Recognize And Seize The Opportunity

You know, we like to talk about disruptive companies, companies that are disrupting markets, technologies, but also people who are disrupting things. And today we're talking to someone a little bit differently. We are talking to Kenny Florian, who's a UFC legend um hopefully a potential Hall of Famer, and he is it was UFC fighter and was and is now also a UFC commentator. It's a little bit different, but you have to understand Um, he has been a

disruptive person. He's been involved in the very beginning of things. UM seen them blow up and to be really big big things. Built his platform off of him. He's also been an investor for most of his life before he was a UFC fighter, and he's been involved in investing. He can tell you what it takes to become a champion, and he likes cryptocurrencies. So let's get right in. Let's talk to Kenny Florian. So we have Kenny Florian on

on today. Uh, and he is known as being a fighter, he's known as being a commentator for UFC, among many other things. Um, he's been kind of at the forefront of a couple of things that have really changed the way that we view entertainment and whatnot. And he's a perfect guy to talk to you about disrupting markets because he's really been a piece of it, and so I wanted to have him on to talk about that. So Kenny, Uh, welcome,

Thanks so much, man. I always enjoy your information on crypto and good good to be talking to great So, uh, I want to get into that. But you know, I know we're we're right around the same age. I think I got you by just a couple of years. But uh, so we I think we're old enough to have seen this massive shift that's really happened in our world, right.

I mean we were both there before internet days, and UM, I really feel that we're just now really seeing the shift in our world from the Internet where where people you know, all this decentralization and information and whatnot. So so we're like young enough to kind of get it, but old enough to have that perspective, which is cool. Um. But you, uh, you you went down I know, you went to college and then you went into the UFC

and started fighting. Tell me about that just a little bit. Yeah. So, Um, I was in Boston College. I did martial arts as a kid, and I was playing soccer there and uh found Brazilian jitsu while I was in college and be connected with martial arts and UM as I was playing soccer for for BC. You know, I just had I felt like I always had this mistress on my mind, which was martial arts and Brazilian jitsu specifically, and really

just got very much into it. Um started competing in Brazilian jitsu and and back in the day, you know, people really had no idea of what Brazilian jiu jitsu is. UM. Now, I feel like, specifically in southern California, you see them. You see Brazilian Jet two academies everywhere nowadays, it seems. But back in the day, a lot of people didn't

know what it was. And of course it was a grappling yard and it came into prominence because of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the Gracie family and their success in the UFC, and ultimately the UFC became um more about not what martial arts discipline was the best, but UM basically there was the idea that you need to do know everything, you need to be good at kickboxing and wrestling and Brazilian jiu jitsu and and that kind

of morphed into something completely different. And ultimately, as I was competing in Brazilian jiuit, so I said, you know, the tough test is really how I would do against another train mixed martial arts fighter. How would I do against a skilled UH fighter who kind of knew everything? And I didn't really want to learn kickboxing the other stuff. It was more of a test of my Brazilian jude in the beginning. And UM, one fight led to another fight and another fight, and UM, I found myself on

the Ultimate Fighter Season one. UM I was asked to do that. I was the least experienced person on there. UM and UH ultimately you know, made it to the final and was offered a contract with the UFC. And you know, for me, like in my family, you know, my my father is a physician, and he expected me to go to law school after graduating from Boston College. It was like, wait, what are you doing there? How are you gonna try to make money doing martial arts?

And now you're gonna fight in the cage? Are you crazy? So it was kind of a bit of leap of faith because back then you really couldn't do that well. You know, it wasn't really a big time professional sport back then. And um, you know, I was lucky enough that I did well. And of course the UFC kind of blew up, you know, around that that same time, and um, I think in large part two to the reality show and it brought in a whole new audience of fans, and um, it's uh, it was. It was

a crazy trip. So, um, you know, I want to talk about that just a little bit. So you know, you it did blow up at the time. Um did you did you see the future there? Right? So I want to like get this perspective for people because we have as investors, we suffer from normalcy bias where we think like, whatever is happening today will always continue to be that way. And that's why people didn't see the Internet when it was coming in. People today doubt cryptocurrencies

because we can't see past that. So I'm just curious when the UFC first started and I remember those early days. Did you see that or did you just get kind of lucky? You know? I think a little bit of both. Um. I definitely saw the potential in it, UM. And I saw that boxing was kind of dying out a little bit. UM. And I just thought that mixed martial arts was a very exciting thing. And I'm I'm the kind of person that tends to be um let by my passion and

also the passion of other people. And UM, when I saw this sport, I knew it had a lot of potential. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to pull it off, um, but they did. I think they made a lot of great business decisions over the years of getting the right TV deals and uh marketing uh it and the fighters in the right way, and um, you know, it was able to become a huge success.

