← Market Mondays
Market Mondays
Bitcoin to $10 Million? Why Bitcoin is the Future, TikTok Ban, & Top Stocks to Hold ft Chris Johnson
01:49:58
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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
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- [01:01]
Earners
Earners.
- [01:02]
Ian Dunlap
What's going on? Listen, EYLU is relaunching, revamping, retooling. That's right. We're creating a new educational experience that's more expansive. Shy tell them what we got.
- [01:11]
Troy Millings
Yes, 2023. We got a lot in store, a lot planned for you guys. So you know that EYLU already includes monthly financial planning calls with me. Book club calls with Troy, Real estate calls with MG the mortgage guy. Access to the home buying blueprint volume one and volume two. Part of the revamp will include 27 local chapters from across the United States. Live interactive teaching, hands on, not just pre recorded videos. Plus 15 brand new curriculums.
- [01:42]
Ian Dunlap
The biggest just got bigger.
- [01:44]
Chris Johnson
Head over to eyluniversity.com that's eyl u.
- [01:49]
Ian Dunlap
N I V E R S I.
- [01:52]
Chris Johnson
T Y dot com. See you there.
- [01:55]
Ian Dunlap
Okay, let's do it.
- [01:57]
Chris Johnson
Happy Monday.
- [01:59]
Ian Dunlap
Blessings. Blessings. Happy Monday indeed.
- [02:02]
Troy Millings
Sure. For sure. Top of the top everybody. Man, it's been a crazy, crazy week. But first and foremost, thank you everybody. Came out to the Arbazo activation.
- [02:14]
Ian Dunlap
Absolutely.
- [02:15]
Troy Millings
On your masters. Shout out to ally united masses. You know, thank you. Thank you guys. Shout out to everybody that took advantage of the market Monday's deal. You will be getting information shortly. So I know you know I got a lot of emails about or DMS about like you know, different information as far as the event and everything. So you'll be getting your information shortly. But yeah, thank you to everybody. I take advantage of that. I'm sure you're gonna get 10x the amount of value that you. But you paid for that. And then also wanted to give a big shout out to everybody that's been checking out Blackout. Last week's episode got a great response and we just been on a really good roll with Blackout. So thank you to everybody that checks out. Blackout.
- [03:07]
Ian Dunlap
Amen.
- [03:08]
Troy Millings
That taps in, that champions it. We, we appreciate it. So this, this week, we're back with blackout. Wednesday, 10:00 Eastern Standard time. And then Thursday we are going to, we're going to resume our live series of earnings. We haven't done the live in a few weeks, but we're gonna do. This is very timely, how to get started in crypto with a guest of ours who's gonna be a familiar face over the next couple of weeks. Caleb Silver. Yeah, so he's gonna. So this is, this is not to debate if XRP is better than Solana or what the next. You know, this is because I still feel like the average person doesn't steal. Well, the average person is not invested in crypto and still probably does not understand crypto. So this is going over what crypto means, going over what the cold wallet means, going over what Coinbase means, going over the difference between Robinhood and the Bitcoin etf. You know, different resources, different links to actually, you know, learn more, how to set up the situation. So this is going to be like crypto 101, crypto 101 onboarding for anybody that's interested in. Even if you were going to talk to Christian a little bit, but even if you only invest in bitcoin, you should still be knowledgeable about cryptocurrency if you're going to be in the space. So this is going to be like, we've done this before, like for real estate and stocks and we've done this crypto a while ago, but this is going to be a refresh since it's been in the news so much. We're going to be talking everything you need to know about crypto on a very easy, understandable level. A lot of resources breaking down terms, definitions, the difference between a coin and a token, the whole thing. So That's Thursday at 9:00 Eastern Standard time. And today we got a special guest, Chris Johnson, somebody who's been making a lot of news recently as bitcoin had passed over a hundred thousand last week. So we're gonna be talking to him. He's a bitcoin enthusiast.
- [05:15]
Ian Dunlap
You want to talk about somebody that's just been consistent in their belief.
- [05:18]
Troy Millings
So we got, we got, we got a lot, we got a lot going on these days. But okay, that's, that's that on, on our side. Ian, anything that you would like to say?
- [05:28]
Chris Johnson
Is Hawk Tour going to be on with you guys in Caleb Silver or talk about that later? If you want to get rich in the market from investing long term, go to ian invest.com. where to get in, where to get out. Our stock club call will be tonight at 9pm Central. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. Prices will be out Friday. A happy birthday to my brother Pierre. Appreciate you. Love you. Congrats to my guy Drew for opening this restaurant in Philly, Black Dragon. So support my guy in this restaurant. Love you dearly, brother. Let's have an amazing show and get us it.
- [06:06]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, let's run it up. Well, you know how this works, man. Do your own research. As always, man. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. Yeah, it's very important that you do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional connection with or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and what should rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise. As always, this is a message brought to you by the good brothers that earn your leisure and the good brother Ian Dunlap, the master investor himself. Continue to do the research. And of y'all doing really great research and y'all seen the returns on that research. So keep doing it, keep spreading love, keep spreading great information. Let's keep growing, let's keep making money.
- [06:46]
Troy Millings
For sure. For sure. So let's start. I wanted to start a little off topic because I do think, you know, I watch a lot of these documentaries and I do think this is a valuable lesson as far as business. But we talk about patients a lot. But the story of Saudi Aramco is a very interesting case study and we've talked about Saudi before as far as that's one of the most valuable companies in the world. A little known fact is that it was actually an American company out of Texas and it was Aramaico, that was the name of it. And they was able to purchase through very shrewd negotiations and patience, they was able to purchase 100 stake. So I think that that's an interesting conversation to have because I feel like we're going to talk about cryptocurrency, but. And we could talk about like the, like the full version on blackout. But I think patience is something that is vitally important. And that's what they said. Like as far as the leadership in Saudi, they had, they had a lot of patience. So I want to preference that because I feel like whenever there's bull runs in stocks or crypto, everybody wants to get in, but then when it goes down and they start to lose money and then every, all the principles goes away. So we could talk about fundamentals, we could talk about technical analysis, we could talk about. But if you don't have the discipline and the patience, then you're going to get washed out every single cycle. And that's real estate, that's crypto, that's stocks, that's business no matter what. So I think it's just important to kind of start the conversation off with, you have to have patience long term. And like I said, that's a, that's a great example because I mean they waited out probably 40 years to purchase the company and outright. But now, you know, Saudi Arabia is one of the most wealthy countries in the world and that's mainly due to Saudi Aramco. And that's a company that they didn't even. It's a relatively short period of time too. It's like 100 years, right? Less than, less than 100 years. And they had no knowledge of oil at all. They came in, they, they discovered it, the Texans in America ran the show and they were just very patient and their patience paid off to the tunes of trillions of dollars. Right? So Ian, talk about just, you know, like I said, just patience. Like why is it important to have patience when you are looking to be in business or looking to be an investor?
- [09:34]
Chris Johnson
I think the greatest lesson that we all need to know is like all the upside is in holding for long periods of time. I love doing a show, love engaging with the fans, but the number one question I get is, well, when are you going to cover something different? The most important indicator is holding for 10 to 40 year period though. It's, I, I don't know how to stress it but once again, Jerry Jones has not sold his stake in the Cowboys. The Bus family has not sold their stake and the Lakers, no one in real business ever talks about a one to a four year flip. They're looking to hold for a long period of time, so. And also too, America used to have a longer viewpoint on business and we became too short sighted which allowed a lot of companies and countries to overtake us. Even in India, while our middle class is dying. India's middle class looks like what ours did in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. So whenever you have a competitor that's thinking too short sighted, they're always going to get beat by a person that's thinking long term. And whatever business you're in, the most important thing to do is to hold for minimum of 10 years. And I can't stress that enough. That's why we show up here every week as an act of discipline to continue to do this show, continue to invest all the gains. Like you'll start to hit your first, first run around that 10 year period. If you look at Nvidia, which is now the number one return company in this sector, the everyone put in chat for the last 22 years, what has been a return of Nvidia. But if you missed out these last five years, you would have missed out on probably 10 or 15,000 gains. You don't want to do that. Like that's why I ask you guys every week, what media properties have you sold off? Better to keep them for a 10 year period because the valuation of them is going to be a lot higher. Like imagine if Stein Brennan would have sold the Yankees. Is five years in, six years in how big of a mistake that would have been?
- [11:41]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, can we, can we not talk about the Yankees right now? I'm, I'm going through something.
- [11:46]
Chris Johnson
Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. Lo siento.
- [11:49]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, I mean patience is obviously one of those assets that you have to have in investing. I think sometimes we get miscue, risk and screw when we start seeing things happen, I guess relatively quick to the human eye, right. Like we, we see people gain wealth and it feels like it happens very quickly. Or we see mergers and acquisitions and it's like, well, why didn't they hold on, right? I think of YouTube, I think of even an Instagram or I think of an Activision. We see these mergers and acquisitions and we're like, well, they didn't hold it long term. Yeah, but those, those are different and very unique situations. But to accumulate wealth, especially for us, and I'm saying us, Arkansas, especially for.
- [12:27]
Chris Johnson
Us, you have to have a long.
- [12:29]
Ian Dunlap
Term vision for it because it's the only way that we've seen that's been proven to have wealth. You look at, I know you talk about Aramico, but the sports analogy is a perfect analogy. If you look at the NFL, all those owners, how many of them are selling, right? They hold on to these entities. We talked about the Giants during the Vic episode. They've owned the team since 1905.
- [12:51]
Chris Johnson
Right.
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Ian Dunlap
There's a reason why they're starting to take private equities because they can't. The money that they want to liquidate, it's tough because they won't sell. So you got to have that long term mindset. We're starting to see it in our community, but we need to see more. We need to see more businesses that are being built that have sustainability but also have scalability to be long term. That's another piece of it too.
- [13:10]
Chris Johnson
So, yeah, and I know we have the fear and greed index, but I find it fascinating. They never show us the fear and greed over a decade. It's good to know what the fear and greed cycle is over one year. But if you can find it, the real gym is to look over a decade span to see, to know when to invest. So when we are at maximum fear, that's when you want to load up. And then when we're at maximum greed, that's when we used to want to start to sell off. But nothing in the short term really matters. It does not matter at all.
- [13:38]
Troy Millings
Yeah, for sure. So, okay. All right, so now let's talk about some pressing news. Tick Tock band was, was upheld. We talked about this months ago.
- [13:49]
Ian Dunlap
I remember.
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Troy Millings
And the judge upheld the appellate court's decision to effectively the. The company has to be sold by January 19th to an American company or be banned. Be banned. So first, you know, I've talked to people in the space. It's a few. I don't think this is going to happen.
- [14:15]
Ian Dunlap
I was going to start with the same thing.
- [14:16]
Chris Johnson
I've heard.
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Earners
Yeah, yeah.
- [14:18]
Ian Dunlap
Both were very adamant that it wasn't going to happen.
- [14:21]
Troy Millings
Yeah, I don't think so.
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Ian Dunlap
Yeah, go there, let's.
- [14:22]
Troy Millings
I think it's going to be a variety of different things that can happen. Trump is coming in with a new regime and a lot of his friends are billionaires. So this is an opportunity to make money first and foremost because TikTok has a lot of users and they make a lot of money. So I just don't see a world where Tick Tock just disappears in the thin air. They'll probably kick the can down the road, get a last minute amendment of some sort. Amendment to revisit the situation in six months while we sort out how they can, you know, divest the company into an American led. Somebody's gonna end up. It's gonna, it's gonna. I just don't see it being banned. I don't, I don't think that's gonna happen. But it is good for Meta because Meta stock on Friday, Meta stock went up and almost reached like a 52 week high. Came down a little bit today. But I mean if there's no tick tock, then that's the next, that would be the next resort. So from a, from a stock standpoint, that is beneficial for Meta and Meta has been up over 400% in the last two years. So Meta stock's been going crazy even before this news.
