← The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex
The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex
From Small-Town Hustler to Crypto Innovator: Ryan Myher’s Journey
00:37:43
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- [00:00]
Paul Alex
Welcome to the Level up podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together. Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. What's up, guys? And welcome back to Level up podcast. I'm Paul Alex and I hear I have a special guest. Guys, his name is Ryan Meyer. He's actually a serial entrepreneur. Been a serial entrepreneur since the age of 10. Has actually founded three different companies and now is the co founder of Genius, which is a crypto exchange, right?
- [00:42]
Ryan Meyer
Yes. More or less. More or less, yes.
- [00:45]
Paul Alex
It's a crypto exchange business, guys. And he's going to dive into exactly why you guys need to invest into crypto right now. It's amazing. Ryan, what's up, brother?
- [00:55]
Ryan Meyer
I'm not going to show you crypto, I promise. Yeah, no, it's good. Thank you so much for having me, dude.
- [01:01]
Paul Alex
Thank you, man. I. It's actually a blessing that Colin like dude connected us because, dude, just based on everything you told me, I'm super excited for this interview. It's going to be awesome. Ton of people are going to listen to it, a lot of people are going to get inspired. But share us your background, dude, where are you from, how you got into serial entrepreneurship and then what are you working on right now?
- [01:19]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, so basically started off in central Pennsylvania, small town. Small town called Johnstown, Pennsylvania, an hour and a half east of Pittsburgh and just like a cool minor town, nothing crazy, and just always kind of loved the hustle, more or less. So, you know, whether that be selling people cards, I was one of the early Facebook marketplace sellers and always enjoyed just like trying to figure things out. And then I really got interested in technology probably whenever I was like 15 or 16. And this is kind of foreshadowing, but I was always looking for a way to build apps without code. And yeah, I mean it was just like always a passion of mine. And we kind of graduated high school, went to Duquesne University to do track, and that's whenever, like, things really started moving. Yeah. And so kind of the first business that I started was a company called no Code, no Problem. And it was like the first kind of, you know, my real step into entrepreneurship at the time.
- [02:22]
Paul Alex
Yeah, dude, I love that. So let's. Let's rewind a little bit back, Ryan. Yeah, dude. Facebook Marketplace. Where was that?
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Ryan Meyer
That was 2016.
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Paul Alex
I want to say, okay, 2016. And how old were you then?
- [02:36]
Ryan Meyer
I was 16.
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Paul Alex
I think I feel old. 2014, I joined police academy. I was 26. So, like, 10 years, man. That's crazy. But anyways, okay, so, dude, you're in the middle of the digital marketing realm. 2016 was a phenomenal time to be in the online space.
- [02:54]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
What made you think of Facebook Marketplace?
- [02:57]
Ryan Meyer
I was messing around with Amazon quite a bit, and I was like, my mind was blown that I could order anything to my house. A funny side story was I ordered a sword to my house and I was at basketball because I was like, oh, you can just buy a sword online. Like, this is really cool. And so I ordered it to my house and I'm at basketball practice and I get a call from my mom and she's like, what is this? Like, what did you order from something? Cutlery. And I was like, oh, well, like, I'll open it when I'm home. Don't worry about it. So I get home and I unbox this, like, sword with like, these insane edges. And my mom was so pissed off, my dad sitting in the corner, like, laughing. And so anyway, so I was like, enamored that you could order anything online. Facebook launches, Facebook Marketplace. And I had a bunch of old stuff, and I was like, oh, a bunch of people were selling stuff on here. Let me see if I can sell something. And so I start selling things mostly just like old knacks, things I got from Christmas that I never used and things like that. And then I realized I was like, wow, like, this could be a money generating thing. And all my friends were like, joking about it. They're like, oh, like my name in high school or my nickname in high school was Ray J. Which we don't want to get into that. We don't want to get it. I love that. But so they would joke around and say, it's Ray's thrift. Cause I was like, thrifting a bunch of stuff on Facebook Marketplace. Um, and then they had me selling their stuff on Facebook Marketplace. And it kind of just kind of grew from there. Um, and so I was. I was making a couple thousand dollars a month selling shit on Facebook Marketplace, which was. Which is really cool, dude.
- [04:20]
Paul Alex
So, so the average 16 year old, okay, like 15 and a half, dude. I worked at Six Flags Marine World, and then I worked at like Foster Freeze, which was like a burger joint, and then finally Macy's retail. Dude, at 16, you're making a few thousand dollars online.
- [04:35]
Ryan Meyer
Well, to be fair, I was Also doing those things as well. So I worked at Subway, J.C. penney's construction, you know, all the good stuff, too.
- [04:41]
Paul Alex
But, yeah, I love that.
