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- [00:00]
Andrew
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- [00:36]
Rob Berger
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- [00:48]
Andrew
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Hiring Indeed is all you need on this episode of the personal Finance podcast the Case for and against the Bitcoin. What's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of MasterMoney Co, and today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to make the case for and against Bitcoin. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to mastermoney.com/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. Now, today I'm going to be diving into the case for and against bitcoin. Now, we have not made an episode on crypto in years, years. And a lot of things have changed since our original episode. The first time we recorded a crypto episode, I talked through bitcoin, I talked through Ethereum and a bunch of other meme coins. And I basically stated right after the Wall street bets thing happened in the GameStop surge, we started to talk through this is a risky asset. This is an asset that over time has no intrinsic value and has no backing whatsoever. Well, a lot of things have changed if you guys haven't seen the news as of late and those who went against me talking about that would probably have made a lot of. But at the same time, I'm going to talk through the pros and cons of bitcoin and how you should consider bitcoin. In addition, after I go through 10 pros and 10 cons of Bitcoin and the case for and against bitcoin, after that, I'm going to talk through how I am investing in crypto and what I am doing with my portfolio when it comes to crypto, if I'm investing at all. So we're going to talk through all of this, but first I want to kind of chat through why bitcoin was created. Because if you are new to crypto or don't understand why bitcoin even exists, you think it's stupid. You think it's just something that bros are, you know, trading back and forth. Well, now it's becoming a lot more real. And it's becoming a lot more real because legislation is being passed and there are a lot more people in higher power taking this very seriously. And so what we need to do is we need to at least pay attention and understand bitcoin at the very bare minimum. So the bitcoin was originally developed partially because of the 2008 financial crisis. So in 2008, the global financial system nearly collapsed due to excessive risk trading by major banks, bailouts by government and central banks, printing nearly trillions of dollars to prop up the economy. Well, a lot of people didn't like that because they said, oh man, all these banks made horrible financial decisions. They all got bailed out and they played with our money. The folks who lost money were the folks who were working super hard to earn those dollars. In order to put them into some of these investments. So we know the collapse of the housing market with the mortgage backed secur happened. We know there was a lot of big issues there where, you know, if your friend who is a server is buying 15 different rental properties, you know, you might have yourself a problem and this might be a bubble. And so trust with traditional finance was shattered for a lot of people out there. And people were really mad about this. They were really frustrated with what happened when it came to the traditional financial system. And people realized that money was not truly safe, private or under their control. Now there's a lot of regulation now that came after the 2008 financial crisis. If you weren't around or you weren't old enough to understand the financial crisis, it was a very bad thing. I personally was in college at that time. And so during that 2008 financial crisis, it was something that I saw impact across the board. And so bitcoin's purpose was a new form of money. The goal with bitcoin was to find a new form of money that was decentralized. So it was designed to remove the need for banks or governments, which is why they call it decentralization to process transactions or issue a currency. So the original creator didn't think the government should have hold of this money. Instead it thought it should be decentralized, it could be utilized worldwide. And instead it relies on a peer to peer network of computers called nodes or miners to validate those transactions. The goal was no single point of failure and no central authority whatsoever. Because obviously in 2008 there was a very central point of failure, which was Wall street in the companies that work on Wall Street. And so bitcoin wanted to be able to have zero points of failure. Now what are the key components of Bitcoin? One is there is a fixed supply. There is 21 million coins. And so there is this fixed supply of bitcoin. They cannot make any more of bitcoin. And so this is something a lot of people like. So under unlike fiat currencies that can be printed endlessly, Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins. Now this was built in to protect against inflation. Now a deflationary scarce asset that holds its value over time was the end goal with this, which is what is kind of happening right now for some people. Now they also another part of bitcoin is transparency and trust through code. So bitcoin is open source. This means that anybody out there can audit the code, they can validate the rules, or they can even run a node. And every single transaction is recorded in a public, immutable ledger. Now, that ledger is called the blockchain. A lot of you may have heard of the blockchain. And this is the ledger that records bitcoin transactions. So it eliminates the need to trust an institution to hold your money. So instead you can trust the math instead. Also, another core component of bitcoin is they wanted it to be permissionless and they wanted it to be borderless. So anyone with Internet access can use bitcoin regardless of where they live or what currency they actively use. No bank account required to, no government permission needed. And so that was a huge part because they wanted to empower themselves and they wanted to be unbanked. And so that is a huge component of bitcoin as well. They also wanted financial sovereignty. So with bitcoin you can hold your own money, spend it how you choose, and avoid censorship or seizure. It's the only asset