- [15:31]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, I think there's a few beneficiaries. It'd be interesting. I think that the date of the ban going into effect is very key here. Right. Like you think of January 19th or what happens two days after that, you have the presidential inauguration. Right. So I mean that ban could really be lasting for two days if it even comes into place. And so yeah, the presidential election definitely is going to have a lot to do with this. But somebody's gonna make money. That, that's the key. Somebody's gonna make money. And in the event, like we said, short term we saw Meta go up. But there I think there's a few other beneficiaries that we should keep our eye on. The first one being Google with YouTube and YouTube Reels. When you think about ad dollars and the billions of people who are on, on tick tock, the ad money that goes into that, if that now is no longer an option, Meta1 is a recipient, but right there in the waiting will be Google and YouTube for sure. I think that's going to be important, but a surprise one that we need to also keep. I think Amazon plays a role here from an AWS from Cloud. Right. So let's say they have 2 billion users, right. That's a lot of data that needs to now be transferred to somewhere else. Right. And so now you need cloud service providers that are going to help in that service. And so I would look at the cloud service providers in the event of a ban that are now taking on new clients or new clientele to kind of alleviate this process, which is important. And I think Snapchat might be a sleeper too. I know people, I mean, I don't use it, my kids do use it. But those three, right. When you think about social media, you got TikTok, you got Instagram and then you got Snapchat. So in that realm, if there is a band, I'm keeping my eye on those for sure.
- [17:18]
Chris Johnson
Two important things to note. One great business lesson is to make your platform or software so good that you really have no competitors. I think Meta can do a little bit better job of making it competitive towards Tick Tock. But also Mark made his way down to Mar a Lago and when I saw that this is definitely going to go in Meta's favor one way or another, I don't think everyone I talked to, same as you guys, it was like I don't see how Tick Tock can be banned. Like it's, it may be short lived if so. So Tick Tock I think will still be here, but I think in the next four or five years I would love to see Meta take away some of their edge for sure. But Mark going down to, to me with Trump definitely tells me the stock could be to the moon for the next four or five years.
- [18:04]
Ian Dunlap
I think from a congressional standpoint it's like the, one of the things that, that they agree on, like something needs to happen with the social media platform. The, the influence that has had on our, I should say our community, but the entire country, I mean the age demographic, the attention span, all the, all the negative facts that we keep hearing about, I think this is the one thing that they could kind of agree on. Like something needs to happen. So we, we definitely will see.
- [18:28]
Troy Millings
Well, one thing about the, there's a few things to note. Trump just a point. I forget that guys he's about to up. I don't think he appointed yet but the reason why he went down there is because they're very fearful that there's going to be very anti social media settlement in the administration. One guy in particular, I forget his name but they like, I forgot I'll look Axe. But he's very, he's been very anti social media as far as regulations, laws. So Zuck trying to cozy up to Zuck trying to cozy up to Trump I think is an effort to try to get ahead of that. Yeah. Because they know that it's going to be some difficult times ahead. So it's better to have an ally than a, than a foe. And if you know that you got somebody who's going to be adversary in the cabinet, it would be beneficial for you to at least be able to tell your side of the story and try to get in as much as possible. So that's an intelligent move from him.
- [19:32]
Chris Johnson
It's a good lesson.
- [19:33]
Troy Millings
Yes, for sure, for sure. But I also think that, you know, Facebook is one of these companies that just took off and they've been to the moon for 24 months. So you might see a substantial pullback in January, but their long term projection, I, I just don't see how they long term projection still has to be dominant because tick tock, even if it survives, it's, it's not going because the Chinese government, that's the one thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on, right? Like China has a terrible record on human rights. You know how I feel about China. So we do if you, if you get all this data and they said that's what they really want to do is buy the algorithm, all these rich guys. Because TikTok has the best tech, they have better tech than Meta as far as the algorithm and everything like that. So it's like, you know, the value in TikTok is really that algorithm and that's just too valuable to just throw away. You, it's, it's almost immeasurable how valuable that company is not just from a user standpoint, but from an algorithm standpoint. And all of the data that they've already collected, facial recognition, everything. So it'll be interesting to play out. But Meta will definitely be a winner. I don't see how they are a loser, but they might be a short term loser, but long term they have to win. In this video, even what you're saying.
- [20:56]
Ian Dunlap
Now like, and it goes back to the conversation we had last week when we were talking about the underwater installation of what they're trying to build around Africa, around India. Yeah, it sounds good for Internet, but what really is the focus of it is the data centers, right? Like that is the thing. So like if they have storage, if they have algorithms are inside of these facilities, this is where they're being stored at. That's where the information is being disseminated. That's what's feeding you. The person that could control those or has the most, or has the most efficient, the ones that are running at the highest efficiency, the ones don't overheat, the ones that can have the most data that can move, those are going to be the winners. And so the company that is competing with you is playing at a bigger scale.
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Chris Johnson
Right?
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Ian Dunlap
They're looking at it like, yes, we have the social media platform, but we want to control the energy that provides it as well. So I mean medicine, it's prime position. We talked about the companies that are there with them, but the other ones don't have the social media presence. Right. Microsoft doesn't, Amazon doesn't from a social media stand. They're not even close to it. They do. And now they control the information and the infrastructure. They're primed. They're primed to, to be.
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Troy Millings
If you want to run if you see a hundred dollar drop off in Meta stock in January, that's possible.
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Chris Johnson
Oh yeah, well, but in two years. Yes. Not other side of the guy.
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Troy Millings
Yeah, yeah. On the, on the come up. But yeah, they might fall off.
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Chris Johnson
I've been going to 88744 in, in 24 months.
- [22:20]
Troy Millings
Long term, yeah, with short term they might, they might, they might have some short term pain. For long term they're still going to be fine.
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Chris Johnson
But they made it through 2025. Even going back to long term, I think if with the metaverse, if they wouldn't have spent it as aggressively in the beginning, they could have made it work. They just got in I think too high of a position and I think they'll, they'll dance back into that metaverse in the next two or three years.
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Ian Dunlap
Yeah, we're going on probably year four since that was announced and so like you think about the capex, then that comes off of it. Where's the money going now? We'll see. Yeah, but yeah, I mean they're positioned in a prime place for the next decade, especially from the informational standpoint and what they're building that the infrastructure that they're building is I mean second to none now Shout is up.
- [23:08]
Chris Johnson
Yes.
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Troy Millings
Okay. United Healthcare CEO's tragedy first and foremost, rest in peace. Very tragic situation that happened last week in Manhattan and man, it's multi layered conversation. But from a business standpoint, what is the impacts on not just UnitedHealthcare, but you know, I guess the industry as a whole.
- [23:37]
Chris Johnson
I think companies overall have to go back to finding ways to do good business that is good for the consumer. When I saw this happen, and there's so many layers to this, but when I read that they have an AI agent that denies 90% of people's plans, it's not good. Of course it may United Healthcare a ton of money but ultimately it could be one of the reasons why he lost his life. This reminded me like John Q. For those of you who've seen that movie. But the year 2024 has showed a lot. But I think with corruption, with the economy tightening, would there be in a lot of uncertainty? The companies that do good are going to benefit incredibly well and those, those that are not are going to have a price to pay. So you have to find a way to do right by your audience, customer base, client base while maximizing profit. And this is why Nvidia, Apple, Meta, they are hitting record highs because they found a enough of a balance to do that. But for health, healthcare companies that are not doing well. I mean, it's sad, but the other executives have to have their profiles removed and worried about being targeted. But a bunch of these issues in healthcare have been rampant for 40 years. Like in 2024 MO, most of America felt how black Americans felt almost on every issue at one time. We've been going through this endless denials and premiums being too high. So when you have mass discrimination like this, it is going to have some blowback. But God rest his soul, prayers and blessings to his family. To even have that shown on social, I think was disgusting. But companies are going to have to make a change to do a lot better or this is going to happen a lot more often.
- [25:29]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, it definitely, I mean, rest in peace and condolences to his family, his loved ones. It's unfortunate. Definitely felt targeted, felt a little bit retaliatory in a sense. Right. When you, when you start seeing the details of the shells, having messages on them. But it started, I started thinking about the danger of being in the healthcare profession. Right. Which is why the retaliation from the industry was like, let's remove our executive bios. Let's take our executive boards down. Let's stop telling exactly where they have to be, especially if they're going to have a board meeting. Because he was going to speak in front of the investors, right. And so that's public, that's public information. The interesting part is, like, you're the CEO of a company. There isn't. You're walking by yourself. So I mean, security detail, especially in that position. Because you're right. When a company like Nvidia might have a delay on Blackwell, it's like, all right, that's a tech issue, right. Or Apple has a delay on something that feels different. But you start playing with the health care of people and you start denying premiums and you start. There was one report that, you know, there was a anesthesia coverage that they weren't going to cover anymore for certain surgeries. These are now affecting not just one or two. You're talking about millions of people's lives and they have nobody to talk to. Right. Like you're talking to the bill collector. The doctor is going to tell you, go to insurance. And so now the people that are ahead of these companies almost become targets in a way. Right. If you start looking at it that way. And so an event like what happened last week unfortunately has happened and you don't want to see more of it, but you're right. Like there's certain business practices after a certain while, it's like we got to get these things in line, right? So that the public feels safe. They feel like they're being taken care of. Because what's the point of it, right? If the customer at the end of the day feels like hey this isn't beneficial for us anymore, things like this can happen.
- [27:21]
Chris Johnson
Yeah, I mean I put it in stock club but he had over 10000 instances of people being denied coverage. 10,000. Like look how many lives. And even with that, with his murder, why did it take for him being murdered for another company to say now we're going to cover your anesthesia.
- [27:41]
American Express
What?
- [27:43]
Chris Johnson
So let's look at the rest of the companies. If they're doing it at the highest level, one of the biggest publicly traded companies in the world. What about the lower tier players that publicly traded and the discrimination is happening. But we've heard these stories in our community forever. It's just no one listened to us. Now it's becoming mainstream.
- [28:03]
Troy Millings
Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, like I said, it's unfortunate situation but it is protocol for Fortune 500, 100, Fortune 100 company CEO to have security. We've witnessed that firsthand. So that was a, a breach in security. And that's why you need security because you know, if you run in any type of company. When we met Vlad, we met Vlad 10 up. He has security. You know, so any type of public profile you're, you're liable to, you know, have some, some issues or to try to get, you know, kidnapped. Anything can happen. So that, that's definitely a lapse in security. I think that that's something that they're gonna have to answer for the company. I'm sure that the family is going to have questions about why he didn't have security. Right. Like walking down the street by himself like you know, you should probably not. That should have never happened.
- [28:57]
Chris Johnson
But how did they know he would be out there at the time for that? Maybe we'll talk about it on Blackout but there a lot of fishies. I'mma stop there. Don't worry. God gave me this code for a reason.
- [29:13]
Troy Millings
So what's top. What's the top five stocks to hold in your portfolio?
- [29:22]
Chris Johnson
I'm going to remind you. Vo, vti, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia going back to holding for a long. I know y'all want a new answer but sometimes new will lead you to destruction. I know some of you want to talk. We'll talk about sound AI and him just been on a tear. Cool. But part of the reason why people get rug Pulled like in that hawk to a meme is that you're searching for the sensational thing versus the thing that is going to last your lifetime. And I don't know, going into our fifth year, I don't know what to tell you. Like, if you want to fall for companies that are not doing incredibly well, Eli Lilly will be in that mix for sure. Should you always be on the hunt for the next new winner? Yes. But until one of those fall off, there's no reason to replace them. Now I can't wait for the day where I can say Apple's no longer good. I'm replacing Apple out of two tech to index. So you can see that I stand on this business. But Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, vo, VTI are the five to invest in if you want another company. Eli Lilly superstar, Rockstar company. Great leadership, great products, great moat. And same in the crypto space. Like the ones that are best to invest in have been the best to invest in for the last five or six years. That won't change too often.
