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Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Chris Kline: Running Out of Time - Bitcoin and the Fight to Retire With Dignity
00:47:37
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- [00:00]
Chris Klein
We are in a retirement crisis in this country. 50% of Americans are not participating in retirement planning today. So we walk down the streets here in New York and half the people aren't using a 401, they're not using an IRA. And that's partially apathy, partially inflation.
- [00:20]
Natalie
Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Joining me this week is Chris Klein, co founder of Bitcoin Ira. Chris, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining the show.
- [00:28]
Chris Klein
Thanks for having me. Natalie, it's great to be here with you today.
- [00:30]
Natalie
Thanks man. The price action. I have not seen this kind of negative sentiment in a while. I think it's actually worse than 2022. What are your thoughts on what's been happening with bitcoin?
- [00:38]
Chris Klein
I feel like there's a dichotomy though. There's a Tale of Two Cities. So obviously if you watch mainstream media, everybody loves it when we bleed, right? They just get excited, they're like, oh, it's time to talk smack about the bitcoin folks. But on the other side, you and I just went through Bitcoin Investor Week and we watched some really, I think some resilience, some permanence, some generally positive attitude that if you keep your head down, you innovate and great things are to come. We do this every 18 months, right? Like we just, we just get beat up every 18 months. I've been in this for a decade and I've watched three or four of these now cycles where everybody thinks the sky is falling and the world is over and bitcoin is dead. And if I had a nickel or at least a half of bitcoin for every time that happened, I'd probably be retired by now. So I kind of see it as, yeah, you know, I get the text message from family and friends that are kind of new entrants are looking on the outside, looking in, going, oh my God, is it dead again? And it's like you just said the word again, right? Like they should know the difference to those. But you know, this market, there's probably some more downside too. I don't think the, I don't think this bear is over with, but I do think it's a little bit different of a bear than we've seen over the last couple cycles. First, we don't have a self inflicted wound like ftx, terror, all those things. And we are now more mainstream and institutionalized than we've ever been. As far as ETFs, ETPs, all these moving parts. I mean, most of that conference we were at was all about how am I going to financialize bitcoin and other holdings. Right. And that was a conversation that was not taking place even two years ago.
- [02:00]
Natalie
Do you think that there's been some price suppression? I can't avoid that sort of question online right now. Especially from the bitcoin community on X. They think that there's some sort of manipulation to the downside. Which is kind of ironic. Right. They never claim it when we're, when we're flying high to a new all time high, it's not being manipulated up. But there's this real sense that because the financial institutions are in, because there's this like new layer of sort of the suits or Wall street that it's preventing bitcoin's rise due to all these derivatives and layers on top of it.
- [02:31]
Chris Klein
Yeah. I think when you add the ability to short it. Right. And that that's simply enough the ability to short it to put in orders though t whopping companionship that they're doing between. There's. There's a lot of moving parts once you get to that layer. And I'm not a tin hat guy. But let's think about it. If every institution wants to be the next Michael Saylor and every sovereign nation wants to realizes the balance sheet is important, even though they talked about it a bunch a year ago at the bitcoin conference, everybody was talking about it and then all of a sudden they got quiet. Would you tell the world you're about to buy 100 million dol of bitcoin? I wouldn't. Because you want to control the price now. Is there manipulation? Are we talking Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan with the silver shorts that they were doing? I don't know if it's at that level. I think that one of the things I love about bitcoin is we have the blockchain to tell us the truth. Other than when you look at stocks, you come from the traditional side. That stuff can be manipulated left and right all day, every day. It's interesting. I do think that because of the number of entrants that are coming in that are big players, there may be. Suppression is probably the right word, not manipulation. There may be some suppression or news that hasn't come out. You know, sailor calls us and goes, hey, guess what? I just bought another 7, 75 million dollars of the Bitcoin yesterday. Not a lot of other people are saying that yet. And they may be averaging their way in and see where their price points can be at because nobody wants to say hey, we're going to buy $100 million, watch it run to 126,000 and then have to buy at that price. That's just common sense.
- [03:49]
Natalie
Lynn Alden has observed that in this cycle it's, it's been more of the institutional buyers and not a lot of retail. Why do you think that is?
- [03:58]
Chris Klein
Retail needs a psychological kick in the backside, as I always say. Like if when we hit that woke up a lot of people. When we hit 126, it was you ever was it Ocean's Thirteen when they had that machine that was like trying to shake the building to get everybody out and they were like hit them harder. There's a point where because everybody went back to gambling, right? And they were. And I think that 126 just wasn't enough. I think if you hit 130, 135, that's a psychological barrier where people are like, oh, this is going to go to 150. And unfortunately that is the retail buyer, right? We know it. It's the truth that they're, they're usually going to buy at tops and, and sell, sell at lows because they do it with more em. Retail wave has not really shown up yet and I think that's part of the reason why we missed out on alt season that we anticipated last year.
- [04:41]
Natalie
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- [06:01]
Chris Klein
to pay in Bitcoin instead of credit cards. We are saving about 50% in our processing fees.
- [06:08]
Natalie
This led to more support from Bitcoin users and a 10% revenue boost. Getting started is easy. Sign up@tryspeed.com or integrate the API in hours. Start accepting Bitcoin today. Download Speed at speed app Coinstories or the QR code on the screen and use code COINSTORIES10 for 5,000 free SATs. I've had friends reach out to me who I orange pilled in the last cycle.
- [06:32]
Chris Klein
Are they still your friends?
- [06:33]
Natalie
Well, I mean, yes, they're my friends, but they're a little upset. Okay, so they didn't. They, they did what a lot of people, I think new to bitcoin do, which is, okay, I'm gonna put, I'm gonna allocate a little. But they don't set up some sort of dollar cost average, which we might.
- [06:45]
Chris Klein
Yeah, they jump in with both feet, right?