where you can fully own it and no one can take it from you if held properly. Now here's a big thing, is there's going to be a lot of guardrails put up against that right now already is that financial sovereignty is going to be something that I think there's a lot of conversations being had, especially in the country that I live in, the United States, where there is going to be guardrails put up when you buy and sell bitcoin. And that is just something that we're going to have to look at. And we'll talk about that when we get into the episode deeper here. Now, who created bitcoin? Bitcoin was created by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody actually knows who that is. They think it's obviously a cover up for what the person's real name is. There have been tons and tons of rumors of who that possibly could be. But it is an individual who has criticized centralized banking for a very long period of time. So in short, bitcoin was created for a couple of different reasons. One, to be a non governmental money system, free of government, free of the system that the government creates when it comes to money. Two, immune to inflation. They were tired of inflationary currencies. Obviously we have felt that impact since bitcoin has been created on how inflation can impact your dollars. Other currencies have seen it even worse. They wanted it three, to be open to everyone, so anybody could access bitcoin, Whether you are from the poorest part of the world or the richest part of the. It should be open to all it should be controlled by no one is number four. So nobody can control bitcoin. It is a decentralized entity and built for freedom and financial independence was 5. And so that was the goal with bitcoin, which are all great cases. These are all great things to think through. And some of them may have more problems and complications than others. But it is a great concept, it is a great idea, and it is something that is obviously revolutionary when it comes to the financial system. And so what I'm going to do now is on the rest of this episode. First we're going to go into the pros. I am going to give you the pros of bitcoin and some of the things that have changed over the course of the last couple of years. And then I'm going to give you the cons, because there are still cons to bitcoin. At the time recording this, bitcoin just hit its highest level ever. You may be listening to this in the future and it's even higher than that. But it hit 123,000 at the time I'm recording this this morning, it had 123,020. And the White House is meeting this week for something called Crypto week, which is going to start to do more often. And so that is one indicator as to what direction this currency could be going. Now, we may talk a little bit about Ethereum in this episode. We may talk about a little bit about other meme coins as well. But bitcoin is the main focus of this episode and we're going to talk through a bunch of different things. So if that's something you're into, you want to see how I'm investing in bitcoin? If I am, then let's get into it it. All right, first we're going to lay out the case for bitcoin. I'm going to give you 10 different things to lay out the case for bitcoin. And I want you to arrive at your own conclusions here. I don't want you to just listen to what I think and what I'm doing. I want you to arrive at your own conclusions, do more research, read more books if you think are thinking about investing in this asset. Okay, so number one is the institutional adoption is accelerating. So bitcoin has finally made its way to mainstream investment world. So about two years ago, I was with BlackRock. BlackRock invited me out to ring the opening bell of their target date ETFs. It's this really cool product that basically is a target date Retirement fund, but it is in the form of an etf. Love the concept. Look through all the information on it before they were going to ring the opening bell and put it on the stock market. Loved what it was. And so I went up to the New York stock exchange with BlackRock and a bunch of other folks out there and we got to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange for these target date ETFs. So after we rang the opening bell, we were riding in the back of a shuttle bus from the New York stock exchange to BlackRock headquarters, which is absolutely unbelievable if you can imagine. Probably the most powerful hedge fund in the world and their headquarters is absolutely incredible. It just had opened when we were there. It opened a couple months prior. And so when we went there, I was riding in the back with Rob Berger. Some of you may know who Rob Berger is if you watch his YouTube channel. He is one of the biggest influences on my thought process when it comes to finance. And he has now become a personal friend, which is great. But Rob Berger and I were riding the back with one of the reps at blackrock and we were chatting through some of their products and talking through what was coming up. And we said, hey, we heard about this Bitcoin ETF that's coming out or this crypto ETF that is coming out. What do you think about that? And she said, we can't talk about that right now. But they were developing this Bitcoin ETF and it was going to be something that they thought was, was going to be so incredibly powerful. Now she wouldn't give us any information at the time, but a couple of months later more information came out. And the cool thing about this was that it was institutional adoption of bitcoin. So in 2024, the SEC approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs allowing everyday investors to access Bitcoin through a traditional brokerage account without needing to self custody or navigate crypto wallets whatsoever. So this allowed for some of these Bitcoin ETFs to come out. So financial giants like BlackRock, like Fidelity, like Vanguard now offer Bitcoin products, legitimizing it as an asset class. Now this is one of the biggest arguments that I have because now that it's institutionalized, meaning that now that some of the big banks are getting involved, it is a huge, huge deal. Now I want you to think about this for a second. Jamie Dimon, who is the CEO of Chase, probably one of the most powerful people in finance. Jamie Dimon used to harp against Bitcoin over and over and over again. Just like I would chat through it and say, hey, this is not a safe