Mel: "Two things in my life that I could see straight down the line... selling online...and Bitcoin." - part 2

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everyone.

Tali: 00:00:00

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:01

Today you're listening to part two of my conversation with Mel.

... Mel: 00:00:05

in my entire life that I've ever felt like that.

... Mel: 00:00:07

20, 25 years, straight down the line.

Tali: 00:00:10

Yeah.

Tali: 00:00:10

Let's, let's draw some parallels.

Tali: 00:00:12

So you obviously love vintage, and you mentioned that it's because

Tali: 00:00:17

there's a, there's a bigger margin.

Tali: 00:00:19

But there are properties of vintage items that actually draw

Tali: 00:00:23

a lot of parallels to Bitcoin.

Tali: 00:00:24

Can you expand a little bit more on those things?

Mel: 00:00:27

It's so hard to explain, but yes, they're absolutely connected.

Mel: 00:00:31

I think maybe the best way to explain it is, have you heard

Mel: 00:00:34

of the Bitcoin trading cards?

Tali: 00:00:36

I have, yeah.

Mel: 00:00:37

Okay.

Mel: 00:00:37

Well, I'm obsessed with them.

Mel: 00:00:39

I am a collector of them.

Mel: 00:00:40

In fact, I opened in Nashville, I opened Bitcoin Magazine's box of

Mel: 00:00:45

cards for them and videoed each one.

Mel: 00:00:48

You know, and like the big reveal.

Mel: 00:00:51

And what I am learning is there is a rabid collector base of Bitcoiners.

Mel: 00:00:58

They're collecting Bitcoin stuff, whether it's Bitcoin magazine, whether

Mel: 00:01:02

it's stickers, hardware, wallets.

Mel: 00:01:05

Now the trading cards, I mean, I, I've gotta go ahead and tell you this.

Mel: 00:01:09

I sold, I, I won a very rare card like they were doing

Mel: 00:01:14

when they first got started.

Mel: 00:01:15

You know, we would post things and then we'd get entered into

Mel: 00:01:17

Raffles to win free cards.

Mel: 00:01:19

And I won a very, very rare card, sold it for $3,000.

Mel: 00:01:24

That's a lot of Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:01:25

I was really excited and like I said, these guys are just, they are

Mel: 00:01:28

collecting, they're serious collectors.

Mel: 00:01:31

And Bitcoin is something you collect.

Mel: 00:01:34

It kind of is.

Mel: 00:01:35

It's got, I'm not sure how to explain it.

Mel: 00:01:37

Maybe you could explain it better than me.

Mel: 00:01:38

It's almost like I, I don't know.

Mel: 00:01:40

It's hard to explain, but there's a, there's a correlation there.

Mel: 00:01:43

I've been hoping...

Mel: 00:01:44

so since like 2017, I've been talking to my vendors about it.

Mel: 00:01:48

You know, they need to accept Bitcoin, the prices that we're paying now

Mel: 00:01:51

to actually do transactions with Visa and MasterCard are absurd.

Mel: 00:01:56

The fees for a small business on this are, they're almost unmanageable.

Mel: 00:02:01

We, we push people, like, before the show, bring cash.

Mel: 00:02:05

You know, you're gonna make, you're gonna have a better,

Mel: 00:02:07

you're gonna get a better deal,

Mel: 00:02:08

bring cash.

Mel: 00:02:09

And that works, and it helps.

Mel: 00:02:11

Because the credit card fees are absurd and you don't wanna take a check anymore.

Mel: 00:02:15

It's just, you know, it's a bad idea.

Mel: 00:02:18

Especially in our industry, people have been paying by check for so long,

Mel: 00:02:22

because you go on a Friday to a show and you buy a bunch of stuff, and you

Mel: 00:02:26

don't want that check to clear until at least Monday or Tuesday when maybe

Mel: 00:02:30

you've sold a few things already.

Mel: 00:02:31

So in our industry, we've used checks probably longer than

Mel: 00:02:34

most, but they're about gone.

Mel: 00:02:36

I don't take 'em anymore for payment.

Mel: 00:02:38

Most of the vendors don't either.

Mel: 00:02:40

So I would love to see them.

Mel: 00:02:42

I actually, for the past two years, I have a full season dealer deal for

Mel: 00:02:47

my vendors that have been with me forever and that they do every single

Mel: 00:02:50

show, I cut them a really good deal to sign up for the entire season.

Mel: 00:02:54

The last two years I've also given them an extra bonus if they pay in Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:02:59

I've had six of them do it.

Mel: 00:03:01

Which isn't bad.

Mel: 00:03:02

I hoped it would make them learn more.