- [04:43]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, that.
- [04:43]
Paul Alex
That is such a good niche to go ahead. So, okay, so you went from there.
- [04:47]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
What was the next project or venture you dived into?
- [04:51]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, so like I said, I was going to Duquesne for track. Next company we started, which never really became, like, large, but was like, a cool thing, was I really got into crypto. I was following, like, crypto prices. 2016, we walk into 2017. I'm with a friend, Evan Grus. We're at a basketball game, and we were just talking about crypto, and we're like, what if we just start, like, you know, buying crypto for our friends and family? What if we get them all kind of bought in? And so we were doing that. We had another friend at Carnegie Mellon, a really smart guy named K, and we all kind of got together and we were like, oh, we could launch, like, an alternative to bitcoin. And then that basically turned into us building the first decentralized hash exchange in the world. And basically what that is is, uh, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, like, bitcoin mining, but if you have, like, one miner, that's usually not enough, like, you know, power to, like, really get any kind of reward. So you can rent power basically, online. And the reason why being decentralized, like, means anything is because basically there was a competitor called Nice Hash. They had all these funds flowing in and out of a centralized wallet. Had like 80 million in it. It got hacked. All these people lost $80 million. And we were like, if this was peer to peer, and we just took a little fee on the side, like, it would solve that problem. There wouldn't be, like, one centralized vector to attack, you know? So that's. So we started that. Yeah.
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Paul Alex
What was the first crypto you ever bought?
- [06:12]
Ryan Meyer
First crypto ever bought. Oh, God. Probably. And I'm ashamed to say this now because it's, you know, but xrp. Yeah. Ripple, somehow it's still like one of those tokens that people. People love. Like, I'll get calls from friends. They'll be like, my mom just asked me if she should buy $10,000 in Ripple. Like, her friend from work said that she needs to put 10K. And I'm like, dude, I don't even like Ripple. It's up. It is up. Everything's up. Everything's up. So.
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Paul Alex
So here is the million dollar question, or multimillion dollar Question.
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Ryan Meyer
Oh, boy.
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Paul Alex
Okay.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
Where do you think bitcoin is going to end up, dude, as far as price?
- [06:47]
Ryan Meyer
This isn't financial advice, by the way.
- [06:48]
Paul Alex
No, no, it's not financial advice. We're just two guys here chatting.
- [06:52]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I think, like, I think it can be a million to several million dollars a coin.
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Paul Alex
Yeah.
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Ryan Meyer
I think, like, we are in this time where Donald Trump just got elected president and he. And Cynth. Cynthia Loomis, who's the senator in Wyoming, she's very pro crypto. Shout out to Cynthia. She. They want to start a bitcoin reserve in the United States. And obviously there's nothing done concretely yet for that, but if that happens, I think he. The goal is to basically own, over the next five to 10 years, 5% of the Bitcoin supply and have that in, like a reserve system kind of like backing the dollar. And I think if. If they accomplish that, I think one, the minute they announce it, many other countries are going to adopt bitcoin and kind of create their own strategic reserves. And I think it's going to go through the fucking moon. Yeah, no, it's going to be insane. And not only that, but I think, like, I think most countries will hold strategic reserves, and those that don't will suffer because of it. And a hot take that I have is, I think in the next 50 years, I think there will be a tier one country, like most likely European, and I think that they will be so in debt and they'll need a bailout. And I think that the person that bails them out will actually be a country that's adopted bitcoin. That's maybe like tier 3, and they'll swap some sort of defense equipment for bitcoin. That's my. My prediction.
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Paul Alex
Wow.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
That's some good intel, man. Yeah, that's so. All right. Into the millions of dollars. So people that right now, dude like that have the bitcoin, they should hold on to it forever.
- [08:24]
Ryan Meyer
I would.
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Paul Alex
Yeah.
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Ryan Meyer
I'm not selling anytime soon, so.
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Paul Alex
No, that's. That's good.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
I mean, that's. That's all the advice, because I know everybody right now is hitting me up like, hey, dude, like, you still got the.
- [08:34]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah. When you sell. When are you gonna sell?
- [08:36]
Paul Alex
Should we sell now? Yeah, Like, I got a buddy, man. He went. When it crashed.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
You know, what was it, like a year, two years ago? Whatever he was. He was like, right under a mill, dude. Right now he's probably like at 4.
- [08:48]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
Just just because it's up.
- [08:50]
Ryan Meyer
Exactly.
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Paul Alex
Damn. Yeah, like, good for you.
- [08:53]
Ryan Meyer
You know when to buy crypto, when. When everyone's talking about how it's dead. Yeah, that's, that's. If you're looking for a time to buy it, it's like, oh, crypto is dead. It's like, I need to buy it.