- [30:44]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, ever. Ever since we had the conversation about Apple and its potential dip, it's just gotten all time high. All time high, all time stronger and stronger. It's gotten stronger and stronger, and they were all thankful.
- [30:57]
Chris Johnson
Yo, y'all be looking for new things to swap out in your Prof. This how some of y'all end up in disaster in real life. Maybe I'm a girl two years, but I got a new girl. Okay. Now you end up with no girls and no money. Same portfolio. Keep buying the same ones. Come on. But what do I know?
- [31:14]
Ian Dunlap
Say that. Stay there.
- [31:16]
Chris Johnson
Stay right there.
- [31:18]
Troy Millings
Hyper focus. Well, what do you. Because we're gonna bring Chris up in a little bit. But before, because he. His thing is only. He only buys bitcoin. But there is something to be said about hyper focus, because most people that make their money make money on one thing. So it's like Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire because of his stock in Facebook. Right. That's how he became a billionaire. Right. And you can say the same thing with almost any of these company CEOs. And, you know, that's how, you know, Nvidia went up and all of those people that became millionaires because they were employees from Nvidia, that was because they had Nvidia stock, not because they diversified, because they had Nvidia stock. And the same thing happened with Apple and the same thing happened with Microsoft.
- [32:02]
Chris Johnson
With Microsoft back in the day. Yep.
- [32:03]
Troy Millings
Yeah. A lot of these companies when they. They got filthy rich off of one thing, they didn't get rich by spreading it out across. Yeah, you know, but that's also obviously there's more risk, there's more risk involved with that. Right. But that, that some people think that that's better way to go. Like just focus on one thing and really focus on that one particular thing. Michael, Michael Sailor said something about this. He was like, it's like having a kid that's talented in basketball. If you have a kid that's talented in basketball and they're showing signs and they're promising, you don't get them swimming lessons and karate lessons and tennis, you double down on basketball and you get them personal training and that you don't. There's no, there's no benefit in trying to say, okay, well if you don't make it in basketball, then maybe you'll be a good tennis player.
- [32:54]
Chris Johnson
Right, Pickleball player.
- [32:55]
Troy Millings
Yeah, exactly. You focus on that one thing. Right. So what's your thoughts on, on, on that?
- [33:04]
Chris Johnson
You don't have to believe me, but remember when I said Warren Buffett said it in the Berkshire meeting. Diversification is for people who don't know what they're doing. That's true. What put in chat what a Rockefeller get rich from originally then Carnegie. If you go to the titans of business they all have hyper concentrated. So I think a lot of times there's the truth that is told to the public to pacify and then there's the real information that has but that happens behind the scenes even for us. Me doubling down on Red Panda, you guys doubling down on earn your leisure. I just pay dividends. Zuckerberg investing in Meta has paid dividends. So I think once you find an asset class that works for you and you put all of your money attention and focus like and the thing that Cuban has said, you only have to get right one time. You don't need 16 ventures to work. Like we've been fortunate to have a bunch of things work in our favor but everything centered around a course. So when people try and want 30, 40, 50 stocks, I'm like it's because you don't know how the other ones are going to pan out. Like I know what the multiple for Apple should be by 2040 and Nvidia and Microsoft and Vanguard and BlackRock took over crypto, so that's expanded their portfolio. So I think too oftentimes people think when you hear multiple streams of revenue or income, you think it's to do different things, but you have to find to make revenue off of one item In a bunch of different ways. So it's always been the way to go. Diversification is a distraction to tell you from how to really build wealth, in my opinion.
- [34:42]
Ian Dunlap
So here's the one caveat, right? Maybe asterisk, I would say the right diversification. Because if we're talking about like the guys you mentioned, Zuckerberg has stock, the employees in Nvidia, but he's diversified in companies, right? So like, yes, all his nest egg wasn't in Apple, but Apple's his largest shareholder, right? So American Express, Coca Cola, he didn't try to find 40 different companies. He said, these are my course, right? This is what I like.
- [35:13]
Chris Johnson
But even in the beginning, going to the 60s, when he first built that, that fund and it took scale, he has six, Peter.
- [35:19]
Ian Dunlap
So it's not a large majority of companies he's looking at. He's hyper focused on five or six and it's like, all right, well, I can focus on these. These are the ones I can concentrate on because I can actually follow them. And we said this for the past five years, it's tough to follow 15, 20, 25 companies possible, bro.
- [35:35]
Chris Johnson
They actually do all the filings and. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:38]
Ian Dunlap
So when people start trading 5, 10, 15, you start getting to 25, 30, there's people with 50 option calls. This is tough to track, right? That's when we're talking about you. Now you've overd, diversified. Now this is becoming something that's not even manageable. You got a core 4, core 5 or 6, I'll say like 10 so to 12 at the most. Yeah, stick with those. All right. And you might just have to wait and just be patient, like going back to the first. Be patient with those companies, wait for the right time and execute when it's done.
- [36:09]
Chris Johnson
And even what two tech, two indexes, people will say, well, if you don't believe in diversification, you why use 2Tech to index what percentage of VO is made up of tech and what percentage of VTI? If you go look, there's even hyper focus there. If you look, there's some diversification because the portfolio managers will switch certain things out. But there's always been a focus on a particular sector. For me, it's been tech. So just double down on the assets that you know that are working and don't deviate from them.
- [36:46]
Ian Dunlap
Important.
- [36:49]
Troy Millings
All right, so but how many is because that. How many is too many because you. Some might say that the theory is like four is too many or six is too many.
- [37:01]
Chris Johnson
Well, I think past 10 is too much. I think past 10, I think you can manage four to six with no stress. Eight, you start to teat. Even in trading futures, I told everyone a red Panda Trade ES, ZB Bond and S P500, it makes it super easy. Then you add a NASDAQ and UB, which is of course the NASDAQ 100, and another bond. Like, the simpler the structure is, the better it is to manage because most people can't find lightning in a bottle 10 times. If you can, great. But it's. I think four is easy to man. Once you get to 10, 12, 15, 20, it's too much. A lot of trouble.
- [37:39]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah. And then that's the thing is, right, like, so I'll say 10. I have 10 to 12. And if there's a new company, like, and we'll hopefully we'll speak about it later on, then there's a company that's going to be leaving that's not performing right. So, like, when I talk about draft games, when I talked about Disney, right. When I took. There's other companies that I was invested in, I'm like, all right, well, they're not performing. There's an opportunity over here. I'm not saying, like, let's sacrifice the plan. Let's add to number. Here's number 15. No, it's 12. Something has to go. Something's not performing. So you got to stick to your plan. But when you start getting over that, it. It's going to get hectic.
- [38:14]
Troy Millings
All right, well, without further ado, let's bring our guest up. Can we.
- [38:22]
Chris Johnson
What's my dog? Yeah.
- [38:27]
Ian Dunlap
What's up, my guy?
- [38:28]
Earners
How y'all doing?
- [38:29]
Chris Johnson
We good, man. How you feeling?
- [38:31]
Earners
I'm good, man. Everything's good with me. How y'all?
- [38:34]
Chris Johnson
I'm good, man. Happy to have you here.
- [38:36]
Ian Dunlap
I. I imagine this was going to happen with you sitting by the pool side saying, I told you so.
- [38:42]
Earners
The pole right here, man. I should. I should have been chilling by the pool.
- [38:46]
Chris Johnson
No, it's all good.
- [38:47]
Troy Millings
No, it's all good. So, Chris Johnson, first time actually on Market Mondays. You did Invest Fest for us a few years ago. And the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is timely, but bitcoin pulled back a little bit, but last week, in a historic moment when it crossed over $100,000. You've been a very strong advocate for bitcoin and an investor, and you have an interesting story. I'll let you tell it. But I believe last year you sold a lot of everything that you had, and you put a lot of your portfolio into bitcoin, right? And you kind of like, documented how that, how that's worked out for you. I believe you put six million dollars in and now it's like 17 million. Is that correct?
- [39:33]
Earners
Yeah, well, it was, it was less than that. So 6 million is where I started at the beginning of this year. So. So looking back to last year, around this time or even before that, it was like 2 million, you know, So I, I bought a lot of Bitcoin 2022, when it was down at like, start at 20,000, as it just failed and failed down to 15,000.
- [39:58]
Chris Johnson
Good level to buy.
- [40:00]
Earners
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you said too. That was the level. So that's when I started, like unloading and I'm getting out of trades, I'm getting out of my dividend portfolio. So to bring you guys back to like the full circle. So I've always, like, most of us have been on this, like, get money, get money, get money, get money, right? So that was my journey. Just get money. So I'm building brands, I'm, you know, building online brands. And then 2018 comes and I'm turning to like, I need to store my money, you know, so getting money is one race. Storing your money is a whole different ball game with different rules, you know, so I'm doing that and then the pandemic hits and I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna buy up these assets. You know, they'll recover eventually. I know that the government's got to interject a lot of money and, you know, save the market. So that's what happened. So I'm. And I'm very public about it. I, like, I have a whiteboard and I'm just like, hey, I'm buying these stocks, these stocks, these stocks, and I'm gonna sell them when they get back to 80% of whatever they fail from. So imagine you have a hundred dollar stock, it falls to, you know, 40 bucks. I'm gonna sell it when it gets back to $80, you know, so I'm just buying, loading up. And then in that I would buy bitcoin. But it was kind of like trading because I was thinking of bitcoin like a stock, right? I'm thinking of bitcoin like a stock. So I would buy in, sell out, buy in, sell out. And which actually that started like 2018. I would just buy in, sell out, you know, and I kind of understood the, like, what was going on in the whole bitcoin community, but I didn't understand the severity of it. Until the pandemic. Right. Because during the pandemic, you. You see how fast, you know, we can create the inflation by putting a bunch of money into the economy.
- [41:39]
Chris Johnson
Absolutely.
- [41:40]
Earners
So that was like, you know, the thing. So as the market started to recover, 2021, you know, everybody's balling, everybody got money, everything's good. And, you know, I'm kind of like, just sitting back, reaping the rewards of all this stuff. And I felt like on my journey, I could always feel like what was coming next, right? So I always feel like. Because I keep, like, I pay attention to what's going on in the world. I always feel like, what's coming next? So 2024, I mean, 2014, I built my watch company because I'm like, everyone's going to be their own version of Kim Kardashian, right? So Instagram is moving on from, let's say, selling. I mean, posting your shoes and your. In your food or whatever you're eating. So eventually people are going to do business together. So I'm like, all right, well, if I'm going to get on Instagram, I need something to sell. So I build the watch company. So then you look crazy at first, and then everybody starts, you know, building their own little brands and stuff. People find me, they buy the watches. Cool. Next thing that I was able to see was the market taking that big hit and then recovering. So now 2021, slash, like, beginning of 2022, I'm like, man, I can't see what's coming next, you know? And it just feels like I'm in a rat race. Even though I'm making a lot of money, I feels like I'm in the rat race, you know, you're waking up. You trading, all that stuff is cool, but I'm like, there's got to be, you know, something else, you know, like, to take me to the next level. Yeah.
- [43:00]
Chris Johnson
Yeah.