asset whatsoever. If you want to hold a small amount to this, fine. This is not a safe asset. He would say the same exact things. Warren Buffett would say the same exact things. Jamie Dimon has done a complete 180 when it comes to bitcoin. Why? Because it is now institutionalized and he knows he can make a lot of money when it comes to bitcoin. He knows there is a lot of money in crypto and there's a lot of money in selling these assets to institutions like the big corporations that are investing in these ETFs. There's a record number of institutional investors that just started investing in Bitcoin ETFs over the course of as of today, literally we just reported it on the business show, our other podcast that reports in the news. We literally just chatted about this on the business show. Meaning that when there's a record number of pension money coming in, when there's a record number of corporate money coming in to these ETFs, that signals another shift in how institutionalized this is going to be. So more pension funds, more 401k providers, and more registered investment advisors are now starting to include Bitcoin in portfolios to hedge against asset growth. Now, why does this matter? Why do I care that all these banks are starting to do 1-80s on Bitcoin? That they're starting to offer ETFs that they're getting approved by the SEC? Because institutional money brings scale. What happens with scale? Assets will increase drastically over time. There's stability and there's long term demand for these assets because they are offering them now. There has been gold ETFs for a long time. There have been ETFs in different commodity sectors. It does not mean that it's just going to take off forever because that has happened a number of different ways. And we have seen them not just take off forever. You can go buy a corn or commodity ETF right now if you wanted to. But the endorsement does boost public trust and that is a huge, huge deal. So number one, and that is probably the biggest argument overall is the institutionalization of Bitcoin. That is the biggest change. This did not happen the first time. We recorded our episode years ago. And I think it was 2020 or 2021 was the first time we started to talk about crypto. Episode 4041, 42, somewhere in that range. Now, number two is that Bitcoin is a store of value thesis. What does I mean by that? What is bitcoin a store of value thesis mean? Meaning it is often called digital gold. And in 2025, that narrative has grown even stronger. So I have been comparing bitcoin to gold for a very long time because bitcoin doesn't have balance sheets or PNLs backing it. So you don't really know what its value is. All it is worth is what someone else is willing to pay for it. So if you buy Bitcoin at $123,000 today, but 10 weeks from now, someone's only willing to pay $15,000 for that Bitcoin, you just lost yourself over $100,000 because it's only worth what someone else is willing to pay for. Companies, for example, can be bought out based on what their revenue and their profits are. Bitcoin is not the same. It does not have that intrinsic value. But bitcoin is a store of value thesis, and we will talk about intrinsic value a little bit later on. Now, with governments running massive deficits and inflation continuing to erode fiat currency, Bitcoin's fixed supply of 21 million coins stands out as a deflationary asset. So this fixed supply is a big deal because they will not create more bitcoin and it will help with inflation because of that. Now, it is not controlled by any government, making it appealing to a world of central bank interventions, bailouts and currency debasements. Now, unlike gold, Bitcoin is portable, divisible and borderless. And so this is something where you can store value in bitcoin because it is similar to gold. There's only a certain amount of gold out there. Obviously, you can go out and mine a little more gold here and there, but it is not something we're mining in heavy, heavy, massive amounts. Still, it is still something that is a precious metal that people are looking to buy at some point in time. Now, gold hasn't gone up or had any returns like what bitcoin currently has, but it is a very interesting thing. So why does this matter? Because for high net worth individuals and institutions looking to protect purchasing power, Bitcoin is becoming a serious contender to gold. And so this is where it is actually making contention with gold in people's portfolio. 3 the third case for bitcoin is global demand is growing. The global demand and bitcoin adoption is surging in countries facing currency collapse, high inflation or political instability. So in places like Argentina, places like Venezuela, places like Nigeria, Bitcoin is used As a lifeline for people who are escaping the 50 to 100% inflation by storing their wealth in bitcoin. And honestly, if you're in those countries, that is one of those things. We have a lot of listeners actually in Africa and in South America. So if you're in those countries, this is something where it probably is wise to look at something like this if you're seeing high inflation rates in your country. In developing countries, Bitcoin is easier to access than traditional banking for the unbanked. And all you need is a phone. And there's also remittances out there that are using, you know, Bitcoin or the lightning network that are becoming more common due to lower fees and faster settlement. So in other countries this may make more sense than your own currency in your country to help you kind of store value and gain access to long term growth. So that is something to consider. Next is the halving cycle momentum. Now Bitcoin's design includes a built in supply shock every four years which is called the halving now. In April 2024, Bitcoin underwent its fourth halving, cutting minor rewards from 6.25 Bitcoin to 3.125 Bitcoin per block. And historically the 12 to 18 months after having have seen a massive bull run. If you look at 2013, 2017 and 2021, and we are seeing that again right now at the time I'm recording, this is another big bull run. But a lot of that is being driven by institutionalization, to be honest. Now if history rhymes, 2025 could be the peak of post having bull cycles. And so we'll see what happens there as time goes on. Now, decentralization and financial sovereignty is the fifth case that I want to make here. So Bitcoin