- [06:47]
Natalie
They jump in and it's usually near a high. Right. The FOMO kicks in. So I think that they came in around the like high 50s before we hit 69k and then dropped to 16. Here we are five years later. Okay, that was 20, 21. They entered in near the all time high. We've basically done a round trip. And so they're looking at their experience. This is kind of like the question they're asking me. They don't know if it's worth the volatility. They feel like they could have put their money into another asset and it would have outperformed. So what would your pitch be to them to say, no, you should stick around, Give it another however many years because it's, it's going to outperform the other assets.
- [07:26]
Chris Klein
You and Russell Kuhn gave me the pitch the other day at the conference. I was almost like ready. I was listening to him and the way he broke it down is like, we think about time value and the money value of your time. Right. And, and so his story was, you know, I picked up a helmet and I was one of the 1% that made high school and one of the 1% that made college and then elite NFL. And then I heard that 70% of my Coke colleagues in the NFL were broke before they even retired. He's like, well I'm not going to play that game. And he tried to, he tried to sh. That story. Then you came in and I almost cried a little bit because you talked about your parents and what they went through leaving communism, trying for a decade, leaving with two suitcases, not be able to transport wealth in any way, shape or form. And then once they were Americans, they had the American dream. That rug got pulled out. And by the way, that happened to my parents. My mom was a banker and my dad was a contractor through the, through the crisis. So it was just the, they did, they followed the rules, they did everything right. So that, that, that is the pitch to me is that let's not get focused on price value, let's get focused on life value in a lot of ways. Like what does this mean to my life? And that's why I love what we do with retirement accounts is because when, when in doubt, zoom out. Well, retirement investors are long term capital that are thinking decades, not years, not months, not even cycles. They're thinking decades before they need this and how it can change their life into retirement. So yeah, I think that's probably. I would just show in the recording of you guys the other day. It was amazing. Honestly, it was so good. I, I was sitting there, I was like, I nudge my video guys, like please tell me you're getting this on video. This is so good.
- [08:55]
Natalie
Well, thank you. I'd love to hear more about your, your backstory because it seems like an interesting one that might have informed why you were a believer when you started to learn about bitcoin. So tell me your backstory and how did you come across bitcoin and eventually co found bitcoin IRA.
- [09:07]
Chris Klein
So I think all of us in bitcoin in some way, shape or form got beat up by traditional economics. Your stories there. So I grew up in Denver, Colorado, Aurora, Colorado actually. Went to, went to high school out there and then went to college in, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And that arrow. I graduated high school in O3 and was getting out of college in 2007 and it was a very, my mom was a banker at GMAC and Mortgages and my dad was a contractor building homes. And Denver was overbuilt. So we were one of the first cities to get hit pretty hard on just over speculation and things like that. So I'm over here and my whole life they told me hey kid, you're smart. If you just work hard, get straight A's, be valedictorian, checked all those boxes, did Everything. You'll be able to go to whatever college you want. And that did not happen. I ended up. I got into all those schools, but then the bill came and it was like, okay, do you really want to spend $100,000 a year to go to Princeton? Or could we do in state tuition and have you stay at the University of Colorado Boulder? And it was. As a kid, you were there, I was devastated. I'm like, I did everything you asked me to do, and now I have to settle, so to speak. Looking back now, wherever you go to school, I mean, my partners, when we met, serendipitously, they didn't even know I had a college degree. They didn't even ask. I actually have 200 employees and I don't know their educational background. You know, it's not a big thing anymore. It's experience that matters more.
- [10:23]
Natalie
True.
- [10:24]
Chris Klein
So I'm sitting there, I get to get out of CU Boulder, and it's the crash. I have friends that literally had internships at Lehman Brothers, and we're flying out here to live in New York getting, getting apartments and then having to come back with their tail between their legs because it was. The game was over. I went on the political campaign sector. At that time, I actually got recruited for the McCain campaign for Coloradans. And that's why my Twitter handles enatorkline, because I really thought I was gonna be a senator someday. I'm not gonna do that anymore because I got under and saw, man, this is. I just didn't enjoy two things why you don't enjoy politics. Work is a. The day you lose is the day you lose your job. So like by 7:30 on election night, when Obama just absolutely crushed McCain, I was like, well, I'm officially unemployed. And then the second is the infighting, like behind the scenes, the way politics go down. It's just, I don't have a. I don't have a stomach for it.
- [11:17]
Natalie
Well, it's a lot of dialing for
- [11:19]
Chris Klein
dollars, a lot of that. And actually that was my specialty. So when McCain and Palin would come into town, all the top tier donors would come into Denver and the husbands would go and have brandy and cigars with McCain at the. I can't remember the Brown Derby that's there. It's a really fancy hotel. I would. And me and this other guy would take all the housewives to another bar and have cosmos and get them to write another check for the Republican Party. Like that's literally what we did. That was our specialty. And I didn't Even really have a political stance at the time. But I was really good at it. Like, I was very good at extracting that. But it was like, how am I going to make a career out of this kind of thing? So once that happened, once I was out of a job, I started looking around. I worked in a startup for a little bit that was doing kind of photo trying to be the Shutterfly that was American made and make better products. I didn't. We never. You know, there's businesses, you probably ran into several of these in your career that have great ideas, but they get in that analysis paralysis and they don't leave money for marketing, sales and getting out to market. And so we. I learned so much about how to build a business, the infrastructure, how to read P. Ls. And these are crazy part was I was supposed to learn that in business school. And they don't really teach you those kinds of things. Like, it's the practice that you really get. I have friends that have master's degrees that are like, how do you look at numbers that way? And it's like, well, you just do it because of experience.
- [12:34]
Natalie
That's wild.
