Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: A lot of them are selling down their entire portfolio and buying Bitcoin because they just can't imagine, looking ahead, that they're going to do better by holding these physical buildings that have all of the problems that come with physical buildings like tenants and leaky roofs and you know, imminent domain and massive transaction costs and property taxes and, you know, just name your risk out there. Real estate's got about all of it and it's like, well, I could just transfer all of this to bitcoin, not have any of the headache and I'll still massively outperform what I would otherwise do. Like, why wouldn't I do that?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Money Adjustment. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Kramer, D.C. i am a chiropractor who loves investing and trading. Are you interested in what's moving markets and your money?
Great, let's get started.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: You can put yourself into a position of creating a renaissance type commission for yourself if you are very aggressive early on in saving and if you're saving in the right tool, which is Bitcoin, which gives you the sovereignty not only from a financial freedom perspective in the traditional sense of just like having enough value saved where you don't have to work, but also from like a true self sovereign perspective, as long as you're holding that Bitcoin in the appropriate way, which is controlling your own keys and perhaps running your own node and that kind of stuff, you can be completely non dependent on the infrastructure that's out there in the traditional financial world.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: I did this whole episode with Terrence and then we realized at the end.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: I didn't record it, so man, terrible. So then you had to redo it.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: We had to redo it. But it was super fun. But that one first one we did, I was like, oh my God, there's. You're like me, you do the spaces. So I see you in the spaces all the time. And just the information is there's so much with.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: What do you think about spaces?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: So big. What's that?
[00:01:56] Speaker A: What do you think about spaces?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: It's interesting. Like I wouldn't have gotten to this point in the podcast journey if it wasn't for spaces.
So like, real quick note on me. I started this podcast because my daughter was in a broadcasting class in high school and I used to do broadcasting in high school. And I was like, oh, it'd be fun to just do a podcast as a hobby. And I started doing just like trading videos. My first one was let's Just a Live Trade Video. And I was, you're a trader, retail trader, very unapologetically on the retail end of things. I, I make, I earn a living through doing utilization review for work comp cases. So I'm very much entrenched in the healthcare system. But I, I came into a, a respectable size of money that I had to allocate and I was a pretty good about most of it. But then I've always been trading little bits here and there and then at one time my trading volume got to about a million dollars a week in trading volume and it's kind of like that number around not because I was making a million dollars a week, I was like skimming a. Barely a nickel off the top. But the fact that that much volume was going through and it's much better.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: What were you trading? Were they like short dated options or just you know, common equity or you know, futures or.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: I traded options for a while but it was a little too volatile and I really wasn't that good at it to be honest. I won a lot and I lost a lot. Like I think a lot of people do that, that trade casually and then I just like sticking with the equities because then if a trade me that I'm like, I guess I'm an investor now.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Were you trading like on margin where you're getting a little extra leverage?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: I do trade, I, I have traded on margin. I do like trading on margin strategically. Like currently I'm not on margin. I only trade on margin if I'm maybe if I feel very strongly about the market.
So like I felt, oddly enough the last couple of years I felt fairly strong about the market while we were going through all the recession talk and depression talk. I just felt like we had just come out of a two year bear and I'm thinking to myself on a MA picture two years, seven years, you know, we're kind of due to start up trending again. So I just looked, taking a broad macro view, I felt confident. Like that's kind of where I hung my hat.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: We're right about that it seems.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean that I, yeah, I felt, I felt, I felt good about that. I like to look at things more from a macro vantage point and try not to get too distracted. I was watching tons of cnbc. You asked me about the spaces I was watching before I was, before I was immersed in the spaces. Like these things run 24 7. There's like spaces at night, I'm laying in bed, there's spaces running, it's afternoon.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: I think to myself, like what are all these people doing all day, you know, because I can pop in for an hour here and there, and I do it maybe a few times a week, but.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Some people just sit on there all day. Oh, my.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a. It's like another kind of job. Yeah. Really? When you say it like that, I'm like, I'm so tired. Why am I so tired? And it's like, oh, because you're doing Spaces. You're listening. And mostly listening. I'll jump on every once in a while, but I. I'm not in the finance world, and I like to listen to the finance spaces. So I don't feel like I can. I don't feel like I can contribute the way I want. Which is nice about the podcast, because what wound up happening is I was listening to Spaces, and then I got Darkside on, because I just reached out to him. I had this whole thing on you on. On Twitter. Like, I think it was about Episode. I don't know what episode it was. I had a goal to get to 21 episodes because I was following her mosey and he said, very few people get to 21 episodes.