remains the most decentralized and sensor resistant crypto asset. It runs thousands of independent nodes and miners worldwide with no CEO or central foundation. So a lot of people, because there is no centralization or CEO or foundation, a lot of people like that, they like that there is nobody in power. The person who is in power is everybody kind of combined together. In a world where governments can freeze bank accounts or shut down payment apps, Bitcoin offers that true financial freedom from banks and institutions. So if that is huge for you, if you absolutely love that, that could be a major impact for some people, especially people in restrictive regimes. So if you're in Russia or China or Iran, you can use Bitcoin to store wealth and transact outside of government control. And so people in those Countries absolutely love that as well. Now number six is there is a growing integration with financial infrastructure, meaning it is integrated with Cash app and Venmo and Robinhood and PayPal and you can buy, sell and transfer Bitcoin in seconds. There's also Bitcoin ATMs that are out there that you can go and get bitcoin out of. And they offer with instant settlement. So more banks and fintechs are offering custody, bitcoin rewards and trading features. I just saw, I got an ad today for a credit card that gives you bitcoin rewards. There's a lot of different things that are happening there. This access point just reduces friction because before there just wasn't a lot of ways to go and get your bitcoin. You had to use Coinbase or you had to use FTX which had all the scandals and the collapse and a lot of people lost a lot of money in ftx. And so there wasn't a lot of ways to go get bitcoin in the old, old days. You had to get it and pull it off the Internet. And I still recommend you pulling it off the Internet. But that is something where there is a growing integration with financial infrastructure. And then the lightning network expansion is number seven. So the lightning network is Bitcoin's layer two for faster, cheaper payments is gaining traction in emerging markets and among developers. So platforms like Strike or lightspark are building real business use cases for some of this stuff, which is super, super interesting. Number eight is the great generational wealth transfer. So because a lot of the great generational wealth transfer is happening right now, meaning the baby boomer generation is handing down more wealth than anybody ever has, a lot of that money is going to flow into people who are more interested in Bitcoin than maybe other traditional assets. And so that is another argument for Bitcoin is that it may go up over time because those folks are more willing to accept decentralized currencies than maybe the baby boomer generation originally was. Number nine is self custody and personal finance empowerment. So unlike stocks or real estate, Bitcoin can be self custodied, meaning you don't need a bank, you don't need a broker, you don't need a custodian to own Bitcoin. Instead you can take control with hardware wallets, with vaults, with cold storage. All of those are things that you can kind of take control with where you can take Bitcoin off of the Internet and you could store it yourself, you can hide it in a safe or under a mattress. Or a safety deposit box. And it can make a huge, huge impact on, if you are worried about that kind of stuff, if you're worried about privacy. And in the era of financial surveillance, this privacy in control is revolutionary for a lot of people. As time gets on, we talk about it literally all the time. As time goes on and you need to protect your finances more online, this is going to be something, I think, that makes a huge, huge impact for a lot of people. And the last one I will say is some emerging nations in government adoption. So countries like El Salvador have adopted bitcoin as legal tender and are actively mining and holding it. And others are watching closely and considering allowing bitcoin reserves and bonds or infrastructure projects to happen. And as geopolitical power shifts, more nations may hedge with bitcoin to diversify reserves away from the US dollar. And so even at small scales, there are other countries that are adopting bitcoin. And so that is something I think we need to continue to monitor as well. Now what we're going to do is Those are the 10 cases for Bitcoin currently in at the time, recording this every year, we'll probably do a new one of these so that we can talk about some of the things that are changing with bitcoin. I think it's very important for people to note because it is something that is just having crazy, crazy returns. And so it's something we definitely need to talk about here on the personal finance podcast and at Master Money. And so it is something we're also going to probably end up developing a crypto course, a crypto mini course for folks in Master Money Academy. So if you join Master Money Academy, which is coming up very soon to be able to join, we will have this at some point in time in Academy, which is going to be our community of wealth builders who really are passionate about building wealth together. So we're going to dive into the case against bitcoin next, and I'm going to give you all the cons of bitcoin that we've been talking about for a while and talk through some of those and how you need to think about it, then after that, I'm going to talk about how I'm investing in bitcoin. If you've ever looked at your bank account and thought, where did all my money go? I've been there. For me, it was random impulse purchases, eating out way too often, engulfing more than my budget would like to admit. Monarch Money finally gave me a clear picture of it all. It's like having a personal CFO showing me every account, investment and spending category all in one place. No more switching between apps or guessing where my money went. The one thing that really surprised me I was spending more on takeout than groceries some months and Monarch helped me spot that and make quick adjustments. Now I check in weekly, track big transactions, and even review my goals with my wife. So get control of your overall finances with Monarch Money. Use code pfponarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That's monarchmoney.com Pfp with code Pfp and get 50% off your first year. That is one of the best deals that I have ever seen them do.
