2022 Team Favorites: Wen Lambo

Trypto's magic icons. In my mind, I've always seen a crypto die hard sitting somewhere on his computer, watching the Trypto prices drag dramatically up and down between mountaintops and rock bottoms, and thinking to himself, Yeah, why not. Maybe maybe I can seize the right moment and harness the riches of Tripto, ruminating over and over about one thing in Lambeau. When Lambeau to you, my friend, I give

you this episode, and I hope you are okay. There's a scene in the two thousand and six film The Pursuit of Happiness in which actor Will Smith, who plays a single father who's broke, homeless looking for a fresh start, comes across the stranger stepping out of a red Ferrari. Smith says, I just have two questions for you. What do you do and how do you do it? The guy, super well dressed as you might imagine, replies with a

confident smile. I'm a stockbroker. If this movie were made, say two, that stockbroker would probably be a crypto brow and that Ferrari would be a Lamborghini. For years, some crypto investors have been consumed by a single persistent question when Lambeau. On this episode, we're going to tackle that very question. Bloomberger Potsa Hannah Miller actually interviewed an n FP artist who blew up a Lamborghini in protests and Peter Saddington, a crypto venture capitalist. Crypto is really fast.

Cars are really fast, and sort a lot of ways crypto cars. It just makes a lot of sense. Will join me now to take on this burning question about one of the most visible status symbols in all of crypto.

Hanna Pizza, so delighted you can join us today, Pizza, I feel obliged to start with you, and I'm going to specifically say, please describe the space you are standing in right now, the space well, first and foremost, thank you so much for this opportunity to hang out with you guys, and maybe tell a little bit about my story.

Speaking a story, This garage was actually created in my mind years before I even built the garage, and so this was truly my dream to have two screens, building code, writing, writing software, building companies, and then when I'm done with all of that, I can turn it all off and put my hands to building race cars and go carts. So I'm living the dream, baby, I'm living it. So do you pizza have a Lamborghini? Yes, there's a picture. There's a picture of of my the bitcoin Lambeau behind me.

So this is the famous bitcoin lambou that was purchased with bitcoin in two and how much would that bitcoin Lambeau, Like, what's the what's the price that that would have sold for? Now? What current bitcoin rates? So you could pretty much multiply it by four times. And so I bought this bitcoin lambo for forty five bitcoin when bitcoin was about five thousand dollars, and so we're sitting about four x that

right now. So if you're looking at a two hundred thousand dollar Lambo, you're looking at really maybe at eight thousand dollar Lambo. But in my defense, the smiles per gallon that I got out of my God, that is the wind. I'm not convinced that SMG is a real metric. Oh, come on, SMG. It's totally something that the car guys

know all about, right, guys, bucked me up? Uh huh? Well, how do you wrote a story that is all about the culture that Pizza is so clearly an enthusiastic participant in, which is you know, crypto mostly dudes, not exclusively dudes and fast cars, and so please tell us a little bit more about your reporting and how you found Peter

in the first place. Yeah. Well, the inspiration behind this story was one of my favorite crypto memes, which is when Lambeau and it refers to you know, you're becoming so successful with crypto trading, your assets have sword and value, you're super wealthy, and you can purchase a luxury sports car like that's the signal that you've made it. Um. So I had heard about Peter um with his Lamborghini

purchase that he didn't bitcoin. I knew about him. I also know his twin, so it was a happy connection. Um and I figured you'd be the perfect person to talk about this because he kind of led the charge in terms of buying Lamborghini's in bitcoin. You know. So your story was about this culture, but it was also about the fact that in the current crypto winter, where not everyone currently has, say, the discretionary income to spend bitcoin on a on a Lamborghini, there are still people

who are making it work. Yeah. I was curious to see how crypto winter affected demand for Lamborghinis, if it affected it at all. Um So I set out. I spoke to a bunch of luxury car dealers. I talked to people in the crypto car community. Uh, and I tried gathering is as much evidence as possible to to write this story. And it was really interesting what I

came across. When I talked to Peter, for example, he mentioned that, you know, he was still all in, and that his friends weren't really hurting, that they're all really smart investors. They've made, you know, their gains in crypto, they've planned wisely, and that he didn't know of anyone

selling their cars. And then I spoke to a crypto specific auto dealer called auto coin Cars, and they said they actually saw a lot of people buying Lamborghinis at this time because they wanted to switch from crypto to an asset that actually appreciates and value that Lamborghinis there there, they hold their value really well. They can go up in price, and you know, so they wanted to kind

of escape the volatility of crypto by purchasing these luxury cars. Okay, there's a part of me that is like, you're switching out of a riskier asset class into fast cars in order to make wiser investment decisions. I have several falls up questions about the Rationalee, Peter, I'll turn to you, Is it in fact true that these are cars that hold their value once you drive them off the lots?

