Crypto mastermind, Nesh Sooriyan from Accelerating Asia helps us make sense of the world of crypto. If the terms bitcoin, doge coin and blockchain leave you scratching your head, tune in to make sense of it all. From how cryptocurrency started, to how it's used and where it's headed in the future. This is part 1 of a 2 part series looking at cryptocurrency.
Thank you to Nesh Sooriyan for tuning in all the way from Singapore for this chat. Nesh can be found on twitter.
Nesh's recommended resources to learn more about crypto:
Nuggets News, Independent Reserve, Binance Academy, Coinbase
Read: Crpytoassets: The Innovative Investors guide to Bitcoin and Beyond
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Disclaimer
We Talk Cents is not a financial advisor and the information provided is general in nature and was prepared for information purposes only. This podcast should not be considered to constitute financial advice. Accordingly, reliance should not be placed on the podcast as the basis for making an investment, financial or other decision. This information does not take into account your investment objectives, particular needs or financial situation.
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The transcript is created by AI software so it might not be perfect - please forgive any imperfections or grammatical errors.
Blaize Pengilly 00:09
Personal finance, budgeting, cash flow, and investing don't have to be scary words. The We Talk Cents podcast is here to help you learn more about money and take control of your personal finances.
Blaize Pengilly 00:26
We Talk Cents podcast is not a financial advisor. This podcast is made for entertainment and educational purposes only. All information shared is of a general nature and does not take into account your personal situation. You should consider whether the information is appropriate for your needs and where appropriate seek professional advice from a financial advisor.
Dan Jovevski 00:45
For more information, please check out wemoney.com au slash disclaimer.
Dan Jovevski 00:51
Hello, hello. It's a pleasure to be back with you. Episode 24 of We Talk Cents This is a podcast produced by We Money a new Australian Smart Money app helping people take control their finances. I'm Dan, resident finance expert.
Blaize Pengilly 01:04
And I am Blaize previously a millennial that lived a payday to payday and was pretty shocking with money. Now I'm still a millennial, but learning a lot more about money from this show. Then we had two weeks off, it was a delight. How was your Easter break?
Dan Jovevski 01:21
My Easter break was wonderful. Thank you for asking Blaize I don't know if I've got anything exciting. The best thing that I probably did is binge watch some Netflix TV series, I've watched the whole of snowpiercer which is pretty phenomenal. And also dogs of Berlin. I've got to think the German created Netflix series like Babylon Berlin, and it did not disappoint. I think that's probably going to be about not even 1% as exciting. Then what you got up to? What did you do Blaize?
Blaize Pengilly 01:58
Well, I headed out into the bush for a week, well under the weight belt, so four hours east of Perth here and kept with a bunch of people in a festival slash Community Living experiment, which was really fun, very, very different. And it was actually really interesting because they have a principle out there called decommodification. So when you go to this experience, there's no money. You can't buy anything out there, you can't leave the festival. So that the premise is that you have to take everything that you need with you to survive for a week in what is essentially the desert. It's pretty hardcore conditions out there. And there's no trading, there's no buying, there's no selling, there's no branding, there's no sponsorships. So going from my regular, you know, nine to five here and talking about money all the time on the podcast, which I'm obviously super passionate about going to an environment where it's that's Decommodified was a real different experience and really, really interesting to be part of
Dan Jovevski 02:58
that is amazing. what's your favorite part?
Blaize Pengilly 03:08
There's so many parts. But if this wasn't my favorite part, the but this is a part that I think you will appreciate. Damn. So I haven't been camping for a while. So I decided to hire a camper. But I do love my costumes and aware it is where a lot of my paycheck goes into buying costumes and ridiculous outfits. And of course, they didn't fit in the campus. So I thought you know, I'll treat myself I'll buy myself a nice 10 have a costume 10. So I did I did what I'd make you proud, right? I went on Facebook marketplace found myself a very cheap, very good quality 10 complete with like a shade structure, you know, 50 bucks down from $400 or whatever it is brand new. So I have scored big time. Get up there sitting off in the middle of the night. It's windy, taut, and realize that half of the 10 is missing. I didn't check it when I purchased it from marketplace. So I had essentially a large It looks like a big round sleeping bag with costumes on the ground for most of the time. So bit of a marketplace win and lose their winning that it was very cheap losing that. I didn't do my due diligence and check if it works. So yeah, that was it. That was an interesting time.