- [24:43]
Rob Berger
Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts on WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone with the Venmo debit card, you can Venmo everything. Your favorite band's merch. You can Venmo this or their next show.
- [25:48]
Andrew
You can Venmo that.
- [25:49]
Rob Berger
Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. Card may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply.
- [25:58]
Andrew
All right, so let's talk about the case against Bitcoin and let's talk through. You need to hear both sides whenever you're trying to make a decision on something or if you're trying to decide if an asset is worthwhile. So we talked about all the pros. We talked about the case for Bitcoin and there are a lot of pros that are happening right now. They're developing in real time and the folks who got in really early who bet on these Pros happening really are going to make out. That's how it always works. But as time goes on, you have to make an educated decision on if you want to partake in some of those investments going forward or if you don't. And there's gonna be some cons to bitcoin. There always is because this is something that could make a shift in how the currency is utilized. Number one is that regulatory pressure is rising. So there is a lot of adoption by institutions and that is a great thing. But this also comes with regulatory pressure because governments are tightening oversight, especially after the collapse of crypto exchanges like FTX and the rise of ransomware paid in bitcoin. So what's happening is if you don't know the story of ftx, go look it up. It is a long, crazy, wild story that happened. But there was a lot of people who had crypto in this exchange and basically lost all their money. And when this happened, this caused especially the US government to really start to tighten up some of their oversight and say, hey, we got to figure out what's going on with this. And some nations may outlaw self custody and increase surveillance and heavily tax bitcoin transactions. So this is something that has been rumored to be coming, is that bitcoin could get heavily taxed if people want to buy it within specific countries. Now the US treasury, the IRS and the SEC are all eyeing reporting requirements, broker rules and tax enforcements. So for these brokers to even be able to offer bitcoin in the US they are talking through these report requirements, these broker rules and enforcement of specific taxes. So even though this innovation is happening, the big thing is decentralization. This regulatory overreach could be something that could happen for folks depending on where you live and your location is going to be something where, listen, Uncle Sam always wants his money. Always, always, always is going to become a knocking at your door. And so that is something to just consider when you are investing in bitcoin. Number two, Bitcoin is extremely volatile. Meaning what is volatility? It means how frequent or how drastic a stock goes up in a stock goes down. So something like a good old fashioned insurance company is probably not going to rise and fall very quickly. It's going to be just a steady slow growth over time. But something like bitcoin is going to be worth $123,000 one day, a couple months ago is worth $70,000 and then it's going to be worth $90,000 and it's going to go back to 80 and then it's going to go back, it's going to have these drastic crazy ups and downs and you have to figure out how to ride that wave. If you are someone who panics and freaks out when stocks or investments go down, Bitcoin may not be for you because your emotions could get in the way of what your long term gains could be. And emotions are the enemy when it comes to investing. I do not want you to fall prey to your emotions. And so it's really important to make sure that we are able to handle volatility. If we are investing in bitcoins. They have had price swings of between 10 to 30% some days in one single day. And so you got to make sure that you are okay with that. Also same thing goes for if it is rising rapidly, if it's up, it's at an all time high. And that's when you always invest. That may be the timing where you are just having some FOMO there and there's nothing wrong with it. But at the same time you got to think through your emotions when it comes to Bitcoin. Three is if you have an environmental concern. So bitcoin mining consumes more energy than many small countries out there. And so there are some environmental concerns. And critics argue that proof of work is inefficient and environmentally harmful. And so if that is something where you are an ESG focused investor, then bitcoin may not be for you because the mining component with it and there's a lot of things that can happen there. A lot of electricity being used, a lot of heat being produced. There's a lot of environmental backlash that could lead to stricter regulation and de investment for some people. Now the fourth one is that better technology actually exists. So Bitcoin is slow. It has seven transactions per second on layer one and lacks smart contract functionality where there is competing blockchains like Ethereum or Solana or Avalanche that offer faster speeds and broader use cases. So for NFTs or tokenization and one is, you've heard me talk about in the past, Ethereum as well. Ethereum is