Lisa "Eat, pray, love, Bitcoin's all I do!" - part 2

Tali: 00:00:00

Hey, everybody.

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Welcome to part two of my

conversation with Lisa.

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So you came from energy trading and

now you are full time in Bitcoin.

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So I'm very curious about that

journey because you didn't

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find Bitcoin very long ago.

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Is that correct?

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Correct.

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It wasn't that long

ago, and you are all in.

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Lisa: I am irresponsibly

long involvement of Bitcoin.

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That is true.

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I...

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It's like eat, pray,

love Bitcoin's all I do.

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Yeah, I got into Bitcoin in 2018.

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I had a massive change in my life

and I had money in a managed fund

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with an investment manager and he

had me in 26 different mutual funds.

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And I just remember getting my

statement one day going like this

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isn't going to work for me anymore.

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Like, I don't feel like

I'm getting any value here.

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This is a lot of work.

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I'm paying this guy 2

percent or whatever it was.

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Like, I can do better than this I

think a little bit of it was like,

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okay, I can day trade my own account.

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I did get paid to day trade.

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I traded commodities, which I would

argue are harder to trade than equities.

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So I'll manage my own money.

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So I started this journey of

what do I want to invest in?

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Well, I knew I wanted to be long

energy companies and I knew I wanted

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to be long technology companies.

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So this is like early 2018 at the outset

you know,: 2018

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day trade Amazon back then, right?

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Like it would open at one price and go up

and , I would probably make, I don't know,

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two or 3, 000 in a 30 minute time frame.

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And then I would . Not look at

the market again all day and be

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like, okay, I made 2, 000 today.

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Yay.

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It didn't take me very

long of doing that going.

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This is a lot of risk This

is actually a lot of work.

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I'm creating a huge tax event every time

I do this like this is not smart Right.

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It really, it really didn't

take me that long to go.

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I'm a lot simpler of a person than

wanting to manage a portfolio and

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study technology stocks all day.

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Like, this is not what I want to

do with my life, but I knew I was

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really interested in technology.

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And I could see that there, you

know, like everybody else, right.

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You could see that there

was a shift coming.

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Like we were in the midst of

a technological revolution.

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So I found a magazine.

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I don't know how I saw.

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I think I was in an airport.

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I stumbled upon it.

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The MIT tech review.

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I still take it today.

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I think it's a phenomenal publication

and they published a list for

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many years in a row of the top

technology companies of the year.

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So I, I built a very pedestrian

spreadsheet to try to look for

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similarities and signal, you

know, who are the seed round

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investors of these companies?

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What was the technology, right?

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It was like genomics, AI

social media consumer related,

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you know, whatever, right?

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Like this started their list

started, I think, in: 2010

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So I started looking at those companies

and what really struck me as interesting

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was this word blockchain and I was

like, oh, wait, if I buy blockchain, I

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am going to be financially set, right?

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Like, I'm going to invest in

blockchain, blockchain is the future.

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Well, I cringe saying those words now

because I mean, after: 2018

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I realized that, you know, and I'm no

technology expert, this is not financial

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advice, but if anybody tells me they're

interested in blockchain, not Bitcoin,

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that's like saying I'm interested

in copper wire, not electricity.

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Right?

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Like, you've missed it.

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You're totally wrong.

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But nevertheless, I kept

Googling blockchain.

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How do I buy blockchain?

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And I came upon Bitcoin, started studying

some and Ethereum and, you know, all the

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other sort of alt coins that we regard

as just, I regard as just garbage now.

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But nevertheless, that was my journey.

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I started studying technology

stocks, studying blockchain.

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Day trading all of the, you know,

like 20 tokens, like a complete degen.

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And again, it like, didn't

take me very long to go this is

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the biggest waste of my time.

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I don't want to sit on Twitter and watch

the alerts for whatever token, like, this

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is just, something's not right in Denmark.

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I am going to stop.

