Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
welcome today we're going to be talking
specifically about cryptocurrency
anything in sort of the the defy world
now i want to be very clear um i don't
consider myself an expert in this so my
goal is just to spur your own research
at the end of this video my hope is that
you'll be doing research that's it
i do hold multiple cryptocurrencies so
full disclosure on that and i'll talk
more about what my portfolio looks like
as we go
but keep that in mind as we dive deep
this is not financial advice i do not
have a crystal ball i cannot see the
future you need to do your own research
all right with that let us get into
why we are here to discuss this
incredible transformation my question is
what is the quickest way to learn about
crypto for anyone new
so
youtube youtube unto itself is one of
the greatest inventions in modern
history the fact that any of us could go
on right now and take an mit course for
free on youtube if you type in
cryptocurrency bitcoin ethereum whatever
defy anything that you want into youtube
you're going to get a slew of results in
the beginning you want to look for crowd
validation so what's got a lot of views
that's going to be a great place to
start now may have a lot of views and
still be worthless but it's a very good
place to start when you're learning
anything new
first you need to understand the
language so every new
area industry topic all of that
is going to have its own
vernacular its own jargon
and to really begin to understand it you
have to know what people are actually
talking about so first it's just hey
we're going to watch a bunch of content
and we're going to begin to learn the
words that people use now part of the
reason that i suggest doing this on
youtube versus say books is that the
publication cycle is very long and
things in this space are changing so
rapidly that personally i probably only
watch about five percent of the content
that i consume on the topic of
cryptocurrency is more than a week old
now when it comes to
voices that i resonate with and
everybody needs to figure out whose
thesis makes more sense to them figuring
out how people view the world is very
important uh michael saylor
for me is somebody that has really been
influential
raoul paul is somebody that's been
really influential i've interviewed both
of them as you go deeper down the rabbit
hole there's robert breedlove as you
start to like learn about sovereignty
and you start asking questions like what
is money which is one of the more
interesting questions
that you will need to begin asking for
cryptocurrency to make a lot of sense
then it gets incredibly interesting and
you'll be able to start to create your
own thesis about where you think the
world is going because you understand
humans which is ultimately all this is
about
markets are driven by people we want to
understand those people and then we can
make predictions on what they're going
to do with their behavior which is
essentially what a market is you have to
bet against the consensus but against
the consensus and be right
and that's how you end up making money
in any sort of public market and you'll
find different people you'll find people
that talk about buy and hold michael
saylor you'll talk to people about
what's called macro investing
understanding big trends ralpal you'll
find other people that are more
day-tradery uh bitboy crypto is a guy
that like that's what he talks about and
in the beginning that was like really
fun for me and i watched a lot of that
content but then as i realized ah that
doesn't really fit my
personality i gravitated more towards
people that are looking at this as a
psychological transformation
even more than a transformation of
markets
all right been sort of researching
around bitcoin and ethereum and
wondering are there other coins that
you've seen that we should be paying
attention to
and kind of also along with that can you
help educate us on the blockchain
relationship to each of the coins most
coins are on their own blockchain
some have created forks of other
blockchains so polygon for instance is a
fork of ethereum
so there definitely are
people that are doing that and each one
of them are going to have their own
coins
so understanding
why you like a given blockchain will
help you understand why you like a given
coin
and that becomes i would say critically
important
to think from first principles otherwise
all you're doing is aping into something
based on fomo
now when you have a thesis
like i'll give you an example of two
competing platforms so you have ethereum
which is its own blockchain and then you
have solana which is its own blockchain
now both of them are taking a very
similar approach to the market nfts is
one of the big plays it's certainly not
the only play but it's a big play for
both of them
and what they've done is taken very
different approaches so with ethereum
their primary modis operandi is to make
sure that they're maximally safe through
distributing all of their nodes so that
it isn't centralized the problem is that
creates very low throughput
and on layer one right now there are