one that is very interesting. Salana is pretty interesting too. But those are just kind of gambles at the same time. So it is something where you have to have some centralized backing I think for it to make sense. Number five is limited real world use cases. So here's what I mean by that. Most people don't spend Bitcoin. Most people hold it. And so right now it is rarely used for daily transactions due to taxes due to volatility and limited acceptance. If the tax rates go way, way up on Bitcoin, it is going to be used even less than it would be currently. And so a lot of people will be sitting on Bitcoin. So even among crypto users, stablecoins like the USDC and USDT are preferred for payments and remittances. So it is something that we definitely want to consider is that it doesn't really flow out of people's hands a ton. They sell it at times to for certain reasons, but it's not something they spend with a lot yet. So we're going to see that spending adoption maybe down the line. Number six, is that there's no intrinsic value. So we talked about this in some of the pros. But bitcoin does not produce cash flow like stocks. It doesn't produce rent like real estate, or interest like bonds. Bitcoin is valued purely on what someone else is willing to pay for it, not underlying fundamentals. And so for someone with a finance background like me, sometimes that is hard to adopt because I want some underlying fundamentals when I'm looking at things I'm investing in. In fact, Warren Buffett called it rat poison squared, a speculative asset with no real utility. So the greatest investor of all time, obviously he's missed the boat a lot of tech stocks too. And so adoption as time has gone on has been different for him. But at the same time, he does not like that it doesn't have any intrinsic value whatsoever. So Warren Buffett is actually not pro bitcoin at all. And so it is something to just consider and think about as time goes on. Number seven, and this is one that I don't think enough people talk about is concentration of ownership. So because there is a finite amount of bitcoin, a small number of wallets that hold a large portion of the total bitcoin supply, often called the bitcoin whales, if you've ever heard that term. There is a small portion of them that can manipulate markets, basically because they hold so much of this coin that they could crash prices by selling or quietly influence the ecosystem. In fact, let's look up the biggest bitcoin whales right now. So Changpeng Zhao is number one, and he has about a $15 billion net worth. And he is the Chinese Canadian entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. So he has the most. Second is Brian Armstrong, who is the founder of Coinbase. Barry Silbert is the founder and CEO of Digital Currency group and it is a venture capitalist firm. He is number three and he has $10 billion of it. Chris Larson of Ripple and Fred also holds a ton. Now one that you may have seen before are the Winklevoss twins. So the Winklevoss twins, if you've ever heard the Facebook story, they are the twins that had gotten a big legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg saying they founded Facebook first and Zuckerberg stole it from them. And those twins made significant investments in Bitcoin and co founded the Gemini crypto exchange. And they have 1.4 billion net worth each in Bitcoin as well. Now there's a bunch of other companies out there like MicroStrategy. Total estimated Bitcoin holdings is 226,331. Galaxy Digital, Marathon Digital and Tesla is number four in company holdings, ironically with 10,500 being held when it comes to bitcoin. So it's a very interesting thing when it comes to the crypto whales on how much they hold because they have this concentration of ownership. If one of them starts to sell a bunch of their Bitcoin, it can cause huge, huge issues with that total supply. And so it is something that concentration does create systematic risks and it contradicts the narrative of Bitcoin as a fair money system. So we just got to think through that as time goes on. Now security risks for average users. So while the network itself is highly secure, user error is common. So there's lost seed phases, there's hacked exchanges, there's phishing scams, all of which have caused it to become something that self custody is intimidating to most people and creates high stakes risk. And so this is where I think a lot of people get scared to pull their bitcoin off of exchanges or pull it off the Internet is because it seems like it's complicated. And so that is something. There is some security risk there with these exchanges. And then Bitcoin's narrative fatigue. Okay, is number nine. What I mean by this is that the original narratives digital cash inflation hedge store of value are under constant debate. Meaning that it is too volatile to be a reliable store of value. It hasn't protected against inflation in every macro cycle. Lightning adoption is still way too low. All of these are things that people are just arguing based on the original premise of Bitcoin. Now the volatility is absolutely crazy. It is hard to be a reliable store of value when it changes value so drastically every single day. I think as time goes on, as the value of Bitcoin increases, if it does it's going to have to stabilize at some point in time. And so we got to think through, okay, how