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I'm not going to do this.

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And I just kept my Bitcoin.

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I sold everything else and I

kept a little bit of Bitcoin.

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I didn't have a huge

allocation at that time.

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I had most of my assets in Amazon and

Apple and I don't know, probably like

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10 or 15 energy companies from Kinder

Morgan to Momentum, I mean, just

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a whole bunch of pipeline companies

and kind of midstream companies.

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So anyway, so from, that's 2018.

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And I don't know, by about 2020, I just

got further and further down the Bitcoin

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rabbit hole and I had moved from the

East coast back to back to Houston.

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And I thought, well, I'll go back

to work in the energy business.

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And, I just started talking with

folks and having conversations

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and I was speaking with an oil

and gas person one day who said.

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Yeah, you should really be

a consultant for Bitcoin.

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You should explain Bitcoin to people.

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And he was actually really kidding.

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He wanted to date me and he

didn't want to talk about Bitcoin.

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So he wanted me to go talk

about Bitcoin with other people.

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So he was like, you know, you should

go talk about this during the day.

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So we can talk about

something else at night.

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And it was really funny and he was right.

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I should be talking about

Bitcoin all the time.

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So I spun up a deck and I started telling

people that I was a Bitcoin educator and

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that I could help them understand Bitcoin.

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And, that's how I got here.

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I got hired by a Bitcoin company.

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I went to work for Unchained.

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I went to the Texas

Blockchain Council event.

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I met Parker Lewis.

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We had a couple of conversations

and two weeks later, I was working

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at Unchained and I've been working,

full time in Bitcoin ever since.

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And just to bring that all home,

I mean, I work in Bitcoin because

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I think it's reachable, it's

understandable, it's knowable.

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It's accessible to everyone.

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You don't need to have an MBA.

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You don't need to have

graduated from college.

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You don't need to have any special

skills or you know, you don't need to

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be an analyst of any type to understand

that it is the most scarce asset

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on earth and scarcity drives value.

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And if you can really just

understand that one concept.

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You can understand why Bitcoin

over time will become the most

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valuable asset on earth and why it

is such a vortex for value, right?

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It's like sucking value out

of every other asset class.

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And the market cap of Bitcoin is

growing, but what's most exciting

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to me is that the number of

users on the network are growing.

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So, as Alex Gladstein has said

in his piece, multiple pieces,

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it's not number go up technology.

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It's freedom go up technology.

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Tali: So when you first came across

Bitcoin, as part of your general

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interest in blockchain technology,

when you're doing your research, what

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set it apart from the other so called

shit coins now That made you really

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open your eyes and go wait this is

the only one that I want to focus on

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Lisa: There's no marketing

team and there's no CEO, right?

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It just is what it is.

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It's code.

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It's pure.

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There's no gimmicks.

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There's no sales team.

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There's nobody collecting 2 percent

a year to manage your assets.

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Right.

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It just is what it is.

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It's the way to, own a more beautiful

proper form of property than Malibu

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beachfront property or name,

whatever you think is you know, it's

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like owning the Rocky Mountains.

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It's, it's like this majestic, pure,

unpolluted asset, you know, no matter

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how many of us try to screw it up.

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Right.

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Like us, like the collective us of

people creating products, I mean, I

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really am appreciative of BlackRock.

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I think that their leadership and stepping

into the spaces is huge and will be

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huge for people touching this asset.

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And , it's been a long road,

the mainstream media has not

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been a friend to, to Bitcoin.

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Warren Buffett has not

been a friend of Bitcoin.

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There've been a lot of negative

narratives that have kept good

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people out of this asset class,

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Tali: yeah there's definitely a lot of

misunderstanding surrounding bitcoin

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and Now that Black Rock and other

companies are proposing the ETFs.

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Can you explain?

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Since you're background is in finance

what the difference is between the Bitcoin

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that you hold and an ETF for our audience?