The real answer is it depends. And for all of the Porsche fans out there, you'll love hearing me say that Porsche's, especially some of the real expend some ones really hold their value well and generally they're in my opinion, overinflated. However, when it comes to Lamborghini's, we found, especially for some of the older generations and the older models, they do hold their value and they do rise in price. And

so what what Hannah has found is not wrong. It really depends on the type of car and the type of make and model. And what we found, especially with the network in the community that I have in the crypto and car space. These are savvy investors and so for them to purchase some random Lamborghini is rarely the case.

It's usually a well thought out process of how can I dump this, how can I dump this this token into this car that I assume that this car is gonna go up and appreciate in this particular car market, and I'll get a great six months out of it, you know, smiles, broke allen and maybe convert it back into crypto. What has been really intriguing for me being behind closed doors and Telegram groups and we chat groups and discord groups around crypto and cars is that there's

a lot of interperson trading from crypto two cars. That is, let's just say, crypto allows for the transaction to move quite smoothly, and so we're seeing this really popular market of you know, individuals essentially being being able to say, well, why should I go to a dealership, why should I have it on consignment when you're willing to give me bitcoin and I'm willing to give you the title, right, So it's like an OTC market for cars in crypto.

It these types of markets emerge indeed they do. They also emerge and shall we say shady or circumstances. So you know, some some of the reporting that's been out there is the fact that some of these cars are so custom so unique, that they make easy targets for when the driver or the owners are you know, come under say, regulatory scrutiny, criminal scrutiny. It's almost like in the same way that in the very early days of

UM Russia and Russian individuals being sanctioned. The first one of the first things that people are going afterwards, like the yachts. They're like, oh, that yachts. Definitely that guy's yachts. We know exactly where that yata is. We're going to take that yacht. Why do you think people, even people who should perhaps be better at hiding their tracks, find it so hard to resist the siren song of extremely

distinctive and expensive cards. I think there's a human nous and a human need in all of us actually for nice, shiny things and new things. Let's be honest, don't we like new And so it's interesting with the rise of cryptocurrency and obviously this meme that I love, actually I love this meme because it brings a lot of public eye to the world of cryptoc currency, and they might say, oh,

you're you're just buying luxury goods. Well, luxury goods are also great investments if you invest wisely and you purchase wisely. This is not investment advice. Is the investment advice for sure? Uh? And so why are why are these types of individuals attracted to it? You know what, crypto and cars goes hand in hand. If we think of the foundational element of crypto and cars, it's kind of speculative and it's

kind of fun. Crypto is really fast, cars are really fast, and so in a lot of ways, crypto and cars it just makes a lot of sense. And we're seeing a huge rise in crypto and car meetups that are popping up all over the world. Right, So I suppose they're you know, they're kind of multiple sizes of this equation. But something that you said about crypto and cars going

hand in hand. You know, if if anybody outside of I would say, like crypto insider universe recognize as a crypto person, it's probably gonna be sound back from Trade, who famously does not drive a Lambo. How come he seems to be the type of individual where fast cars and these types of things probably isn't his cup of tea,