Mel: 00:03:04

They just went to Coinbase, bought it and sent it to me.

Mel: 00:03:07

I appreciated it, I mean...

Mel: 00:03:09

but that's the point, it was like, you guys...

Mel: 00:03:11

now I will say, one vendor called me two years ago, and she said,

Mel: 00:03:16

Melissa, I want you to help me with...

Mel: 00:03:18

I wanna buy some Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:03:19

She's 87.

Mel: 00:03:20

Okay.

Mel: 00:03:21

I said, okay.

Mel: 00:03:21

She says, I'll take you out to lunch and you're gonna show

Mel: 00:03:23

me how to buy some Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:03:24

I said, okay.

Mel: 00:03:25

She's the one vendor that still sends me a check, and I let her do it because

Mel: 00:03:29

I've known her for so long, but she's my one vendor that owns Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:03:34

How crazy is that?

Mel: 00:03:35

My one vendor who still pays my check, she's 87 years old, but she's got

Mel: 00:03:39

a thousand bucks worth of Bitcoin.

Tali: 00:03:41

I think that is such a wonderful story.

Mel: 00:03:45

It really is.

Mel: 00:03:46

It's like, I wish I, I could somehow convey this to the rest of my vendors.

Mel: 00:03:52

So many of them are under 40.

Mel: 00:03:54

You know, it, it's 75% of them are under 40 and...

Mel: 00:03:58

not interested.

Mel: 00:03:59

So weird.

Tali: 00:04:00

That is weird because you would imagine that if they're

Tali: 00:04:03

dealing with antiques, then they see the value in limited supply

Tali: 00:04:07

as as a primary value driver.

Mel: 00:04:10

See, everyone still thinks this is not real.

Mel: 00:04:13

When we started, when the price started to go crazy, people started to pay attention.

Mel: 00:04:18

Then when we crashed back down, everyone's like, oh, this isn't real.

Mel: 00:04:22

And it's like, no, this is a parabola.

Mel: 00:04:24

So a parabola.

Mel: 00:04:26

So the one thing I did learn from tone.

Mel: 00:04:28

I can read charts, I can read charts all day long, and Bitcoin is a parabola.

Mel: 00:04:32

And a parabola will retrace 85%, 85% of the time.

Mel: 00:04:36

So as long as you know that you'll be good and be ready to buy that dip.

Mel: 00:04:40

But how do you tell this to people?

Mel: 00:04:41

You know, how do you explain it when you have to go back to 2017 and, and

Mel: 00:04:48

almost explain to people how you learned and not like I have a friend whose son

Mel: 00:04:53

is working for Caterpillar, and I know Caterpillar's doing a lot of mining

Mel: 00:04:57

equipment, Bitcoin mining equipment.

Mel: 00:04:58

And I told her that and she said, okay, that's interesting.

Mel: 00:05:02

And she was like the first person that didn't seem like absolutely horrified.

Mel: 00:05:07

Ooh.

Mel: 00:05:07

You know?

Mel: 00:05:08

She's like, well that's very interesting.

Mel: 00:05:10

I'm like, okay.

Mel: 00:05:11

This is a very interesting conversation with a woman who

Mel: 00:05:13

is poo-pooing it immediately.

Mel: 00:05:16

You know?

Mel: 00:05:17

Maybe that...

Mel: 00:05:18

I know women are not in finance.

Mel: 00:05:20

Like, it's the same thing.

Mel: 00:05:21

10%, 90% are men.

Mel: 00:05:23

Same thing with Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:05:24

And so that might explain why some of them don't want, or, or, or just, I don't know.

Mel: 00:05:30

I don't know.

Tali: 00:05:30

I mean, it's such a, it's such a foreign concept.

Tali: 00:05:33

I really, really struggled.

Tali: 00:05:35

When my husband tried to get me to investigate Bitcoin, not even just to

Tali: 00:05:41

understand it, the desire to investigate for me was almost zero because I'm trying

Tali: 00:05:47

to juggle so many other balls in the air trying not to let one of them drop.

Tali: 00:05:52

But even today when we talk about Bitcoin with our family and friends, even if they

Tali: 00:06:00

politely listen to what we have to say, less blunt than what I did to my husband.

Tali: 00:06:06

Um, they.

Tali: 00:06:08

They nod and they say, I see.

Tali: 00:06:11

And then they don't do anything to follow up.

Tali: 00:06:14

That's the polite ones.

Tali: 00:06:15

The, the less polite ones would literally say, you know, you

Tali: 00:06:18

guys sound like you're in a cult.

Tali: 00:06:20

So for you...