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Paul Alex
Like, yeah, no, yeah, no, absolutely, man. And it's. It's going to change the world, dude.
- [09:06]
Ryan Meyer
Absolutely.
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Paul Alex
Do you think it's actually going to replace cash? Like, people are saying, like, oh, cash is dead. It's. It's going to go away. You know, crypto is going to get rid of everything. What's your take on that, man?
- [09:16]
Ryan Meyer
I think that. I think it could. I think like, like it's hard for people in America to understand the problems y crypto really solves for. Like, I tell my friends, they're like, well, like, why? I just use my credit card and I'm like, well, you have to understand, like, the people that this is really solving a problem for are not in America. And I think like, it's going to start with outside adoption, many other countries and it'll kind of come back to the United States and come full circle, especially as we move towards like a global economy. Right. It's like you need a way to like seamlessly pay anyone in the world instantly. And so like a lot of our engineers in India and we have a guy in Venezuela and France, we pay them in usdc, which is like a dollar pegged equivalent backed by like treasuries and things. And I can pay them instantly. Right. Like I actually pay them on Genius, so I can send them like their pay USDC on Genius instantly. There's no like 5, 10 day wait. There's no like clearing house. There's no. None of that bs. It's like I send it to their wallet and that's it.
- [10:18]
Paul Alex
So, so essentially your company that you co founded right now, Genius, is an exchange where there is no middleman.
- [10:27]
Ryan Meyer
Exactly.
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Paul Alex
For basically the person that doesn't know what this is. Because I'll probably have like a couple of my relatives being like, hey, Paul. And you had that badass entrepreneur Ryan on there, dude, talking about his company Genius. But like, we want to know more about the company. Yeah. So, so how do you, how does that process work do? Like, like there's no middleman. So like how can you trust the other person that you know they're going to give you like the actual, you know, assets?
- [10:55]
Ryan Meyer
I think the best way kind of to start that Topic would be going like, basically talking about centralized exchanges and decentralized and then kind of talking about how we're different. That works. Okay, so I think you have Coinbase. Everyone's familiar with Coinbase. It's a centralized exchange and basically they custody funds, right? So you put $100 on Coinbase, they're custodying those funds for you. So they're not like really yours, they're kind of. You're lending them to Coinbase. And so whenever you're buying things on Coinbase, the problem with centralized exchanges is I'd say two like, main problems. The first problem is there's listing teams, so you can only buy what they tell you you can buy, right? So they have to list certain things. And while that's good to some degree, it's like a lot of the opportunity space is like not on Coin, are not on centralized exchanges or not on Coinbase. Right. By the time that gets there, they're already like 50 billion plus dollar tokens. Right? And then the second thing is they can freeze your funds whenever you want. Like my co founder, Armand, he had his funds frozen in Coinbase for over a year. And it's just like, it's like, it basically just proves the point that you don't like really own your money. And it goes into the problems with like third world countries as well, where it's like, you know, a lot of these banks are corrupt and stuff. So it's like having like full custody of like the dollars that I send you is really meaningful to a lot of people. So that's like centralized exchange. Then we have decentralized exchange, which is. How's the best way to describe it? So there's a bunch of blockchains, and all these blockchains have different tokens. And so an example could be there's a blockchain specifically for real world assets, right? Where they tokenize real estate. And if you want to buy tokenized real estate, then you have to buy the. You have to buy the tokens on their blockchain. But that's liquidity, fragmentation. And so you can use an exchange on that specific blockchain. But like, then you have to. There's a bunch of processes. I mean, basically what I just said, it's. It's complicated, more or less. So we're basically like, okay, this is great. Centralized exchanges kind of solve this. But then there's these caveats. So we're like, how can we build the best of both worlds? How can we allow you to basically have full custody of your funds? Buy anything you want on any blockchain without having liquidity, fragmentation or gas fees. It's a gas fee. Right. Signing transactions, all of these things that nobody cares to know about. They just want what they want. Right. And so that's what we've built. We've built the first platform that exists in the world that is basically is a liquidity orchestration layer across all blockchains that serves like an exchange where you can buy any token on any chain instantly without worrying about gas fees and any of those other issues.
- [13:24]
Paul Alex
So you guys problems to make it faster, simpler and easier, and you guys cut out basically majority of the fees and it's just easier for people to transfer crypto to another person.
- [13:37]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
And did you guys keep this in mind for like, more? Because you guys have a lot of like third party vendors that you guys use for your businesses, like, you know, in other countries. Is that, is that who you're mainly targeting as far as like your avatar or your ideal client right now?
