like, it's it's almost impossible to
believe. And I'm very careful to check
that, like, the Hey, the euphoria is
dangerous. You have to be careful. You
have to constantly, like, the wolf is
right behind you, like you really do
have to be thoughtful, but dollar cost
averaging based on a thesis,
that's the way to go. There's another
thing I think it needs to be said is
you're now faced with something that
really offers people enormous
opportunity. You're talking at 10 for
one. I think the space over the whole
space over the next 10 10 12 years is
probably a 100 X. Right, that's a whole
asset class. We've never seen that in
history in that space of time.
But humans are humans and we go back to
that fundamental flaw
is we love leverage.
Tell people what leverage is for the the
few people who don't know.
borrow money to buy something.
So let's say you had borrowed to buy the
original Bitcoin purchases.
And let's say you put down half of the
money.
So basically at 27,000 or 26,000
you've lost all your money.
Now Bitcoin hit that.
You'd have been wiped out. Mhm.
And you'd have had to pay somebody and
you'd have been liquidated.
And then Bitcoin goes back up in price
and you'll have missed it all.
That's what leverage does because
it's okay in a house because house
prices aren't very volatile. So
occasionally once in a generation you
get a 2008 thing where the house prices
start moving a lot and suddenly the
people's equity in their house wasn't
enough. And everybody gets liquidated. I
mean the bank says we want our money
back.
That's okay to take that risk if you're
cautious in housing. In crypto this
thing moves around like this.
It's predictability in the short term is
extremely low.
Unlike housing predictability.
So just don't borrow money to do this.
That's the if I can get that across
then you don't care if it falls at
26,000 or 10,000 because you can buy
more units at the lower price over time,
and you don't care.
And then, when it's trading at
500,000, you'll have become extremely
wealthy.
It's as simple as that.
Don't overcomplicate it. Don't think
about derivatives, futures, options.
None of it.
Just do Stick with a simple plan. Don't
use leverage. Dollar cost average. Think
about as a 5 to 10-year investment. And
your probability of success
is going to be extremely high.
It's funny how when it's dropping, there
is
you begin to question everything you
thought you knew in the euphoria.
And I've never lived through this. So,
for me, I was fresh out of college when
the internet was really booming, and I
was not focused on business. I wanted to
be a filmmaker. That was it. I was just
entirely focused on that.
And
so, the sense of like when people talk
about euphoria in the market, I didn't
really understand what that meant. But
like now, especially with social media,
when Bitcoin is going to the moon, like
you can just go on Twitter, and
everybody is so happy, and it's like it
just feels There's so much energy, and
so much excitement, and so much
conviction. And then, boom, it'll flip
on a dime, and people start panicking.
And I remember So, one, I don't buy on
leverage. Just remember, humans are
ridiculous. That's all you have to
remember.
They're hilarious. Hilarious. And by the
way, I'm in the middle of it. Like I
don't think I'm above this by any way.
And when the price turned, and so I was
like I called my family. I'm like,
"Guys, you must get into crypto." And
they were all sort of paralyzed by
indecision. So, I said, "Look, my wife
and I are going to help you open the
account, and then we will give you
money."
The only catch is you must spend it on
crypto. And so, we did all of that, and
then watching everybody's like emotion
flip when the price started dropping.
And for a minute, I was like, "Wait, do
I have like enough conviction in this?
And I was like, okay, technology is a
one-way street. I believe that this is
going to digitize as an asset class. I
will watch and pay attention if
something new comes along. But, for
right now, yes, it all holds. And so, I
was like, okay. And so, I just kept
investing. And then as I like I said, I
I started focusing on that that
break-even number, pulling down my cost
of entry. There's a name What's the name
of that? Like your the point at which
your average buy-in
Cost of entry, perfect. So, watching
that come down became like my obsession.
And then, so I start getting that low
and I'm really excited and I keep buying
in. And then it flips again and it
starts going back up. And so now I'm
like, okay, I've ridden the wave. I know
what it feels like when it drops. I know
how you still have to like check your
thesis 100% dollar cost average 100%.
But now, because I did that, now I'm
getting the gains as it swings back up.
And I'm still in a range. That's what's
crazy. There's so much money to be made
even just by taking advantage of that
like momentary volatility. Now, I'm not
I am a a macro guy in the making. I
think only long-term. I'm not going to
sell. As I keep telling my wife, as fun
as it is to watch it go up, everything
is noise sub 5 years. So, like, just
don't even think about it. I It's quite
funny because
um you know, I've become pretty public
uh in all of this space.
And
I've got a very clear idea of what what
where I think it's going and how it's
going to go. So, I have my thesis.
And
when everything starts falling apart,
like the market starts moving,
A, I look like, how has it moved in the
past? And it it's done similar things,
right? And I've been telling everybody
who's ever got into the space,
you need to expect a 50% correction in a
bull market,
and you might see a 70%
bear market,
and over 5 years, you'll have still made
more money than you could imagine.
So, you have to accept those things.
So, this thing starts tanking. Bitcoin
starts first, then then Ethereum rolls
over later, and it also and it's all
down 50%.
And
I said
I've got this weight on my shoulders.
I've got all of these people have been
following me. I have been telling them
this, but you know, it's messing with
your mind. And I pick out the one chart
that matters to me,
which is the adoption chart.
Is anything that's going on with China
and mining and this and that changing
the adoption curve or not?
No.
So, then as you said, the relentless
rise of technology continues. So, la la
la, I can't hear it.