- [12:35]
Chris Klein
So I did that for a little bit and then sitting there making like $28,500 a year. And just like, I followed every rule of Valorian Graduate. I'm like, how am I ever going to pay off what's left of my student loans? How am I ever going to get to a point where, like you said on stage was like, have a house, have a family, do these things. And my best friend and I were living together and he was leaving to be a private pilot. He was going to go to private pilot school down in Texas. And I'm like, well, if you're leaving, that means I got to leave because I can't afford this rental lo. So we started throwing darts at a map and kept hitting New York. But I was scared of New York because this city, like, is intimidating to a middle America kid. And I kept hitting San Francisco too. So I got a, like a random mobile app business development job. And I. And I decided, you know what, I'm just going to do it against. My mom had passed away too, so she died from cancer. So I'm like, I'm just like, I need to get out of here. I need to reset, you know, try something new. So sold all my worldly possessions. I got about like $3,000 in my bank account, which was the most I'd ever had in my life in my bank account. Got down to one suitcase And a one way ticket and headed out. I went west, just like the gold rush, you know, like guys just taking the risk. Didn't really have a place to live, didn't really have a firm job. And I stopped in Palm Springs to see some family. Took this Astro van, you know those old 80s Astro Van Shuttles from Palm Springs into Los Angeles. And was sleeping on my buddy's couch in Hollywood for a little bit. And serendipitously at New Year's I met my now business partners, Camilo and Johannes. And we, we just, we met randomly at a. At a breakfast, I think it was. And they were like, hey, you should come by the office before you head off to San Francisco. We might have some opportunities for you. And I'm like, okay, I'll give it a. And it started with a breakfast meeting and then I ended up all the way to dinner. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner together. We spent like eight and a half hours together. It was amazing. And they said, don't go. When we left, they were like, don't go to San Francisco. They had been doing marketing and other things for a bunch of IRA companies that were doing all kinds of alternatives. Precious metals, Real Estate, llc, ET Etc. And they were watching the way these guys were running the business and saying, I think we can do better. We just need a good operator in our lives. And we think you could be the operator. And I was like, okay. I still, at this point, I'm like, I have no idea. I'm just rolling with the punches, you know. But I was like, I'm not gonna go get a lease. I didn't have a car. I'm like, I'm just gonna have to find somewhere near this office at the 10145 interchange in like the valley of Los Angeles. And I found this really bad motel around the corner. And you know, there's like Motel 8, Motel 6. This was like Motel Negative 4. It was bad. It was pretty bad. And so I stayed there for a year while I built the first business. I lived in a motel for a year. I actually met my now wife. She. Our first date together. She. She drove obviously, because I have a car. And we went and had Minchi's and Starbucks or something together. And then I had her drop me off at the fancy Mari Marriott down the street, which. And. And then I would watch her leave and then I would walk over to my really bad marriage.
- [15:25]
Natalie
No, you didn't.
- [15:26]
Chris Klein
No. Lie. Finally I told her the truth like a month before I moved out of the place. But even My partners didn't know. I was just, I was build something and do something great. I didn't really care about anything I'd had. I didn't have a lot, but I'd had something and I was like, not that different from having nothing. Your family probably went, your parents probably could tell the same story of like leaving the comfort and like there was a moment in time where you just like, I'll take the sacrifice.
- [15:49]
Natalie
I mean, I just want to pause because it's just so interesting, right, like how financial situations can impact our. The way we look at ourselves and the way we think other people perceive us. The shame that we have, right. Like there especially social media, there's really no reason, right. For you to pretend you were staying at another hotel, but you did that because there was some part of you that thought maybe, you know, she wouldn't like that or whatever. And it's just, I think so many people, they don't even necessarily think about it. But money impacts so many of our decisions.
- [16:19]
Chris Klein
It wrecks us.
- [16:20]
Natalie
It creates a lot of stress and
- [16:21]
Chris Klein
more money, more problems too. It doesn't. Being poor and being rich, both sides have their issues. I mean we could go down the rabbit hole of what we're seeing with the Epstein files right now.
- [16:31]
Natalie
But yes, for sure.
- [16:32]
Chris Klein
That's insane.
- [16:33]
Natalie
Well, so did you with this team already have your eyes on bitcoin?
- [16:39]
Chris Klein
No. So that was the interesting part. So we went that this was 2012 and so we started Bitcoin. We started building Bitcoin IRA in 2015. We had found some success with LLC IRA, Real Estate IRA, some precious metals stuff. But those markets were oversaturated and very difficult to penetrate into. And Camillo came to me in 2015. He goes, have you heard of this bitcoin stuff? And I was like, no. And he said, do some homework. See if we can find a way to build this into a self directed ira. I'm like, okay. First thing I did was grab the white paper. That's what we all did, right? That's our orange pill moment. And I got about to the having component and that was when I went, oh, this is cool. Like for me because you and I grew up, I grew up in the 80s where you could fill a grocery cart with $20. And there was this opulence and this. Everybody felt good about the future. And then we watch what happened over the next two decades where everything got more expensive and nobody could keep up with the American dream. And I said, I have always thought especially working in politics is we reward producers of currency with reelections. So if somebody puts a stimulus check in our hands or somebody, you know, Reagan's play was if you're better off than you were 4 years ago, vote for me or if not, vote for the other guy. So they're always. And it's going to happen this cycle right now with the midterms. Trump's going to make sure we have a booming economy before people go to the voting box. Because. Because people vote with their wallet even if they don't want to admit it. Everybody votes with their wallet. And so that was like when I saw having and was like that's the exact opposite of what we do in with US dollars in currency debasement. We're saying hey actually there's going to be 21 million of these. And as we get closer and closer and closer, you're actually going to make less and less and less by doing this. And I thought that, I don't want to say the word punishing but we kind of do punish the production process. And that was my moment. That was like my orange pillow like light bulb. I love this stuff. And got to work built out the basic infrastructure. Now this was pre a lot of things. You know we Bitco was just finishing their multi signature back then we worked with them. Mike Belshi and I worked together to try to find a solution to bundle it into custody and qualified custody. Genesis and some of the exchanges that some of them aren't even around today were able to give me OTC desks. I needed a qualified custodian. I wasn't regulated as a, as a bank or a trustee yet or trust account yet. I now have moved into that. But I had to put all these pieces together. And then I was like who's going to be the first one? And also I had to do the ask for forgiveness, not permission because for six months everybody kept dragging their heels at the regulator side was like well I don't know kid, we don't know if we should do this. And so finally I just did it and I was like guess what? We did a bitcoin ira. You guys are going to have to figure it out. I here's all the paperwork, the assets are sitting in wallet, all the documents are in good order. Now we just have to go with this. And that was probably you go look back at those guys and they'll say that was the best decision to let me go and do that. And then yeah, it was 2016. First account was in June. So we're just now at our 10 year anniversary. And it was actually the former director of the United States Mint that was our first client, Ed Moy. So we had worked with Ed Moy. He was nominated by Bush and was the Mint director like for five or eight years, I think like that. And he arguably this was pre Covid, was part of the production of the most amount of fiat currency during the 2008, 2007 crisis and was the first to put bitcoin inside of his retirement account and still holds it today. And I think, I think his entry level was like 150 to 200,000 or $200.