So I was like, I just set this arbitrary goal to get to 21 episodes, and then I got to 21, and I was like, all right, I think I'll just kind of keep going here until I keep going.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Because now you've developed enough of the muscle and enough.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I got everything set.
I got the. The RSS feed, I got the distribution, I've got the. You know, it's kind of fun too, like, play around with Canva and using some of the AI technology. What else do I use? Canva is one I use a lot of. What's that?
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I made a similar commitment to myself in starting my newsletter, which was, I'm going to do this for a year. I'm going to do it as many weeks in a row, you know, like every week for a year. And then when I get to the end of the year, let's take stock of where this thing is and figure out if it's, you know, in a good enough position. And I like doing it enough to continue it on forward. And then who knows, you know, if I'm able to monetize that in some way shape or, you know, in the future. I have no idea. I'm still. Still trying to think through what that might look like.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: But. But, yeah, you know, it's become a routine and, you know, allows me to have some time in the morning. To do a little bit of writing. And, you know, obviously I'm working in AI a little bit, which is developing other skills. And yeah, it's. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: So how long have you been. How long has your substack been running?
[00:06:44] Speaker A: It has been almost a year. I think it was. I think the first issue was in October of last year. So I'm almost there. I'm working on number 45. So I guess technically, like, getting to number 52 is like the. The actual. Because it's meant to be a weekly. Weekly publication.
So that's the actual, you know, checkpoint, I guess you could say, or target that I. That I set off.
And, you know, I. I've. I've heard these, you know, Mr. Beast say, just do 100 of whatever it is, 100 reps of whatever it is, and you get to that point and you'll know whether or not is a good idea or you want to pivot or stop doing it or whatever. But, like, you have to just give something a chance there. I figured a weekly publication over the course of a week or over the course of a year is good enough in terms of the reps of doing that. So it's grown pretty well. You know, I'm like closing in on 2,000 subscribers. The open rates are great. I get a lot of good feedback from it, and it's been a fun learning process for sure.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah, I recently subscribed because when I sent you the dm, you sent me the link and subscribe to that. I'm not on substack often. I use medium mostly, but even that I can't say I've been great about reading. I more do like the video digestion these days. And I've been using. This is kind of like, I don't know what you're doing with it, but I use like, AI, even the YouTube videos that I used to watch regularly. Like, I'm a big fan of the Compound. I love Josh Brown and I would always, like, watch. I don't know if you follow the Compounder. Most people know who Josh Brown is typically. Oh, wow, okay, awesome.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: I don't think I do. I don't think I do.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: I always love it when I think these people are just like, you know, everybody knows who they are. And then you talk to somebody, you're like, I have no idea.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: My God, that's awesome. It just like, well, hey, if it can help me, you know, learn something new, please send it.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, he's very cool. He's like, he's, he's a CNBC contributor and you know, without getting too much in that. But he has a, he has a regular podcast that kind of got me interested in finance in general. It's called the Compound. And they do a what are your thoughts? Live every Tuesday and Shameless plug. I'm not. They're not, you know, like, yeah, the Compound is cool, but you know what I'm going to do with you is we already ate into like 10 minutes here, but I'm going to. I didn't even introduce you yet, so I'm going to. What I've started recently with my recent guests is I go to Grok and I'm going to. Have you ever groked yourself?