Dan Jovevski 04:22
Well, it sounds like you had planned that he replies. However, if I go on Facebook marketplace, what did you did you message him afterwards and go yo was with the rest of my tent?
Blaize Pengilly 04:31
I did. I did. And do you know what they were very kind and said sorry. We haven't used it in many years. We're happy to give you the money back if you just want to drop the tent back which is all well and good except it's a 45 minute drive from my house. So by the time you know I've gone out and come back I don't know if it's worth it.
Dan Jovevski 04:50
Well sounds like an adventure anyway Blaize.
Blaize Pengilly 04:52
Sure did. But enough of that. Let's get into today's episode. So I'm super excited because We've talked about crypto a little bit in the news, especially with everything that was happening happening with the rise of Bitcoin and Dogecoin Dogecoin Dogecoin. I can't even say it correctly. And today we are finally taking a proper look at cryptocurrency, which I'm very excited about because I have zero idea about really what it is and how it started and how people use it. So,
Dan Jovevski 05:23
yeah, let's
Blaize Pengilly 05:24
let's check crypto,
Dan Jovevski 05:25
or Blaize. Before we get into that, let's look at the news. If you are interested in the news, or toonie wise the future Feel free to skip ahead a few minutes and get into a chat with Nesh Sooriyan about crypto. Blaize what's on the radar?
Blaize Pengilly 05:40
Well, let's get the sweet stuff out of the way first, do you know what I saw? Guess how much Australian spent over Easter on chocolate alone? Damn.
Dan Jovevski 05:50
I've got no idea. But I'm going to hazard a guess that our household poverty contributed to a large budget that budget including including my mom who's spoiled my my son rotten, and I think it's gonna be pretty large number but I think I'm going to be shocked by it. What is it
Blaize Pengilly 06:10
$200 million on chocolate. Like, oh, my goodness, that is an absurd amount. I did the maths and I divided the amount of money 200 million by a population, which is about 26 mil at the moment, and it averages about $7 per person on chocolate, which actually doesn't sound that bad.
Blaize Pengilly 06:34
yeah, that's it's not that bad. But yeah, considering I think I'm a fair slice of the pie as well when it comes to personal chocolate expenditure and consumptions so that that shocked me. The other thing is job maker job seeker. So job seeker ended at the end of last month. And job make job maker is well underway. But yet seeing over a million others who were on job keeper, lose job keep at the end of last month, it'll be interesting and probably a bit scary to see what happens over the next few weeks, whether people are able to keep their jobs if people are going to be losing their jobs, because their workplaces can't afford to employ them anymore. Yeah, I'm interested to see how that goes.
Dan Jovevski 07:23
I think so do Blaize, I think this is the time of reckoning at the moment where a lot of guns or gun stimulus is ended. And people are now giving a real sobering reality around what's around the corner in terms of job prospects. You know, I think our hearts go out to everybody. In the tourism sector that relies on international travel, I think most people have pivoted now or tried to pivot to domestic sort of tourism. But surely that is people that are affected by COVID, and lack of travel and every single other job that you could probably think about. So I think the next sort of three months be really interesting. And hopefully the economy gets back on track and people get back into jobs. Blaize I'm not sure if you've heard but it feels like this like this to speed economy, right? property prices are going nuts. If you live in Sydney, Melbourne or even Perth, for that matter where property prices have gone up by 15% in like a few months crazy. I don't know where these people are getting the money from, if it is from the banks then that there'll be super interesting. But I think there's also another part of the economy, which is not represented as mayhem that probably struggling. So hopefully everybody finds a home in terms of a job opportunity and get Australia back on track in a post COVID environment. Yeah,
Blaize Pengilly 08:38
I agree. If I was looking to buy a home in this current market, the only thing I would be paying with is chocolate coins. And I think many, many people selling their houses are accepting that. So yeah, it is pretty crazy seeing the divide and you know, people losing jobs, losing hours, and then just seeing the housing market skyrocket is pretty insane. And I wonder if the bubble will burst if it is a bubble and what will even happen?
Dan Jovevski 09:04
Hmm time will tell. Let's follow that story closely in the episodes to come.
Blaize Pengilly 09:09
Still it Alright, enough of the news. Let's get into crypto. Now if you are tuning in, this is part one. Next week, we'll be releasing part two, which will be a chat with David Beros about crypto as well. This will be a basic understanding of crypto. So hopefully even someone like myself will be able to wrap their head around it. So let's get into it.