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Lisa: So Bitcoin is a

physical bearer asset.

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And what that means is that you can

actually physically take possession of

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the asset and be in complete ownership

of the asset without a third party.

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And as you know, and probably many people

in your audience knows, but for those

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that don't private keys are the asset.

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Bitcoin lives on the blockchain.

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Bitcoin does not live in a

hardware device or signing device.

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Right.

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It although people often think that

those things are that is the asset

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and if you lose that, that signing

device or that hardware device, right.

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It kind of looks like your key fob.

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I, I think it looks like my key

fob and the way that I equate it to

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people is that so if I have my, my

key to my car and I press the unlock

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button, it is transmitting a code to

my car that allows My car to unlock.

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And when my key is inside my

car, it allows my car to start.

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Right.

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So you would agree that

that's a code inside that fob.

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If I lose that fob, have

I lost my asset, my car?

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No, I can go down to the dealership

and pay the dealership 350 or whatever

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ridiculous price it is to replace that

key fob, but they will load the code

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into a new key fob for me, and I will

drive down the road mad, but I will be

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driving down the road again in my car.

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So those hardware devices, those

hardware, those signing devices.

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look like a key fob.

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And what they do is they, they hold your

seed phrase or they hold your code so

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that when you use that and access Bitcoin,

so let's say you're like an unchained

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client or a Casa client, you have a multi

sig collaborative custody agreement.

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And you're signing a transaction, right?

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Like it's got the code in it.

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It makes it easy so that you don't

have to punch in all the digits, but

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if you lose your hardware device, as

long as you have the digits written

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down, you still own the asset.

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So in an ETF like that BlackRock and

basically every other financial services

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firm in the world will eventually

offer it is a wrapped form of Bitcoin.

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And what that means to you is that you may

hold air quote Bitcoin in your retirement

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account or in your whatever account

it is within Fidelity or BlackRock.

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But you don't hold those keys.

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Someone else holds those keys.

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You have essentially price

exposure to the asset, but you

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don't actually own the asset.

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So, I'm delighted that

BlackRock is doing it.

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I'm delighted that That other

financial services firms are going

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to help people touch Bitcoin.

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I would just offer to folks that,

you know, know the difference.

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It's fine, I guess, to own inside of

BlackRock, but, you know, I, I think about

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Bitcoin, like part of the beauty of it is

we dial back to kind of like: 1943

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when people are walking out of Germany

and they're going into Poland, or they're

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going into like, they're escaping Germany.

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You can visualize what those people look

like they're in their winter coats and

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their pockets and their clothes are just

stuffed with gold and their candlesticks

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and all their silverware and everything

of value is stuffed in their pockets,

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and they're crossing a border, but

with Bitcoin, you need your 12 words.

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And you can cross a border and have a

hundred percent of your wealth, right?

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Or a hundred percent of what you've

got invested in Bitcoin, right?

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Like nobody can take it from you.

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And I mean, some people say that they

memorize their 12 words and then they

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feel like, you know, they can cross any

border without, you know, essentially

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they can cross without anything in

their pockets at all and get to the

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next country, buy a phone, download a

Bitcoin wallet and put the 12 words.

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And there's your net worth.

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Like it's kind of miraculous.

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Tali: I love that

visualization with the key fob.

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I've never heard that before.

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It's such a perfect analogy.

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It's so easy to visualize what it is.

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There's a lot of, I think, confusion

with the chosen word to describe

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something like when they say

hardware wallet, what is that?

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You know, but I love that.

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I love that imagery of the

fob that really makes sense.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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Thanks for joining us today

and learning with us today.

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If the discussion with our guests

resonated with you and you would

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like to dive deeper into the world of

Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

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Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

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The meetup link is in the show notes.

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Also, if there are women in your life

whom you think would both enjoy and

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benefit from learning more about Bitcoin,

please share Orange Hatter with them.

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Until next time, bye.