- [13:53]
Ryan Meyer
So right now, in full transparency, where meme coins are really hot. And so we make it insanely easy to buy any meme coin. And so that's, that's like the kind of initial like most people that are.
- [14:06]
Paul Alex
That's the thought process.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
Because of like, would you say, like, social media has a lot to do with that? Like, oh, people on social media go on there. You got Elon Musk. He's like, you know.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
And you're like, okay, like, how can we make it easier.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
For, you know, people to buy the meme coin.
- [14:23]
Ryan Meyer
Exactly.
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Paul Alex
Right.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
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Paul Alex
Smart.
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Ryan Meyer
Yeah. Because it's like, it's like more or less, it's, it's like no different than sports gambling. Right. It's like. Yeah, but it's like betting on culture kind of. Right. Like all memes, all meme coins are our cultural relevancies, whether it be Doge and the Doge now with the Department of Government. Efficiency. Efficiency and like Pepe. And you have all these tokens and there's a lot of meme coins like these that are, you know, valued a lot less right now. And they'll eventually get centralized exchange listings. It's like, how can you get or how can you give people access to these at their earliest stages? And so that's kind of, that's the number one reason for people using genius right now, I think, like, you know, all of like these idealistic ideas that I have about like tokenization of real estate and all these things, they're happening behind the scenes, but they're not what people care about right now in other countries that's not true. There's like, what do they call them? The name escapes me. But basically they're just a one to one pegs giving like access to like US stocks for example, in like Ecuador or countries like that where there's not like traditional financial systems that allow you to easily buy these so you can buy basically like crypto peg. So there could be like a Tesla coin. And the Tesla coin is basically like one to one mirroring Tesla stock. And the person that's issuing that Tesla coin is also holding Tesla stock on the back end as like the collateral for that. So like there's really interesting things, but I think that's all idealistic and I think that like right now people like to gamble. Meme coins are fucking great. And, and yeah, so yeah, well why.
- [15:55]
Paul Alex
Not capitalize in that market, man? I mean at the end of the day you guys are providing the service. Like I said, faster, easier, simpler. And I always tell people, hey, some of the most successful companies is just, you know, somebody copying a company that already exists, an industry that already exists and just makes it easier. Right?
- [16:11]
Ryan Meyer
For sure.
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Paul Alex
All right, Ryan, so what's your guys vision or what are you guys working on with Genius now?
- [16:16]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, so I think like right now it's meme coins. Obviously that's like our focus. But I think in the future as everything kind of becomes global, I think there's going to be, there's going to need to be a global kind of exchange of value because I think I'm of the opinion that a lot of things are going to be tokenized. So whether that be real estate, intellectual property, like everything's going to be tokenized to some degree. And there needs to be one place where you can go to like basically buy and sell like the global exchange. Kind of like how you have the stock exchange in New York. There needs to be that. But for this new global economy, for tokens. And that's kind of what we're building. Yeah. And so if we can accomplish that and we've, we've done our job.
- [16:55]
Paul Alex
That's freaking phenomenal, man. So dude, I love everything that you guys are doing. I mean you're crushing it right now. But one thing that caught my attention, let's go back to the advice you were given about bitcoin and crypto and then the election with Trump, dude. Yeah, okay, so something that like I know a lot of my listeners are probably like what? Like, all right, if right now, let's see like, my listeners have like, I don't know, let's say 10, 20, even $30,000 in liquidity to actually invest into some type of crypto. What would be your game plan? And once again, guys, this is not financial advice.
- [17:35]
Ryan Meyer
Not financial advice.
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Paul Alex
It's just two guys over here hanging out, just talking about crypto. Right. In business. So what would you do, dude, if you had like about 30, 30 bands and you wanted to make some money right now?
- [17:48]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, I think it depends on risk tolerance, obviously. I think like, the safer, more stable kind of native coins are like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana. I think most majority of my cash is in those three. So that's like the honest truth. Yeah. And then I think that everyone should keep a little dry powder to throw out some memes. You know, I think, like, whether we like it or not. And during the first cycle back in 2016, I thought Dogecoin was the stupidest thing. And then I. And then I realized I'm like, it doesn't matter if it's stupid. Yeah, it's like, culturally relevant and therefore it's going to move. Like, I literally opened a long at like 2am last night on Dogecoin, and I'm up like three grand when I checked on the Uber ride over here.
- [18:29]
Paul Alex
Um, Ryan, So do you think, like, Deutsche coin, like, it went up just because of Elon?
- [18:37]
Ryan Meyer
I think Elon's.
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Paul Alex
What was the cause, like the cost?