- [20:01]
Natalie
Well, so he's fine. He's not like my friends that got orange peeled at 50k. Can we step back for a moment because I'm sure that you've learned quite a bit about the retirement situation in our country and how that is its own affordability crisis. I did a lot of reports on this actually, when I, when I was still a news report. How little people have saved up. I know that one of the reasons to put out 401ks, which are a pretty new vehicle, I mean, they've only been around a couple of decades, was to encourage people to be able to save through the stock market. It also gives an incentive to, you know, push the stock market up. But when, when you look at people's accounts, they barely have enough. And the cost of retirement today is higher than ever.
- [20:45]
Chris Klein
Yep.
- [20:46]
Natalie
I reported on assisted living facilities and some of these retirement homes that, I mean they range from like 10 grand a month to gosh knows what college tuition. It's crazy. And so it kind of scares me because we have an aging population that someone needs to care for. Right. And these fixed incomes are not enough. So can you talk about maybe the statistics that you're aware of and why it's so critical that people make smart decisions, especially the earlier they are about this.
- [21:14]
Chris Klein
It's great to have somebody on the other side that's already reported on this and I'm sure it fell on some deaf ears. Right. Because it's. When you try to report a something 20 years from now is going to be a big problem. Everybody goes, well, we'll deal with it in 19 years. Right?
- [21:26]
Natalie
Yes.
- [21:27]
Chris Klein
And to me we are. I've said this for almost a decade, over a decade now. We are in a retirement crisis in this country. 50% of Americans are not participating in retirement planning today. So we walk down the streets here in New York and half the people aren't using a 401k, they're not using an IRA and that's partially apathy, partially inflation because it's. If you imagine your every bill is going up, what is the first thing you're going to cut is okay, well I guess I won't put a couple hundred dollars into my 401k. And then the third layer is that incentive. The 401k was built to say the corporation would match.
- [22:01]
Natalie
Yes.
- [22:01]
Chris Klein
And that is, and it used to be 50% match and now it's down to like if you can get 2, maybe 3% match. And companies are tightening their belts and saying, well, the most expensive thing you can have in as an employer is a person because you have their salary, you have their benefits, you have all the moving parts to them. So that's where they tighten the belt to say, okay, I guess we'll lower the match or we won't have a 401k. We're also in a gig economy now where everybody's got a side hustle or they have their own businesses and so then they're not even thinking about retirement. So you put all this together and that's creating this retirement crisis where people aren't engaging at the same time. You mentioned retirement's getting more expensive. Northwest Mutual put a piece out before COVID It was like 2018, 2019. They surveyed like 22,000Americans. They asked them, how much do you think you need to retire comfortably? And this was not that long ago. But if you think about pre Covid, like that's when my gray hairs came up out that, that, that they wanted. 550,000 was their number. They resurveyed those same people last year, 1.8 million. So in that short time period, average day, Americans have now tripled the amount of money they think they need to retire comfortably. At the same time we're aging, like you said, I think it's like 15% of Americans are getting to that near retirement age and they're worried is my money, am I going to outlast my money? Because we're living longer and money's not going as far. So you put all these things together and it's terrifying to me. It's actually a tragedy that's being ig and, and there's, I don't like to call it a catch up period, but the only way you can empower yourself to do it the right way is you can't think of our grandfather's economy. Well, your grandfather's economy was way different than mine because they were, by the way, are they eastern bloc? Are they Poland? Poland. Okay, so that's an that's okay. So your grandfather didn't was different than my grandfather. Which by the way, this is his pin from Korea. When he came back a grandpa Dallas. He passed away. He actually passed away in 2020. Money not from COVID He just, he was old and he, he used to always joke that he had it simple when he got to his later years because they could buy GE and a couple other stocks, put it in a pension and they were pretty set. But our parents and us, we have to think modern portfolio theory so we can't just settle for fixed income stocks, bonds, mutual funds. We need to have a piece that is dedicated to alternatives. And that's where our mission came to fruition was, was we want to help more Americans retire. And if you just do like you said on stage, if we just follow the rules and do everything they tell us to do, we lose the game because it's rigged. You have to take a piece of your overall portfolio and get into new age stuff. Cryptocurrency, bitcoin, gold and silver. I know it doesn't sound new age, but it's doing pretty good this year. People are pretty thrilled about it. Real estate, land. We have a guy that does John Deere tractors in his retirement account. He buys them with his IRA monies and then leases them out to farms in Kentucky and he gets the passive income on those rentals for his. Think outside the box with a piece of it and that's how you're going to be able to keep up with that rising cost.