So, I turn around to my wife and I'm
like,
you know,
you know, it's fallen 50% everybody's
freaking out, and she just looks at me
and goes, you are all so ridiculous. She
said, you said you should expect this.
Now it's happening, everybody's freaking
out. And she just walked off and said,
don't be She just said, don't be so
stupid and walked out of the room.
And then I'm like, yeah.
Just you know, Twitter is somewhere
sometimes or Reddit or whatever whatever
forum you're on is sometimes your enemy.
Um and sometimes you just need to turn
that off. Now, it's been the same with
investing in Amazon.
Right, the reason Bezos is so wealthy
because he was probably one of the only
people in the world who had Amazon
shares from the beginning and never sold
them.
Cuz it went down 95%.
Oh.
in 2001-2.
It's had several 60% falls.
And it still made him the richest man in
the world. This is what exponentiality
looks like.
And for people who are a little more
savvy,
there's a magic trick to everything to
keep your sanity in this cuz this stuff
goes like this and then it does this and
is you'll see this like free free
charting almost on every platform now,
TradingView, something like that.
Just change the scale to a log scale.
Logarithmic scale. And what you'll find
is like you look at Facebook, it goes
like this. You look at
Amazon, it goes like this, right? And it
always feels like I can't buy this, this
gone up too much. You know, that that
that fear that you had at 52,000, right?
But that's real.
You change it to a log chart and it's a
beautiful
trend.
And you realize it's all noise.
And yes, those movements can be 50%,
60%.
But it's just moving in that lovely
little trend. Facebook has done that
since 2012, never deviated.
Nor has Apple,
nor has Microsoft, nor has Google.
None of these have. Not even Tesla. And
nor has Bitcoin, and nor has Ethereum.
They're all network effects and they're
priced in the same way. They're all
exponential in nature, which we can't
get our heads around until you put it on
a log chart and it makes you calm down.
What What does the log chart do? I've
heard the phrase, but I I honestly don't
know what that means.
The scale. So normally a scale would go
like a Bitcoin chart. Well, because it
starts really low, it might start at
$10.
And then it's got to go up to
$65,000.
So suddenly you're seeing a move, a
$1,000 move.
Um it looks small, but before it was
big. So what happens is it squashes the
chart.
Because most of the price action has
happened from, let's say, $10,000 to
$65,000. So you keep getting this. Looks
like this all the time. And so this is
just by stretching out the timeline?
No. So what a log chart does is change
the scale where it doubles every
measure. So it goes $10, $100, or it
goes 10x, let's say. $10, $100, $1,000,
$1,000,000.
What that little trick does
is smooth out all of this issue.
Um so
you'll get comfortable when you look at
it just to realize that it And look at
the scale. Look how much it's changed
versus the other scale. And you'll see
from that
it basically compresses all of this.
It's the same as if you do use
percentages.
Because, you know, a 5,000-point move
now in Bitcoin is not the same as a
5,000-point move when it was at 5,000.
It would have been 100%.
And now it's not. Now it's like whatever
it is today, 10%.
So it's it's it's changing that.
Um and that that really really really
helps.
It's interesting. So you're getting into
the psychology of all this, which I find
utterly fascinating, of
it doesn't matter what you look at, it
matters what you see. So you're looking
at this chart, you have to be very
careful cuz if you they most of the
charts, at least I use uh Coinbase Pro,
so it defaults to like a really short
time period. And so it's just like, "Oh
my god, like this is all over the
place."
Why do they do that? Because it makes
you trade more.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
No doubt.
like, "Oh my god, I need to sell. I need
to buy. What do I need?" And then you
zoom out and put the the five-year chart
or 10-year chart, and it's like, "Oh,
this is noise."
That's exactly what it feels like, and
I've heard people talk about that. I
think it's very sage advice. When you're
feeling stressed, zoom out. Like
literally zoom out the timeline. So that
as you broaden out, and it's like, "Oh,
okay. Okay. Okay. This all gets very
smooth and easy to handle." Now
the
best way to look at somebody's
conviction around their thesis is to see
what their percentage allocation of
their net worth they have in said uh
thesis. So when I started in crypto, I
was like, "Okay, 1%. I'll I'll get to
1%. I just don't want to be a fool. It's
sort of schmuck insurance." Then as As
got to 1%, I was like, "Well, this feels
pretty good. I'm going to go to 2%. And
then that's where I was about when it
started to fall. And so I was like,
okay, well, here is my opportunity to
buy in. Thesis is still intact. Why
don't we go to 5%? And so now I'm like,
well, 5% feels pretty good. I'm thinking
about 10%. So, what is your allocation?
Of course, I know this punchline, but
it'll be interesting for people that
don't know.
So, I am
This is going to sound weird when I tell
you. I'm actually risk-averse.
So, I own
a few properties
myself, and I live in them. So, I don't
rent anything out. You know, these are
This is my bank is lifestyle.
So, and I and I like to live in nice
places.
So, that I don't consider consider money
that I'm investing or doing anything
with. That's just buried in lifestyle.
My shares in Real Vision
as an entrepreneur they could be worth
nothing, they could be worth gazillion.
That's not part of it. So, what really
matters is your
liquid net worth.
The money that you've got available to
invest.
And I'm a
100% in crypto.
And I feel like I'm under exposed.
So, maybe I didn't start with enough
cash.
Um that I should you know, I should have
had more in cash, you know, more um as
opposed to in real estate or whatever.