- [43:01]
Earners
So when the FTX thing happened with bitcoin and bitcoin's, like, falling, I'm like, man, this is, like, beautiful, you know, like, this is beautiful. This is the opportunity that people should want. You know, like, we just watch an asset fall from $60,000 to 20K, you know, and I've watched it fall from. From 20 to 3,000, you know, like, I've seen this happen before. So I'm like, all right, I'm going all in, you know, but before I go all in, I want to make sure that I'm doing the research and I'm reading, I'm reading. I'm Understanding, like, what's going on. And then I start realizing this is much bigger than just buy something and then it goes up. Or this is much bigger than looking at bitcoin like a stock, you know, like this is an entire separate system that exists outside of the system that we know already, you know, so, like this guy, Parker Lewis, he has a saying that like, bitcoin isn't a hedge to inflation, it's a solution to inflation. Right? So as I'm learning about the network and I'm learning about, you know, like the asset and the network because they're two separate things. And I'm just dumping my money in and I'm very public about it because I'm like, you know, I trust the research that I've done. I trust myself, I trust my skill set, my knowledge, you know, so I'm like, very public. I'm a here. I bought 10 Bitcoin for 20, 000. I bought, you know, seven more for 6,000. Any amount that you put in, your percentage returns will follow mine. I'm like, you know, I'm public about it because I'm like, this is what I'm doing. I don't want to be one of those people that wait until the market's at the top and then say, oh, yeah, see, I should have bought it. And you know, I hate, I hate that type of stuff.
- [44:41]
Chris Johnson
Yeah. Quick question for you. What do you say to the people who may think that bitcoin has hit a top or a hundred thousand is a ceiling and it may be too late to get in?
- [44:52]
Earners
So I think those type of people, what they, where they're like thinking traps are, is they look at where bitcoin came from, not where bitcoin is headed, right? So if you're looking at a 2 trillion dollar market cap, $900 trillion worth of assets in the world, and you just like realize, like, okay, bitcoin is not even bigger than the arts and collectible asset group. You know, like, you don't think, like this thing could be bigger than arts and collectibles or collectible cars, you know, like that's, you know, a few trillion dollars higher than where we're at now or is going to like, start replacing some of the bond market or some of the stock market. So if you look at the market cap of all these assets and then you see bitcoin's a little, little, little blip and you're like $2 trillion compared to $900 trillion worth of wealth, you know, and so I think that that's what you have to see the bigger picture. You have to see where it's headed and not where it's come from. You know, and in that end, where people go wrong is they compare themselves to where they either seen bitcoin before or what other people got in at it. Right? So, yeah, you don't, you don't want to go, oh, I bought Bitcoin at 100, but this person bought it at 50. Well, the person that who bought at 50 sees the person who bought it at 25, who's looking at the person who bought it at 8, who's looking at the person that bought at 800, who's looking at the person, $80. Like that's, that's like an ego thing where you're comparing yourself instead of looking towards the future.
- [46:18]
Ian Dunlap
Chris, big research guy, obviously. I saw your post the other day. You said ethereum distraction, bitcoin, cash distraction, solana distraction, S P distraction, bitcoin. Only when somebody has that level of conviction, I'm always interested to see, like, what is the research? What was the data point or the information that you saw that gave you that level of conviction?
- [46:43]
Earners
So what it was is you start pricing things in the dollar, right? You price things in a dollar and everything looks like it goes up. So this was the exact moment where it clicked that everything was a distraction. So 30 years ago, the Argentine peso was one to one with the U. S. Dollar, right? So now let's take the Argentine, let's take the US Dollar out of this. So you just see the Argentine peso. So, Troy, let's say that you have a company worth 10,000 Argentine pesos, right? Now we're going to fast forward to today. One Argentine peso, I mean, one dollar is a thousand Argentine pesos, right? So if your company that was worth 10,000 pesos 30 years ago, now it's going to look like it's worth $10 million, right? So if, if, if Rashad's an investor in your company, then he's gonna be like, look, my company is growing. And then there's gonna be some dude that's like, hey, bro, it's not really growing. Like, it's just keeping up with the inflation, right? Like, it's not really growing.
- [47:44]
Troy Millings
It's.
- [47:44]
Earners
Until you put, it's not. Until you put the dollar back into the perspective, back into, you know, using the dollar as a measurement unit that you'll see like, okay, your company was worth 10,000 30 years ago, now it's worth 10 million. But it's still, you know, Worth the same amount of money once you compare it to the dollar. Right. So all it's showing you is that that asset was falling in comparison to the dollar. Right. Something outside of the dollar, the peso system, is measuring it. So I start looking at, oh, money is a unit of measurement, and it can measure how big or small asset class is. Right. So if we're just injecting more and more money into a system, then everything looks like it's growing. Right. So, Troy, your company, that's now worth $10 million. Well, then if you price it right back into the dollar, you'll see that it hasn't grown at all. Right. So all the investors in your company, it looks like they're getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier because they see the unit, the nominal value is going up. Right. I bought it at 10,000, I bought into his company at 10,000, and now it's worth 10 million. Right. When you put the dollar back in, then you go, oh, your company wasn't growing, bro. Right. So that makes sense. Does that make sense to you guys?
- [48:57]
Chris Johnson
Yes.
- [48:58]
Earners
Okay, so now you do the same thing with bitcoin, or even if it's not bitcoin, you can do it with gold.
- [49:04]
Ian Dunlap
Right.
- [49:04]
Earners
Something that just can't be easily created. So gold, you gotta, you know, it takes man hours to mine gold, dig it out of the ground. Right. So even if you were to go price these assets in gold, you'll start to see, like, man, I'm not getting much more purchasing power out of investing into this or investing into that. So if you price the S P500 in gold, it's been trading sideways for 20 some years. If you price it in bitcoin, it's falling. Right. So I just changed my. My different unit of measurement. Yeah. And that's kind of what showed me, like, man, these things may look like they're going out up, but when I price it into what I deem to be a good unit of measurement, bitcoin, then everything is. It might go up in dollars, but it's not going up in actual value, you know, so that's how I started looking at it. And then I'm like, if you're not going to spend the time, energy, effort, you know, and do the research, and you're just buying things because other people are telling you to buy it, you're being distracted. You could just put your money in bitcoin and go play basketball with your friends or something. So I just start looking at it like that.
- [50:11]
Troy Millings
So what?
- [50:13]
Chris Johnson
Garbage. My bad.
- [50:14]
Troy Millings
Yeah. So, okay, so the interesting. All right, so the counter argument to that would be to say you're correcting your assessment other than the US Dollar is the measuring stick. Right? So it's like if we're using Fahrenheit as, as degrees, right? Then until that gets replaced by another system, then we can't really use the comparison because that's still our standard measurement stick. But that's always been the case that bitcoin enthusiasts has said that as soon, at one point in time, bitcoin will become the standard, because at one point in time, gold was the standard. The US Dollar is pretty much the standard for the world now. So measuring things off of the dollar is kind of the only way that we can really have a set understanding on how money works. Right. But I guess you're saying that in the future you're projecting that bitcoin will become the standard and you're. You have a head start and replacing the measurement value because you're already using bitcoin as a measurement of value as opposed to the dollar, even though the dollar is what we're currently using.
- [51:34]
Earners
Yeah. So, okay, so what I'll say is I don't look at this like a future thing, right. I look at this as like a right now thing. And the reason I say that is because everyone who's living on a bitcoin standard, their cost of living is getting cheaper right now, right? So I'm not saying that, hey, if you store your money in bitcoin, that it's going to be. It's going to make your cost of living go lower in the future. It's happening right now. So one way to look at it is bitcoin's going up. Another way to look at it is everything that I could buy with this bitcoin is getting cheaper right right now. Like, so. So that's one thing. Another thing is I think where people kind of like, like maybe let these two worlds collide is that they look at bitcoin as replacing the dollar, right? So then they say, well, I can't buy anything with my bitcoin or whatever, you know, but there's capital and there's currency, right? So if you look at bitcoin, like digital capital. So if it's digital capital, if I have a machine that, that makes lab created diamonds, that's capital, right? But if I have the dollar as currency, both of those are valuable. So I think people are looking at these two worlds as colliding. When you're saying, hey, if you're still you can go create the dollar however you want to, or you can go mine fiat currency or however you want to, whether that's trading stocks or you play in the NBA or whatever the case is. But then if you're using bitcoin as like a measure, like a, a way of storing your money like a savings account, then you'll start to realize that what you're able to buy is just growing and growing and growing and growing. So I don't, I don't tell people like, hey, the, in the future, everything will get cheaper against bitcoin because it's happening now, right? So if you bought one, one Bitcoin at 10,000 and now it's a hundred thousand, if you were to convert it back to dollars, you can buy 10 times more things, maybe a little bit less than 10 times because the cost of things have went up too. But maybe you could buy eight times more things. So another way to put it is that if you measure things in bitcoin right now, you'll get, you'll be able to see that things are getting cheaper. So imagine valuing your property in bitcoin, right? So when I bought my house in Vegas, it was $530,000, but in Bitcoin was 10 grand at the time. So that would have cost me 53 bitcoin, right? So as bitcoin goes up in value, right then the dollar, the dollar is also making the value of my house grow. So now my house is worth $800,000. But if I'm looking at it in bitcoin terms, this house used to cost 53 bitcoin and now it only costs 8 bitcoin. So it got cheaper amongst bitcoin. So if I have a stash of bitcoin and I'm like, hey, now I want to go buy a house, that house has now just became cheaper because instead of reaching in my pocket or in my, in my wallet and buying, spending 53 bitcoin on this house, I waited four years, now I only need to spend eight. And if I reach out in the future, maybe it's only going to cost me two bitcoin. Does that make any sense?
- [54:40]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, it feels like that. That's the argument for the use case. So when people say, hey, what's the use case for it? This feels like that's the argument right there. Right? It's a stored valued for future, you know, acquisition.
- [54:53]
Earners
Yep, exactly. So it's just, it's just growing your purchasing power. That's why I say I'm saving in bitcoin. I'm not investing in bitcoin, I'm saving in bitcoin. Because ultimately you want your purchasing power to go up. That's the name of this whole game, right? So your dollars going up doesn't matter if you can't buy more things, right? So I also say you don't want more money, you want more purchasing power. Two different concepts, right? So if the, if, if you buy a house for $500,000 and then 10 years later, it's worth a million dollars. So you're like, okay, I have an extra $500,000. Let me cash out so I can put some of this money in my pocket. Right? Now, when you go buy, when you go on the market to look for a similar house, every other house is also a million dollars, right? So now you don't have any more purchasing power. So your dollar went up or your, your money went up in the nominal value. In the actual number, it went from 500 to 1 million. But what you can buy is the same exact thing. Now, you would have more purchasing power if your specific house went to a million and every other house went to 750. Now there's this spread. So you have more purchasing power, right? So now you can buy that house and put some of the money in your property or in your pocket. But what ends up happening is we put more money into the economy. The, the assets inflate the same way the cost of living in place, assets inflate as well, right? So if they mark your house up from 500 to 1 million, now you got to pay more property taxes. Now your, your insurance company is going to say, hey, your house used to be worth 500,000, now it's worth a million. We're going to increase your premium on your insurance because if a roof breaks now, you know the value of the house is more expensive. It's going to cost a little bit more to replace the roof. So now what you're looking at is somebody who's probably like, on a salary that used to pay X, Y and Z for their mortgage or for their property taxes, that is growing and growing and growing, and it's eating at your purchasing power. So on one hand you say, hey, my house is going up in value, but actually you're getting poor. If that makes, when you're with Amex.
- [56:56]
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- [57:25]
Chris Johnson
Since quick question for you. How influential was Michael Saylor on your strategy and making this adjustment? And what are like two or three books? Because I've been seeing you post research that had a profound impact on you that people can read tonight to like, change the way that they view, because this is really like the ultimate currency trade, if you will.
- [57:46]
Earners
Yep.
- [57:46]
Chris Johnson
What are two books that have been impactful for you?