You know. I think that the the UFC was purchased by the Fatida brothers, who are these casino owners back in the day, I think for like two million dollars, and they recently sold a few years ago to w M E I M g uh for four point two billion dollars. So I mean quite quite an amazing turnaround. And you know I was lucky enough to be a

part of them. Yeah. So that's one thing that I talked about a lot, which is, you know, these things that come around that are disruptive, they kind of killed the old way and bring in a new way, and if you can catch them soon enough, then you have this huge opportunity. So, like you said, the Rito brothers did right. They saw this, they believed in the future, they made that future come real and they went from

two million to four billion. But even you and I talked about this a lot where we don't have to invent anything, we don't have to create anything. We can just be in the right place at the right time, believe in it enough to hitch our wagon. And that's kind of what you did in a sense where you didn't you didn't invent it, you didn't create you weren't even pushing it, but you did see the opportunity you did jump in, and you've built a career out of it.

Absolutely uh. And and then you know, of course that led to you know, me doing commentary and hosting you know, various UFC shows over the years, and um, it really has become quite quite an impressive monster. Yeah, it's great. And and so I just think, you know a lot of times people get um, you know, may maybe they

get overwhelmed or confused. They don't really understand, uh, you know, these opportunities are investing and things like that, but really it's just life and it's really just about seeing opportunities, seizing opportunities, believing in the future, pushing the future, etcetera. So I like that. Now, I know through your career like that. I'm a fan, and I know you were one of the maybe kind of known for being one of the smarter fighters, but you kind of really had

good game plans and pick that. Um. So I guess maybe that leads to you seeing those opportunities and kind of seeing that I hope. So, you know, I think, um, I think it's it's important to kind of be able to look ahead a little bit and also try to do what other people aren't doing or what the majority aren't doing. I think that that's super important, not only for investment, but I think in a lot of different fields.

I think if you want to be successful, Um, you have to understand that things are evolving around us all the time, and if you get onto something a little bit too late, you can miss it completely. And if you have a certain passionate interest in that field, why not you know, try to lead the way and look for things that are a little bit different than whatever other people are doing. Um. You know, in the hopes that it's going to turn into something special. And I

think I've always looked to try to do that. I've always looked to try to get into things that, um, I find is interesting, getting the things that I'm passionate about, um and uh, and try to try to do things a little bit differently than than what the majority is doing. Yeah, and I want to find out what those things are. But I want to ask you first, UM. You know, a lot of people see these opportunities, but they don't. We all want it to be like this big mystery

that if I can figure out, everything comes easy. But I always say that the truth is it's actually pretty simple, but it's hard to do because it's hard work. Right. So obviously to achieve the level of success you've done, you've put in a lot of hard work. You've had to overcome a lot of adversity and whatnot. Tell me a little bit about the mindset that you've had to have in the commitment you've had to have in order to achieve that success, you know, I'm I think it's

very important to have UM good mentors around you. I think that's extremely important. I think that, you know, in the martial arts world or in a lot of different worlds. You know, we we were only standing on the shoulders of giants, and but at the same time we have to look to try to make those things better and try to see what other people aren't seeing or try to look for um perhaps say a deeper perspective on what's going on, and UM try to bring new things

to to the space as well. And I think that was always what I tried to do, is bring techniques and training regiments and UM different things that definitely worked for me specifically, but always try to do things that very few people were doing at the time. So I was always willing to take those risks and sometimes it worked out, but for the majority of the time it always worked out. You know, it worked out more often

than it didn't. And I think you we have to be willing to um, have that mindset of having a little bit of faith both in ourselves and in the space that we're in, UM, and and be able to work hard to to prove ourselves. Right. UM. I think that's that's super important no matter what we're doing. Yeah, that's great. Um. Yeah. So I just you know, I see a lot of people. They want this better life, They dream of this better life. They want to be a better investor, they want to know what to invest into,