But
it's 100% I feel massively under
exposed. Now, why can I do 100%?
Because I have income. I have numerous
sources of income.
So, I've always got money coming in.
If I lost
well, you're never going to lose 100%
cuz I've got no leverage. So, it could
go down
80% and it'd be back to roughly where I
bought it. So, I'm kind of
safe in this crypto space now. I can't
really lose money.
But I've got cash flow coming in.
So, even if I did lose it, it's not
going to change my life.
And in fact, cash flow coming in gives
me an ability to buy at lower prices.
So, I'm structurally set up to take
take advantage of the biggest
opportunity I've ever seen.
Um and I'm comfortable with that. Now, I
don't know what percentage of my total
net worth it is cuz I don't think of
total net worth as total net worth.
Because those are things that I'm never
going to change. You know, my my my
beach house in Cayman, do I sell it and
buy something else? I'm going to invest
in something else with it. That is the
answer. Lifestyle is the answer to
everything, right? We don't do anything
else for any other reason, I don't
think, or you shouldn't.
To be rich is not is not a future state.
To have the lifestyle that you want is
the future state, and that can be
anything. You can live in a shack on a
beach in Nicaragua and be the happiest
man in the world. Go for that.
So, that's what I care about, but liquid
net worth, yeah, everything, and I feel
under-invested. I'm desperate to, you
know, waiting for the next quarter when
more income comes in to put more in cuz
I feel under-invested at all times.
That's how That's how much conviction I
have. I've And I've never done that
before. Ever in my entire lifetime have
I ever taken a bet like this.
Mhm. I want people I want to make sure
that they hear though that you've got
the income coming in, that this is not a
leverage trade. I think that that's very
very smart.
I don't have debt. This is
my pool of investable savings. It's my
It's my entire life savings.
Because I don't count the house and it
all the houses and stuff is that.
So, I can't be forced out of it.
I can't lose everything.
And I've got an income that tops it up,
so I can buy more or if I get the bet
wrong and it doesn't go anywhere for 5
years, I can get I can buy other stuff.
I can cover my cost of living.
Everything is fine.
So, yes, it sounds and I call it
irresponsibly long,
but it's actually not very
irresponsible. It's actually quite
responsible. It's just a very
high-conviction bet.
Yeah, this is such a fascinating time
and I'm very aware and it sounds like
you are as well. I'm very aware of okay,
I'm a by internet standards, I'm a
somewhat public figure. There are people
that listen and I I feel this obligation
to tell people you you you just have to
be aware of what's going on. I don't
trust my understanding of investment
strategies enough to tell people, "Hey,
go do exactly this." But I like when I
really think about the things that would
mess with my head, it would mess with my
head if cryptocurrency ends up being
what I think it's going to be and I
didn't tell people to at least research
it because
what so my wife and I end up getting
just fantastically wealthy and you have
this moment where I know you've dealt
with this where it's like, do I buy an
island and retire and just, you know,
check out and sit my ties in the beach
all day
or do I recognize that what really
matters is meaning and purpose and so I
want to do I want lifestyle. I'm with
you on that. But at the same time, I
want to matter and I want to help other
people. And so then you come into the
game and you go, "Okay, who am I going
to help?" And because of our background,
we had about a thousand employees that
grew up in the inner cities and you just
see what a devastating force it is. You
come to the realization I talked about
earlier, which this is a mindset
problem. And so we start thinking about,
"Okay, how are we going to address
this?" You get in, you realize people's
money's towards people's attitudes
towards money and that becomes one of
like the key areas where I want to help
people. So originally, it was all about
giving people an entrepreneurial mindset
so they could control their life. And I
really believe in that and I think that
when you think, which it to me is just
taking ownership of your life and
recognizing when you have a company, the
buck stops with me. I have to figure
this out. There's no way
to hide because I'm either going to be
able to pay my employees or I'm not.
Like there's there's just no [ __ ] in
that. And so you realize, okay, the
market's always going to win. I have to
figure out how to run this company well
so that I can pay everybody. So, super
powerful mindset. Now, crypto comes
along and I'm like, oh my god, this
really is this It is a moment where all
the people who are angry, frustrated,
disenfranchised, this is your [ __ ]
shot. And I heard you say this, this is
so powerful. Thinking about the words
you said are giving me the chills. Where
you said this is the first time where
the
retail investor, so the average everyday
person gets to front run, meaning go
before the big institutions. It's always
been the other way around. The big
institutions take the like cream off the
top for themselves and then all of us
get the leftovers. And this is the first
time where it's flipped. So, if you
think about Robinhood or any of these
big IPOs that have just happened, what
they're basically doing is there's a
bunch of VCs who've made a thousand X,
hundred X, whatever the number is,
and have got obscenely rich investing in
something that you're not allowed to
invest in because of the law, because
you're not an accredited investor.
And in fact, the system's so set up that
you're never ever going to be shown this
opportunity.
And then,
at the very end, when the asset's gone
up so much,
they then
list it on the New York Stock Exchange
or the Nasdaq and dump it on retail
when the best gains have been had. Now,
within that, there's always going to be
an Amazon and a Microsoft and an Apple.
But your chances are getting in at the
higher price, so you're the 52,000 guy
and not the averaging in 30,000.
Your probability of success is always
lower than those guys.
So, the system is against you.
In this, the institutions are being held
back by regulation and can't do it.
But we're not.
And we know that they have a lot of
money because it's actually our
pensions.