- [57:48]
Earners
All right, so Michael Saylor is pretty impactful. I would say Jeff Booth was probably the most impactful. So Jeff. Jeff Booth wrote a book called the Price of Tomorrow. And he wrote this book before he became a bitcoiner. And basically what this book is saying is that if the free market is done right, if capitalism is done right, then prices should be falling. Right? So, for example, if I have. If you guys make TVs, if earning your leisure makes TVs, and the wealth squad makes TVs and we're getting the same manufacturer, somebody's gonna have to cut their prices, right? Because if you say, hey, well, we make the same TVs, but mine's cheaper, then we're gonna attract more people then someone else, some third party is gonna come and say, we make the TV even better and it's cheaper. So then the prices are just going to fall to compete for customers, right? So you're looking at it like, okay, in a free market, we should be. Companies or corporations should be competing for, you know, this. This market. And one of the measurements of competition is, hey, I got better prices. I have a better product or better prices. So the cost should be falling. And one of the reasons why the cost isn't falling is because we keep putting more dollar units in the entire system. So it's called the Price of Tomorrow. That book is very, very, very good. Right? So that was a. There's a book called thank God for Bitcoin. For everybody watching this, that's probably like the best beginner book.
- [59:12]
Chris Johnson
Beginner's book, yeah.
- [59:14]
Earners
And it says, thank God for bitcoin, but don't think it's anything like crazy. So what it is is basically saying you kind of have this biblical duty to be a good steward of your money, right? And the system that we live in right now is hurting your ability to do that. Right? So thank God for Bitcoin. The Price of Tomorrow gradually then Subtly by Parker Lewis. That was good. And then, of course, the bitcoin standard. Those are kind of four books that are very good. The Bitcoiners that I like. Like I said, Michael Saylor is great. I love Jeff Booth. I love Jeff Booth a lot. His whole thing, his whole concept about prices fall to the marginal cost of production, right? Everything should be getting cheaper in a free market if we're competing. But they can't because of the inflation thing. Those two guys, man, look those guys up.
- [60:10]
Troy Millings
So you believe in bitcoin, obviously, on a very, you know, core level. Not just as a way to make money. You believe in it in a systematic way. Like the same way like a Michael Saylor believes in it, or, you know, all of these guys that really, really, you know, believe in it. But why don't you believe in altcoins?
- [60:29]
Earners
Okay, so I know every answer. I gotta go in this long rant. My bad. Y'all rock out.
- [60:37]
Ian Dunlap
So don't worry, man. We control the time.
- [60:40]
Earners
Look, this is. This is why. So what's happening right now is the Federal Reserve creates the dollar, right? And they're able. They have this crazy ability like a genie, to just create a dollar out of nowhere, right? And then we're forced to use that dollar, right? So we're exchanging. But we can't create the dollar out of nowhere. We have to go work for it, right? So I have to go spend my time, energy, effort, and resources to try to get a dollar, right? So I go get the dollar, and I'm storing my money in the dollar, and then they just print more of it. So that, in turn makes me a little more poor, right? They're diluting the dollar, okay? So the basic concept that somebody is creating something out of thin air, and I'm trading my precious time for that thing, right? And we kind of understand that on a fundamental level. And. And we. We understand that. That's why we get our money out of cash and we put it into assets. So we understand this. Like, you can't hold the dollar. You will become poor, right? You. Your purchasing power will erode if you're holding the dollar. Now, if I think that's unfair, if I believe that it's unfair that somebody can create this currency out of thin air and force me to use it, and then they get a print, as much of it as possible, then imagine a cryptocurrency. So if me and my homies come together and we just create this token out of thin air, right? We create the token. We pay influencers, we pay YouTubers, we pay these people to go promote it or we make all these promises and they say, hey, in the future we're going to do X, Y and Z. This coin has this utility, right? And then your viewers are like, yo, I believe in Chris's coin, yada yada yada. They're making that same exchange. They're taking their hard earned money that they spent their precious time for in exchange for something I've created out of thin air. Now if I'm holding some of that, if I'm holding some of that supply myself, and then as everybody buys in, buys and buys and buys in, buys in, the supply I'm holding now goes up in value. So instead of, in the traditional business world, you have to sell a product, a service, information, you have to do something in exchange for money. But in the case of altcoins, you just create the coin, promise a bunch of things, and then these people are believers in the coin, right? So then what happens is I just got wealthier by issuing this token, maybe paying for some promotion, maybe I actually do something, who knows? What I'm saying is I don't even want to make that gamble to be able to have to trust this person or trust that person, right? So I used to be a big Ethereum guy and I started realizing, well, the ethereum network owns 30% of the supply. So you issue something and then you keep it and as we buy it, you get wealthier. And then that's how you're sponsoring corporate events, that's how you sponsor all these other things. So then going back to the traditional world in like stocks, why doesn't Apple have a token, right? They have to make their money by selling products, by selling services, right? So Apple has to go the long route and say, hey, it takes us money to buy these chips or to buy this material or to do this and do this. So there's this traditional flow of I'm buying things, I'm creating things, it's of use, it's of value. Now if you want to swap your money for this thing. Okay, cool, right? So what I've realized is in the cryptocurrency community or the space people have basically found a way to fast track finding the liquidity. So if you guys have a startup idea and you guys come to, to like, let's say you come to me for example, and you're like, hey, we need funding, blah, blah, I might be an early seed, like I might catch, you know, early round. So then you have to go into the market and you have to, you know, find your product market fit. You have to say, hey, this company, this, this product solves this solution. We're competing against these guys, blah, blah, blah, right? And then that' working, you're growing, you're getting market share and then you turn and say we're going to go public. So when you go public now, that gives the early investors me an opportunity to get out, right? Because we need some liquidity from the stock market. That's a long process, right? So how long from when Uber was created until they went public. And that might be kind of on the quicker terms. Now if I'm a cryptocurrency, I can go from the idea to the liquidity immediately. I can create a coin and put it out into the world and keep some of the supply in an hour, right? So people who realize this and they, they're going to capitalize on our thirst to get rich quick. So we're gonna buy it, hoping that it goes up, not realizing, man, you're just exit liquidity for the developers and their friends. So that's why I don't want to have to trust anybody.
- [65:39]
Ian Dunlap
It's a perfect segue to where I was going to go next in that there's a lot of people that have now becoming new to the cryptocurrency space. Obviously, as we, we saw it climb over the past six months, new investors and new people who are trying to create savings from it. It brings up the issue of security. And so we've been in the space for a few years, probably six, seven years now. We've seen FTX collapse. I actually had Cryptotopia the day it no longer existed. So how do you feel about security inside the crypto space now, specifically with bitcoin? Do you feel like we've gotten to a point where we've gotten some of these fake exchanges out of here. It's becoming a safer place. And I mean, if you want to.
- [66:20]
Earners
Talk about that, okay, so it goes back to trust, the concept of trust, right? So when you're buying your crypto on let's say Coinbase, let's say you're buying your Bitcoin on Coinbase, right? You don't actually have the bitcoin itself, right. So your bitcoin isn't actually on Coinbase or it actually isn't on something like a treasure, for example. It's stored in the blockchain and then you have a secret phrase that only you know to get access to it, right? So you're giving up that secret phrase because they're holding your bitcoin, right? So what happens is it's like parking your car in somebody else's garage, right? So you have to trust. There becomes like a line of trust. I have to trust that these people, I'm storing my car in their garage are paying their lease, right? So Coinbase itself, they have to be good actors, right? And I don't even want to have to pick who's a good actor and who's not, right? So I don't even have to trust Coinbase. I don't have to trust Kraken, I don't have to trust Robin, I don't have to trust anybody. So I bought because you remember when the, you guys remember when the FTX thing was going on, they were painting Sam Bankman fraud to be the next Warren Buffett. And that's building our trust. Yeah, like, yeah, this guy isn't gonna do anything. Look at him. You know they had that YouTube video like this guy's a billionaire and drives a Toyota Corolla. Like, you know, and it's kind of, they're just playing on people's trust. So in this case, we were all putting our money into ftx, buying the bitcoin in hopes that they would turn and actually buy the bitcoin. And they weren't. So you give them money and your screen, the number on your screen says that you own X amount of bitcoin. But in reality they went behind your back and they start trading the money. And it worked until it didn't. So this whole thing comes down to like being trustless. I don't want to have to trust anyone, all right? I don't have to trust Coinbase, Robin Hood, Kraken. So I can use these exchanges to buy my bitcoin, but then I'm going to take self custody, I'm going to put it on a treasure, I'm going to put it on a ledger, I'm going to put it on a cold wallet, I'm going to put it into a multi signature vault like CASA or like Unchained. And these are all open source so people can verify. Like, hey, like we ran all our security things, right? Like I don't want anybody to be able to say, hey, I'm taking your bitcoin from you or sorry, we got hacked. So you lost your bitcoin, right? So the phrase is not your keys, not your coin. When you have something like a treasure, for example, they generate your private key for you, right? They don't know your private key, they just, they generate it for you, that's on you to keep it yourself. And that's kind of counterintuitive for how we're used to storing our assets and how we're used to storing our wealth. I just keep my stocks with, with JP Morgan or I just keep my stocks with, with bank of America. Right. Or whatever with E Trade. So this is a different ball game. This is me saying I'm going to be in charge of my wealth. I'm going to store my wealth because I don't trust anybody. I don't, I don't know Brian Armstrong. I don't know what this guy does. I don't know what he eats for breakfast. And I'm not putting my daughter's future in his hands. I'll take self custody.
- [69:30]
Chris Johnson
So really quick when you know you're my guy, but I saw the taxes we can come. When you say everything else is a distraction, can you kind of, even though you think bitcoin is a better investment vehicle, can you explain your process of not wanting to put any, any capital going forward into stocks and that you're not being erratic? Because the thing I didn't like, and I'm glad that you're here, the attacks became too aggressive, as if you never invested in stocks before it had the public. So I want you to clear it up.
- [70:04]
Earners
Yeah. And I'll start off by saying this. Some of these attacks are because people believe that it's me versus them. Right. So especially if you're right, you. Because you're stuck. If you're a stock trader and Chris says he doesn't like the stock market anymore, you start to feel like it's you versus Chris. Right?
- [70:23]
Chris Johnson
Yeah.
- [70:23]
Earners
So then especially if you were talking down on bitcoin or you missed the bull run and now everybody's talking about it and you feel like you need to speak down upon bitcoin, but in reality you're taking shots at Chris. Chris is not the creator of bitcoin. Right. If my worst enemy in this world was advocating for bitcoin, I'd be like, yo, I don't rock with bro. But he knows what he's talking about, right? So that, that's, I don't take it personal. And I realize that they do. They think it's my strategy versus Christian strategy. I didn't create bitcoin, bro. I'm just leading the people that I'm leading to the lake. Feel me? So that's one thing. The other thing is the reason why I say everything is a distraction is because you just need to price it in bitcoin and realize that it's not growing. That's. It's that simple, right? So if I think that bitcoin is the benchmark for my money, for my wealth, right, I'm saying I've calculated what the volatility is and what the risk is. And me putting my money here, I know about what the returns would be, right? If something cannot beat the returns, when you calculate the risk that it took to generate the returns as well, right? Because you can't. Some people would just throw their money in a random coin and then it goes up 3,000% and you go, why would I put my money in the S P500 when this is just generated 3,000%? Because you're not. It's. It's financial maturity. You're not calculating the risk that that thing could have went to zero, right? So that's kind of like the gambler's mentality. But the reason why I say, like, okay, bitcoin is my standard. If I do not believe something will outgrow bitcoin without more risk, there's no point of me touching it, right? So the thing with, like, all these other coins and stuff, and I do believe some of these cryptos have like. Like utility and things like that, right? So I do believe that I And verify that. That these blockchains, like. Like Ethereum or Salana generate fees, right? Like, I can go see the block fees or see the fees for, like, you know, with their generator and whatever. So I do believe they have some utility. But what I'm saying is, if it's not growing against bitcoin, to me, it's not growing, right? So I might look at something that I believe will outpace bitcoin and say, maybe I'll consider putting my money there. Now, when I say that if it's not grown against bitcoin, it's not growing, I don't mean that bitcoin is up, let's say for this year or for the last 12 months, it's up 154%, right? I'm not saying go look at the last 12 months and something else did 3,000%. And you say, oh, that's outpacing bitcoin. No, go price that thing in bitcoin to see where it's growing. Because what happens is you missed the bulk of the run over the last two years, and now that dormant money that was sitting flat in that other coin, now it spikes up and you're just measuring like, hey, look, this spiked. And I'm saying it would have. Your money would have already moved with bitcoin with far less risk. So that's what that's about. Bitcoin is my benchmark. The same way that somebody else is, like Ian, for example, you might tell somebody like, hey, if it can't beat the S P500, why would you invest in it? Right? That's the way that I view bitcoin. If it's not gonna. If it's not going to beat bitcoin, why am I touching it? Right.