- [24:50]
Natalie
If you've been listening for a while, you've probably heard us talk about bitkey. Bitkey is a private multi sig wallet that removes the biggest point of failure in traditional self custody. The seed phrase. Things get lost, phones get replaced. Life happens. Right. BitKey is designed so your bitcoin stays secure and recoverable without demanding constant attention or expertise. And for February only coinstories listeners can get BitKey for $99 using code code stories99@bitkey world. Up next, the Bitcoin way. There's only one way to protect your Bitcoin from government, politicians and third party risk and that is 100% self custody. My friends at the Bitcoin Way will train you how to do this the right way the first time. No compromises. Go to the Bitcoin way.com Natalie to speak with the experts about making sure your bitcoin is secure and private. I hope to see all of you in Las Vegas for Bitcoin 2027. 6 We'll be celebrating 5 years of women of bitcoin with a special evening bash and I'll be signing copies of Bitcoin is for everyone at the bitcoin bazaar. Use code HODL for discounted passes and I will see you this April. Finally, Bitcoin IRA. With Bitcoin IRA you can invest in Bitcoin 247 inside a tax advantaged IRA. Choose a traditional IRA to defer taxes or a Roth IRA for tax free withdrawals. When you retire, take control of your Future with Bitcoin IRA. Head to Bitcoin IRA ira.com Natalie for up to a $1,000 funding bonus. This is so fascinating. I mean yeah, I grew up with friends whose parents they worked at a job that eventually offered them a pension. So now they're retired on actually pretty comfy.
- [26:30]
Chris Klein
Oh yeah, that was great.
- [26:31]
Natalie
But those gone are completely gone, right? And people do have to take more self responsibility to make sure that they are planning ahead. And it is so, so so tough. I mean I remember my first news job I was making like 20 something thousand and so I should have it was in California.
- [26:49]
Chris Klein
Oh, still those are expensive places to live. How'd you survive?
- [26:51]
Natalie
Well, exactly, because I was making so little and the cost of living was so high I didn't start putting away in my 401k when I should have. Even though you know there is that little bit of a match. I think it was like 6% at the time and I should have. But you're just, you're just kind of surviving, right? So can you talk a little bit about specifically with bitcoin ira? I've met bitcoiners who are like I'm just going to buy spot bitcoin. Why would I have it in a retirement?
- [27:17]
Chris Klein
That's their retirement.
- [27:18]
Natalie
That's their retirement. Having spot bitcoin in self custody. So what's your argument for considering even having an IRA if you're a bitcoiner?
- [27:26]
Chris Klein
Taxes. That's pretty much the easy answer. The short answer is taxes. Because at some point and I hold on a ledger, well not anymore but I did at one point on a ledger and at some point you have to liquidate those and move cash in. And as much as people thought privacy anonymity were against the banks and we're outside the system, the game has changed now, right? There's the system has gotten good at knowing you sold off. I mean there's reporting you're going to solve some bitcoin from your ledger and you're going to move it into dirty dollars or whatever. Currency survives the dollar and there'll be a taxable event for that liquidation. And if it's long term, it can be, it depends on how much money you're making. But you can be anywhere from 12 to up to 37% plus state taxes. So California is another 16 on top of that. So you're going to lose your purchasing power once you take that funds out. If you are doing this inside of a retirement account, you are maximizing your trade, trade concepts where maybe you bought some bitcoin and you wanted to flip it over to or I don't know how big your audience is on alts. Yeah, you're a maxi. I'm like a pseudo maxi. I see some utility. But you know, we offer 85 cryptos on our platform, but not because we believe in all 85 of them, but because the, the, the people demand it. And we've always thought, you know, we started as Bitcoin IRA in 2016. We launched Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP and BCH in 2018 or 2017. And they, they just, it's, there's an intrinsic demand for more of it. But of our $12 billion book, 65% sitting in Bitcoin. So it's like they're kind of playing over here, but this is their long term hold and they'll play over there. But if you sell some of that salon on a run and want to put it in, swap it into some bitcoin, outside of an ira, that's a taxable event. That's the umbrella of the taxable experience with an ira. But then you also have the benefit on the front side and the backside. So on the front side, let's say you made $100,000 this year and before April 15, you put $8,000 into your Roth or traditional IRA. Well, your traditional IRA you would lower your taxable income by that $8,000, which can help in a lot of ways. That's, you do the math. You may even skip a waterfall step and you know, it's a regressive system. So that would help. And then if you do it in a Roth, you would not get that benefit on the front side. But once you retire, you could turn $5,000 into a half million and you're going to take it all out entirely tax free. Free.
- [29:41]
Natalie
Right.
- [29:41]
Chris Klein
So these are tools that the government takes, takes, takes. Right. They, that's all they do.
- [29:47]
Natalie
And, and we have no clue what tax rates are going to be when. And they always get some generations are retiring.
- [29:51]
Chris Klein
If you look back the last hundred Years, they've only gone up. They, they, they don't normally go to. There's a tax break or a tax cut for this or whatever. But generally speaking, when you take the full taxable event of your life, it's not just your income tax, it's your property taxes, sales tax. I mean, there's a tax tax to die, right? I mean that was from the 80s, the death tax, which is now called the estate tax. There's taxes for everything. So this is a one chance. The government, they gave, they started IRAs in the 70s, they expanded it in the 80s with another bill. And then the Roth came out from Edward J. Roth in Delaware in the 93 or 94 was one of Clinton's tax reprieve bills. They, they barely given us these little wins and people aren't using it to their advantage. This is where generational wealth begins. Begin, begins. Because if it's an estate, if you have your Bitcoin, like I have my bitcoin in a Roth ira. I have some in a traditional, I have a SEP as well. And when I pass my daughter who now, who's now 12, she'll get that, those assets in an inherited IRA account. So that tax advantage passes through to the next generation. That's something that if you're really going to. Because imagine we're talking about rising costs, possibly deflationary issues that you can't control the economy, you can't control, control a lot of things, but you can control using the tools that are there for your advantage and folks that are like, oh, bitcoin's my retirement. Well, it should be. Don't get me wrong, you can't put all your Bitcoin in your retirement, but you should definitely have some of your bitcoin in a long term mentality, long term capital retirement account.