And so we they're going to put our
pensions in this in the end. Well, we
might as well make money from them
coming into the market later
and driving up prices ridiculously
because that is what's going to happen.
Once this ETF is listed, every RAA in
America is going to be advising
their clients to buy the Bitcoin ETF and
the Ethereum ETF and it'll drive another
half a trillion dollars of price
appreciation. You know,
this is all coming. Um and it is the
opportunity. And I've tried to set
everybody up like you,
I've had that sense of responsibility.
Real Vision was about that, but it's
also a subscription model, so I
purposely give ridiculous amounts of
information out on Twitter
that's free.
Subscription model is good cuz I need to
pay my staff and create a proper
business that has value,
but I give a bunch out on free. We give
tons of stuff out on YouTube and tons of
stuff out on the podcast. And then with
crypto, I just thought, "Fuck it. We're
going to give the whole thing away
free." So kind of Real Vision Crypto
is a free channel. We just said we're
going to get sponsors from these big
players cuz they're making tons of
money, the exchanges and others. They
can pay for everybody else to get access
so I can pay the staff for the crypto
stuff because it's that important to me.
It's like, "Guys, I'm giving you
everything you need." We do five
interviews a week with everybody in the
space. And they're so good.
no excuse not to educate yourself. It's
all there. At first, you go in there and
go, "Well, I don't know what this is all
about." That's okay.
You'll find the thing that interests you
and you'll find your way in and then
you'll go down the rabbit hole. But
yeah, I I passionately believe, you
know,
that
that the future of everything is based
on community. You have a community in
what you do. I have a community around
what I do.
And part of community is the inherent
or the
the inherent agreement that you're all
in this together.
I'm not going to be extractive of you,
and you're not going to be extractive of
me, but together we can all benefit from
being part of this community.
Crypto is a community in its own right,
and we're all benefiting from being part
of that. We're all part of that
community. But I think that
that's why both you and I are very
passionately passionate believers
in bringing everybody along for the
ride.
Because everybody around us has enabled
us, too, to build this amazing network
and all of these things. So, they should
everybody should share in it. This is
something that you'll pick up from my
interviews I've been talking about a
lot. All of this is going to get
tokenized, too. Culture is going to
become an investment.
The probability of there being a Tom
Coin within 5 years is something like
100%.
Yeah, so I definitely want to talk about
that cuz I think you've got some really
fascinating ideas there. Um before we
move on, I I haven't talked about this
publicly, but this idea of accredited
investor. So, I don't understand why
people aren't rioting in the streets.
It is the most obscene, and it's
masquerading and so I'll explain what it
is to people, you tell me cuz you
understand this a lot better than I do.
Tell me if I go astray anywhere. So, the
government is basically saying, "Hey,
you're not savvy enough to invest your
money wisely. You're going to get taken
advantage of, so we're going to protect
you just by making it impossible for you
to do these early-stage investments,
unless your net worth is a million
dollars or more." It's something sort of
that basic. And I remember when I
crossed that and suddenly my net worth
was over that, and I was like, "But
wait, I'm not any savvier when it comes
to investing. I know how to build
businesses."
And most of it might be in your house.
So, it's not like you've got more money,
which just so happens that your house
has gone up cuz you bought it in a nice
neighborhood.
It's ridiculous.
Ridiculous. And so I'm like,
how how are people not complaining about
this? Like that's the one thing that I
sort of look around and go, wait. Like
this is madness. And you're allowed to
bet.
So you can go to Vegas, lose all of your
money and there's no regulation.
But if you want to invest in a group of
startups or a single startup, it's
deemed too risky by somebody.
And a lot of that is a power grab by
Wall Street. Cuz what does that mean? It
means you can't do it. You have to give
it to somebody else.
Um and they can pool the money.
So then you're not taking specific
risks.
And what that means is somebody on Wall
Street gets rich at your
on your behalf.
Because you're now paying them fees that
you didn't have to pay.
That's the beauty of Bitcoin. You're
basically a VC investor in the future of
money.
Not Bitcoin, Ethereum even, even better.
You've got you're a VC investor in the
future platform of the internet of
value.
And you're paying nobody any fees.
Dude, let that sink in.
Like that's yeah, it's really really
crazy and
man, I I just really hope
Good. There's no bank saying, well you
have to do it through us if you want to
do this.
You can buy it and store it on a hard
wallet.
And there's nobody involved. That is the
power of what is happening here.
This is two
This is true kind of distributed power
within
wealth creation that people only dream
of.
This is the system not being against
you, but working for you for once.
Yep. This is this is the the chance.
It's uh it's really exciting and the
more you learn about it, the more you
just start freaking out. Like, whoa.
This is really custom design. Of course
it was. I haven't read the the white
paper, which
um
probably would benefit me. I think it'd
be make it easier to communicate to
people, but it is
it's kind of like that ultra secure bank
you were talking about starting. It's
like somebody who really sat down and
thought, "How do we put the power back
in people's hands and make sure that
it's uncorruptible?" Uh it's it's really
pretty phenomenal.
All right, getting into like this idea
of tokenization. First, if you don't
mind, explain to people what
tokenization is, and then we'll get into
like where this is all headed. Their
heads are going to be melting by now.