- [73:30]
Chris Johnson
Yeah. From your calculation, what's the average drawdown and average return that you're looking at to help them understand why you're so pro bitcoin as well?
- [73:39]
Earners
Okay, so a drawdown. The worst drawdowns that we'll have are like 80%, right? And I. What I want people to understand is that risk and volatility are two different things, right? Risk and volatility are two different things. They can be correlated at some point, but they're not the same thing. So for example, if I take my kid to the amusement park and she wants to get on a roller coaster, and the roller coaster goes up and down, up and down, up and down. That's volatility, right? So she says, hey, dad, can I ride that ride? And I'm like, no, it's too risky. No, it's volatile. It's not risky. Risk would be, people are dying on this thing. People are getting stuck on this thing. People are losing their personal belongings on this thing. That's the risk. Volatility is something different, right? So. So I've gotten to the point where I see my wealth like this. I'm measuring my wealth in bitcoin. So if bitcoin were to fall, so let's say I'm worth 10 bitcoin and bitcoin falls 50, I have the opportunity to add to my stack for half the cost, right? So the volatility works in your favor. It works in your favor because you can add more, cheaper. If it only went straight up, you wouldn't. We wouldn't have any entries, right? We wouldn't have any. So you need the volatility. You need. You need the volatility. And then another thing, too, that I would like you guys as viewers to know is that the reason why it is so volatile is because it's not in a controlled system, right? So on Sunday night, somebody can sell their bitcoin or they could buy bitcoin, right? So if one country bombs another country and everyone thinks that we're going to war you're going to sell the thing that gives you the liquidity to fast, right? So that might be bitcoin. I can just go sell some bitcoin right now and get my money and say hey, I'm, I'm preparing for World War three, right? Excuse me, but if it's Saturday night and you're panicking and you want to do that, you can't sell Disney stock Saturday night. So the stock market is in a system that kind of prevents a lot of the fluctuation, right? So it's not that other things aren't volatile or risky or in bitcoin. Is this its own thing? It's a free market. You can get the, the liquidity as quick as you want. So like I was saying, that plays in your favor because you'll be able to get entries. So I missed, I missed putting a lot of money in into bitcoin. That first run up to 69,000. All the fraud, all the, all the BS that happened in the market sent it right back down. I'm like, shoot, this is my opportunity. I wouldn't have the opportunity without the volatility.
- [76:13]
Troy Millings
So before we read. But you do, you do invest in stocks and one stock in particular, Micro Strategy. I saw that you were advocating for that. And so I heard Michael Saylor talk about how it has even more volatility than bitcoin, but it follows bitcoin. So he was like his standpoint, it's like kind of a no brainer if you believe in bitcoin because it's like if you can get something that it kind of tracks bitcoin in as a way of kind of like how I bit would, but different because the volatility is, is more, even more than bitcoin, right. So especially for like even on an options trade where. So that was his case and his, the stock has done tremendously well. So you, you've been buying Micro Strategy, right? So which, what, what, what's the deal with micro strategy and your thesis on this?
- [77:06]
Earners
Okay, so here's my whole get down with micro Strategy. So what you're able to do with Micro strategy or what he's able to do is he's able. And I say he. You guys, I'm talking about Michael Saylor. He's able to borrow money at a cheaper rate and for a longer period of time than I can, right? So if I needed quick access to money in order to leverage my bitcoin bet, the risk that I'm going to take personally to get that money is a lot different. Than the risk that this company can take. It's a corporation, they have a good track record. So there's three different ways that he's using other people's money in order to get bitcoin or to get leverage on the bitcoin, right? If you can get leverage on the bitcoin when bitcoin moves, then you'll have more volatility, you'll have a better return, right? So one, he can borrow against the corporation's operation, right? So they're a software company, sell software solution services, right? So if this company is making or this part of their business is making $500 million a year and they go get a loan that's going to require them to pay $50 million a year, they can service the debt pretty easily. Now they'll just take that money and go buy bitcoin directly. So one, that's something that they can do that I can't do as efficiently. Two, they can issue shares so they can die their shareholders in order to generate money to go buy more bitcoin, right? So my company is not a publicly traded company, right? So when the, the, the price of micro Strategy has grown too far in comparison to the assets they own, which is bitcoin, then he's able to sell some of those shares into the market, capture that money that he just got by people buying the shares, and then instantly going to buy bitcoin, right? And that's going to send the price of the stock right back up because you're going to say, oh, well, they own more bitcoin. This is a proxy for bitcoin. So that's the second way they're able to do it. The third way they're able to do it is convertible bonds. So there's the equity market and then there's the bond market. So the bond market, they can't just say, hey, I'm buying Apple shares or I'm going to buy Micro strategy or I'm going to buy this or that. They got to buy bonds, right? So what he's able to do is issue bonds and then take that money that, that he got from issuing the bonds and buy more bitcoin. Now it works out for the bond holder because there's a lot of volatility that can get them more money. So for example, let's say microstrategy, hypothetically is, is selling for 300 and then they, it's a convertible mom, which means it can convert into equity. It, they can get the shares, right? So if the price of Micro strategy goes from 300 to 600. Now these bond holders can say, hey, we don't want to hold the bonds anymore, we'll take the shares. So it's kind of like a call option to the upside, right? So hey, if this thing takes off, I'm going to take these shares. If this thing falls, I don't need to take them, right? So it's a lot of upside and they limited the downside.
- [80:02]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, like a warrant, I was gonna say.
- [80:05]
Chris Johnson
Yeah, like a warrant.
- [80:07]
Earners
Yeah, exactly. Yep. So I don't, so I don't need to take the downside. On top of that, I can also sell some shares short to protect my downside. So this guy has these three different vehicles that helps his company get more bitcoin, right? And then, and it just becomes like a, like a self fulfilling prophecy, if you will. Like I create, I, I borrow money, buy bitcoin. People see the value of my company based on how many bitcoin I have. The, the stock price goes up, I'll sell that spread into the market, take the money and buy more bitcoin. Now this is, I am buying into this company, right? But this company is 2% or it's like 1.3% actually of my bitcoin holdings, right? So if you were to compare how much I have in bitcoin, how much I have in micro Strategy, it's like 1.3%. I'll work my way to 5%. The reason is trust. It's all boils down to trust. When you invest into the stock market, you do not realize how many, how much trust you're putting into the board of directors and putting into their operation system, into the market, into the government to regulate this company or prevent monopoly. We don't kind of realize these things, right? Nor do I. Again like, I'm like paranoid at this point. I don't want to trust anyone with my family's wealth, right? So I'll give him some, some of the money because I believe that, you know, he has a good strategy. I completely understand this thing. But again, like one of my famous sayings is only the paranoid survive. So you only get a little stack of my wealth, right? And that's what I'm willing to lose. Everything else that I'm not willing to lose goes into the vault.
- [81:44]
Ian Dunlap
Interesting when we talk about technicals because I've been watching you for years and just your technical analysis is supreme. Michael, Strategy just bought 22,000 more Bitcoin at 98,000, which is one of those things we tell people, don't Invest at the highs we've seen in 2017, Crypto Winter, we saw in 22 a nice pullback. It feels like we're in the bill market now. Do you see Fair Tory or that quote unquote crypto winter coming in the near future? And if so, how do we navigate through that?
- [82:18]
Earners
Yeah, eventually, eventually people are going to sell off. So that's kind of like the risk that you're taking whenever you put your money into a pool of things that other people have their money into. Right. So you don't know when someone's going to take profits. You don't know when someone's going to sell to, to lock in their gains like funds gotta, you know, actually provide a return for their customers, things like that. Right. So eventually there will be a sell off. Now when do I think this happens? Probably after next summer. I think that the rules of like, I think there's two different paradigms going on, right? You have like the bitcoin paradigm and then you have like how we look at traditional assets and I think at first they mirror themselves a lot. They mirror each other a lot. And I think eventually what's going to happen is we're going to break the correlation. And why, I think we break the correlation and when we break the correlation, I, I don't see any more 80 drawdowns or 60 drawdowns.
- [83:13]
Chris Johnson
Yeah, that's done.
- [83:15]
Earners
Yeah, exactly. I, I believe that totally because I think that it's the nature of the buyer that's different. So if, if BlackRock is buying up all these bitcoin on behalf of their customers, these aren't the people that are going to sell. Right. Or if Micro Strategy is buying up all the bitcoin and then they're using leverage to even speed up the process. This, these aren't sellers. Right. So I think what happens is the people who are, who are gaining more and more Bitcoin are the types of people that will hold. So then when the selling, you, you guys know, like selling creates more selling, Buying creates more buying. Right. So when there's not large sellers or the large selling slows down, then I think the pullbacks become less volatile. So this is why I used to look at charts and say, oh, I'm gonna wait for a pullback. And I think late 2022 or even early 2023, I was waiting for Bitcoin to retest 20 and I had, you know, some money to, to deploy and then it didn't test it and just kept running. And then that's when I started to put two and two together, I'm like. Because this is like game theory, and there's a race to get as much bitcoin for the lowest price possible. If I buy right now and it goes down, who cares? I buy more, you know, So I kind of even stopped looking at the chart. So, yes, I believe that there's going to be a crypto winner. I believe that bitcoin will go into a bear market again. But I just think the bear market looks different. 1. And then the second thing I want to say is, let's say people right now are like, yeah, bitcoin's too high at 100,000. I think that I'm gonna wait for the next pullback. Well, imagine bitcoin runs to 220 and then the pullbacks 160, and you could have been buying 400. You know what I'm saying? So I started looking at it like that too. Like, don't think that I wouldn't, you know, bet that we go back down to 50 or wherever people are predicting. So I think buying the dip will change drastically as we move forward in bitcoin.
- [85:12]
Chris Johnson
And there's always a lot of talk about the crypto winter, but not enough consideration about the crypto summer.
- [85:18]
Earners
Yeah.
- [85:18]
Chris Johnson
And how far with the hedge funds being involved in it, how far it's going to run up. Like you said, I don't think we're going to have 70% drawdown, 65% drawdowns anymore, because the liquidity pool is been stacked amongst Vanguard, State street, blackrock. I don't think we'll have those dips anymore.
- [85:38]
Earners
I agree. I also believe that people should visualize this like, you have unlimited amount of dollars, right. You have unlimited amounts of dollars flowing into this asset. That's, that's finite, right? So it's like if you turn this water faucet back here on, that would be the dollar, right? So bitcoin would be putting a balloon, one balloon in there. And you say, hey, as long as that faucet stays on, this balloon will expand. So I, I, I think people kind of have a hard time seeing that because they still look at bitcoin like a stock, right? So you're looking at bitcoin like a stock. But a corporation can issue more shares and dilute you. You can't make any more units of bitcoin, right? So you just got this water faucet flop flowing into this balloon. And the bigger the balloon gets, the safer it gets. So I think that's something, it's a paradigm shift.