but they don't want to put the time in. And that's that was kind of what I was asking about, Like, UM, you know, it's simple, but it's not easy. You mean, and you have to put the work in. It's easy, you know what to do, you just have to do it. Um. And So, like you said, you were kind of reinventing yourself. And I would imagine, you know, you're learning this new technique that feels very foreign to you. But after you

do it enough, it starts to feel comfortable. You're You're okay having those failures, knowing that's part of it because you know ultimately will achieve that that success right absolutely, And and again, like you said, putting in the time and the effort you know, every single day doing again, doing more, doing more than everyone, putting in more time, putting in more of your creative mind into the process as well, that there's a true end this amount of

work ethic that is needed. But it's not only work ethic. I think it's uh using your mind to be creative, using your focus, being as present as possible, to learn from those experiences and uh and be able to adjust and adapt I think is huge. Yeah, yeah, definitely, it's great. Yeah, I love it. I just always just always just try and reinforce that, like you have to put the time and you have to put the work in. So I

appreciate you saying that. Now. UM, I know another project you've been on for a couple of years is this Battle Bots. Um, I uh just kind of curious about that. Um. I think it's it's kind of more just kind of like a fun show. What do you think about that? What do you think about robots being in the future. I know with AI and stuff, it's really start to take off, But what do you think about that? Yeah,

it's impressive. You know, I think I've always been fascinated with all forms of combat, and you know, we have these engineers that are part of battle Bots that are some of the best in the world. Guys that are working for UH, you know, the Jet Propulsion law UH in Pasadena, were the guys from NASA, various engineers from from all over the world, Brazil, Europe, the United States, and you know, as a part of their job, you know,

they are doing engineering in various aspects. But I think these guys have a lot of fun putting that aside and using engineering for something fun like combat. And they built you know, these robots that are up to two fifty pounds UH. And they come in with various tactics and various weapons and various styles of um how they put it together. UM. And you know it's kind of this Uh. It's been around, I guess since the nineties, but the reboot of battle Bots kind of happened, I guess,

um what two thousand fifteen or so. UM. And we were originally on ABC, now we're on Discovery Channel, and UM, yeah, I remember watching it, uh, you know in the late nineties and early two thousands and being fascinated with it. And you see how how far the robots have come, both in the materials that they use and the kind of weapons that they use, and every year you see

these teams step it up. Um, and just seeing that evolution is something that I've always been fascinated with of how these how the how these teams are learning from their experiences and adapting and getting better. Um. The ones that don't, they're not doing too well, they die off. The ones that are that are taking to this new technology, taking the risks, um, but not maybe going too far with the technology, are the ones that are always doing

extremely well, the ones that are making those small improvements. Um. And it's it's been fun just meeting the teams and and seeing how they how they evolve and get better. It's just a lot of fun. And the fights have been obviously very entertaining as well. Yeah. Now, um, when you went to college, what did you what was your major? Um? You know, I started off of political science and then moved into communications. Uh. Um. So my my plan was

originally I was part of the pre law program. My my goal was to ultimately go to law school, and obviously that change. I went to a different kind of school. Uh fighting in a cage. But um, yeah, that's that's that's what I majored in. Alright, good now. Um, Obviously most people know we talked about investing, and so I want to I want to kind of transition into that. UM. Like I said before, though, I think there's lessons that we get from all areas of life that really pile

into this UM. I have two young girls. My ten year old does jiu jitsu. Talking about how in southern California everybody seems to do it right, So my ten year old daughter does jud's been doing it for a couple of years now, competes a little bit here and there. Uh. I have an older daughter who's a competitive surfer, and I always tell them like, like, look, it's not about the sport. This is about life, right, These are the things that you're learning for life. So I like to

I like to draw those comparisons. That's cool, But um, knowing that you're a smarter guy, college educated, you've really managed to build yourself a nice career. Obviously you you we kind of connected to the cryptocurrency space, um, before we jumped right into crypto, Like, how do you view just investing in general, that stuff that you've like dabbled in. You bought a house, you've you've put money away into stocks, like what's you just overall viewpoint and kind of where

you're out with that for sure. You know I've always um, I guess my first kind of investments happened pretty early

in my early twenties. Um, and it was mainly in real estate of just started small by you know, buying the condo pretty early on and creating value off of that and going into you know what I thought was um and my uh, you know, immature mind at the time, you know, getting into the best market that I could find in good towns and good cities, and um, you know, later selling that and and turning that into profits and things like that. So I real estate was kind of