Yeah, but this is how it starts. And in
fact, what sort of a quick primer, if
they've made it this far, they probably
don't need it, but uh here's how
learning works. You start not even
[ __ ] knowing the terms. And so, you
take the first step down the rabbit
hole, you're like, "This is madness. I
don't even understand the words people
are saying." You start to get the
vocabulary. Certain words will jump out
at you. Go look those up. Now you begin
to cobble like, "Ah, I kind of know
what's going on." Then you can like you
said, you pick that path that you
understand, you go through. So, that
sense of like overwhelming confusion, A,
it's perfectly natural, and B, in the
beginning, just find the words. Once you
understand the words, that'll be the key
to unlocking things. Okay, so with that,
one of the words that we need to define
is tokenization. What does that mean?
So, remember we talked about smart
contracts? Smart contracts are this
thing that you can attach to the
blockchain, and that contract can be any
kind of contract.
So,
that brings up the word tokenization.
Because you can therefore attach
anything onto the blockchain because of
this contract.
Piece of art,
fractionalized real estate, whatever.
Whatever.
So,
Bitcoin, okay? That's attached on the
blockchain. But now it can be other
things, cuz the contract will say,
"Well, legally has the rights to this."
So, it starts off with people
conceptualizing about real estate,
artwork, other things. Why real estate?
This is a really powerful thing. Real
estate, none of us can afford a $50
million apartment in Manhattan.
But that goes up 100% in 2 years, unlike
something in Queens that goes up
20% in 5 years.
So, the rich dude's getting richer,
while the poor are getting less
well-off. The rich-poor divide.
Once you fractionalize it, like you can
with Bitcoin,
that anybody can own 10% of their net
worth in a $50 million apartment, we're
all making the same amount of returns.
The rich don't get richer.
We all get the same.
If it goes down in price, we all go down
in price.
That is what it should be. That is what
tokenizing real estate's going to do.
And you can do it with tokenizing
artwork. So, you're allowing
fractionalized ownership of all sorts of
things that is recorded. Nobody can take
it away from you. It's written
and recorded on the blockchain.
And on that ledger, it's confirmed by
lots of people to say, "Tom owns this
piece of this real estate, and nobody
else can take it." Okay, that's genius.
But then what happened was this massive
explosion this year in digital art,
or just happened last year. Digital art
was where you start
tokenizing
the recorded ownership of something
digital. So, people say digital art,
"Well, it's just a JPEG."
Well, a JPEG has no scarcity.
Now, it's the same with photographic
art.
So, photographic art has no real
scarcity
until it's signed.
Or you have the negative,
then it's priceless.
That creates scarcity.
And I I collect signed rock and roll
photographs um of of music artists
signed by famous photographers. Now,
because it has scarcity, and I like
that.
Um so,
that applies with digital art, too.
Because if you say there's only going to
be one of this, and it's recorded on a
blockchain,
and it's called a non-fungible token,
it's a token
then I can sell it to you and you now
have the rights to it.
We have scarcity, there's one.
And this guy called Beeple
creates
I don't know, I can't remember how many
pieces of art, like 14,000 pieces of
art.
No, it's more. So, he did 15,000 pieces
of art which was all into one
JPEG.
Um which was 13 years worth of daily
art.
And all incredible.
And then he sells it at Christie's or
Sotheby's
for 60
9 million dollars.
And everyone goes, "Oh my god." It's the
same when Damien when
Banksy started selling graffiti art and
everyone's like, "This is ridiculous."
And now suddenly everybody wants a
Banksy. And it's the same when
um
Jackson Pollock started spraying paint
and now everybody wants a Jackson
Pollock. Nobody believes in art until
they do. And it's that same human system
you talked about. Once we perceive it's
got value, it's got value. That's how
it's going to be. And we will trade it
for whatever it is.
So, we can put
digital art
we can tokenize it and own it.
But that also means we can tokenize
things like IP rights.
So, this video we can tokenize and only
token holders can watch it.
Or there's advertising that comes
attached to it or whatever it is. And
anybody who owns part of the token or
one of those tokens
can get some of those rights.
So, that means that music artists who
are getting screwed by everybody, they
lose 80% of their economics.
Oh.
By the ticket sellers, the middle men,
the um music publishers, the record
labels, the talent management business,
I mean, everybody, including Google,
Facebook, everybody's taking money.
They're bringing massive communities
handing them over for free and getting
back 20% of the economics. It's
terrible.
But imagine now you can tokenize the IP
to a song.
So, every time it's ever used, it
directly attributes to you. So, let's go
back to that Beeple um example. He
cleverly put into that contract
that every time it changed hands,
he gets paid a commission. 20%.
That never happened to artists. So,
Damien Hirst, every time he sells stuff,
he gets the money beginning, the gallery
takes 50%.
And then every time it trades, he never
makes a penny again.
But, this Beeple will make money
forever, and so will his family, every
time that ever trades.
So, it's like Van Gogh,
his family always having
a share of that.
So,
super interesting, IP rights to songs,
IP rights to all sorts of things, video.
In a digital age, it could be anything.
And then you think about, okay, well,
what is where's this all going?
Well, it's going to community.
Because community is the new powerful
business model where
a group of like-minded people coalesce
around an idea, a person, set of ideas.
So, if you go back, you talked about
Harari's book, the other great book is
Jared Diamond's um Guns, Guns, Germs,
and Steel, very similar kind of book.
In that book, he says he talks about
complex adaptive societies,
human groups, large human groups.
How do you
How do you hold those people together?
How you do that is basically you have a
leader,
you have a mission, you have a set of
rules,
and then you usually have a value, or
money.
And that's true of all religions, it's
true of almost all groups.