- [86:29]
Troy Millings
Well Chris, I want to thank you for coming on my bro. Before we leave, the ten million dollar question. Where, where do you see bitcoin going price wise? Michael Saylor, I heard him say $13 million. We had Mike Novogradz, he said, you know, two 250s, the next target and then eventually a million, A million dollar. I feel like it's a hundred thousand. We've talked about a hundred thousand years ago, like 100,000 has been a benchmark and then 500, 000 has been a benchmark and then a million. I've like these numbers of 13 million. I haven't heard those numbers before, but yeah, what's, what's your. Yeah.
- [87:08]
Earners
Okay, so how soon do you want to know? Like you want to know?
- [87:13]
Troy Millings
Let's do 10 and 12 in years.
- [87:15]
Chris Johnson
Okay, that's even better.
- [87:16]
Troy Millings
10 and 20.
- [87:18]
Earners
10 to 20 years. 10 million.
- [87:22]
Troy Millings
10 million in 20 years or 10 years.
- [87:26]
Earners
I think we get there before 2034 that 10 years. So you guys watching this? I want you to consider this. One thing that I would like to say is the having cycles, right? So what the having cycles do is every day there's X amount of bitcoin that are mined, right? So you're bringing bitcoin into circulation. These miners have to sell bitcoin in order to fund their operation, right? So naturally you have a seller every single day in the market. A seller every single day in the market. So when the bitcoin halves and the, the daily supply of bitcoin falls in half, the selling pressure also falls in half, right? So as more and more buyers are buying into bitcoin, you get half of the sellers, right? So more buyers than sellers, the price goes up. This is why after the havings we have these booms. Two havings ago Bitcoin was at 600. So we go from 600 to a $69,000 Bitcoin in two halving cycles, right? So we had a having this year, right? Now what we're feeling is the run up from this happening, right? So the having, I think the price of bitcoin is like around 40,000. So we still haven't felt the run up from this having. So we'll say that we still have this having, then we have the next having in 2028, right? Run up should be 2029. And then we have another having in 2032, right. And then the run up should be 2033, right? So in two having cycles with everyday Joe Smoke people buying, we go from 69,000, I mean 6, 600 to 69,000. Now you put the institutional investors in there, you put the corporations in there, you put governments in there that are now buying and planning to hold for the long run. Three having cycles from now. I see a ten million dollar bitcoin.
- [89:09]
Ian Dunlap
So that, that's right in line. That's right in line with kind of what Sailor was saying. He had it at 13. He said by 2049 he saw it at almost 40 million. Which is like, I mean based on that theory, it doesn't sound like it's impossible.
- [89:27]
Earners
Imagine that you guys are from New York, right? So imagine somebody telling you that the rent of an apartment is going to be $5,000. But imagine them saying this in the 70s, say hey one day people are going to pay $5,000 for rent and let's say the average rent back there for a nice spot is 700, 800. That's hard to imagine. But then consider all the money's going to keep flowing in. People want to live in pristine property. And it's kind of hard to see the future because we just see the present moment moving forward. We don't see that.
- [89:56]
Troy Millings
I think, I think it's also about how you look at it. Like if you're looking at it from a stock standpoint then it's like. But if you look at it like, like that's how he. I've heard like the Crip because I've been studying crypto for a while. But gold has always been a comparison. So gold, I think I'm looking at your post 17 trillion dollar asset and Bitcoin is $1.7 trillion. So if you look at it from that standpoint of if it ever really becomes the new gold in that standpoint, right? As far as then it's not, it's not as far fetched as it may seem because it's like all right, gold is not going to be 17000 in 10 years. Gold is going to be 30. I mean 17 trillion. Gold's gonna be 30 trillion. Let's say right on 25 trillion. So if it's like, okay, so if it goes for 1 trillion to and it catches gold which would maybe at that time would be 30 trillion, then that's like a 30x where we are now. Right? So yeah, I think it's how, it's how you look at it. As far as, if you're looking at it from like an individual company standpoint, then that might sound like a crazy idea. When, if you're looking at it from like a real commodity currency Standpoint, currency, you know, in the bond market, compared like bonds, is $300 trillion. Yep. So I think, I think it depends on how you look at it.
- [91:08]
Ian Dunlap
Not inconceivable.
- [91:09]
Earners
I, I, I agree, I agree with you, Rashad. So we say 900 trillion bitcoins, 2 trillion out of 900 trillion. But if you project, if you project our growth forward, we're not looking at 900 trillion dollar assets anymore. We're looking at 4 quadrillion of assets. So then Bitcoin just grows to 40 trillion, 50 trillion, 100 trillion out of that. And you're like, yeah, we can't make any more units. And then it's worth 100 trillion. Half these people won't sell. We're going so much higher.
- [91:43]
Ian Dunlap
Because I won't let you go on this. And then you guys find one. As you saw it upper last week, as you saw it approach 1000. And it finally, well, I'm sorry, 100,000. And it finally hit 100,000. I know we saw, I saw the memes, I saw the post, but was there a sense of gratification or was like, I knew this was happening. We're about to go on another run. What was that feeling like? Because there's been doubt around bitcoin. You've been adamant about it. Like I said, your conviction has been strong. What was that moment like for you?
- [92:11]
Earners
The most rewarding part is it validates your research. Right? So it's kind of like I can see through this system and I know I'm not tripping. And as the price goes higher, you're like, yeah, I've seen this. This is like the research I was doing in, in the summer of 2022. Now you're like, hey, that night paid off. That weekend paid off. You know, so I think, and I say this all the time, like I'm a very curious person. I encourage you guys to stay curious. And what ends up happening is as a result of your knowledge, of your effort, of your skill and of your courage, you get wealthier. So you're like, damn, I was right. And being right almost feels better than, you know, making the money. Like, making the money is dope, but because I'm not going to sell it, then it's like, all right, cool, you know, like, I see the portfolio number. That's dope. I'm not going to sell it. I'll be, you know, I'll feel a little better when we go higher.
- [93:03]
Chris Johnson
My final question for you tonight, on a macro scale, if the dollar is falling apart into an Oblivion and down, what, 96% since the 40s. Is Bitcoin the ultimate hedge against BRICS? Because I don't think that's talked about enough.
- [93:20]
Earners
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I think that. I think bricks will. Will adopt bitcoin. Did you see.
- [93:28]
Chris Johnson
Really? Okay, yeah.
- [93:29]
Earners
Did you see Putin's comments on bitcoin, like, four days ago?
- [93:33]
Chris Johnson
I got a little. I got a theory about how much you may have. I've been had that for a couple. Okay, yeah.
- [93:39]
Troy Millings
Michael Saylor was saying that in with the rug, essentially, it's going to be.
- [93:42]
Earners
Like a rug, like, dump all the gold on everyone.
- [93:46]
Troy Millings
Yeah.
- [93:46]
Earners
Because if America is holding all this gold and then we dump it on the market, we're basically the world leaders and we're saying this thing is useless. Now what do they do? What's their move behind it? That's Michael Saylor's thinking.
- [93:57]
Troy Millings
And then they got. Then they got to buy bitcoin then if we buy all the bitcoin now.
- [94:02]
Chris Johnson
In advance of the hedge. That's interesting. Okay, so.
- [94:05]
Earners
So Putin the other day says that, like, oh, yeah, like, you know, who can stop bitcoin? Nobody can stop, shut down bitcoin, you know, and you're like, there's people here in America that think that, you know, like, the government can press a button and stop bitcoin. And you're like, this is a dictator telling you nobody can stop it. You know, so I'm not sure about how the brick, the bricks thing is going to work, man, but I do see them adopting bitcoin. I see those company, those countries adopting bitcoin. And what I will say is, if you have a stack of bitcoin, and now these countries start playing the bitcoin game, and who's going to get bitcoin the fastest? Who's going to sell oil to get bitcoin? Who's going to print money to get bitcoin? Who's going to sold. Sell their gold to get bitcoin. Once they start this race and you're sitting here with, you know, your bitcoin stack, and you just rise up and rise up, and you grow so much more wealthier as these countries play their political games.
- [94:59]
Troy Millings
Chris. Thank you, my brother. Appreciate you, man. Anything. Anything you want to tell the audience?
- [95:05]
Earners
Nah, man, I don't got nothing else to say. Y'all do y'all research, man. Stay curious.
- [95:12]
Chris Johnson
I appreciate you, bro. We gotta get up. I'll see you at a game soon, but we gotta get up. Every time I play the Game. I'll see Chris somewhere. Front row. You know what I mean?
- [95:24]
Earners
Yeah. All right, man. You guys, thank you so much for having me.
- [95:27]
Troy Millings
So, you know, it's good conversation, because I feel like it's. It's more so. It's. It's. Anybody could just say. Anybody.
- [95:36]
Ian Dunlap
Hold on. Chris, you good?
- [95:38]
Earners
Thanks.
- [95:39]
Chris Johnson
Yep. Thank you, boss.
- [95:42]
Troy Millings
I feel like it was a great conversation because I feel like anybody can just say, you know, buy bitcoin as a trade. More people are looking at it from a trade standpoint, but, you know. Yeah, I think he looked at it more from, like, a belief standpoint, and that's what all of, like, the Michael Sailors and the Tom Lees and those type of guys. Like, it's not just about making money. Like, they really have a strong conviction that bitcoin is going to do good in the world, change the world will be. You know, the future is the present. Now, the way we look at his standard measurements, all that type of stuff, like, you could agree or not agree with it, but I just think that that's. That's a good perspective to come from. From something if you believe in it, as opposed to. This is just the opportunity just to make money real quick. And that's why, like, the whole thing became such a big thing in the bitcoin community, because people don't really look at it like. Like, they. Like the true bitcoin is. They're like, I'm never gonna sell. Like, it's. You don't sell, like, bitcoin. Right. And. And that's kind of hard for people to understand. Like, what's the point? That's the whole point. To make money and sell. So I think he. You know, he's definitely convicted, and what he. And what he believes in and has done, obviously a lot of studying on it. And, yeah, I feel. I feel like it was a good. Good to have him on to get, you know, perspective. And like I said, for the audience, is up to you guys to make an intelligent decision for yourself. We would never tell you what to do, but it is good to get different points of views, opinions. We got to get Michael Saylor up here as well, because, you know, I've been watching him a lot, and his conviction is on. I don't know if anybody's more convicted than him.
- [97:12]
Ian Dunlap
Oh, man. And he's put the money behind it, the conviction, so it's tough to argue.
- [97:17]
Troy Millings
And he got filthy rich off of it.
- [97:19]
Ian Dunlap
He did. And I. I agree with you when listening to Chris, just hearing the perspective, it's like anytime you get to have an intelligent conversation, I feel like that's what just happened. Like this is just super intelligent conversation but a different perspective. And so what got me to think, I'm like, well that that that makes sense and I understand that the use case is important, right? Like we always look like what we gonna use it for, what we gonna use it for. And he kind of flipped the script on wait. It's not that you're looking at it the wrong way, which I thought was, was, was pretty insightful. But that research part, like he's talking about two, almost three years ago, the research that he was doing is now beginning to pay off. And so sometimes we look at investing especially in stocks and you know, we do options and futures and it's like, well I, I, I did like two months, three years of research has now paid off for him in a major way and it's going to continue to pay off from from looks of what bitcoin is going to be able to do in the future.
- [98:06]
Chris Johnson
Three major points. Number one, Kathy Wood has to be given credit for putting bitcoin into major hedge funds as an investment strategy. I think a lot of times. But going back to your point of never selling and for the bitcoin community, and even with you guys, I'll come back to this. The the importance of holding the asset forever. Even when Rashad and Troy go to Ghana, they still are go operate, earn your leisure. I promise you that. And may they may have got the AI to work. Troy got on somebody on the call with Nvidia A. That may be like the Tupac hologram may come out. You know what I mean? But holding the asset for like imagine if Kathy would have just held bitcoin and Tesla and Nvidia from 2018. What should you be shout out to Kathy? Yeah, hit me. Number two, that's what conviction sounds like when you actually do your research. And number three, it doesn't matter what philosophy you believe in. You have to follow your philosophy all the way through. Like I love the fact and me and him have had conversations about this going back two years ago. So I'm happy to see him have his moment. But even When I created 2Tech2 index, people told me it was crazy. Every investment idea that's really good sound like when you guys started the show, it sounded crazy at the time of podcasting to solely focus on African Americans. Home run out the park Soto numbers. Right? Well, hopefully.