[00:09:10] Speaker A: I have, but it's been a while.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, good. You're the, you're the first.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: I'm interested to hear what you pulled out.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: You're young enough. You're like the first. Because I've asked, like, I had Dave Weisberger on and I asked him if he groked himself and he kind of took it in an interesting direction. But most people say like, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about, but it was like back in the day you used to Google yourself. So now I'm thinking, okay, people are going to grok themselves. Especially if you're in like the faces for sure, not faces in spaces, but. So let me pull, let me pull you up real quick here. I had it set and now I'm going to have to get back to it. But I like doing this just because I think it's a light hearted way to get going. Let's see. All right, so this is what Grok has to say about you. Trey Sellers, a bitcoin evangelist. Real quick note here. Bitcoin evangelist. Do you, how do you feel about that term?
[00:10:00] Speaker A: I certainly do evangelize bitcoin. Yes, I've been in bitcoin for a very long time.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Yes, you have. Since, since 2014, right?
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I don't know. You know, in a lot of ways, like bitcoin and money, generally speaking, are like religions in that it is a belief system that, you know, all economic goods are only worth what people believe they're worth. And the utility that they provide for people in their own subjective, you know, calculation of what, what that does for them, what benefits it provides.
But money is kind of a special good in the economy. Right. And so the, the belief system around a particular form of money is extraordinarily important. And when people lose Faith in particular types of money. They move their value to other forms. And then, you know, we see the shift in capital happening all over the economy, you know, over. Over the course of time. And bitcoin is kind of having its, you know, moment in the sun right now over the last 15 years. And my prediction being, you know, over the next, call it a thousand years, will. Will be continued to be greater. There will be greater and greater belief in bitcoin as the superior form of value and money that people want to store their wealth in. And that belief does drive conversion. So if you bring that back to evangelism and people who believe in the kind of the value substrate that underpins Bitcoin, you know, you tend to want to talk very positively about it and make sure that people around you know about it and know that you can be an expert for them in. In bitcoin. And that typically leads for anybody who's intellectually curious and wanting to learn more about this thing that just doesn't seem to die.
They tend to. To convert in one shape or. Or another. So, yeah, I. I don't know. I guess I'll embrace it. Sure.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I. No, I think. I think that's a great answer.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: And.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: And it is a belief. It's an interesting point to bring up how money does have a belief system around it, and you juxtapose without using the words directly, the hard money. So I only asked you how you felt about the evangelist. I didn't only ask you about this for this reason, but I noticed when I gracked myself recently that I've become an evangelist, too. That's. That's the first thing they say about me, is he's a bitcoin evangelist.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: So, man, they're tagging us.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: They're tagging us, they're tagging us. But it's. It's when you're in the spaces. So, like, I'm always commenting in the spaces, and they're bitcoin spaces, so it makes sense. So. All right, let me. Let me. Let's get back to you. So Trey Seller is a bitcoin evangelist with a finance background, passionately champions sovereign money through running his own node, believing it empowers individuals. Did you. Did you laugh at that one? The node?
[00:12:49] Speaker A: I'm just surprised that that's something that is coming. Coming into the pilot.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, because I do want to get into that, too. I think the node that you run, your own node is very interesting as well.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Believing it empowers individuals to set their own financial rules. Tshodl. That's your handle on. On X. Tshodl. I should say TSH underscore hod, because you're going to have a lot of people that are, like, you know, faking your Persona, if you don't already soon enough. Riffing on Bitcoin's 100, 112K surge. I think that's referencing, like, a recent tweet that you had.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that was today.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I know, because I liked it. I was like, oh, yeah, it's funny. Oh, 112,000 and people are freaking out. Right.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Mood is not exactly ecstatic.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, right. How quickly it changes. It's funny, the tropes that we see in the bitcoin world.
Boomer grip. Wait, I have to go back here riffing out another one from today.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Look how. Look how recent Grok is.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, up to date and a new renaissance fueled by art and crypt. Oh, that's interesting.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: A renaissance also from today. Wow. So if you grok yourself, it's going to skew toward the most recent stuff that you put out there. So I guess you got to be careful.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: I guess. And it also, you know, the positive about that is it's like, if you don't like what Grok is saying, you can change it the following day. You can, like, develop like, a whole new. I don't know, I'm like, I'm reading this and talking to you, and I'm thinking, oh, wow, your Persona can just evolve over time.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Which now. Now I'm getting the idea to just grok myself every day and post that to. To X and see how it goes.