layer two things coming and now we're
we're getting in danger of you know
going too deep down the rabbit hole too
quickly so i'll just stay at layer one i
am well aware that there are layer two
solutions in fact impact theory is
building something on the layer two
solution but right now i'm just talking
layer one so on layer one you have
very high security
very high confidence that the changes to
the blockchain are all legitimate
but it's very low throughput
on something like solana where they're
taking a more centralized approach so
they have fewer computers that they have
to
fewer nodes maybe they are tied to
computers but fewer nodes
that have to be you know communicated
with to verify a transaction it
increases their throughput but some
would say that it decreases their
security
and about i don't know three weeks ago a
month ago now there actually was a day
where both chains were attacked on the
same day and ethereum did not go down
and solana did but the interesting thing
is that it didn't seem to really impact
the price of solana so there's a lot of
community belief that the advantages
even though you may get these occasional
moments where it's more more vulnerable
to an attack that the community is
saying but the throughput and the and
what that does is it ends up reducing
the fees so everyone's complaint
about ethereum low throughput equals
high gas fees
high gas fees mean that even just like
if you wanted to buy a five dollar item
on the ethereum blockchain it might cost
you fifty dollars in gas and so and it
could be way more you could be trying to
buy something that's
300 and spend a thousand dollars if
there's what's called a gas war and this
just happened during our founder's key
sale
there was at the very end there was this
moment where another project was
launched that had nothing to do with us
and then
as the price went down on our keys on
the relentless keys people fo mode in
trying to get it before the sale ran out
those two things happened at once and
you have people paying crazy gas fees to
try and get their transaction to go
through we can get into why later but
now like at just a high level that's
sort of the the big question being asked
now i own both ethereum and solana just
full disclosure i own way more ethereum
than i own solana which is my bet really
even less than my better security though
i love that
my bet is network effects known as
metcalfe's law that the more people that
are using it
the more valuable it becomes
and so my core thesis around the things
that i
buy from a coin perspective do i
understand it from a use case standpoint
so i'm what people refer to as a utility
maximalist so if i can't see and
understand how it's going to be used
then i don't really care about it and
then two is
are there a lot of people in that space
and so when i looked at ethereum and we
were going to be making huge investments
as a company in terms of what we built
on the back of
to me there was just so many more
technical resources on ethereum and so
many more people using it but again all
i'm trying to do is spark people's
thinking so go and research solana it's
very interesting and people that are
mapping the adoption curve it shows a
very similar curve to ethereum if it
were to follow that then you would be
laughing to make huge investments into
solana now over ethereum which may be so
much deeper into its value curve that
there's less upside may right i am not
moving in that way i am more invested in
ethereum because of the way i view it
because i have a thesis
but this is where everybody has to
understand the technology and develop
their thesis so
as you get more educated then by all
means start exploring some of these what
are called altcoins so you have bitcoin
nobody calls bitcoin well nobody that
i've ever heard calls bitcoin an altcoin
some people call ethereum an altcoin but
not many and it's sort of bitcoin
ethereum and then most everything else
is considered an altcoin
there will be huge debates in the
comments over people whether they agree
or disagree with that but i would say
that represents the majority opinion so
i would say if you're
just starting out your research start by
understanding bitcoin and ethereum why
they're different why they matter where
this is going and then when you're
really comfortable there start exploring
some of the other things but there are
so many chains and so many coins i don't
know that any one person could
legitimately stay on top of it all
so that's where your thesis becomes
really important and then to invest
based on your thesis
because i'm in the philippines i'm just
curious if you know currency and
nationality if that
if that matters or if that makes a
difference when you're investing in a
crypto and then also because it's all
digital how do we like protect ourselves
from scams or any of those negative
hacks that happens in the internet
yeah okay so we are way outside of my
depth when it comes to the nationality
and what's gonna happen there so full
disclosure on that but now i'll walk you
through my thinking you need to figure
out what is legal in your country what
you can do what's okay um that is a huge