Dan Jovevski 09:29
Let's do it.
Blaize Pengilly 09:32
Well, then the time has finally come. We've been chatting about it. And it's been all over the news for pretty much the entire first part of the year. And I still have pretty much zero clue of what it is. Then it's time to talk about cryptocurrency
Dan Jovevski 09:50
I'm looking forward to it.
Blaize Pengilly 09:52
I am too I'm a bit nervous because I have no idea of this. It's a whole new world. You know, it's like when you go snorkeling you put your head under the water. You have no idea what you're about to, to see your overview to yourself. But to help us make sense of all things, crypto we have a master in all things crypto joining us today. In the past, he's founded a Swiss based FinTech, a bamboo core. He has been a product manager at gaming unicorn of virtual gaming worlds has completed to prayer trade sale exits in online food, retail and last mile delivery in Australia and China. He speaks invests and mentors on the intangible beauty of keeping multiple threads in resonance, specifically capital technology and humans. He is currently an entrepreneur in residence and venture partner with accelerating Asia and early stage accelerator VC, and he joins us now streaming in from Singapore. Welcome Nesh, Nesh.
Nesh Sooriyan 10:47
Hey, going. Cool. Hi Blaize. Dan, it's, it's good to be here. Good to be coming in from Singapore. And thanks for the kind introduction. I guess. I was really looking forward to talking to you guys, because this is a time when crypto is heating up again. And it's also a time when culturally people are looking for hope. So it's very dangerous for the retail side of the market. And looking forward to talking to you and talking to Dan because this is when we can have discussions about how people should prepare themselves for this new technology, not get swept up in the hope protect themselves as well. Because as we know, markets, deeply retail markets when they come face to face with sophisticated investors, they're designed to extract capital away from one party and give it to another party. And this is the way that our economies form. But we also must be aware of those and protect capital, as Dan will often talk about, and set ourselves up for the future.
Dan Jovevski 11:50
I love it. I know we're going to go deep. Today, we're going to go to the Mariana Trench up and take a tech audience to the journey. Nesh. Before we begin, I think for a lot of people who are listening, they probably heard the crypto the last asset run that we had in 2017 2018. They kind of maybe heard about it then, obviously, more recently, people have heard about Dogecoin and crypto and Bitcoin. But for the person that might be listening for the very first time. What is the 101? On cryptocurrency? And who are some of the biggest players?
Nesh Sooriyan 12:24
Yeah, cool. So I think for the average person, what I would say is, you got to be very self conscious and aware when the hype cycle kicks in. So you're gonna hear hear about things like those, you're gonna hear about things like he obviously going to hear about Bitcoin, you'll hear about aetherium. And then you're going to hear about these obscure coins that sit on the outskirts, it's really important to detach or disconnect yourself from the get rich, quick narrative, or the I'm going to get in, and I'm going to get out and I'm going to make a lot of money really quickly narrative. Because that only works for let's say, 1% of people. And that's almost like you're picking a lottery ticket, or you're going to the casino. So if we can abstract away that, and then we come in with a set of principles here, I'm going to explain to you what's basically underlying all of this. So Bitcoin was founded quite a number of years ago. Now, it's probably the most preeminent protocol, currency that is out there at the moment. And what it there's been a couple of pieces over the years about what role Bitcoin would play in our world. So initially, people thought Bitcoin would be a currency and a means of value transfer. But the one that we're seeing right now in the world is Bitcoin as a reserve asset. So as you guys know, with monetary policy, when a when a government wants to stimulate an economy, they want people spending lots of money creating lots of activity, what they will do is they will print their currency. And when they print that currency, every dollar that you hold, even in your bank account, if the interest is not sufficient to make up for how much money is being printed, it will devalue itself, which is why over generations, people have held gold, they've held property, they've held alternative assets that are scarce. And there's only a limited amount of them in the world. And there'll be demanded for many years. So when we're seeing companies like MicroStrategy, or Tesla, or even Apple is now discussing it, go and buy bitcoin, what they're saying is we're going to buy this asset, and there's only ever going to be 21 million of them in the world, as long as the internet exists, as long as we have compute that is put to work. And they're saying, instead of holding a cash reserve, we're going to hold Bitcoin and we're going to hold it for a long period of time because it's going to be our reserve asset. Rather than having cash under the bed or having a gold bar, a set of gold bars in your basement. We're going to hold Bitcoin because not Is it not going to depreciate in value, but it's going to appreciate as demand increases, or that's what they're hoping for, then you've obviously got the other iterations. So Ethereum is probably the virtual machine aspect. So Bitcoin is fairly hard to interface with, if you're a general developer to build really cool products are out. So Bitcoin has this reserve asset, and it's always going to be there. And then you've got a theory, which came to fruition out of the Bitcoin community and then garnered like an incredible amount of developer action. And what that's allowing for is this infrastructure that we have lots of people contributing compute, can we use it to build some really cool technology that does things that we couldn't do before. And so this is something that we get really excited about in finance, specifically, can we replace these floors and floors of humans sitting in cubicles with code, so that we can then give a better experience to the end user? The challenge is, when we give all of that to the end user, there's less protections in place. So if you're an end user coming in and interfacing with this, you need to be aware of that and you need to be in charge of your own security, which I'm sure we'll delve into as well.