- [31:16]
Natalie
So if I have my Bitcoin in cold storage, but I want to take advantage of something like this, how do I maintain sovereignty? Like, is this a spot Bitcoin vehicle? Or like many of the brokerage accounts that people might have with the traditional firms, they only allow you to do like spot Bitcoin ETFs or some of the stocks. But you can actually hold spot Bitcoin. And if so, how does the custody work?
- [31:36]
Chris Klein
Yeah, so it is spot bitcoin. It's. And that's one of the things I'm really proud of because ETFs. I had a guy that worked for me that used to say, if the boat's going down, do you want to grab a life jacket or A life jacket certificate. And to me, I'm like, I'm going to grab the life jacket. And that's the difference. Like, if you're thinking gold ETFs versus gold bars and silver coins, you're thinking hard real estate versus a reit. Or if you're buying John Deere stock, or you're buying the actual John Deere tractor, like one of our clients. There's, there's that, and I hate to say the word tangible physical element to spot, but it is, it's in a wallet, it's segregated, it's secured. So we early on partner with Mike Belshi and my friends over at Bitco to build a qualified custody model. So when you come in, you'll come in through digital trust, which is our, our platform is Bitcoin ira. And then behind the scenes is our regulated Nevada FID Trust. Trust, I guess, what is it? Trust custodian. And so we take care of the administration and all the tax reporting, all those things. Things. You'll go onto the platform, you'll put your contribution in, you'll be able to. That'll be reported back to the IRS that you did your contribution, you'll procure, you'll buy and sell. It'll feel like coinbase, but it's for your ira, but it's not a hot exchange. So if you got hacked or compromised or otherwise, all they're going to do is access. Oh, this guy has. But there's nothing they can do to take it or extract it. Everything sits, is settled in OTC and then stored cold storage and settled cold storage. So no assets ever actually touch the exchange level or are that are at that risk point. And that's kind of how the custody overall umbrella works. And you're holding real Bitcoin inside of a wallet on behalf of your retirement account, just like you would on your ledger. So you're maintaining sovereignty, but you're playing by the rules of the government to hold it in the tax advantage settings. Does that make sense?
- [33:15]
Natalie
Yes. That's super interesting. So as far as your clientele, can you tell me a little bit about them? Like, are they a certain age, are they a certain net worth? What. Who are the clients?
- [33:25]
Chris Klein
Having been in financial services for what now, 12, 13 years?
- [33:29]
Natalie
Years.
- [33:29]
Chris Klein
The most diverse client base I've ever had. And I think you have that with your audience too. You were saying, very diverse. More women than I've ever seen, which I think is awesome, because if you go into some of the traditional vehicles, it'll be like the husband will Come and buy some real estate or gold, and then be like, oh, I'm going to use my wife's account. And we have more stories of the wife's account is outperforming the husband's, and he gets jealous and goes, well, then I guess I need to go get some Bitcoin and all that, too. It's really, really cool. But I think the most, most shocking statistic that got me on Power Lunch with cnbc back in 2020 was 75% of our clients are born before 1976. So they're older than our parents, around the age of our parents, and then older.
- [34:11]
Natalie
It's like Gen X and I guess. Boomers.
- [34:15]
Chris Klein
Yeah, boomers. And are we gen. Because we're millennials. Right. Which I really hate.
- [34:19]
Natalie
We're Gen Y.
- [34:20]
Chris Klein
Is that what we are? We're that middle one, that lost generation, as I call it. Yeah. So the ones before us.
- [34:25]
Natalie
Us.
- [34:25]
Chris Klein
And then, like the younger boomers, is the heavy amount of our folks. Fascinating. It's partially because, if you think about it, we talked about how beat up our generation has been. We're not saving for retirement. So they're the ones that have IRA accounts and old pensions and things that they can contribute, rollover or transfer. But it's also, I think there's a misnomer that this is a young man or woman's game to invest in cryptocurrency. We have stories of grandpas that went and puts part of their Roth in it. And then we've now actually had clients pass away because it's been 10 years, they've gotten older, and the kids find out, oh, my God, Grandpa had bitcoin in his retirement account. And they're amped. They're so excited. Versus, if you've ever worked in a state in anything, it's like, just sell everything and give me the cash. Right. That's how most of the time, those processes happen. So that's. I think that's a big one. But you also, you know, I would say there's three ways you can fund an account. You can either contribute every year, which you should, because it's a deadline. You can roll over old funds from an old 401K. And this is a big segment that gets left behind and forgotten. There are $2.3 trillion in old 401ks, 403tsps. Pomp even has one sitting around in a tsp from the years when he was in the army, that people forget and they leave them there. And I always say it's kind of like leaving your favorite hoodie at your ex girlfriend's house. Like you just don't leave something like that behind at a past employer. And you can roll those over very easily. So that's one way. And we see a lot younger folks are doing that because they forget they're like, oh, I have $5,000 that from this job from five years ago and now I can roll this over. And then there's folks that have existing, existing roster traditionals or SEP IRAs at like Fidelity E Trade, et cetera that would prefer spot bitcoin investment versus ETF investment that come and they roll those things over. There's another good advantage to the ETF part is when you get to the age of retirement, if you're holding an etf, you're going to have to sell it for dirty dollars and then distribute dollars with bitcoin IRA accounts. You don't have to sell it.
- [36:18]
Natalie
You can do in kind.
- [36:19]
Chris Klein
You can do an in kind distribution when you hit, hit the age of retirement, which I think is really powerful.