my first foray into investing, I guess you could say. Um. And later on, you know, when I started making money in my fighting career, UM, you know, I started putting money away from retirement. UM. And you know the various four one K plans that I had, so I have, um, you know, a retirement plan where I invest through Vanguard and UM. I also UM, let's see, uh, I didn't really invest in new businesses per sally, but UM yeah, yeah, exactly. I only invested in in kind of things that I

knew and that I was involved in. So I have a I have a gym called Florida Martial Arts Center in Boston with my brother Keith, and I own a gym um here in Brentwood, California, um uh called Maraakei Brazilian jiu jitsu. So um. You know, I've kind of always tried to stick to what I know the best that I can. I think crypto was really something that was very foreign to me, but it was very interesting and I probably came into that space maybe about three

or four years ago. Um and um, yes, so I kind of have my he has a lot of different uh uh pots. But uh no, that's super great and and I love to hear that because that's what I always recommend. I got my started in real estate as well. Um, and I had a friend that was doing I was eighteen year old. I didn't even know what I was doing. I jumped in. Um. But you know, I'm spread across like that as well. And I believe the key to success with investing is allocating your assets across multiple things.

I didn't know much. I got in when I was eighteen, and I had like a ten year bowl running real estate and then in. When the market crash in two thousand and eight, I lost everything because I was just all in real estate. I didn't understand it. Uh, now you know, I'm spread across different things, so when the markets move, I can benefit from that. Now. I do believe that cryptocurrencies are the best opportunity that we have today, and I believe it's probably the best opportunity will ever

have in our life. Um. That being said, it's still risky. So I'm not a hundred percent in, right, I put a percentage of my portfolio and um, and and so I do things like that so I can I can benefit from the upside without putting my whole life at risk over it. Right, But you talked about like private businesses, So you started a couple of businesses, which is an amazing place to invest. This one of my favorite. I invest in my businesses. Lots of businesses like that and

other things. So that's really good. Now you've been in cryptos for a couple of years now, which which makes you kind of old in the space now at this point. Right, So you've been through, Uh, you've been through the kind of run up. You saw the big crash. You're still around. Why are you still around. I'm still around, you know. I I still believe in it, you know, I think that, you know, I've kind of come from the place where I believe that, Um, most of us don't know what

the hell we're doing. You're gotta have to have a belief in yourself at the end of the day and what you think is going to work out, and you have to have a certain amount of faith. And I I feel like people still don't understand the benefits of crypto and they kind of just go off what the media is saying and just repeating a lot of being statements and um, you know again, and like you said, who knows, you know, maybe it fails, but honestly, there's

something extremely valuable there whether it fails or not. There's tremendous value um in in in crypto and and things like bitcoin and it's potential. Um And tell me, tell me what you think about bitcoin specifically, what what what what do you see as the big killer app or what's your favorite piece about it? Well, you know, I think we're in a weird point where, um, you look at just whether you're buying, you know, huge businesses or

making huge transactions, um in the millions of dollars. We have a fundamental problem and how we go about doing that, And I think that bitcoin solves a lot of those issues. And how you can transfer um large amounts of money, small amounts of money, UM, in any quick time that um makes sense for everybody without crazy fees, without crazy complications. UM. And I you know, I believe that's the way it was.

It was created to make transactions via the Internet, to make it as easy as possible, and UM, you know, I think people got really excited at one point that the you know, the value of bitcoin was going up a lot, and um, now it's kind of stabilized, which I think is is a good thing in a lot of ways. And UM, I still believe in it. You know, it's not you know the twenty tho dollar mark, which which which was around and everyone was kind of putting

their money into it. But I do think that there we're still in its infancy and people are still learning about it and understanding the value of Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think it's a it's a it's a giant fundamental shift for a couple of reasons. Like I said, you know, the internet has just now I think over the last couple of years, we're really starting to see the shift that the internet has made, uh in a couple of things. But um, if you think back, like I said, we're

a little older, so we've seen this. Right, Like life before the internet, life didn't really change that much all the way U until that point. And if you think about like where we got our information, well, we thought the way the way we even thought of what is information when information comes in the newspaper or the nightly news, and like that was it. But the way that the way that we get information is everywhere. It's all around us, right,