focus for us as a company like as we
were getting into the nft game of like
getting all the legal counsel that i
could around
what's the right way to do this you know
i want to be supporting these products
40 years from now and i do not want to
be in regulatory trouble and so i think
that's a real thing you need to really
look at that and assess what's going on
in your country now having said that
the internet and you can think of
cryptocurrency as sort of the internet
of money where it is truly distributed
there's no way to stop it
the only way to stop it would be for
every country all at the same time to
make it illegal
and then crack down on it somehow
at the
protocol level so that it couldn't leak
out of the country now i can't remember
if i'm remembering this correctly but
i'm almost certain i am
that in i think it was in india when
they made it illegal
the amount of crypto being held in india
went up
so
this is one of those things like it
isn't even though you can track
everybody you can track the movement of
currency it's crazy so people that say
oh this is about moving illegal stuff
this is the worst way to move illegal
things ever because it is all visible on
the blockchain so
uh
but
you can be anonymous
but once you
find out who that anonymous person is
then you could track every single thing
that they're doing but because it can be
anonymous and you can access it over the
computer cryptocurrency isn't in your
country or not in your country it's on a
distributed ledger everywhere
that's great news that means that it's
sort of anti-seizable so the government
if you were to memorize your seed phrase
which is the whole thing
there's when you set up uh this is
certainly true when you set up a
metamask account that one i've done so
many times i'm just intimately familiar
when you set up a metamask wallet
you get a seed phrase
that seed phrase
is 12 words long don't ever share it
with anybody literally nobody
lisa does not know my seed phrase so
you there are other things there because
if i die then lisa doesn't have access
to that money but you need to understand
that that seed phrase is everything so
don't give it to anybody to your second
point about how do we protect ourselves
now that means if the government wanted
to come and seize let's just say bitcoin
for ease they wanted to seize your
bitcoin they would not be able to unless
you gave them access to your account
so from that perspective as michael
saylor likes to say it makes it a
negotiation it does not make sense for
the government to
kill you let's say because if they do
then they'll never be able to access
your money it will literally be gone
forever so this is the first like
money that you can actually take with
you to the grave because gold they just
dig your tomb up and they get your gold
if you die with your c phrase and it's
not written down
that money is gone forever theoretically
you just ratcheted everyone else's value
up pro rata across everybody that owns
bitcoin buy that hundred coin amount so
very interesting so anyway the
government can't seize it it's
technically distributed if you have your
seed phrase memorized you could then
move to another country go back to
metamask input your 12-word seat phrase
and your money's there
so now all of a sudden like if you think
i mean we're just this is dark but if
you think about what happened in nazi
germany people were like sewing gold
into the their garments and trying to
escape with their wealth intact that way
now memorize 12 words you're gone and
you have everything with you it's
absolutely bananas so this is a radical
shift now how do you protect yourself
from scams
you have to understand what social
engineering is right now there are
people watching your email somebody
else's email whatever they're watching
everything you do just assume
and so like this happened uh i guess i
won't throw anybody under the bus i have
been involved in a company where the
following happened
they wrote an email where one
letter was changed and it's like an eye
to an l you know what i mean so at a
glance it just looks normal
and they write talking the way that that
person talked and was like hey would you
wire 50 grand
to this address and we i just need it
done today so please and but they knew
like all the context this is about this
project a real project sent it to the
right person in the company from the
right person
said like talked in the way that that
person talked kept the email short the
way that that person keeps their email
short everything is crazy
and so they just sent it poof that 50
grand lost forever no way to get it back
that's how people get you so you need a
system in your life like at impact
theory
you can never ever ever under any
circumstance send money of any amount
any kind no gift cards nothing i will
never ask you to buy something i will
never ask you to transfer money unless
you look into my beady little lies and i
say hey please go do this
and it's always tempting to be like oh
well i know this project is moving and
ah we're all busy and i can't nope
that's the only way to avoid a phishing
attack now i'm super worried as deep