Tali: 00:06:22

go back to, to the beginning, because we're trying to reach women

Tali: 00:06:25

who are currently where you were, emotionally, five years ago or so.

Tali: 00:06:30

What was it like pursuing this with no support from your

Tali: 00:06:35

immediate friends and family?

Mel: 00:06:36

Well, I'll say my husband was...

Mel: 00:06:39

you know, listen, this man has been supportive of everything that I've

Mel: 00:06:42

done, and he started to learn about it.

Mel: 00:06:45

And to this day he also...

Mel: 00:06:47

you know, I, I asked him about a month ago, said, I don't know why

Mel: 00:06:51

I was distressed or whatever else.

Mel: 00:06:52

I said, what if I'm wrong?

Mel: 00:06:54

What if I'm wrong about Bitcoin?

Mel: 00:06:55

And he said, you're not wrong.

Mel: 00:06:57

And I went, okay, you're right.

Mel: 00:06:58

I'm not.

Mel: 00:06:59

And I picked myself back up and kept going.

Mel: 00:07:02

So he knows more than he's ever, you know, expressing.

Mel: 00:07:06

But he has done some research himself and I, I'm so impressed by that.

Mel: 00:07:10

You know, it's a big deal.

Tali: 00:07:12

Yeah.

Tali: 00:07:12

So how would you encourage someone who is on the outside looking in?

Mel: 00:07:18

Buy some.

Mel: 00:07:20

Just buy some.

Mel: 00:07:21

Go to Cash app, and buy like 200 bucks worth of Bitcoin and wait.

Mel: 00:07:25

Just wait.

Tali: 00:07:26

What if the price goes down?

Mel: 00:07:27

What if it does?

Mel: 00:07:29

Okay.

Mel: 00:07:30

Anyone who has an investment portfolio isn't looking at

Mel: 00:07:36

their returns next year, right?

Mel: 00:07:37

Everyone is thinking that is happening way down the line.

Mel: 00:07:41

So they're good with that loss and that, you know, potential gains and

Mel: 00:07:45

losses in short term, but nobody seems to be okay with that with Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:07:49

Lay the chart of Microsoft over Bitcoin's chart.

Mel: 00:07:52

Lay the chart of Amazon over Bitcoin's chart.

Mel: 00:07:54

You'll see the adoption curve is almost the same.

Mel: 00:07:57

They're trading.

Mel: 00:07:58

For their first, what is it?

Mel: 00:08:00

How many years is this now?

Mel: 00:08:01

12 or 13 years.

Mel: 00:08:02

They're, the trading looks the same.

Mel: 00:08:04

The charts look a lot alike.

Mel: 00:08:06

And it's interesting because they think about it, Amazon didn't

Mel: 00:08:10

know where they were gonna go.

Mel: 00:08:11

They were a bookseller, like when they came out, they were selling,

Mel: 00:08:13

you could resell books there.

Mel: 00:08:15

And that evolved into something else.

Mel: 00:08:17

Evolved into something bigger.

Mel: 00:08:19

And the same thing with Microsoft.

Mel: 00:08:20

You know, Microsoft started, they were huge to begin with, but you know,

Mel: 00:08:24

absolutely evolved and kept going, and no one is looking at the price of

Mel: 00:08:28

Microsoft and Amazon and expecting it to double and double again and double

Mel: 00:08:32

again in a matter of that amount of time.

Mel: 00:08:35

So for example, the woman I told you about, the 87 year old woman

Mel: 00:08:38

who has a thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin, she knows that she gets that.

Mel: 00:08:41

Daughter, however, who sets up a cross from her, came over to me at the show a

Mel: 00:08:47

couple weeks ago and said, I lost big.

Mel: 00:08:49

I lost big.

Mel: 00:08:50

I go, why would you sell?

Mel: 00:08:52

Why would you?

Mel: 00:08:52

I go, you don't, you don't lose unless you sell.

Mel: 00:08:55

I go, why would you do that?

Mel: 00:08:56

I didn't sell, but I lost big.

Mel: 00:08:58

I go, you didn't lose anything.

Mel: 00:08:59

If you still have it, you'll be fine.

Mel: 00:09:01

Why don't you look at it just like you would in your investment portfolio?

Mel: 00:09:05

So that's part of it.

Mel: 00:09:06

You know, people that, that volatility argument is kind of ridiculous.

Mel: 00:09:12

If you look at other things that were new technology and where they began, Bitcoin's

Mel: 00:09:16

price is, it's almost irrelevant.

Mel: 00:09:19

But I would get it now.

Mel: 00:09:21

I would rather get more Bitcoin now than I would next year, because

Mel: 00:09:24

my gut feeling is by next year...