But, what was missing in most? Religions
had the value part, because it's like if
you didn't follow the rules and follow
the leader, you went to heaven or hell,
or you didn't get reincarnated, whatever
religion you were part of.
In modern society, like US,
you have a leader,
you have kind of a mission, you have a
set of rules,
and then you have
money.
And money is what binds them together.
That is your national accounting for
your society.
But tokenization
means we can all have a system of money.
Right? Bitcoin is the system of money
for the people on the Bitcoin network.
But
I can have a system of money based on
Real Vision
because we have
hundreds of thousands of users
who all want to gain value from the
ecosystem and want to create value
within the ecosystem. But more
obviously it's with musicians and sports
stars.
You know, if you're Rihanna,
you have
you're the third largest social media
influence in the world after
Barack Obama and I can't remember who
the other who the next one was.
So, it's her and Bieber.
She has 150
million followers.
Woah.
That's just on Twitter.
So, her reach is something like 400
million people
on a daily basis.
They all want to be part of the
community of Rihanna.
We saw that with Lady Gaga and her
little monsters.
If you give them a leader,
a mission,
a set of rules,
and then a system of money,
you've created an economy, a country, a
digital country.
And that has value. If you make your
society successful,
it goes up in value, and you create more
GDP.
So, this is now us getting rich from
culture.
We coalesce around this idea,
we create the system of money and these
rules,
and then we look after our society. If
we look after it, our network grows. We
bring more people into the Rihanna
network, the value of our tokens go up.
Rihanna gets wealthier,
and the fans get wealthier.
That is a whole change. In the old
world, it would have been Rihanna gets
super rich.
All of these other people around her get
even richer,
and the fans don't get anything except
some experience.
That's the old Facebook idea. The
shareholders got rich, but the people
who use Facebook got nothing except
abused, really.
This tokenization changes everything. We
can all participate.
I don't think people understand how much
has already been disrupted. Did you pay
attention to what happened with the
Nouns DAO and the Noun NFT? No.
Oh my god, Raoul, this is insanity. So,
it's an NFT project.
They release one
eight-bit, looks like it was created by
Nintendo back in the '80s, eight-bit
graphic. They release one a day, every
day, forever. So, it'll take them 27
years to get to the 10,000 number, which
has sort of become the magic number. So,
up until that point, it'll be the most
scarce of these kind of NFTs. And the
way that the DAO is structured, so DAO,
for anybody that doesn't know, is
decentralized autonomous organization.
So, you
every day one of the Nouns sells. The
buyers of the Nouns go into the Nouns
DAO. 100% of the proceeds from the sale
of these little
eight-bit graphics go into the DAO, and
then the members of the DAO control
what's done with that money.
The first one sold for
I might I might be off a little, but it
was like
$1.8 million
as of that time in terms of the number
of ETH that it sold for. And so, I was
like, "Uh,
this is a company overnight. Like, you
literally sold essentially a flag and in
selling the flag on day one, raised
almost $2 million
and on day two will raise, you know,
however many cuz obviously the the
number will go down. People are going to
pay the most for the first one. But,
when you think about having to go the
old model of having to go to Sand Hill
Road in San Francisco to hawk your wares
and convince somebody that you were
worth investing in and to raise $2
million of seed capital. Like, was you
had to put this massive prospectus
together and like do all this crazy
stuff and really have this vision and
know how to pitch and know people and I
mean, just that would have taken a lot.
And now, it's an 8-bit graphic
and the the structure of the doubt and
that's it. And I was like, a a company
just came into existence like that.
Yeah, I mean, we did similar Real
Vision,
but not as
that's much more advanced.
We never raised money.
I don't know, over the history of Real
Vision, we probably raised 50 million in
capital over time.
And we raised it only from our members.
Whoa. Never, not a single VC, not a
single nothing, no strategic, nobody.
Our members.
Um so, they're the owners of Real Vision
along with us.
Which is fabulous. So, that's this
community idea. I I believe in it
passionately cuz I live it with Real
Vision cuz people are passionate about
what we're doing.
But then, when you say this, I mean,
yeah, I mean, people are setting up
DAOs, which is basically a rules-based
organization
or economy or country, exactly what I
talked about. It's it's controlling a
group of people
in a way that they agree the rules, they
set the rules,
they do it, they all economically
benefit, and it can happen like that,
and you sell a piece of digital
nothing
that has scarcity, that but the
community buys into.
I mean,
where is this going to go? There'll be a
bunch of copycats, and they'll all and
they'll fail because people don't
believe in the scarcity, whatever it is.
But this is a change of everything.
Because in exchange for, let's say,
starting up a company. Let's say that
DAO is actually going to become
a publishing company.
But you can't raise money for a
publishing company, so you say we will
sell these tokens
that are super
valuable because we're going to restrain
the supply and they're kind of cool.
And we'll sell those
and that's what you're buying into and
that company will now be in existence to
do whatever it wants.
That's groundbreaking. That's the end of
VCs. And that's what people don't
understand. All of this is going away.
The bankers,
the VCs,
the private equity,
everybody in the middle of this
equation, the people like Google and
Facebook who monetize your community and
my community
and make more money out of it than we
will.
They That goes away.
Because we have direct relationships
with our community, because they're
token holders.
And the community benefits because they
make money out of that, because you're
stripping out middlemen and the money
goes back into the value of the network.