fakes get better and better that people
can fake your voice fake your likeness
and so now it like gets into like secret
words that only the two people know and
that you never write down you never put
digitally but you really have to be
thoughtful because
you definitely can't get scammed and the
last one i'll say i'm not 100 sure this
is true but i'm pretty sure because we
were just talking to one of our
developers about whether this is
possible or not
what ends up happening in the nft world
you'll have your
account with all your amazing nfts
and somebody will send you something
and let's say like oh man it's ugly i
don't want that and so people send it
they they burn it they send it to a null
address a debt address where it will
never be accessed again
but now you've done a contract
interaction
and according to our developer i still
can't believe this is true it's so hard
to accept i don't want it to be true if
our developer is right that they can
write something that's called on
interaction if i remember right where it
will do something so it could say on
interaction with this contract
allow me access to sell everything in
their wallet
now
people have said that that's exactly
what's happened to them now every time
somebody looks at this it seems like the
punchline is they were probably phished
but if our developer is correct and you
can bake that into the the contracts
then that may be possible so i will just
say if you are an nft collector as i am
never ever ever under any circumstance
engage with a contract that you don't
know
great news if you're watching this
episode that means you're actually doing
the work to research this new world of
finance cryptocurrencies nfts web3 all
of it seriously i commend you most
people are going to write all of this
off without even looking into it and
that means that most people are going to
miss out on what could be in my opinion
one of the greatest wealth transfers in
history now look it's incredibly
important that you do your own research
i cannot see the future i just know that
something very important is happening
right now and it warrants you taking the
time to look at it to do the research
now if you're excited at all about
learning about all of the changes then i
invite you to join my special community
of like-minded people on our discord by
going to
impacttheory.com forward slash discord
since you're watching this video and
learning about crypto and the future of
the blockchain you should know that this
really is the future of impact theory
about nine months ago we decided to
pivot because i can see that this is
where the world is going and this is
truly the moment of disruption that
we've been looking for and discord
really is the best place for you to
begin to engage with that side of impact
theory we've launched our first flagship
nft the impact theory founders key and
our holiday feature narrative mary mods
which is also an nft project and i
promise you you're going to be blown
away by what we're doing we've got a lot
more planned for years to come we have a
long term very aggressive very fun
roadmap so if you want to turn this
learning into action i hope you will
join us in our discord community at
impacttheory.com
forward slash discord all right back to
today's episode
the problem that i see
is that cryptocurrency in general is
speculative right now and it's hard to
imagine how it can become functional for
commerce especially when you're talking
about
low value transactions like for example
in my in my line of work a lot of my
transactions might be under 20
and so things like gas
um in the time of transactions to to
process those things are really critical
in order for us to use cryptocurrency
uh for commerce so i have my question is
what are your thoughts around that
and uh just to add another layer to that
you see commerce the type of commerce
i'm talking about being built on
a proof of stake chain or a proof of
work chain or both
man these are great questions so and i'm
glad that you said to add another layer
to that because that's the answer so now
we get into layers so you have layer one
which is the the main net on ethereum
i'll just use ethereum because it's the
one that i understand the best
you have main net layer one transactions
are settled in a slow manner but with a
high degree of confidence and finality
spread out over a maximum number of
nodes
very slow throughput very high gas fees
then you have things like immutable x
which are layer two solutions which use
something called a zk roll up which is a
zero knowledge proof it's very
complicated mathematics but can be done
very quickly that ensure that if we have
confidence that this thing is real
but it is done lightning fast and then
in batches they settle up to the main
net so now for very low fees essentially
like to give you an idea
we have a
nft marketplace called renders which is
coming very soon built on the back of
immutable x layer two solution and the
we just eat the cost because it's so so
minor that we don't pass that on to the
end user so there's it's a gasless
environment for them right now nfts are
only high-end right like you're buying a