- [36:23]
Natalie
Okay, good. I was going to ask you that, but you actually reminded me I have, I have two little accounts from when I was an adjunct professor at USC and I have not touched those. I have not self directed.
- [36:34]
Chris Klein
So you're part of the 2.3 trillion.
- [36:36]
Natalie
Don't feel bad, but that's a crazy stat, right? Because bitcoin's market cap is now below 2 trillion.
- [36:42]
Chris Klein
If I could just get everybody to roll over their old accounts into bitcoin, we would double overnight. You guys would be carrying me onto the stage at Pomp's next conference on an elephant.
- [36:51]
Natalie
That's so wild. Yeah. And I think I just like have forgotten to do it because there was some kind of process.
- [36:57]
Chris Klein
They also move around a lot and this is where people get frustrated. So you left at USC how many years ago? Who knows? Five, six years ago?
- [37:03]
Natalie
Years ago. Yeah.
- [37:04]
Chris Klein
So they may have sold it off to one guy that sold it off to another guy that sold off to another guy. So you may not be at Fidelity, maybe moved to Hewitt, ADP, etc. So there's this really cool tool. It's not mine, it's called beagle.com like the dog.
- [37:16]
Natalie
Okay.
- [37:16]
Chris Klein
You can go on there. You put a couple of points of information and they will hunt out all the 401 case, 403 BS, 457 TSPs, pull pensions that your name's associated with and then we'll help you get those rolled over, which is really cool.
- [37:29]
Natalie
Okay, I need to. Yeah, I need to do that. It's only a couple thousand.
- [37:32]
Chris Klein
Hey, you're going to do it because actually in a couple of days, I'm going to introduce you to my. We're real crypto, real people. So something that's really cool is, you know, you go to Coinbase, you go to Crack, and you go to these places. And I love all these companies. I have nothing bad to say about any of them, but you got to deal with chatbots, maybe some customer service. Not. We have the same 16 account representatives that have been with me, 16 since January of 20, July of 2016, are still with me. Have helped over 200,000 people move funds into retirement accounts with crypto and bitcoin. And I'm going to introduce you to a crew of them so that you can experience it. And they'll. First, they're going to get to know you. They're going to put you on a web conference. They're going to show you all the cool details about our platform, the security, the staking that we have, the products that are available, all the things that you may or may not be interested in, and then they're going to help you move those funds. They're going to find those funds, move those funds, and they're going to be with you for the life of the account. So when it's time, time for contributions, distributions, beneficiaries, all the moving parts. So you're going to love that. That's. That's what people need. They need a little bit of that analog in our space to, to kind of shepherd them into the world.
- [38:34]
Natalie
So I'm kind of curious with this volatility that we talked about at the top of the show, have you seen people actually selling their bitcoin a little bit more? Are they hodling? Did they sell at the top and are they buying back in? Like, can you see some of that activity?
- [38:48]
Chris Klein
Yeah. When you're, when you're talking $12 billion, you're going to have buyers and sellers everywhere. Right. And it's interesting. We did probably close to 2 billion in transactions last year, and it almost was nearly 50, 50 buys versus sells. And there were some months where it was high on the other side. But, you know, I think Pomp brought this up, is like, there was a lot of people that got in at a thousand, two thousand, three thousand bucks, and they saw it hit 100. And that was. Their threshold was like, well, you know, they say the bulls, bulls and bears will fight it out. The pigs get slaughtered. Right. And so nobody ever wants to be greedy and lose out on those things. I, what I see, I don't look so much at transactions. I look at new deposits and at a time right now where yeah, the bitcoin price is in a, in a bad place. Another one of those 50% drawdowns, a because it's tax season and B because I think there's become a resilience and permanence for long term capital. Looking at bitcoin for decades instead of years and months. The deposit levels are at all time highs like for the last six months. Like we're really crushing the new deposits people are bringing in. They got to do their, their contribution for the year because the deadlines in, in April and they're also hunting down 401ks4 through because to them this is like Macy's red tag sale. You know they love bitcoin, they believe in bitcoin. They're putting their retirement behind it. I could have bought at 126, now I get to buy it 66. This is amazing. I can't be upset about that.
- [40:08]
Natalie
Well, as we start to wrap up, what is your outlook? I'm assuming you're very bullish, although you did admit something that I agree with. I think we could go down before we go higher. I don't think an all time high is around the corner. So we have the ability to sell stack at these more affordable so to speak prices. But what do you think is ahead of us for maybe the next six to 12 months?
- [40:30]
Chris Klein
So last time I was in this hot seat I said something I felt really dumb. So I'm not going to repeat that one. But I think I wasn't the only one. A lot of guys and gals missed their mark for last year, 244. I think I was like 180. But that happens, right?
- [40:44]
Natalie
Like a lot of people are wrong.
- [40:46]
Chris Klein
And part of what happened wasn't just cyclical. But also let's not forget the government took the longest vacation in a shutdown they've ever done right in the middle of this and it had to reopen and there was a queue. I think this quarter we'll see Clarity act get through. I hope it gets through without a bunch of pork and fat and amendments that make the big bankers happy and upset all of us in the crypto space because this whole stable coin rewards thing is very contentious. Friends in D.C. that I know are like this is getting crazy. That's the first thing, that's the first I think obstacle or hurdle we have to overcome. Come. I do agree with Kevin o' Leary that if that once that thing gets through, I think there's trillions, at least a trillion dollars sitting on the sidelines waiting to step in. Nova Grant said it at the conference as well, that there's a lot of people, big money that's sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens there or timing a further dip here. We could touch sub 60. We could, I don't know if we go sub 50, but it could get a little bit crazy. And of course the mainstream media, they'll be calling you and I every day because they love to put us on in the studio when it's down, right? They never call us when it's running because they know we're just going to be gloating. But there'll be that because that also I guess it carries it for it makes it even worse. People see the bitcoin price going down and then they turn on cnbc, Bloomberg and all the places and they see the sky is falling, sky is falling, sky is falling.