- [18:40]
Ryan Meyer
The catalyst right now over the last, like, you know, 72 hours is like Donald Trump becoming president. Right. Like Joe Biden and his administration and Gary Gensler. I have strong words for Gary Gensler, but their entire administration was very anti crypto. And, you know, they can say they weren't anti crypto, but their actions said otherwise. They were attacking crypto more than any administration had before. And so, you know, at least.
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Paul Alex
And why is that?
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Ryan Meyer
I think it's like uncertainty. I think. I think uncertainty is like a big piece. I also think that the. The Democratic Party generally hates things they can't control. And I think that. I think. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's. I would say that. Yeah. And so, like, crypto, generally, I would actually say, like, crypto people in crypto specifically, like, hardcore crypto people. It's like a mixture of like, you know, technical guys, like social anarchists, like a bunch of weird, interesting people. And, you know, it split pretty down the middle. A lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans. And then Trump really took the initiative and was like, you know what? I am going to be like, work with Cynthia, on this bitcoin reserve plan. And I think that crypto, with proper regulation, crypto can be this really meaningful thing and it should happen in the United States because if not, the innovation is going to go outside of United States. Like, you know, even coinbase, like and Uniswap and some of these, like, you know, enormous players that have been around for a while, Gary Genson, this previous administration, attacking them left and right and not even with credible things. It was basically just fluff to scare off people. And it's a shame. It really is. And so, yeah, it's ridiculous. But so Trump gets elected and the markets move. So, like, even in the last like 72 hours, like crypto, like, I'll try to give you a specific. Like, eth was at $2400 72 hours ago, and right now it's sitting at $3400.
- [20:35]
Paul Alex
Wow.
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Ryan Meyer
Great. Solana. Same thing. Like, everything's moving up into the right. So, you know, my friends are always asking me, when's the best time to buy. I would say, like, right now, you know. Right. Even like with this week. Right. Like, I recommended friends buy yesterday specifically because yesterday was Tuesday. Right? Yeah, yesterday was Tuesday. So basically, like CPI and a lot of these data points are coming out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And so Tuesday basically was like the de risking. Everyone was kind of de risking. So markets pulled back. Seoul went from like 225ish to like 207ish last night. So but like, you know, those are all nuances. Whenever souls at 500, you don't care if you bought at 207 or 215, it doesn't make a difference to you. Right. So I think, like right now generally is great. We're going to have Trump go into office and I think establish a lot of policies. We have Vivek, we have Elon, a lot of people that are pro crypto, which is amazing working in his administration. So I think that the next four years are going to be the four best years for crypto, generally speaking. Yeah.
- [21:32]
Paul Alex
And do you think we're going to hit six figures on bitcoin before Trump actually takes over the office? Man. Yeah, just the way it is right.
- [21:40]
Ryan Meyer
Now because I know he selected or he gets put in what, like 70ish days? Yeah, yeah.
- [21:44]
Paul Alex
January.
- [21:45]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, I think we'll, we'll. I. This is a hot take. I think we're going to hit 90k Bitcoin within the next 14 days and I think we'll hit 100k by January 1st.
- [21:53]
Paul Alex
Yeah, that's amazing.
- [21:55]
Ryan Meyer
There will. I think we'll touch 100k. I think there will be a sell off, though. Like, usually there's a sell off in late December. Yeah.
- [22:01]
Paul Alex
And then how true do you think it is going to be with the reserves, man? Do you think that's going to be something that he's going to be able to do in the next four years, or is that something that's going to happen, like, eventually later on?
- [22:13]
Ryan Meyer
No, I think it'll happen within the next four years.
- [22:15]
Paul Alex
Wow.
- [22:15]
Ryan Meyer
I think it's like, like, just. I think honestly I was very worried for this country.
- [22:21]
Paul Alex
Like, I mean, everybody was.
- [22:22]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah. Just generally though, like, with like the debt and things, like, it's like, like, reasonably. How can we sit here and, like, look at it and be like, like, how does this go any other way than, like, just shitting the bed? Right. And so I think, like, I think that with the Elon and Vivek running the Department of Government Efficiency, if we can establish a bitcoin reserve, I actually, like, have faith that, like, we can actually figure this out. They're, like, operating the country like a startup, you know, And I think that's what needs to happen. It's become too bloated and I think Kamala had, like, some interesting policies and, like, ways that she could, like, fix the country. But I think anything that a politician says around fixing the country is mostly born bullshit. Right. But I think Trump actually is putting the necessary pieces in place to like, legitimately fix the country. And I didn't actually expect it to happen, but he's already kind of doing that with like, like announcing yesterday, like, Doge and things. So I'm actually really excited to see kind of what happens because even, even if we save, like, I don't even know what our deficit is at this point, but even if we can save $1 trillion a year and half of that goes into buying bitcoin for a reserve, and then we have the rest of the world also accumulating bitcoin. Like, I think that's, like, very cool. And I think that, like, it's our best shot at, like, not becoming the Roman Empire. Yeah. Yeah.