- [99:37]
Ian Dunlap
Yo, Ian, I said that's a touch point. Right?
- [99:40]
Chris Johnson
Sorry, sorry. Come on. Sorry. So, but and 20, 000 is a good spot. Y'all can say what y'all want to. Y'all making clips. 20, 000 was a great entry point.
- [99:54]
Ian Dunlap
The, the last thing I, I'll add is that that part when he said that the money is great, it's cool, but the validation of the research is almost even better. Everything, like, because I'm like, when you, you're doing this and like even shouting, like today, he was like, I'm literally reading from the moment I wake up till we start. And I'm like, I'm just reading. I'm just reading. I'm just reading. Just taking information. Taking information.
- [100:16]
Chris Johnson
Yeah.
- [100:17]
Ian Dunlap
But when the information actually transpires to be like, yo, that was right. You were onto something. Like, you went down this rabbit hole and it was for a reason. And it, it does. It is almost as equally as gratifying as like, yeah, the money that's going to come because of what you've already done.
- [100:31]
Chris Johnson
And also, just to be honest, to be black men, like, I was talking to somebody yesterday and they're like, well, how do you feel about the criticism? I'm like, the fact that we got lit to the world off being smart is amazing. We put out no album, had a bunch of hit number ones. But for the fact that we did it in an intellectual lane and be able to do it off, investing is. It's definitely an amazing feeling. So.
- [100:56]
Troy Millings
Yeah, for sure. All right. All right. Well, before we wrap, let's talk about a few different things. We had a micro strategy thing is interesting from a stock standpoint. Okay, okay. Let's talk about sectors to watch the stock price movements.
- [101:18]
Chris Johnson
Anything, of course, anything AI related is very key. Tech is going to be very key. I know there's a lot. Because a lot of money is flowing in. There's some other sectors in the Russell 2000 that are moving really well. I will wait till after March to see if they're still doing incredibly well. It feels like every. Well, it feels like we're back in 2021 where everything is moving and people are getting away from that discipline. The ones that are going to do well, AR related stocks that are in the top four, Healthcare tech, maybe defense in the next two or three years. But don't think because the stock went up a hundred percent or two hundred in the last month that it's going to continue to run. So please be careful. And technically, Bitcoin is a technology I know it gets, but it is programming code, so be mindful. That's still in the tech sector has a user base. Absolutely. And if I was a world leader and I owned a considerable share of that coin, I would say what I said on stage as well. We may talk about it on Blackout, but.
- [102:30]
Troy Millings
So you talked about Kathy Woods. I mean is. Would you invest in Ark?
- [102:39]
Chris Johnson
While I love her investment thesis and strategy in the team there at this current moment, I probably will look at other institutions to primarily put my money into first and foremost. But I do love Kathy was an entire staff dearly invest festival. None of the funds maybe 5% the only thing I would have them change. And there's three things I would love to just talk to her for one hour. The time horizons. She's made a lot of great picks going back to hyper concentration. The biggest flaw in her strategy was too many funds and too short of a time frame window. Like she beat everybody with the thought and the thesis didn't hold long enough and rotated too often. That's when people like well, no rotation does matter. Everybody who got rich, Gates, Zuckerberg, Jensen, they didn't rotate out of. Yeah, this is forced out.
- [103:41]
Ian Dunlap
She has a. The. I mean the strategy is, you know when the asset depreciates to buy more but sometimes she's actually watching the asset go up and sold. But that's why I said all the funds because I was, I was actually looking at RW a couple weeks ago, but it's performed pretty well. It's up 56% is led by obviously Tesla and we saw what happened after the election, but Coinbase and we saw what's right now, what's happening with the cryptocurrency space. But even Roku and Robuck, Roblox, I mean for a company that we talked about when they IPO'd was getting hammered and it says it's had a nice rebound. I think they reported earnings last week and we saw a nice rebound from that company and I think that's 5% of the fund. So there are some companies in there that, you know, they're starting to rebound. Those 20, 21, 2022 stocks that just kind of went on a run. Zoom was in there. They're starting to have a rebound. We spoke about Square earlier. We're starting to see that.
- [104:40]
Chris Johnson
So yeah, Jack, go to Malado, kiss that ring like Zuckerberg did. So you can.
- [104:48]
Ian Dunlap
Talk to.
- [104:50]
Chris Johnson
Absolutely. And also Rockefeller, they had to break up his company and they spun off 34 different companies. He didn't sell his interest. He held until it became a monopoly. Stop looking for a short period of turn Period of time to hold assets that matter even how long y'all gonna do market money. Is this working? Why you. Why you want to sabotage and stop? I hear y'all. Y'all. You go. Y'all gonna leave and break up. It's working.
- [105:17]
Ian Dunlap
Why?
- [105:17]
Chris Johnson
I'm a le skyscraper. This look beautiful. You want me to leave a skyscraper to come to your little oneplex? Oh, no. Never have I ever crazy. Okay. Adam22 sh. What? Hold for the long. Like I know y'all want leather jacket. No. How about you? Leather jacket and holding forever. You need pineapple juice and douche and all that. Why don't you hold for a long period of time? You see that background painting they got this just the casual hangout they had that come from long term holder. How many years have y'all done content? Every day. Sometimes the lessons, right? Yo, what's the secret, dog? Dude, I'm sick right now. Ready to lay down and get some dicks rubbed on me.
- [106:06]
Ian Dunlap
Work rubbed on me.
- [106:09]
Chris Johnson
Shout out to my baby. Miss you. Yo, but you gotta work. If Jordan could have a flu game. What I can show up and do the dog. No, ain't no short shows. Long form content. Casa knots. What?
- [106:21]
Earners
What?
- [106:22]
Chris Johnson
Okay. We gonna live stream next year for real.
- [106:27]
Ian Dunlap
Good old Vapor Time.
- [106:29]
Chris Johnson
Yo, Jensen stock is that. But imagine how many shares he has privately.
- [106:39]
Earners
Elon.
- [106:39]
Chris Johnson
Okay, number one, starlink hasn't even went public yet. And people forget he. If the boring company go public, that'll be at 85 a share. Starlink probably be at 250. Like the world's richest people. They're playing. They're shot. This is how you feel about the other everything in my possession. Don't touch no cards on my table. Stop talking to me about five years. Yo.
- [107:02]
Troy Millings
Facts.
- [107:02]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, they got. They got. I think. Was it SpaceX? They valued it at 270 billion. 260 billion to the shares would be like 170 at IPO.
- [107:13]
Chris Johnson
Honestly, like, I'm gonna be real, like, hit that, dog. All the people that we. And. And talking about holding for long term, even though you may not like the administration shout out to David Sacks for working his way into the White House right next to Trump. PayPal, mafia talk. Talk about PayPal about to take over the whole White House. And you're asking me, yo, two years. What do you think this would be, dog? These people are running tech and coming together and then going to run geopolitical affairs at scale like they ran PayPal Lee Hoffman. You better call somebody and apologize because you ain't gonna no, that's great.
- [107:54]
Ian Dunlap
I actually wrote that down. Like somebody check on Reid Hoffman, another person who was part of so the PayPal mafia. I mean, just if you look at the branches that have come from that. The co founder of LinkedIn, obviously you. You got Elon and Tesla. Peter Thiel with Palantir. It just. I mean, it's like a hall of fame cast. But the guys who supported Trump are now becoming part of his. His plan.
- [108:19]
Chris Johnson
I know, we was right there.
- [108:20]
Troy Millings
We were.
- [108:20]
Ian Dunlap
So this is, you know, like, this is like doing that research. Peter th had a mentee that came from the state of Ohio that he introduced Donald Trump to. You know that man became president. J.D. vance. Yeah, the vice president. That was his men. He introduced him to Trump in 2021. Obviously they kicked it off and he chose him. David Sacks, South African, born in South Africa. Sound familiar?
- [108:50]
Earners
Yeah.
- [108:50]
Ian Dunlap
So not. Not only is he the crypto czar, but he's also going to serve as the czar of artificial intelligence.
- [108:58]
Chris Johnson
This is like Peter Thiel is like that mastermind he put together. This is. Bro, they got out.
- [109:11]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah. Reid Hoffman is the. So for context, Reid Hoffman is the one guy who didn't support the President elect, actually helped fund some of the lawsuits against him, and is now saying that he may potentially move out the country.
- [109:26]
Chris Johnson
Some people who are also Dave McClure from Yammer, who work with David Sachs, Keith Raboy, Stephen Chin, Jason Portnoy, Chad Hurley of Avant, Andrew McCormick, like, they have just like if we ran the right White House. Like, I can't hold for. And I know people keep saying money doesn't matter, but it takes capital to move markets and elections. Elon just proved this at scale. All y'all talk about is capitalism. Look at my Kendrick and drink that much. That don't matter. Yo. They're about to run the whole world off of tech investments they made 30 years ago and working together. Y'all keep asking me why y'all keep working together. I want to run Australia. You don't think I. We haven't thought. What country could we.
- [110:17]
Ian Dunlap
Thirty years ago, those guys were all in the same space. Thirty years later, they about to run a country.
- [110:23]
Troy Millings
That's a fact.
- [110:24]
Chris Johnson
All right, Rashad, like, stop talking. You saying tomorrow. I got you. We just joking.
- [110:29]
Ian Dunlap
I was playing.
- [110:30]
Chris Johnson
We won't do none of that. I can't. I can't.
- [110:34]
Troy Millings
It's Wednesday, 10:00, Eastern Standard time. Special edition of Earn your leisure. Thursday at 9:00, live stream. Caleb Solo. We're gonna be going over crypto 101. So everything that Chris talked about was a very high level conversation. But for the average person that's just doesn't know what a wallet is, doesn't know how to set up, doesn't know, you know, what the ETF actually entails when it comes to, you know, cryptocurrency and buying it and risk reward ratio, stuff like that. We're going to be going over the onboarding process 101. Everything that you need to know from a very digestible standpoint when it comes to cryptocurrency as a whole. Not in one particular coin, the whole entire industry. 9:00 Eastern Standard Time on our YouTube. Okay. All right. Anything else you need to cover?
- [111:26]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, yeah.
- [111:26]
Chris Johnson
Big, big ultimate supremacy. Is bitcoin the ultimate Trojan horse for supremacy?
- [111:33]
Ian Dunlap
We're gonna, that, we're gonna store that as a topic.
- [111:35]
Troy Millings
Everything is, everything is, you know, that.
- [111:39]
Ian Dunlap
Big earnings week for the market. The market, yeah. Especially our semis broad combo. We're reporting this week. Avgo for all y'all that in the university. I'm sure Ian, you talked about it in stock club. Interesting to see what, how they will report. As you know we, we hold some positions there. So. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. It is Happy birthday. I want to say the goat, the female goat. We can say Nicki Minaj. Yeah.
- [112:11]
Chris Johnson
To me, hands down.
- [112:13]
Ian Dunlap
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sagittarius. And our bro Dave Shands. Happy birthday to him, man.
- [112:19]
Chris Johnson
Happy birthday, Dave.
- [112:21]
Troy Millings
All right guys.
- [112:22]
Ian Dunlap
Love is love.
- [112:22]
Chris Johnson
Love, peace.
- [112:26]
Earners
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Chris Johnson
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Earners
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