so it's like, uh, we're getting information from everywhere. And and the newspapers have done their best to control the information, and they're trying to stay relevant, but they're just less relevant today. And and the and the internet technology allowed us to share information, whereas the blockchain technology allows us to share value. And today we look at value or money as like the dollar and the bank centrally control that. But really value is anything, right, So I can exchange

my money for what you want. I could give you my labor, right, I could dig afense, build a fense, or dig a hole for you. Um, and and I have little kids and I see them on the playground and they're trading turkey sandwiches for chips or Pokemon cards, so and and in jail they do the same thing. Right, So humans are uh innately designed to exchange value and we haven't been able to do that freely, and now we have a technology. So what I the way that

I see it is twenty years after the Internet. Today, information is just everywhere, and it's all all shapes and forms. And I believe twenty years from now, value will be all around us in all shapes and forms, and and yeah, the banks and and the money will still be there, but it will be a lot less relevant, kind of like newspapers is today. Um. And so that's that's the big shift I see now. Like you said, we could

all be wrong. I think bitcoin either takes over the world and is worth you know, a million dollars or maybe it goes to zero. Um. But if you have a little bit of exposure to it, you have the upside. And if it goes to zero, you lose a little bit of money. Absolutely, And you're you're seeing you know a lot of these um banks and other entities that are now trying to get into this space when they originally they said this will never work and this is

not not gonna happen. This is silly, you know, it's too difficult. And now they're the ones who are trying to you know, bring in their own you know, cryptocurrencies into the space or or trying to learn about it at the very least, because they realize, UM, that there is some tremendous value and how we're functioning now as you said, I mean, I can, you know, get my groceries and whole foods through Amazon and get it delivered.

I mean, like so much of how I purchase things is over my phone that I'm using right now to talk to you. So uh, it's it's it's so valuable now, UM, what do you think about UM? Obviously being in the UFC, we saw light coin come in and do that partnership. UM, what do you think? What do you think adoption looks like? Awareness adoption looks like and how do you view that

you think that moves the needle? I think so, you know, I think any kind of awareness about us certain technology or about it a certain product is going to help UM at the very least. I think that the UFC in mixed martial arts promotions in general. UM, they've always done things a little bit differently and and try to lead the way in various ways. And how they bring um, you know, products into the public eye and and you know, seeing something like like coin and seeing certain fighters come

out and being sponsored by different cryptocurrencies. I think it's fascinating. I mean, things have changed so much. And UM, I think if if a brand, especially like a big brand like the UFC or Bellator, mixed martial Arts whatever, is seeing value in that, UM, I think that's huge. I think the USC demographic could be perfect for it, right,

being that it's like a younger it's mostly male, younger demo. UM, maybe people are more kind of freedom oriented if you call it that or whatever, So it's maybe a perfect demo to go into. UM. I would have liked to I know, I know that I heard the deal came together kind of really quick, kind of last minute. I would have liked to see them try to do more activation at the event where like maybe they were selling merch and stuff like that with with like would have

been really cool. Yeah, maybe maybe we'll maybe we'll see that on the next one. UM. UM, where do you where do you mostly get like your information? And and are you active? Are you just kind of like I'm taking a couple of positions, I'm sitting back waiting or you kind of like actively like researching and making moves. UM right now, I'm not. I you know, I have UM, I have money and and uh different cryptocurrency just a few UM, so right now I haven't been as active.

I've just been kind of holding UM for for a while. UM, so not really actively invest thing. UM. You know, probably in the last you know, three months, six months, I haven't done much. But so right now I'm just kind of um holding my positions and and seeing what happens UM. And yeah, but where I was getting my information from

is basically UM various news subscriptions that I subscribed to. UM, you're one of the guys that I follow on YouTube and I've always enjoyed listening to and educating myself on those things. And UM, did you watch that last video about why bitcoin is undervalued? I did that research report from Adam at Capital. I don't think I saw the most recent one. There's a lot of data was really good, but it kind of showed where bitcoins at in the

market it was pretty good. But okay, uh yeah, I think uh, I think taking that buy and hold approach is perfect. You know. I think if you look at if you look back even just at the internet trend, right you see Amazon went to eighty Bucks, went to five bucks, and then I hit two thousand. But you know you had to wait fifteen years and so um, you know you've been this long enough to be patient.