- [23:43]
Paul Alex
That's awesome. No, I love that, man. So let's go back to genius, man.
- [23:49]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [23:49]
Paul Alex
So with genius, where do you guys see, like, it going as far as, like, growth, man? Like, I know meme coins now.
- [23:58]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [23:59]
Paul Alex
But eventually, where do you see, like, your company going up to, like, in the next five years?
- [24:05]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, I think. I think within the next five years, we'll see a lot of different things that you can buy on chain. Some of them might be considered securities, some of them might not be considered securities. But I do think there will be a lot of things that you can buy a lot of tokens, and I think those tokens will have different types of value and people will want to participate in that. I think the main use case for crypto more generally is like speculation. And I think that in the next five years, like my goal is to have 10 million people own crypto on Genius. And like I said, like, it doesn't even need to be on Genius per se because it's self custodial. Right. So you have a Genius account, you can export your private keys and you can take that anywhere you want. Right. It doesn't need to be specifically on the Genius platform. We can't control anything that you do with that crypto. Like if you want to send it, if you. We can't freeze your funds, which is like super powerful and really cool. That's huge, dude.
- [24:58]
Paul Alex
So, because, because I was. So I have buddies that own like bitcoin ATM companies.
- [25:04]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, it's amazing, dude.
- [25:06]
Paul Alex
Like regulations.
- [25:07]
Ryan Meyer
Oh yeah.
- [25:08]
Paul Alex
Like all. Dude. Is massive. Especially with the government, dude. Yeah, I remember like they would get shut down left to right in certain states and then they would have to go and appeal it and then. Yeah, and all that jazz. So it was very sticky. So the fact that you guys are able to swing that, I mean, that's, that's.
- [25:22]
Ryan Meyer
I mean, I'm happy to talk about regulation if that's interesting.
- [25:24]
Paul Alex
Yeah, let's do it, man.
- [25:24]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, so I think like kind of how we operate Genius, while it feels like an exchange, we're not technically an exchange. And so as I mentioned, there's all these blockchains, there's liquidity on all of them. We basically orchestrate liquidity across all of these chains to make it easy for everyone else to use. So there's a bunch of complex BS that goes on in the background. And so there's like kind of two components to Genius. There's Shuttle Labs Incorporated, which is what I'm the co founder of, and that's a Delaware C corp. And basically we manage and develop the front end Genius protocol, which is basically the orchestration of everything, is managed and owned and operated by dao, based in the Cayman Islands. And that's basically like this permissionless thing where anyone in the world can go build things on top of Genius Bridge Protocol. And they could, they could build Genius. Like, they could build like what we've built on top of these open systems. And that's. And that's something that's really cool and I'm excited about like the same way that like people built the infrastructure for people to build all these payment infrastructure in the United States, right? How you know, you use square to buy things, we've built basically the rails for anyone to do a similar thing in crypto, which is really cool. We've also built like the car as well. So we've built our version of the car, but anyone can go build their version of the car as well. But regulation is super interesting, right? Like sexes have to have different licensing. But the way that we've built everything to this point, we've been able to do so in a way where we don't have to. Where. Yeah, we've been creative legally, such that we aren't an exchange per se. We're not a licensed exchange because like we're like we said, we're not custody because custodying any assets, we're basically just helping you buy those things through orchestration.
- [27:10]
Paul Alex
So yeah, it makes a lot of sense, man. So let me ask you, Ryan, like, what motivates you to keep going, dude? Like, it's like you're a serial entrepreneur, dude. You've been an entrepreneur since the age of 10, dude. It's just like, just talking to you, man. Besides the three companies that you built plus genius, I mean, you've had dozens of different projects, dude. What keeps you want to keep going, dude? Like, because not everybody is motivated as you, dude.
- [27:34]
Ryan Meyer
It's just fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm like super blessed to be able to like have fun doing what I do. Right? And I think I have a lot of people in my life that don't have fun doing what they do. And so I think generally it's like one of those things where I love to build things that people like to use. I think genius is one of those things. Like we have thousands of people that use it every day and I think that's amazing. And I get. If something's not working, I get a hundred texts when I wake up in the morning, including this morning, and we go and fix it. But it means people are using it. And that's. That's amazing, right? Like, I'm blessed for people to use things that I've built. Like I mentioned to you earlier, like, we have a Figma plugin. We built the first generative AI Figma plugin, which figma is like a design software like Photoshop and. Yeah, you're familiar. And 50,000 people use it, which is sick. And so, like, I think, like, part of the motivation is like, one day I want to be able to walk down the street with a genius hoodie on and people know what that is and like, be like, oh, like, you know, I made 10, $10,000 from my genius account. Like, I like that. That's like, that's like what I'm like yearning for. But I don't think I'll ever stop. I think, like, people that retire die. So.