Mel: 00:09:26

I'm not, I don't wanna make price predictions, but I'm gonna bet you

Mel: 00:09:28

we'll be double next year by this time, and, and that's just gonna keep going.

Mel: 00:09:32

There's a scarcity issue here that no one's talking about either.

Mel: 00:09:36

There's gonna come a time there isn't going to be enough Bitcoin for everybody.

Mel: 00:09:40

There isn't gonna be enough, there isn't gonna be enough Bitcoin that if you wanna

Mel: 00:09:44

just go on Cash App and buy a hundred bucks worth, that might not be easy to do.

Mel: 00:09:48

There's only so much of it, and that's different than Apple stock.

Mel: 00:09:52

I mean, it seems like there is no end in how much stock you can buy in any kind

Mel: 00:09:58

of, you know, in any of the equities.

Mel: 00:09:59

You can buy as much as you want.

Mel: 00:10:01

Bitcoin's different and people don't know that yet.

Mel: 00:10:03

Like what's gonna happen when they all go, wait, what?

Mel: 00:10:05

There's only how many?

Mel: 00:10:07

And so, but that's what it's gonna take.

Mel: 00:10:08

It's gonna take a giant price explosion.

Mel: 00:10:11

And if you wanna get in and you wanna learn, there's nothing better

Mel: 00:10:14

than having skin in the game.

Mel: 00:10:15

When I first started learning about buying and selling antiques, I would

Mel: 00:10:18

make a pile of things that I liked and I thought were interesting, and

Mel: 00:10:22

I would make an offer on everything.

Mel: 00:10:24

I would come home and I would research.

Mel: 00:10:26

And I paid to do that research, and I was also hoping that I

Mel: 00:10:31

would have a treasure in there.

Mel: 00:10:32

You know?

Mel: 00:10:32

And, and I got better and better and better at that.

Mel: 00:10:35

You know, as time went on, I learned more and more and more.

Mel: 00:10:38

People who are passionate about collecting know their trade.

Mel: 00:10:42

They know what they collect.

Mel: 00:10:44

So like the Bitcoin trading cards, those guys, there's a lot of guys

Mel: 00:10:47

in there that come from traditional card collecting backgrounds.

Mel: 00:10:51

And they know everything about how a card would be centered.

Mel: 00:10:55

What is a grade of a card like this, or, you know, just all kinds of stuff.

Mel: 00:11:00

But when I first started, I absorbed all that from anyone who would tell me.

Mel: 00:11:04

So, you know, if I was selling something and someone collected

Mel: 00:11:06

it, I would ask questions.

Mel: 00:11:08

Well, what about this?

Mel: 00:11:09

Or what about that?

Mel: 00:11:09

Or what, what else do you guys look for?

Mel: 00:11:11

And I just absorbed all that.

Mel: 00:11:12

And I'm doing the same thing with Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:11:14

I look to the people who I believe know more, way more than I do,

Mel: 00:11:18

and I listen and I pay attention.

Mel: 00:11:20

And having skin in the game and then finding the right people to listen to,

Mel: 00:11:23

if that doesn't get you interested, I mean, I don't know what does.

Mel: 00:11:26

That's what did it for me.

Mel: 00:11:27

It was that $4,700 that was sitting in there after two years,

Mel: 00:11:31

and me forgetting about it, that made me go, what in the world?

Mel: 00:11:35

So, you know, it's real, it's real.

Mel: 00:11:37

I can't debunk it.

Mel: 00:11:39

And it's been what, seven...

Mel: 00:11:41

how many years?

Mel: 00:11:42

Six years?

Mel: 00:11:42

How long has it been since...

Mel: 00:11:43

6 years, since 2017.

Mel: 00:11:45

And it has been a nonstop learning journey.

Mel: 00:11:48

I will listen and listen and listen, and listen and listen.

Mel: 00:11:50

And I weed out what I don't think is good.

Mel: 00:11:53

And then I look, zero in on the things that I think are interesting.

Mel: 00:11:56

And right now, like to me, Bitcoin mining is interesting, Lightning

Mel: 00:11:59

Network's very interesting, and I'm, I'm hoping to see some big things

Mel: 00:12:02

from both of those spaces this year, you know, in the next year or two.

Mel: 00:12:06

I think we're gonna see a lot.

Tali: 00:12:08

Yeah, for sure.

Tali: 00:12:08

The continual education component of Bitcoin is really important.

Tali: 00:12:14

And the honest truth is there is so much excitement in this space, because it's

Tali: 00:12:18

so new, and there's so much talent coming into this space, helping to develop

Tali: 00:12:23

it, to make it more user friendly all the time, more accessible to people...