is this going to work and how will we make this happen. Then there's geopolitical and cyber threats as well. Is number 10 the last one? So if a major country like the US or China declared a full ban on bitcoin, it could drastically limit its utility and drop in price. That is a huge risk that could be there. And if the US and some of these bigger, bigger economies try to find a way and they can't circumvent around taxing it properly or doing certain things, there's going to be an attack on some of that stuff. That'll be a drastic scenario. But if it did happen, it'd be wild. And bitcoin's global and open nature makes it more resilient and vulnerable to large scale attacks and state level opposition. So there's a lot of what ifs and there's a lot of what ifs with anything that you invest in. So it comes down to what do you believe in? Do you believe in the long term power of bitcoin? Do you? There's a lot of people out there that say, hey, bitcoin's going to go to a million dollars per coin. And there's people out there that saying bitcoin is going to drop drastically one day. You just wait and see. I don't know what's going to happen with it and it's not something that I'm going to go out there predict. If I was to guess, I would think bitcoin would continue to go up in value over time. But I don't know. I really do not know what the future holds for bitcoin now. I think there is a much, much, much, much, much stronger case now for bitcoin to be going up over time. The reason for that is because the institutionalization is the biggest argument. In addition to the government recognizing it again at the time recording this, the government is having a crypto week here in the US So they are voting on a lot of different measures and they are voting on a ton of different bills when it comes to crypto. And so that is something to really consider. So let's talk about next, what I am doing in crypto and how I'm investing in it, if I am. So the last part of this episode is we're going to talk through how I'm investing in crypto. If you heard the first episode when we talked about Bitcoin and Ethereum and how I was investing in those. It is something that I think is very similar to what I'm doing now. And when it comes to crypto, this is my personal opinion is I do not think crypto should be more than 10% of your portfolio long term. Now, if you are so bullish on Bitcoin, you're like, andrew is absolutely wrong. This should be a larger portion of my portfolio. Hey, more power to you. You can do whatever you want. But for me personally, my goal is to make sure that it is not more than 10% of my portfolio. And the reason for this is because the intrinsic value problem, it is not part of my original investment plan. So the intrinsic value does create an issue for me long term. And there are some different risks that are involved. Now, will I increase the amount that I'm investing in Bitcoin based on some of the changes that have happened in 2025? I think I will. I'm actually going to increase some of the percentages that I'm investing in when it comes to dollar cost averaging. And I've already started to do some of that. And this is for Bitcoin only. I am not looking at other coins. I'm not looking at meme coins. Currently. The only other thing that I would invest in is Ethereum, maybe a little Solana just for fun. But the Solana money is basically gambling money to me. And so overall, bitcoin is the only one that I am looking at. The way that I do this is I dollar cost average every single month into Bitcoin. I'm not trying to time the market now. I could, and this is something I have considered thought about taking, you know, an extra chunk of cash that I, you know, wouldn't use elsewhere and just start putting it into my crypto account and then being able to utilize that where like every time there's a 20 or 30% pullback from, you know, the month high, then maybe I would look at, you know, investing a large lump sum at that point in time. That is something I've considered. I don't know if I'm going to do it. But right now, dollar cost averaging is the safest bet when it comes to bitcoin. And so 5 to 10%, somewhere in that range, maybe a little less than 5, depending on what's going on. If you're uncomfortable with it and you do not want to invest it, you don't have to. This is not a requirement. There are a lot of safer investments out there. This is extremely volatile. Again, it is a little bit speculative, but as time goes on, it is becoming part of the economy. Now, if you do not want to go to an exchange to buy Bitcoin directly, you can invest in Bitcoin ETFs again. Vanguard has them, Fidelity has them now, BlackRock has them. There's a lot of crypto ETFs out there in Bitcoin specific where you can get your Bitcoin exposure that way. And so when it comes to my portfolio, I am going to decide on the final number. I'll let you guys know what the final number ends up becoming. It's somewhere in that 5 to 10% range, will probably start becoming Bitcoin over time. So typically what I'll do is I use a couple of different exchanges. I've used Coinbase in the past. Fidelity has crypto now that I've been utilizing. And what you could do is you could put a certain amount of money into those accounts each and every single month. So, for example, Fidelity doesn't let you actually auto invest. So if you're looking to automate