cheap one is like a thousand dollars so
that's like a pretty rough environment
for you know a 16 year old kid who's
just hyped like i used to be on garbage
pail kids you want something that's
really inexpensive call it five dollars
for you know three or four of them so
now to do that you've got to be on a
layer two solution but the artist can
actually afford to do that
a coffee company could afford to do that
any company can afford to do that but it
has to be built on a layer two solution
those are going to become more and more
or i should say a layer two solution or
a chain like solana which makes the
trade-off of it's more centralized and
therefore potentially less secure
but much faster and a low to no fee
environment those are coming they're
already here in fact and they will just
be rolling out more and more
aggressively in the coming months and
i'll say two or three years from now
it'll just be a no-brainer from bitcoin
on the lightning network down to
ethereum and layer two solutions uh it
it won't be an issue
people just now have to integrate with
it and get accustomed to it because like
on immutable x for instance you have to
first get like the immutable x coin
right then you can spend the immutable x
coin and go back and do your thing and
so that initial hurdle of like wait what
am i doing and you have to wrap your
head around it and so in the beginning
it's a little confusing and like
everything in cryptocurrency to get in
is hard
but once you're in
it's so easy and somebody i was just
listening to a podcast today and they
were talking about how if you tried to
right now send
uh currency from your bank account to
korea then from korea to
uh bangladesh and then from bangladesh
to
um
brisbane and then to
uh belgium whatever like it would take
so much time whereas you could do that
in
30 minutes on the blockchain all of
those different stops changing
currencies and everything it is so fast
uh it's really really unbelievable and
as more layer two protocols get added
you'll see that time of dealing with the
layer two protocol go down to even just
to get in but like i said now when
you're in it's so fast you don't get
those big delays you get when talking to
mainnet it's like you make a purchase on
layer two it's done
we can access the
service users globally and
we can also access challenge
but then how do we pay them in crypto
when the currency is so volatile
how do we manage uh
to
pay people and to receive payments
you you really have to think about
whether you want to pay people in crypto
or not because sometimes it's going to
work for you other times it's going to
work against you so the only way to
mitigate that would be to pick a number
that you're comfortable with let's say
it's ethereum so i've paid contractors
and youth
and the way that we make it make sense
is we buy that eath at a certain price
and then when i'm negotiating with
somebody as long as i've bought enough
of that eth then i know i bought it at
this cost basis therefore i'm
negotiating at that rate that's what
their number would be in fiat and usd
and so i either it makes sense to me or
it doesn't and
that's the only way to remove the
volatility now the odds that you will be
able to buy all the eth you're ever
going to need is essentially zero and so
until you make the full transition to
where you just think one eighth is one
eighth which is not an easy transition
and people
i've seen people sort of like oh what do
you mean an eath is an eat it's like no
not if you have to buy in a different
cost basis it's not that one eith is
tied to when you bought it and so that's
a really big question i would much
rather pay in fiat as of today now as we
build our stores up and eat that'll
become a different answer
but right now we still the vast majority
of
the money that we've put into the
company has all been put in in fiat and
so there is that transition translation
layer of being thoughtful about you know
where did we buy in most people are
perfectly fine to be paid in fiat
because they can just translate that
into eath immediately at whatever the
price is
of each that day and i don't think many
people are going to
negotiate eath terms unless they have a
pretty big chunk so if somebody said tom
i want my entire year's salary
paid out normal schedule but i want it
paid out in eth i would only do that if
i pre-bought their entire annual salary
that day and was like cool i'm locking
it in at this
rate and i'm totally comfortable with
that and then i know that i've got that
money that i can pay them out but you'd
have to be really thoughtful because
let's say next year
if eth does what many people hope it
will do that might be a nonsensical
strategy to keep paying that person
because it could go from their salary
they're getting paid let's say 150 000
to they're being paid a million dollars
you know what i mean like probably won't
be that extreme but you get the idea
where it's like i can't justify
that amount of value for that role that
role just couldn't possibly add that
kind of value to the company and so you
have to be really thoughtful about long
tail risk when negotiating salaries in a
currency that's got a high level of