Like a thread, you know.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: So here.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Is there some kind of recursive grokking that that happens, though? Like, what if you keep posting your Grok every day and then the Grok feeds the Grok, which feeds the Grock, which feeds the Grok, and now all of a sudden, like, you're down some kind of weird wormhole and.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah, you just went very meta there. Yeah, no, not to Mark Zuckerberg's meta, but the traditional meta.
The X community praises TS Hodl for his insightful bitcoin expertise and engaging sessions with Christian615 and highlighting his impactful contributions.
Oh, and so it did. So it did. Pull up your most recent. I don't know if it's your most recent tweet, but it does highlight a tweet of yours, and yours says, art plus bitcoin equals the new renaissance.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I just recorded with yeah, sure. I just recorded a podcast with an, you know, ex friend of mine named Logan Bollinger. He goes by at the Y of Fi or the Y of Fi. And he, like me, is a financial independence or fire proponent and also a bitcoiner. And he and I have, you know, gone back and forth over the last years and. And you know, just kind of chatted either in DMS or through threads or whatever, just about the overlap between bitcoin and the financial independence retire early community, which is what my entire substack, my entire newsletter is based off of, is, you know, the fact that the fire community, people who are seeking early retirement because they're sick of the like, corporate grind or the blue collar work that's back breaking every day or whatever, and they, they want to like, bring their retirement date further in, closer into the future so they can actually enjoy the things that they're passionate about and traveling and whatever during the time of their life when they actually are physically fit enough and mentally fit enough to actually enjoy it. Right.
And like, I took to this very strongly back in 2018, 2019 timeframe, which was, ironically enough, around the time that I really started to understand bitcoin. I've owned some Bitcoin since 2014, but I didn't really get it.
And I'd followed it throughout the years, but it was around that timeframe, around the same time that I found the fire movement, that I really started to get it. And it was not very long after, like starting to save very aggressively, starting with stocks and like the, the index portfolios that are out there to just shifting 100% toward Bitcoin as that primary savings vehicle. And so anyway, Logan and I have vibed on this over the years, and he just recently started a podcast and asked me to come on to talk about all of that stuff. So I promise I'm getting around to this. So there was one. He, he is an attorney, but he also has kind of an artistic streak, I think, and hobbies and that kind of thing. And I think a lot of the people around him are artists or musicians and that kind of thing. And so he just kind of threw out this question during our conversation around, like, what advice would you give or what thoughts would you have for an artist and what bitcoin can do for an artist and how they would think about their, the trajectory of their career as a bitcoiner and as somebody who advocates for financial independence and retire early and this kind thing. And I'll be very brief about my answer for that. And you can Go check out the clip and go check out the podcast for anybody who's listening is that, you know, those first 10 years or so that you are really working on your craft as an artist or as a musician, you probably need to be working. And if you use that time to save in bitcoin, by the time that you're at the end of that first 10 years, you could be in a position where you can take the next 10 years plus to, to really explore the artistic nature of what you want to create. And you will have had this time, this, this 10 year period upfront where your craft is actually honed enough where you can go off and create some of the best work that you have. And then bitcoin gives you the space and the time to be able to really explore that in the way that, you know, Michelangelo and Leonardo were commissioned to work on projects for, for years and years. You can commission yourself by holding bitcoin, Bitcoin and creating this fire reserve of bitcoin so that you don't have the constant pressure of having to make a living kind of encroaching on your ability to create the art that you want to create, regardless of how much time it's going to take you to do that. So that was the gist of the, that particular part of the conversation.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: And yeah, no, that's very interesting.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Posted that video and so I retweeted it and really that, that is how I think about it. It doesn't just apply to art. But you know, that was the gist of that question is that, you know, you can, you can put yourself into a position of creating a renaissance type commission for yourself if you are very aggressive early on in saving and if you're saving in the right tool, which is Bitcoin, which gives you the sovereignty not only from a financial freedom perspective in the traditional sense of just like having enough value saved where you don't have to work, but also from like a true self sovereign perspective. As long as you're holding that bitcoin in the appropriate way, which is controlling your own keys and perhaps running your own node and that kind of stuff, you can be completely non dependent on the infrastructure that's out there in the traditional financial world where, you know, the, the, the standard fire movement is very much tied to that whole system. Right. Because it's basically just save as much as I can and buy stocks and those stocks are owned and controlled by, you know, these large financial institutions.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. And that really hits to the heart of why I reached out to you in that you have an interesting background and you have some insight into how the TRADFI defi. I don't know what you want to call it. Now we're going through. They both concurrently exist at the moment. And then some would argue we're transitioning from one to the other. And some would argue that we are going to be coexisting maybe into infinitum or at least for a longer period of time than others would commit to. So why don't you give me a little bit of your background?