your investments, something like Coinbase might be the better option. And then you auto invest into these exchanges and then if you are worried about security, your best bet would probably be to put your Bitcoin on a ledger. So if you want to pull Bitcoin off an exchange, let's say you have it at Coinbase or you have it at Fidelity, step by step is you. 1 want to get a bitcoin wallet. And so to get a Bitcoin wallet, there are mobile software wallets, which is probably not the way I would go. I would go to a hardware wallet, meaning it has the best security. So the ledger Nano X is a great one. There is the Trezor Model T or the cold card. And if you hold a meaningful amount, meaning over $1,000, I would get a hardware wallet, which is the best security ones. And then write down your recovery phase. So when setting up your wallet, it will give you a 12 to 24 word recovery phase. And you gotta write it down on paper, not on your phone or cloud storage. And you gotta store it in a safe place. This is your only way to recover Bitcoin if you lose your device. I've heard stories of people who lost their recovery phrase and when they lost their recovery phrase, they have like, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on this ledger and they cannot figure out what their password was. So it's. That is frustrating. Then you wanna find and receive your address and then withdraw from the exchange. So you can go to withdraw or send Inside of the exchange, you could do this from Coinbase or Binance or Kraken or whatever you use. And you can choose Bitcoin and then you can paste your wallet address from step three and then choose the amount to send. So if you're worried about this also, you could send a test amount first. That's what I did. Just to make sure that it goes through properly. And then from there, then you can kind of go from there. Because a lot of people out there, their motto is not your keys, not your bitcoin. And so they say, hey, this is the way to own the key. Have the key in your hand and have some of this cold storage offline wallet for longer term holdings. And so the thing about the cold storage is if somebody steals it or somebody gets a hold of it, you got to make sure that you're also storing the cold storage somewhere that has high security because you do not want to lose that cold storage. This is like saving money under a mattress and someone breaks into your house and steals your mattress. You want to make sure that you have this somewhere safe, maybe a safety deposit box, maybe you have a really big heavy safe in your house. Not those little micro ones that people could just walk out of the house with, but the big heavy duty ones. Those are places to kind of store this stuff. You do not want to risk it getting stolen. Cause if you have six figures in bitcoin, somebody gets a hold of it, that be a worst case scenario for you. So just making sure security, security, security is always a big deal when it comes to crypto. You wanna make sure that nobody can get ahold of it and that it is safe and secure. So listen, this is the total guide on the pros and cons of bitcoin. And as things happen with crypto and with bitcoin, we will talk more about it here on the podcast. I hope you really enjoyed this episode. I hope it was informational for it helped you kind of think about bitcoin in a little bit of a different way and helped you really decide on if you want bitcoin as part of your portfolio or not. Again, not a requirement whatsoever to have bitcoin as part of your portfolio. Investing your money is a requirement though, here at the personal finance podcast. And Master Money, that is the only way to build wealth and retire and build that generational wealth. And so Master Money Academy is coming. Get ready. We are so pumped, so excited for Master Money Academy. Again, this is going to be the community that is going to teach you how to build wealth Step by step. You're gonna have live calls with me, we're gonna have live conversations, but we're also gonna give you the exact roadmap. Step by step. And this is not a roadmap we've ever released to you guys that is going to show you how to build wealth over time. Then we're gonna add a bunch of mini courses in there. Everything from Roth IRAs to HSAs to building generational wealth, to trusts to wills, to building wealth for your family. We're gonna. We have a whole list of different many courses that we want to provide. And then in addition, we are working and I didn't want to talk about this yet, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. We are working on an AI finance app, and everybody in that community, eventually, at some point in time, once we start to roll that out, is going to be able to help customize that app to exactly what they want. And when you're in the community, you're going to get the app for free. And it's going to be one that is, I think, really, really powerful. And I'm so excited for this. It is something I have been wanting to do for a long time. And so we have a dev team that is working on developing that app with us so that we can start to really, really help you guys budget without having to lift a finger is the goal. So, overall, really excited about some stuff coming here in the Master Money universe. Really excited for you all to be here. Thank you so much. And we will see you on the next episode.