So, yeah, I mean, it's And this is I'm
talking quite a lot about this right now
and I get a lot of people going, I don't
quite get my head around it, cuz people
are still trying to get their head
around
the digital asset space, but this is
even bigger. Because you won't even know
it's crypto in the end. It's just like
your membership points to
communities that you're part of and
you'll realize that you're part of these
nations and it might be the nation of
Rihanna.
And you might be there for 20 years.
It It is It is a sea change that is
It's almost impossible to recognize how
big it is and how foundational of a
change this is going to be. Like, um I
don't know how much you know about my
story and why I'm doing all of this, but
uh I'm going to use this very principle
to completely disrupt
entertainment. And so, looking at So,
when we founded it, we founded it about
4 and 1/2 years ago, and my message to
the team was, "Hey guys, we're looking
for two things. We're looking for a
platform moment so that we can capture a
lot of the economics, and then we're
looking for a moment of tremendous
disruption so that we can take advantage
of that cuz I'm trying to build the next
Disney." So, when you look at Disney,
90-year head start, um they've got
however many billions of dollars in
revenue, plus just the the catalog of IP
they have is is daunting. So, if you're
trying to build the next one, and you're
being intellectually honest, you look at
that and go, "Okay, I'm at a such a
severe disadvantage. For me to really
make ground, I'm going to need to move
faster on a new idea than they do, and
leverage that to to get some sort of
early momentum."
And so, I said, "Our job, because this
is a creative endeavor, we're going to
fail 19 out of 20 times." That's just
sort of the rough math when you look at
music, film, um all that stuff. So, our
job is to stay in business long enough
to find those two things. And so, we
were, you know, hiring slowly, and we
had good revenue growth, but, you know,
I was really throt- throttling the the
growth of the company. And then, when we
we found our platform, which I'll I'll
be disclosing in the probably about 6
months, and then we are capitalizing on
the the blockchain. And so, now all of a
sudden we're in a frenzy, and I'm hiring
people as fast as I can find the right
people. So, in, you know, whatever 4 and
1/2 years, we brought on 27 people, in
the next 2 months we'll bring on 10
more. And so, you know, when you take
that out over a year, it's like we'll
double the size of the company in, you
know, 12 to 18 months. And
it's because of that thesis that you
just walked us through of how
tokenization is going to change
everything, how the economies of
community are going to change everything
because
one of the main things that I look at is
anime. And so I started traveling to
Japan and talking to the biggest names
over there and they're like, "Oh, there
are some years where we don't make
money." And I'm like, "I'm sorry, what?"
And they're like, "It's becoming a
global phenomenon at the same time as
it's becoming impossible to make money
on." So it's this really weird thing
where you're like, "Okay, there's all
this pent-up demand and enthusiasm
and yet nobody understands how to deal
with the economics.
And I think what we're going through
right now with the blockchain,
tokenization, bringing the community
into the value structure of that. Like
imagine that you can bet on whether it's
the next Rihanna, whether it's the next
anime phenomenon. Like there's for
people that aren't familiar with that
world, there's one So normally anime
starts as manga. So there's this one
manga called Demon Slayer, which that
one title out-sells the entire Western
comic market. And so Spider-Man,
Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, all of
it out-sold by Demon Slayer. So
you look at that and go,
"Okay, what if I could have bet on that
when like the first episode of the manga
came out? Let alone the fact that during
the pandemic that was like the
highest-grossing movie
It may have been the highest-grossing
movie globally. It certainly was the
highest-grossing movie in Japan. It was
one of the highest in the US. And
if I could have made that bet when I
read the first chapter of the manga
and owned some of that IP, oh my god.
Like now all of a sudden you have like
these what start as micro-communities
who are passionate about a creator, a
songwriter, a singer, whatever. A
photographer. You love the photography
of these rockstars, right? Just you see
a photographer before somebody else,
right? This just happened with um Justin
Eversano, I believe, in Twin Flames. Um
and
when you own a piece of that like it's
it is insane. Now, they're very high
risk and so you have to be super smart
about it, but whoa. It It's going to be
life-changing. A A manga or photographer
is going to change somebody's life. And
also, you know, I've been
to I'm also doing something on the side
building a whole studio business based
around
uh communities.
Um working with the world's largest
communities and this is all very below
the radar screens so I can't talk about
too much.
But building token economics and token
communities for the world's largest
communities.
And then you start realizing stuff like
okay
an up-and-coming music artist
right, to to go into the recording
studio cost money, they have to pay it
they have to pay it back to the record
label, blah blah blah. Well, what
happens if they've got
50,000 fans
and the fans can hear 10 piece of music
and can back
the
IP to own a token of the IP for the
first year.
So now they're betting on which song's
going to be successful.
So let's say they're super fans, they
then go on to TikTok and they start
creating videos with the soundtrack and
they make it viral.
Right, this is the network effects. The
recording artist now doesn't have to
borrow money
to pay
because their fans want to invest in it.
And the recording artist will probably
be still better off
because of how the economics work. So
yeah, all of this is coming. It's
interesting to see you know, Gary
Vaynerchuk is going down the same route.
I had a long chat with him the other
day. Um we're seeing the um
um the um Ashton Kutcher thing coming up
as well, the Stoner Cats. And again,
people have got similar ideas of
creating large entertainment brands
starting from the scarcity of the NFT
and building out from that. Who knows
what the business model's going to be
that will prevail, but I think you're
dead right. But also, Disney's going to
tokenize, too.
Without question. Because the value of
that community is worth more than the
value of Disney itself.
No doubt. No doubt.