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I started in.
Well, the majority of my career was in traditional financial services and banking. I started at Deloitte Consulting in the technology practice and. But the projects that I was working with, the clients that I was working with were almost all in the financial services sector and in banking. And that's really where my interest had. Had lied at that time. And then from there worked at Goldman Sachs for three, then went to MetLife for a year and a half and then spent about six or seven years at Truist coming from the SunTrust side of that merger with BB&T. So all financial services banking. The majority of the time that I was at SunTrust and Truist was in the capital markets business. A lot of like risk and P and L work and sitting in trade flows and really understanding how capital markets work from the inside out. And so a lot of really good experience on that side of this whole equation.
And at a certain point I became the bitcoin guy at the bank, as I mentioned, owned bitcoin for quite some time, at least a little bit of it. And then really was down the rabbit hole in 2018, 2019, going into 2020, when things started really getting crazy.
And at that point I was just very aggressively pursuing fire, knowing that I didn't want to be in that banking job for the rest of my life. I had a pretty aggressive goal to be out of there and playing a lot more golf and Bitco certainly helping to accelerate that. And then one thing led to another. Like during that bull market, people were asking questions. I kind of had anticipated that they would. And I was the best positioned person probably in the entire company to be able to answer those questions. So I was giving a presentation I called Bitcoin for bankers around.
I had started like a little newsletter internal that people were asking to join. And it was just, you know, covering a few highlights from the previous week and giving like a very short snippet take on, on what was going on there to help people understand the landscape. And then I was asked to join a crypto working group that was put together at the board level for some senior executives at this huge bank to just understand what was going on in the space. And I was asked to join as the. The bitcoin expert, right, the. The subject matter expert on bitcoin, which was a really, really great experience and all that. And then at some point I just. Just kind of started poking around to see if there's an opportunity to work in Bitcoin and found myself at Unchained. And I've been at Unchained for four years now. Over four years now. So it's been, it's been a wild ride. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: And you're the VP of Unchained, correct?
[00:23:37] Speaker A: I'm a VP of sales. Yeah. I've been in the sales group for this entire time. You know, my day to day consists of talking to bitcoiners and helping them understand what we do, how we help them secure their Bitcoin and help them get to, you know, the path that works best for them for securing their bitcoin, planning for succession and taking advantage of some of the other financial services that we offer. You know, you can buy and sell Bitcoin with Unchained. You can of course, secure it in a collaborative custody model, which is really great for solving those two problems of not losing your Bitcoin and being able to pass it down to your family if something happens to you. And then we have multiple different account types. Personal accounts, trust accounts, business accounts, IRA accounts, and within business accounts offer commercial bitcoin backed loans as well. So it really is evolving into this full service, full suite of financial services that's focused on bitcoin and bitcoiners and what they need to really secure substantial amounts of bitcoin wealth in the modern world.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: That's awesome. I wanted to do a little bit more research on Unchained because I'm less familiar with that organization or that. How long has Unchained been in existence?