- [28:43]
Paul Alex
No, same. I will never retire. I'm always looking for fulfillment, dude. That's what it's about. It's more of like the journey.
- [28:49]
Ryan Meyer
Exactly.
- [28:50]
Paul Alex
Just like you were saying, dude. Like, you know how, how sometimes, like you'll team up with the other developers and your co founders and you guys will just work? Yeah, that's what it's about, dude. Building that culture. Right?
- [28:59]
Ryan Meyer
Exactly. Yeah.
- [29:00]
Paul Alex
So what would you say to someone who is trying to actually build a business in your industry, dude? And like, they're just getting friends, family, just being super negative about that, dude. Like, what has helped you and your mindset, like, to keep going, to get up, dude, and like, stay resilient on building because sometimes not every day is going to be motivating. Right?
- [29:23]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [29:24]
Paul Alex
So what would you, what type of advice would you give to that person?
- [29:26]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, you just have to be okay with being crazy, I guess, or, or like the view that people think you're crazy. Especially like in crypto, you know, I feel like crypto is one of the most cyclical industries. So like the last two years it's been really tough, right? Like, there's been some like, super low points, even for me, where it's just like, you know, you get up in the morning, you're like, what am I doing? You know, you have friends building an AI and all these other things, and you're like, you know, but whenever things move, everything's fantastic, right? But it. So it is super tough. It's really hard to stay motivated during those low points. But if you can push through it, like, I think you can come out on the other side in crypto specifically too. Like just building businesses in crypto. If you want to build a business in crypto, it's really interesting because business and companies and things like, they don't operate like normal companies do. And like the typical Internet world or in real life kind of, it's kind of like this weird. And I think that will change over time. But like, like whenever you talk to investors, right, like, they only care about, like, when you're going to launch a token, like, if you. Like, it's. It's crazy and it's kind of messed up, but it makes sense. Right. Like, you'll see, like, a lot of venture funds have kind of two. Like, it's actually really popular for venture funds to have two. Two funds, one specifically in crypto and then one in, like, a more archaic industry that has longer return on investment cycles because crypto, like, the path to liquidity is much shorter. So it's a way for them to kind of average that out to, like, what you'd consider, like a typical, like, Internet fund, like Sequoia or something. Right. So, yeah, it's interesting, but, yeah, you basically have to throw away all fundamental principles of business that, you know, for crypto specifically, it's. It's crazy.
- [31:10]
Paul Alex
So, all right, what would you go ahead and let's say if somebody wanted to start investing into crypto right now?
- [31:17]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [31:17]
Paul Alex
What would be a couple of books? Like, either, like, you could go, like one to three books, dude, that people could start reading right now. Because I always tell people this, dude, like, I've been a serial entrepreneur my entire life, but I got stuck at the 9 to 5, you know, like, rat race, dude. Because, like, I just feel like I just wasn't around the right environment.
- [31:35]
Ryan Meyer
Sure.
- [31:35]
Paul Alex
And books is actually. Sounds cliche, but. But books is what really changed my life.
- [31:40]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [31:40]
Paul Alex
So is there any books that people can read on, dude? Or, like, what would you recommend? Like, due diligence, like, market research, like, if, like a complete newbie that wants to learn. Learn to invest into crypto, man. Especially right now.
- [31:52]
Ryan Meyer
Sure.
- [31:52]
Paul Alex
I mean, January's around the corner. Do 70 days, right?
- [31:54]
Ryan Meyer
That is. Yeah.
- [31:55]
Paul Alex
So, you know, best time to invest. But I. I want to educate the folks that are listening to this and watching this, man.
- [32:00]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah. So I'll be candid. I don't read books. I. I read. I read a lot. I read, like, the Wall Street Journal and the information every day. I read a lot of things every day, but I don't read, like, traditional books. And I actually would not recommend reading traditional books for crypto specifically, just because the industry moves so fast. By the time that you'd actually publish a book, it'd probably be outdated, which is crazy. But I think there's, like, two really good places to get information on crypto. The first is a research platform called Masari IO. It's a company just. I actually think they're based in Miami, but they're entirely, like, based on research. They have a lot of reports. They have a lot of, like, like everything that you could possibly want, it's there. There's also a newsletter. What's the newsletter called? I'll give it to you after this. Milk Road. Milk Road.com.
- [32:47]
Paul Alex
Milk Road.