Yeah, it is it is a mad scramble to, you
know, be first and to do it better. The
only good news in the area that I'm in
and and this is now, so anybody watching
that's in the NFT community, I will just
tell you
you have to switch the mentality from
what's new, which like there was so much
there is so much enthusiasm in NFTs
right now that it was just all too easy
to just buy things they were new they
were new they were new and most of them,
you know, stagnate or drop and over the
long run though, it's not going to be
enough to launch another new project.
Like you've really got to say
as as a buyer, as a collector, even as
an investor, you have to say, "Okay,
there's only a few projects that I can
really understand well enough to be an
intelligent investor, especially if I'm
trying to time the market."
And so now it's going to switch to,
"Well, wait a second. I'm invested in
this these seven projects, let's say. I
need to go and be a part of that
community that breathes life into this
and gets this moving. If for no other
reason than to protect my investment."
So now you start thinking, "Okay, wait.
Like I want to be deep on certain niches
so that A, I can be a meaningful
community member. I can be a voice in
the community and that I can make sure
that these projects have real legs
because ultimately, especially when
you're dealing with art, if there's no
emotional resonance with the community,
you don't have anything. So it was just
a quick flip and then people moved on to
the next thing. And so I am really going
to be interested in one, watching the
energy change in that space and two,
trying to be a part of the vanguard of
people that change the energy in that
space and then see what comes out of it
in the next 5 to 10 years, it'll be
utterly fascinating. You know, I can't
be more excited about where NFTs,
communities, and all of this is going.
What I do know is I don't know where
it's going. You and I might think we
have an idea,
but it's probably going to be bigger and
the use case is more extraordinary that
we can get our heads around now. We're
all struggling to get our heads around
DAOs, but this is just the start. So,
it's an amazing opportunity both from a
business perspective. You and I as
entrepreneurs are seeing this going, "Oh
my god." As investors, we're getting
really excited about the opportunity to
create returns from investments. And
then, you know, I think we both share
this mission that we can also bring
everybody else along with us and help
change people's lives, get them into
this a mindset that they can own assets
and they can make money and not
everything's against them. The system's
not stacked against them. Here's the
opportunity everybody's waiting for. So,
I mean,
what an amazing point in time.
No doubt. So, one thing that I really
want to get your take on is when I look
at some of these projects, they do look
a bit like they would fail the Howey
test. So, when we think about securities
and the SEC,
uh how do you think about
NFTs and DAOs and that stuff through
that framework? I've been thinking a lot
about this. I think the Howey test
pisses me off to start with.
This whole securities, what is a
security?
You know, it's
Why? Because therefore you will put it
if it's a security, then it has to go
back through Wall Street.
You're putting it back into those people
with power. If it's not a security, it's
not. It's distributed.
And there's something wrong with that.
There's something wrong with using a
1930s law.
There's something wrong with saying
what people can and can't do
in terms of investment. So, allowing
those with more money to do more.
I think that something fundamentally
wrong, and I think that the power of 86
million millennials coming in the voting
population um and further into power
will force that change.
Cuz if not, they're voting against
themselves.
So, it is coming. I believe change will
come. You know, there's a great book
called The Fourth Turning by um
Neil Howe and William Strauss. Cannot
recommend it enough. Um it's about this
demographic change and what it does and
the changes that are coming. This is all
part of that. So,
yes, there will be prosecutions. Yes,
people will get it wrong. It it'll hold
back the space.
But over time,
the regulators and the authorities will
have to
agree that the world has changed. That
what we thought of as security is not a
security now.
Should we try and protect people against
scams?
Yes.
How to do that?
That's probably a different set of
regulations, and I don't really know. If
that's what you want to do, is to stop
fraud and people getting
money extracted from them,
then focus on that.
Don't focus on what you can invest in
and what you can't and hope that
somebody who's got a million dollars
is more able to choose what's a good
project
than a student straight out of MIT with
three master's degrees and a PhD who
happens to be age 22 and doesn't have a
million dollars. It's ridiculous. It's
just simply ridiculous. So, it will
change, and it's going to be
frustrating, and we have to be careful.
So, many of these projects will start on
smaller scale than we'd want them to be
just because we need to get through this
regulatory regulatory issue. Regulators
are so far behind. They're still trying
to figure out how to deal with Bitcoin
ETFs.
They haven't got to DeFi, and they
haven't looked at NFTs, and then when we
get to the social stuff, I mean, they
haven't started. So, they're going to
struggle really to figure this out.
Yes. Raoul, thank you so much for being
such a voice in the space and for coming
on the show today. I mean, really,
really incredible. Where can people
spend more time with you? Yeah, so I'm
on Twitter a reasonable amount. Um, so
@Raoul, r a o u l, g m i.
I just urge everybody to go to the Real
Vision Crypto, realvisioncrypto.com,
or realvision.com/crypto,
whatever you want to find it. It's free.
You just give an email and there's tons
of information. Everything you want to
learn, go off the deep end,
and you will come out the other side
with a part of this space that resonates
with you,
and that little seed will change your
life. So,
and I did it on purpose that it's free,
so make use of it. There's no excuse not
to.
I love it. Dude, thank you again so
much.
Guys, trust me, this is somebody that,
uh, if you're going to invest in your
future, this is exactly where you want
to start. I've spent an obscene amount
of time taking in his content. Uh, it is
wildly informative. And speaking of
things that are wildly informative, if
you haven't already, be sure to
subscribe. And until next time, my
friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.