[00:24:47] Speaker A: One of the older companies in the space. Yeah. Started in very late 2016, call it early 2017, and has been around and growing ever since. So we helped to secure. It's going on 110,000 Bitcoin at this point across 10 or 12,000 clients. I can't remember exactly what the last or latest count was that I saw, but very substantial amount of bitcoin wealth and typically it's high net worth individuals and family offices and asset managers, business owners, all the way up to large Corporates. But we have a lot of people who just, you know, they've got one or two bitcoin, half a bitcoin or whatever, and that is the, the bulk of their savings, at least within bitcoin. And they want to make sure that it's got the best possible security wrapped around it and a team of experts available to help them through that journey. And so that's what we.
That's kind of the primary relationship that we have with most of our clients is around custody.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I find it very interesting. So just to give you some context here, I talked about it a little earlier, but I'm a retail investor and I started this podcast with that whole mindset of I'm a retail investor. And when I had Darkside on I, we, I positioned myself like, I'm just the retail investor, he's the professional pro, just so I can set the, like, I'm not going to go head to head with him. He's the expert. The, like, I put things like hobbyists and enthusiasts because that more most accurately describes me. But with regards to this is, this is what I understand about I have a Roth ira. I'm just going to use myself as an example because I think this is help viewers and a lot of times what I do with these videos, like I said, I'm not an influencer, but I'll share these videos with my friends who are in similar positions to me so they can have access to people that I'm listening to. Because oddly enough, I'm the bitcoin expert in my small circle. But that's because when you go, funny how that happens. Population. Yeah, it's just like, oh, this is the one who gets nerdy about it. So it's like, who's the person that wants to go down that rabbit hole? But so I have a Roth IRA and I wanted to put bitcoin in it. But bitcoin, you can't put bitcoin in a Roth ira. Most traditional ones. And then I think, okay, like there's some custodial institutions now. So. So I own bitcoin through various different platforms. Coinbase Square had some on Venmo. At one point I just got a Trezor. So it's like scattered small amounts of bitcoin. I'm not like, I'm not, I'm not affecting the market in any way, shape or form. So it's like just I have a little bit here, a little bitcoin here, a little bitcoin here. And part of that for me initially was just to temper the volatility. If it's in a small enough position in different portfolios, then I tend not to worry about it as much when the price fluctuates. But I come to the realization, kind of similar to what you did. And it's funny how people who have been investigating bitcoin long enough, I think do, do find them, if they're genuinely curious and they're really seeking for the answers, do find themselves in this position. And now that the asset has evolved over 16 years and you have now a 16 year track record, you can look on 15 to 16 years and you have this 86% CAGR was the last number I got. I got that from Terence. And so you're looking at an asset that's at an 86, 86% KEGR and if a compounded annual growth rate. And so if you're looking at an asset like that, and even if you assume that it slows down from that point and it goes to 40% or 30% or like some of the conservative estimates, the s and P500 is 15%. So it's at least double the S and P500. So like once you, once that triggers in your mind you're like, why am I putting my money, why am I investing or saving in any other vehicle outside of this one? And if you're saying, well, I'm trying to mitigate my, you know, this is a mistake I made, I'll tell you, because you may appreciate this, and you probably hear stories like this too, is I had more bitcoin than I have now and I sold a bulk of it because I didn't fully understand it. I kept enough because I was like, okay, I got to keep my position sizing and I right side my position sizing. But I had I not had that mentality, I would have been in a different, different league than I am in now, which is fine. That happened. That just, that's life.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: So we all go through that. We all, we all go through that where, you know, you get introduced to bitcoin because the number goes up. And that really is the primary mechanism by which people come to bitcoin and adopt it. The number goes up and people have FOMO and they want to get in. It's like, I'm going to get rich. And, and that's great actually. Like, I, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it does take some time to understand the actual long term value proposition of bitcoin. And most People come to it, they're coming to it for FOMO and number go up technology that's so famous for, but it's still unintuitive to most people as to why they should care about it and why it should actually take up a much larger chunk of their net worth and that they should be thinking about it over multiple, you know, decades time frame or multiple generation time frame like the majority of our clients do. And, and at a certain point of digging in to understand how Bitcoin works, what it is, what problem it solves for society and the world at large, the more you dig in, the more intuitive it becomes until it's kind of hyper intuitive and all of a sudden you're like, well, why would I own anything else? Exactly how you're talking about.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Like I talked to, I have clients who have made great money, have done really well in investing in real estate, owning real estate businesses, development businesses, you know, buying single family homes and flipping them and doing all this kind of stuff, commercial real estate.