volatility and so i just talk to people
in totally plain terms and say
i you know i'm not willing to do that i
can't have that long tail risk in terms
of the volatility of that asset it could
work for me but i'm so bullish on it
that i think it's going to work against
me in an extreme way and so we've
negotiated things and you know been very
successful in
doing short term things where i'm like
cool i'll just buy that eth up front so
i know that i'm locking in my cost basis
boom nice and easy
or said you know look we're we're not
able to do that at this time
you know case by case what are the uses
for entrepreneurs and for businesses as
nfts and smart contracts disrupt the
space what are uses beyond the digital
arts and the music because that's all
you kind of ever hear
and it's like a song playing you can't
think of another song because that's the
only thing playing so i'm trying to
like expand my mind around it i see
value i think relational to community
but
kind of struggling there
well so let me give it to you in a
non-technical way
here's what the web3 revolution is it is
allowing the community to capture the
long tail value of the products and
companies that they support
that doesn't have anything to do with
music doesn't have anything to do with
art now it may be that those are very
easy examples to give to people and it
certainly is the case that art has just
taken off because the blockchain allowed
for digital scarcity which allowed
people to capture the energy of artists
that otherwise would never have created
art it allowed artists to market to a
global audience because they don't have
to ship anything so it literally changed
the dynamics of the art community
overnight for impact theory it took us
from thinking in terms of creating
plastic
products that represented a character in
one of our stories to representing that
character digitally so don't think of us
as art right think of us as we
made virtual a physical item
now
what that's going to be for any other
business is a question mark but i will
say that creating some sort of loyalty
program being able to gamify your
community that's one of the biggest
no-brainers ever
so
in the future i promise you that when
you go to starbucks it's going to be
something on the blockchain that you'll
have and by the way you can rack up your
cards and then sell them
if they do like christmas
you know whatever
holiday
gifts that are only available to people
that have racked up their car and other
people really want that but they don't
want to have to build their cart up like
there will become a secondary market for
things like that just like there are
secondary markets for gift cards so
there will be all kinds of ways that
people will come up with this is why you
have to think from first principles
understand what the technology is what
it allows you to do
and then you have to do the hard work of
becoming an entrepreneur that
understands your business and your
community well enough to go ah i see
where these two things intersect
please don't sleep on this moment the
reason the rich get richer is because
the system is designed to reward people
who hold assets
but the government makes it difficult
for people to hold assets so you
actually have to qualify to be able to
hold certain kinds of assets which is
crazy to me and how do you qualify for
it by having a million dollars that's
nuts so
the traditional market
there's a massive amount of value that
happens before it goes to an ipo once at
ipos then the public market can address
it and anybody can get access to it most
people find the market confusing anyway
but at least then you can have access
but there's this whole period before
that where only people who are an
accredited investor can get into it
what's happening right now obliterates
all of that it's distributed it's
outside of um not outside of government
regulation but it's being treated very
differently it's like gold is the easy
way to think about it and just like
anybody can go and buy gold but because
this is that sort of initial early phase
you can get in early
again do your own research i'm merely
elucidating what why i think this is so
important
that you can get in early on something
that may
end up being
the biggest wealth transfer that anybody
has witnessed in
hundreds of years this is going to be
absolutely crazy don't take my word for
it do your own research but what's
happening is super super important
please go and understand it don't ignore
it don't be afraid to feel stupid you
will get past that you just have to keep
going just keep listening asking
questions not being afraid to look
stupid there is no need for the rich to
be the only ones winning please for the
love of god do your own research figure
this out get in on this this feels so
important all right i'll leave you with
that you cannot you can lead a horse
water but you can't make them drink you
can only hope to make them thirsty i
hope that i made you guys a little bit
thirsty to go and learn about this that
would be huge
uh
go form a thesis right guys don't get
left behind on this one until next time
my friends be legendary take care peace