You understand. As we get older, we get that perspective knowing like I'm like, shoot, oh wait ten years, ten years is nothing for me right now? Right? Absolutely? Do you uh you got me on? You got any questions for me? Um? Jeez, you know, I guess right now, it seems like bitcoin is is steadily moving up right now in value. Um, where do you see it by

the end of the year. I'm sure that's something that you get a lot, but it seems like it's it's going in the right pace and moving in the right direction. Where do you see it at the end of the year. It is? It is so um so a couple of things. So I I really don't like to do predictions or guesses um and and not because I want to look wrong. It's just that's not the way that I look at things. Um. What I do is I look at things in probabilities.

So it's kind of like what the CIA does. So the c I says like, hey, we could have this terrorist attack that happens here, or they could do this, and if they were going to do this, these are the things that would be happening. But if they did this, these are the things would be happening. And then they watched those signs and then that tells them what the outcomes will be. So those are like probabilities. So I like to look at things like, hey, these are problems.

So it's probably a bitcoin goes to two thousand, it's probably goes to zero, and I'm gonna watch for the signs and let me know either way. So I don't want to I try not to get stuck into one frame of mind. I have my opinion, but I want

to stay flexible. So anyway, with that being said, not trying to be wishy washy um about at the at the beginning of the year, I entered in like a pool, like like we put some money in with I don't know, on a big social media thing, and I think I picked like bitcoin around in the six thousand dollar range. UM I thought at that point he if it went up a hundred percent over the year, that'd be amazing. No other investment in the world goes up a percent. Obviously,

we're we've blown past that now already. UM. I did a video about a month ago where I talked about bitcoin going to twenty thousand by the end of the year, and so that's what I'll talk about right now. So UM basically, UM, at the end of last year, everybody started a lot of people started calling for the stock market to crash, right, and at the in December, the stock market drop like whatever, you had a big drop,

and people are saying that's it, it's topped out. The market's gonna crash, which we're well overdue for a market crash, right, we know it's coming, but nobody can time it. And I I went on record with a few people said I don't think the market's gonna crash. This isn't how markets go out. They don't go out with a whimper.

It's gonna go out with a bang. So I think we're gonna have this what we call them melt up, where the stock market will continue up into this magnificent top and then crash, right, And so anyway, um, I said, in order for that to happen, here's here's what's gonna have to happen in January. The Dow Jones is gonna have to hold. And I made this whole video and I and I did these things. So anyway, that is

playing out as I projected. This, this blowoff top or this melt up is working out like I've been watching for the signs, and I believe if we continue to see this, potentially another run in the stock market by the end of the year. If that happens, I really think it's possible to see a bitcoin hit hit a new all time high by the end of the year. I did. I mean it would be a crazy Now.

Markets don't typically work like that, So like that's why I wasn't calling for the stock market bluff because they typically they rise, they have a blow off top, and then they crash and then they consolidate and then they slow they go up and then eventually go up into that bluff top again and they kind of repeat that. So we're gonna have to I figured bitcoin would start slowly and kind of ramp up and then we'll get into that blow we'll get to that bluff top again.

But if the stock market holds up like I think it's looking like it will, yeah, I think I think twenty by the end of the year. I think we can see it. Um. Now, how do you how do you think that affects how people use bitcoin? Because if the if the price of bitcoin is changing so dramatically, how does that affect how it's used and how the

transactions take place? So? Um, you know, people get confused because they think I can't afford to buy a whole bitcoin, but you don't have to write you could buy five dollars worth, um. And so you know, we're still kind of in this dollar denominated world, so every kind of converts back to dollars. So whether bitcoin is five thousand or twenty thousand, I don't know if it really affects that because it's really going to be in that dollar value.

I'll send you five dollars worth of bitcoin, and whether bitcoin is twenty thousand and five, it's still five dollars worth of bitcoin. UM. As far as what some people think, like in the network got congested and it's slowed down, and because it had gotten so high up in value, got congested and transactions were slow and expensive. Um, I don't really see that being a problem because now we have second layer scaling solutions. That's what like Lightning is doing.

And so now you know, you have to look back the history of money. So gold was money for five thousand years, and that was like a settlement layer. And if I wanted to settle my debt with you you're in Boston, I'm in California, I'd have to ship gold to you, which is very slow and expensive. And eventually the bank said, hey, we'll hold your gold and we'll give you gold paper certificates and those, of course we're very easy to exchange. That was a layer to scaling solution.