- [42:04]
Natalie
In a car accident, you can't turn
- [42:05]
Chris Klein
the rubber necking right? And so could be a rough close to the quarter. But we had that last year I was leaving New York to go to Atlanta and then Texas for a three city tour and I was fatigued and jet lagged and I got home and I was in Arizona and I, and I'm looking at my phone, it was like April 6th or 7th of last year and it was like dropping to like, like 4142. And I was like, I'm normally a DCA guy, I'd buy every day. But I was like, you know what I'm just gonna do, I'm gonna go crazy right now. And I dropped like 10 times as much as I would normally drop in a purchase. And it was scary because it dipped a little bit more. But then I was really happy by October, right? And I'm still holding that stuff even at 126. I'm not selling like I'm like, like Jordan Belfort. I'm not leaving. And I'm also like the guy from Home Alone. I'm not afraid anymore. We'll be to a half a million, we'll be to a million by the time the 2032 next having cycle hits. I think we're going to be talking about high six figures, 5, 600,000. But I do think this summer is going to be exciting. So people looking for near term excitement. The last time we had an exciting Summer was 2019. And it felt a lot of the same as we were Coming off of a little bit of capitulation from 18. Remember the Bitcoin Cash BSV fork and all that contentious. It was nasty. All the infighting that was just driving us down, driving us down. And I think we hit like six, seven. Oh, God, did I just do a six, seven? My daughter's gonna love that six to 7,000. And then. And then that summer was a nice run to like 12, 15, 18. We haven't had a exciting summer in a while. And so I'm just wondering, with we're coming in, people are upset, they're. The mood's down, we get the clarity act through. There's a little bit of a. I wouldn't call it a dead dead camp bounce, but a little bit of recovery, recovery. And then we start seeing with some announcements from these treasury groups and other things. I mean, there's some really smart folks doing some really cool things that you and I both met this. This past couple weeks.
- [43:54]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [43:55]
Chris Klein
Some of that starts to come into fruition and you get a little bit of pop. It could see us. I'm not saying we're going to recover back to 100 plus, but we could play around with like 85, 80,000. And then the question mark is, where are those? Because now we're financialized right now. The ETFs can pull the shorts and everything. Where are all that big money at with the leverage? Is there $40 million sitting here at 72 or 83, which then everybody be like, oh, everything's great. And then boom, like that next Monday. Remember, we're 247 too, and usually happens on Sundays. Yeah, that's the part. And that's the part I love about our platform, too, is you have control 247 in the palm of your hand. So unlike ETFs, where it's tanking on Sunday and you want to get out or you want to get more in, you have to wait until Monday. And this weekend or like holiday weekends, you got to wait till Tuesday. You have complete control of the time. So, man, I know I totally skipped around your answer here. I think it's going to be exciting. So, summer, what happens in the summer? We may get a little bit of quiet. September is never fun, but I think we're going to close the year out strong. We're actually asking a lot of folks around the city of New York these two weeks to see where do they think Christmas bitcoin will be by Christmas.
- [44:58]
Natalie
Well, I can't wait to hear those responses. I think you've certainly lifted the spirit of Our viewers during this show, just for anyone who's maybe thinking about signing up for a bitcoin ira, where should people go?
- [45:10]
Chris Klein
Well, I hope you put the link in because I know we have a dedicated link for Bitcoin ira.com forward slash. I think it's Natalie because you're the only Natalie in my life. And you can also call 877-936-7175. You can tell I do enough of these. I've memorized the number. And you'll talk to a real human being within 90 to 120 seconds to talk about, you know, retirement's not one size fits all. What works for me, what doesn't work for me, what am I looking for? And here's the cool part. And I always come with a gift in hand because my mom was a Southern woman from Louisiana. For right now, for your audience, if they sign up, if they, if they fund their account and they could just do a contribution or they could do a rollover or they could do a transfer, though they can earn up to $2,000 in rewards. This is an incentive to get ahead of tax time. So March 15th, this is the deadline for 2x rewards. If you don't get it done by March 15th, you have until April 15th and you get up to $1,000.
- [46:03]
Natalie
Awesome.
- [46:04]
Chris Klein
And a little cherry on top because most crypto folks and bitcoiners in particular like to brag about being bitcoiners once they're in. We have this awesome shop called bitcoin ira.shop.com. we've got quarter Z. We've got. You saw the vest I was wearing yesterday. We've got onesies that say hodl. We've got hoodies. We've got, we got the whole gauntlet. And you'll get a free gift from the store on top for being a Natalie listener and joining us@bitcoin IRA.
- [46:26]
Natalie
That sounds like a great deal. I'm going to have to pick up one of those onesies for my best friend who just had a baby, a bitcoin baby.
- [46:31]
Chris Klein
I forgot to bring him to pop for his twins.
- [46:34]
Natalie
Oh, yeah, that's right. I know we have a lot of bitcoin babies. Bitcoin baby boom that this asset class is causing. Chris, it's been great.
- [46:40]
Chris Klein
26K. Everybody got excited.
- [46:42]
Natalie
Yeah. We might have some babies nine months after that. Well, thank you so much, Kris, for joining me. We're going to have a link on the screen as well as a description in the show notes. I hope everyone checks it out. No one's coming to save you. You got to take care of your retirement, and I think bitcoin is the best asset when you're planning for your future, no matter what age you are. So, Chris, thanks so much for joining me.
- [47:00]
Chris Klein
Thanks for having me.
- [47:01]
Natalie
Natalie, thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss any new episodes. If you can, turn on those notifications and leave us a positive review, they really help the show grow organically with new listeners. We have a free weekly newsletter you can sign@thenewsblock.substack.com this show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should constitute as financial investment advice, and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach my team@infoalkingbitcoin.com I'll see you next time.