And a lot of them are selling down their entire portfolio and buying bitcoin because they just can't imagine looking ahead, that they're going to do better by holding these physical buildings that have all of the problems that come with physical buildings like tenants and leaky roofs and you know, imminent domain and massive transaction costs and property taxes and, you know, just name your risk out there. Real estate's got about all of it. And it's like, well, I could just transfer all of this to bitcoin, not have any of the headache and I'll still massively outperform what I would otherwise do. Like why wouldn't I do that? And so they make that decision.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: So it's interesting, like two things came to mind when you said that. I think with regards to the real estate and the bitcoin, maybe the argument could still be made for the drip or the return, like the rental income or the income aspect of real estate. Whereas like bitcoin is not income producing. And I know there's some vehicles being developed around that to now try to find a way to generate income from Bitcoin. But all of that comes with a certain type of risk. Because one of the great things about this is going to tie into why I asked you this originally is the self custody.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Let's not skip past that because.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Okay, go for it.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: Yeah, because I definitely have some thoughts on that. Right.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah, please.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: So just, just generally speaking, this is the way that I think about it and if you read my newsletter and kind of Go back in the history there. You'll. You'll see a lot of this come out. You'll see this in my, in my X feed. I think income is a psyop, okay? That's being really strong. But a lot of people very much focus on income. Bitcoin doesn't generate income. I need an income stream. I need this and that. And it's true that you need an income stream to start to build wealth.
And typically, the way that people get that income stream is through working, providing value, because they're starting with nothing, basically. Right? And you need other people who already have wealth to give you the wealth that they have. And in order to, for them to do that, you need to provide value to people. That's. That's great. But at a certain point, if you are doing this right, and when I say this, I mean operating your personal finances in the, in the proper way, you are very intentional about your savings. You are very intentional about your spending habits. You are taking as much of that, of that income that you're earning from the work that you're doing, and you are stacking that in Bitcoin or in stocks or some other asset that will compound over time.
At a certain point, you reach an inflection point where the income that you're generating from the work that you're doing actually has very little impact on the amount of wealth that you're generating from the compounding that you are gaining on a yearly basis from the assets that you already own. So your balance sheet is actually doing the majority of the work.
And at a certain point, I think you've got to ask yourself, well, why am I grinding so hard to earn income when it actually doesn't have any meaningful impact on me? Able. Being able to grow the balance sheet. Like, you've hit escape velocity here, right? So that's point number one. Point number two is that income always comes at the expense of total return. So what do I mean? If you are investing stocks for dividends, right. Where are those dividends coming from? Well, they're coming from the fact that the company is not reinvesting the excess cash that they're making. They're actually saying, okay, well, we don't have a better use of this capital to reinvest in the business, so we're going to give it back to our shareholders. So basically what you're saying is that the cash is worth more than the business. And, and that can only come from kind of decapitalizing the company. And so if you are like dripping, if you're doing that income and drip thing. Well, now you're putting it back into the business because you think that that's going to compound. Well, now all of a sudden you don't have income anymore, right? So you're better off.
What I'm getting at is that you're actually much better off, in my estimation, by investing solely for total return, growing the total amount of wealth that you have and selling down or peeling off that wealth as and when you need it. And the fire approach really embraces this.
It is build a portfolio, a savings portfolio that is compounding, that is large enough and compounding at a great enough rate where you can take, typically it's like 4%, right? The 4% rule, which you may have heard of, of the value of that portfolio on a given year to cover the expenses that you've got. And when you reach that point, you are financially free and you don't have to have other income sources because capital gains becomes your income, that portfolio of selling down becomes your income. And that's totally okay. In fact, in a lot of ways it's tax, it's more tax efficient than earning income from a job, for sure.