- [32:48]
Ryan Meyer
Milk Road. Yeah, it's a carton of milk. But it's a fantastic newsletter for crypto people that are just getting into crypto. They have, like 300,000 subscribers. It was really good during the last kind of bull cycle. I love that 2021. It was really popular. And then a third thing is just being involved. Like, I think so much of crypto is, like, the culture of the different Internet spaces that you're in. And so I'd specifically recommend Twitter, like, if you're not on Twitter or if you are on Twitter, engaging with, like, accounts. Like, I have to be careful with this one. There's an account, our account Genius Terminal. We kind of talk a lot about things, but also, like, there's, like, more culturally relevant people, like, at Cobie, C O B I E or Ansem who are, like, big kind of influencers in the space. But it gives you a good pulse on, like, the culture of crypto and kind of what things are going on in the space. Yeah. And you need that because it does move so fast. Like, you have, like, zk. You have, like, all these things that I honestly don't even know a lot about because it's just moving all the time. And so it's just, it's like I, I, I know what I know about, like, my very specific thing, but I, if I tried to keep up with everything, I'd lose my mind, I think.
- [33:55]
Paul Alex
No, absolutely. And then in any insider tips, dude, like, on what's the next biggest thing in crypto?
- [34:02]
Ryan Meyer
Insider tips. I can't say I have insider tips per se, but I think that, I think in crypto, specifically, the best thing that you can invest in is a cult. And so, like, Dogecoin has established a cult. And I think you, you also, like, there's a bunch of coins that have established cults that aren't listed on centralized exchanges.
- [34:27]
Paul Alex
When you say cult, what do you mean by cult?
- [34:30]
Ryan Meyer
Like, just people that are, like, insane.
- [34:32]
Paul Alex
They're about it.
- [34:33]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah. Like, like, like mentally ill, kind of. Like, I'm like. And I don't even. Like, I'm being like, like, genuine. Like, it's like there's something serious. Yeah, it's kind of messed up. But yes, like, like true. Like, like insanely passionate about, like, that meme. And they do exist. There's one right now that's really popular. It's called Giga, and it's like the Gigachad with the huge chin. And people were like insanely passionate about it. I think that's going to be a big one this cycle. And then another one. I don't know if I should say it, but it's called Retardio. It's how you spell it. And the community behind it, it's an NFT which they call Cousins and then a coin. And it's like the most insane cult that I'm personally a part of. And these people are nuts. They're literally insane. But, like, because of that, like, they get other people to have equal conviction in it. And that's kind of how you create like a Doge effect. And so, like, personally, I, I hold an irresponsible amount of money in Retardio.
- [35:36]
Paul Alex
So, so, so influence has a lot to do with the meme coins.
- [35:43]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [35:43]
Paul Alex
Okay.
- [35:44]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah. Meme coins are everything right now. Like the. I think last cycle we saw NFTs be super popular. And I think the problem with NFT is more generally was they were a fun tool for speculation, but they, I personally don't, like, find them super useful. Right. But they were good for speculation. And so on the other side of things, right, on Meme coins, I think they're basically saying, you know what, we're going to create the same level of speculation, but we're not going to try and attach some, like, arbitrary value to it. Right. It's just like, it is what it is, accepting that it is just a means of speculation. Yeah, right.
- [36:19]
Paul Alex
No, that make. That makes total sense, man.
- [36:21]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah.
- [36:22]
Paul Alex
So where can people find you, man?
- [36:23]
Ryan Meyer
Yeah, people can find us@tradegenius.com and if you go, we'll create an account or we'll create a referral code for you if you want, if you want your users. And we can, we can give users free crypto or something. That could be fun. But trade tradegenius.com my Instagram is at Ryan Meyer and yeah, those are like the two main, the main points.
- [36:44]
Paul Alex
Yeah, guys. So follow Ryan Meyer on Instagram and on his genius platform, guys. He's just offering some free crypto for you guys. Yeah, it's going to be phenomenal. So we'll make sure to drop the link in the bio, guys. Make sure to subscribe like this episode. And if you know anyone who's interested in the crypto space with the politics that's going on with Donald Trump, guys, this is the episode to actually have them listen to and tune in, it's going to blow up. It's going to go viral. I already know. Thanks Ryan. I appreciate you man.
- [37:17]
Ryan Meyer
Thank you so much.
- [37:18]
Paul Alex
All right, guys, take care. This is the level of podcast with Paul Alex. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Thanks for listening up to Level Up Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to share with a family, friend and everyone you know who's ready to level up. Leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you tune in. It really helps spreading the word. And don't forget to check out officialpaulalex.com for more episodes and resources to kick start your journey. Let's level up together.