And that's okay too. What I love about crypto and cars is that if you've never heard about cryptocurrency, getting in being in the car community, crypto is moving its message through that, and so I love the fact that people are learning about it. Sam bang fan Freed. He serves a different market, he serves a different image, and good or bad. Some people call him the spokesperson of crypto now since he's all the way up on the hill, good or bad, he's getting the message out and for me,

that's a big win. Yeah. So he might not have bought a Lambo for himself, but he actually bought one for a famous crypto Twitter personality who you know was celebrating him being this massive philanthropist giving away his money and said, hey, you're so rich, how about you buy anyone? And SPF came through and did buy him one. So it might not be for himself, but it might be for other people. Who is this person for whom he

bought a lambo? His like user name is Greg. We'll be right back with more from Bloomberger post at Hannah Milla and from crypto venture capitalist Peter Saddington on Lambo's and crypto culture. You know, US politics is a complex place, and it certainly goes in terms of cycles of like populist backlash, and you know, people worried about consumption and over consumption, whether you're talking about the climates or environmental or other angles. And I suppose this is a question

for you and Um Pizza both. Is there any fear that you know, being this luxury good forward increases the potential backlash from people who are like, I'm so glad you're buying Lambos, but I just lost all my money in a Celsius bankruptcy filing. Yeah. Well, it was really interesting that when Bloomberg interviewed the founders of three Hours Capital, they specifically distanced themselves from lambeau culture, and they said, we don't have Lambos, we don't have ferraris. You know,

we bike to work. I think, yeah, okay, Um, and they It's very interesting that there are people who do try to distance themselves from this very flashy symbol of wealth and excess. And for the story, I actually interviewed an n FP artist who blew up a Lamborghini in protests of this consumerist culture within Crypto, this get rich quick ideal, and he ended up selling n f T s inspired by that detonation for two point two million dollars.

So it's it's it's a very interesting cycle. But yes, I do think there's this concern that this flash, these lambos, these ferraris could again draw greater scrutiny from the government and not help Crypto's overall image and pizza. If you let's say, you know, I'm we're talking, I don't know the cryptom was fast. It could be three months from now, it could be five years from now. But let's say

people are no longer into these kinds of cars. What do you think would be the sort of the next niche and crypto where people are like, okay, but this is the new thing, this is the new states a symbol and everybody's excited about it. Well, I would have to say absolutely that fast sports cars will never go away. I think there's just too much of a primal desire in man to just go fast. Now, you do ask

an interesting question about where we're gonna be putting money next. Well, we've seen Facebook, We've seen a lot of big companies. Meta is going into the web three auto space that defy space. And so certainly we've seen a rise in

digital real estate and digital property. You guys have covered Snoop Dogg and talking about all the digital property and n f T s that he's selling, and so we have seen this growth in digital property continuing to grow, and I think that's going to be a gold mine for the right people, the right operators, and the right investors. Are you gonna have lambos in your metaborth? Oh? Absolutely absolutely. It has to be true to form. It has to be What color will they be? What color do you

want it to be? I'm not going to drive one, so let's make it. Let's make it red. I think a red Lambeau makes a lot of sense. It red lambos and make it orange for bitcoin, orange for bitcoin. It's even more so Anna, as a person who also does not own a Lambo, I want to give you the last words. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you guys are talking about the metaverse. I mean, one of the auto deal dealers I spoke with for the story, they're

super high end, they're in Beverly Hills. Uh, they have not seen any impact on Lamborghini demand when it comes to Crypto Winter. They told me that there they totally have their eyes in the metaverse and they're actually looking into like pairing digital cars and digital driving experiences with these super high end vehicles that they sell. I can't wait to see how some entrepreneur tries to solve the problem of parking in in web three so fantastic. Sounds

like a duel to me. I mean, shouldn't shouldn'ty just fight it out? Isn't that what they really want to do? No, I think they should race. That's obviously the solution to that one. I'll take that too, all right. Well, Pizza, thank you so much for joining us from your garage, and Hannah, thank you for dialing in from San Francisco. Is a real pleasure to talk to you both. Thank you, Thank you. You can find more of Hannah Miller's reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal on Bloomberg dot com or follow

her on Twitter. She's at h G. Miller Twine. On the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto, would you go to a store for a blockchain? The people who opened a real life retail experience dedicated to the Salona blockchain call Salana Spaces are betting that you will. We send our reports Emmanuel John Milton to take a look. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Very Galina. Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed Ferup and

Sharon Barriro. Our associate producers or Zanam Siddiki, Thie Butler and Moses and um Jsta wonder At is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm Stacy Marie schmil We'll be back tomorrow. Correction. A previous version of this episode set the move The Pursuit of Happiness was set in New York. It was set in San Francisco. We regret the error.