And, and that kind of thing. I'm not saying that there's no place in a portfolio perhaps for real estate, but typically speaking, like, you have to already be wealthy in order to actually generate great returns in, in real estate. And it's extremely risky to do so.
You're much better off just taking the excess savings that you've got from your job, buying as much Bitcoin as you possibly can, doing that as quickly and for, you know, for like the first four or five years or so. I call this the stacking sprint, like where you're going to have as much of a, you're going to have a much greater impact on your financial future in those first four years of generating income and buying Bitcoin than you will in years five through 10. Then 10 through 15. Your, your BTC yield as we talk about it in bitcoin treasury company terms will always go down over time. And so, so maximize the stacking that you're doing in those first four years, and then at that point you can kind of start to let off the gas because the balance sheet will start to generate much more wealth than you can generate from the income that you otherwise would be generating.
Is any of that making sense?
[00:36:19] Speaker B: No, all of that makes sense. No, all of that makes sense. I, I, I have about, I have a hard stop at 145, which is a Bummer because I didn't even get to half of what I wanted. I spent too much time on Iraq in the beginning.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: That's all good. I, I assumed we had an hour.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'm, I, I, someone scheduled right, right back. There was a back to back day.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Okay. All right. All good.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: And it's actually, it's interesting because it's Gary.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: I think that was pretty juicy. I think that was pretty juicy. We can do it again.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: That was juicy. But I, I, because I didn't get to the part that I wanted to, to get to. Because you were right to not skip over what I said. And also I wanted to get to the aspect of the self custody part of it because when you put it in an IRA and you're doing custodial through like a custodial account like Coinbase doesn't offer an IRA but wouldn't have yourself custody. So what I think is very interesting about Unchained, that I is new to me conceptually that I have to do my homework on is how do you maintain your self custody through a third party? Which is I think what Unchained does. And I know you have a lot to say about this and I'm not going to be able to hear unless you can sum it up in like a minute.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: So I won't go into the details of how it's structured or whatever. But suffice it to say this, it is a standard ira. It's not self directed or checkbook Iraq. All the same rules apply as any other IRA with the exception that you can hold your own keys in collaborative custody model and hold real bitcoin as part of that process. So it really is the best of both worlds where you get all the same tax benefits and all that, but you can control the asset directly.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yes. So can we. Are you okay to come back sometime with me? Can I schedule with you?
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: To do another. So like I want to do either a part two of this or I'll combine them both together so that we have wonderful episodes episode. And so I really appreciate you coming on Trey. I'm so happy to be able to pick your brain. I actually one of the ones that I prepared for this was the one that you, Gary was interviewing you. So I was like, oh, wow. Yeah, you're killing two birds with one stone here. Although I've had Gary on before, so it'll be kind of fun.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: You have that, that was, that was an interesting conversation. I'm curious what your thoughts were of, of, you know, coming away.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: I'm happy to share. Share all of that with you. Let's. I'm going to send you a dm. We'll just set this up like we did before and I'm going to have you back on again. Perfect.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Are you cool with that?
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. Sounds good. Yeah. We can maybe shoot for next week if. If you are available, but what. Whatever works for you.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: You kind of cut out on that last part.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: I said, yeah, we can shoot for next week or whatever works for you.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds good. Trey, thank you so much for coming on, man. I really appreciate you. I. I have so many questions for you and I really appreciate you coming on and take the time to do this and I want to share.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: I love it. I enjoyed it.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah. With as many people as possible. It's the evangelism. We got to get the word out.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: That's right.
Yeah. As many bitcoin podcasts as there are out there, there still isn't enough bitcoin content, I think. So you're doing good work.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I appreciate you, man. All right, we'll chat soon. We're going to talk to you.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Take care. Bye.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Bye.
Thank you for watching this episode of the Money Adjustment. If you want more like comment and subscribe, you can follow me on X at Mark Kramer.
Until the next episode, stay healthy and wealthy.