And then eventually the bank said, hey, we'll give you a check a checkbook, and then events of the banks that I'll put a credit card on top of it, and then we have PayPal and Venmo. So we have like six layers on top of a base settlement layer. And I believe that's what bitcoin is. Bitcoin is a base settlement layer. Lightning will be a second layer which

will be really fast and almost free. And you know, we need bitcoin to be slow because if if it's going to hold a hundred billion in value, it needs to be secure. Um Like, like we saw this binance hack last night, and now people are saying, oh, they can roll back the blockchain to get those fees back, but they can't because the longer it goes, the more expensive it's going to be to do that. And if if it happened really quickly, it would be cheap, too

cheap to attack it. Um. And And the way I see it is if I if I have a million dollar a ten million dollar transaction, it needs to be slow and secure. But I don't need to put a Starbucks cup of coffee on the blockchain on a base settlement layer. So that's where the Starbucks coffee goes on, second layer, third layer, where it's really fast. So to answer your question, I don't think it going up to twenty will really cause any problems with speed, uh, settlement layer, costs,

um or or transactions. Gotcha, Yeah, if that makes sense, Yeah absolutely, um yeah. So that's where I see it, and and potentially I think we could be there. I think we could be back at that twenty thou if the stock market continues. And the reason why the stock market matters is because obviously, when everybody feels rich, they're putting money into a lot of places. If the stock market crashes, everybody feels poor and speculative investments go out

the window. And today I do believe bitcoin will become a store of value and eventually a medium of exchange money. But today it's mostly a specultive asset. It it just is. And so when you're when you feel poor, you don't speculate as much. M h. Now do you see any other prospects and other cryptocurrencies that you find interesting that that could I don't want to say compete with bitcoin, but potentially, um, I don't know, bb something that's worth investing. Yeah,

I definitely do. And uh I'll send you a link and you can have a free subscription to my new letter that I write every month. Uh but I do, I do? I think? Um, you know, I think first of all, you have to go, well, there's Internet stocks, Well, Zilo and Facebook are nothing the same, right, and so there's a cryptocurrencies that are nothing the same. So bitcoin is definitely a payment coin, but there's other coins that

are not payment coins. So like Horizon, for example, is a privacy platform that now they have private messaging and private storage, and that doesn't really compete with Bitcoin, for example, where we have like UH or privacy coins, because Bitcoin is not a privacy coin, So we have privacy coins that have shielded transactions, or we have like a on that's UH that's a hub basically an interoperable coin that can connect networks. So there's and then we have like

supply chain companies. Um so, I think there's other areas now. Um the investor in me understands that when new technologies roll out, they roll out in a certain way, like a sequencing, where first it's infrastructure you invest into, then you invest in the platforms, then you invest into applications later. So to put that into perspective, in the early nineties, you were investing into like Cisco routers. In the midnight, mid to late nineties, it was like Internet Explorer, Netscape,

a well in UH. In the two thousands, it was like platforms like Amazon in two thousand and eight and on it was applications Uber, Airbnb. So you want to change your investing as the market matures. Um so. Um right now, I see lots of opportunities as an investor to make money Ultimately, I love bitcoin, and I think bitcoin will probably take over everything at some point. But the investor in me sees lots of opportunities to make

a lot of money. So I kind of hold both of those pictures, like the investor side and then like the bitcoin maximal side of me. Right if that makes sense? Yeah, absolutely, thank you. Yeah. So yeah, so there's different use cases and I think, uh, you know, people say there's only gonna be you know, bitcoin, we rule everything. I think bi when we rule all the payment coins. But I

believe there will be other options for that. So yeah, cool, all right, Uh, well, it's been been awesome talking to you. Good to meet you. Like I said, I've been a fan. Uh. I'd love to hear your perspective. I try to get as much perspective from people that don't eat and sleep this and like as much as I do because it really kind of helps me out. So I appreciate taking taking the time to do that. Mark, Thank you so

much and always educational talking to you. Man. Hey, if you like this episode of the Market Disruptors podcast, please help us take this to the top of the podcast charts. Just please do me a favor and rate review. And subscribe. Taking fifteen seconds to just leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us reach more people and disrupt more markets. I really appreciate you listening, and I'll see you next time on the Market Distructors podcast