Tali: 00:12:27

uh, regular non-technical folks, like you and me.

Mel: 00:12:31

Not technical, but I can use an app.

Mel: 00:12:33

I can learn how to, you know, use the Lightning Network.

Mel: 00:12:37

It's not always easy.

Mel: 00:12:38

Hard wallets are scary, but I'm learning everything I can.

Mel: 00:12:43

And it just takes time and patience and to find the right people to teach you.

Tali: 00:12:47

Yeah, for sure.

Tali: 00:12:48

And also, can you address just a little bit from the point of view of

Tali: 00:12:51

a mom with young adult children in terms of prepping them for the future?

Mel: 00:12:56

That's a tough one.

Mel: 00:12:57

What's tough about it is we as parents, you know, no one

Mel: 00:13:02

taught me anything about money.

Mel: 00:13:03

No one said anything to me about money.

Mel: 00:13:05

No one ever told me how to balance a checkbook.

Mel: 00:13:08

I've never used a checkbook ledger to balance anything.

Mel: 00:13:11

I never learned a thing, so it was just out of my wheelhouse.

Mel: 00:13:15

Like, I just didn't even think about it.

Mel: 00:13:17

And because of that, I didn't teach my children what I should have

Mel: 00:13:21

when they were younger, but now I'm giving them Bitcoin for Christmas.

Mel: 00:13:25

I am doing things in the hopes that they're gonna learn something and

Mel: 00:13:30

stop thinking I'm crazy Bitcoin mom.

Mel: 00:13:32

So I'm having a conversation with my daughter the other day who is saving for a

Mel: 00:13:36

house and she's going to get married soon.

Mel: 00:13:39

And I said to her, Jordan.

Mel: 00:13:41

Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:13:42

You need Bitcoin.

Mel: 00:13:43

She goes, well, what am I supposed to do with that mom?

Mel: 00:13:45

What am I supposed to do with that?

Mel: 00:13:46

I have the Bitcoin that you told me to buy.

Mel: 00:13:47

I haven't done anything with it.

Mel: 00:13:48

I go, if you put your money into Bitcoin right now, buy in the next two years.

Mel: 00:13:53

And she's all, so are you saying that I would take it out then and sell it?

Mel: 00:13:56

I go, yeah, yeah, I would.

Mel: 00:13:58

You could do that.

Mel: 00:13:59

It's possible.

Mel: 00:13:59

Get some money in there.

Mel: 00:14:00

I, I think that was like the first time in her mind...

Mel: 00:14:03

clicked...

Mel: 00:14:03

something clicked in there.

Mel: 00:14:04

Because of the house buying.

Mel: 00:14:06

You know, we know this is an interesting new housing market.

Mel: 00:14:09

They need as much money as they can.

Mel: 00:14:10

And the way I see it...

Mel: 00:14:12

oh, and this is the child who knows I'm crazy Bitcoin mom,

Mel: 00:14:16

knows I don't like shit coins.

Mel: 00:14:17

And the first thing she does is buy Dogecoin.

Mel: 00:14:20

And why?

Mel: 00:14:22

Because Elon Musk told her to.

Mel: 00:14:27

I was so annoyed.

Mel: 00:14:28

I go, I cannot believe you didn't even talk to me first.

Mel: 00:14:32

I'm hoping that because she needs this, and she needs to buy a

Mel: 00:14:35

house, that maybe this will be the thing that helps what's next.

Tali: 00:14:40

Yeah.

Tali: 00:14:40

I think I'm, I'm having some challenges convincing my young adult children...

Mel: 00:14:46

Oh, okay.

Mel: 00:14:47

Interesting.

... Tali: 00:14:47

about the value of Bitcoin.

... Tali: 00:14:49

Scott and I talk about it all day long.

Mel: 00:14:51

Is that why?

Mel: 00:14:52

Is it just because mom and dad talk about it so much?

Tali: 00:14:55

Well, the thing is that we didn't get to them when they were younger.

Tali: 00:14:58

When they were younger, we taught them the traditional way, which is study

Tali: 00:15:01

hard, go to college, you know, get a good job or start a business, and

Tali: 00:15:05

your wealth will be created yourself.

Tali: 00:15:08

At the time when we were teaching the kids financial literacy,

Tali: 00:15:11

we were not questioning the monetary system as it is today...

Tali: 00:15:15

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:15:19

If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

Tali: 00:15:22

like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

Tali: 00:15:26

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:15:28

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:15:31

Also, if there are women in your life whom you think would both enjoy and

Tali: 00:15:35

benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.