Blaize Pengilly 16:18
Okay, Nesh. I understand a little bit of that. Now, I am not that I am not the crypto master like yourself, so I'm going to need to break it down a little bit more. I understood, it makes sense when you say keeping it as a reserve, because I can kind of understand that because it doesn't seem that transactional? Like I'm not taking a Bitcoin, whatever it looks like to a shop and going Hey, can I have my skinny soy latte with three extra shots? Like it's not? It's it doesn't it makes sense in that regard? But how does it actually work? When it comes to getting the Bitcoin? What does it look like? I'm imagining it's not like, you know, a pink $5 note with someone's face on it. What how do you actually get it and transfer it? And can you actually see, it's like, how does it? How does that part of it work?
Nesh Sooriyan 17:10
Yeah, so there's a couple of ways you can do this. And the one that I think is the most easiest, the easiest way for anyone in Australia to do this is to interface with a regulated exchange. So Australia did something really cool where they regulated the exchange providers. So similar to the way that you sign up to, let's say, a stock trading account. And that's fairly easy. You can go online, you can put in your details, and then you can connect your bank account and you can obviously buy stocks. You can do the same now with Bitcoin. So I'm going to speak specifically about Bitcoin because I feel as though that's the most proven technology in the space. So in Australia, you can connect up and you can go to some really great exchanges. I actually really like independent reserve. But I do know there's a few others. What I've been looking for with my exchange is are they insured? Are they regulated? Do they have a financial services license. So if you're the average retail consumer getting into this, I that's what I do, I'd go set up an account, I then transfer a little bit of money in money that you can afford to lose is what I would say, and then just buy your first Bitcoin. Once you're there, and you've bought, let's say, and this is the other thing that people need to get over, we have this thing called unit bias where we, our ego, or our greed, or the way that we process numbers in the world makes us want to own one of something, you don't need to own a whole Bitcoin, we need to move away from this, this is the ego speaking, it's not us thinking about money in terms of value, it's us thinking about money in terms of units. So money is only as valuable as what you can purchase with it, right? It's not the units, but it's what you can purchase with it. And so that's the way you need to approach Bitcoin. So if I take, let's say, $2,000, I transfer it into independent reserve, and I buy $2,000 worth of Bitcoin. I'm gonna have $2,000 worth of Bitcoin that's there. And as Bitcoin appreciates, I'll have more than $2,000 worth of purchasing power. If Bitcoin goes down, I'll have less than $2,000 worth of purchasing power, the ability to buy something so you will see Don't be get stuck up on buying one bitcoin by 2000 cedars buying $2,000 worth of Bitcoin, and I've got that $2,000 now sitting on the exchange. Now, if you are wanting to take the next step along, which is holding that securely on your own, like you want to trust yourself to hold that Bitcoin as opposed to have it on the exchange because we have seen exchanges hat, but exchanges, like independent reserve are insured, and they're regulated so they give you a little bit of safety. The next thing I would do is I'd go out and buy a ledger. device and I buy a ledger device directly from ledger or unknown retailer, don't go out to some shady Alibaba merchant and buy a ledger device have
Blaize Pengilly 20:12
a device?
Nesh Sooriyan 20:13
Yeah. Because the important thing here is that nobody else has replicated the private keys that are associated with that ledger device. And so private key, this is your gateway to getting into the world of cryptocurrency. That is the thing that you control and nobody else controls that gives you access to your identity and the money that is attributable to your identity. So you know, blazes, $2,000 with Bitcoin, is like is only accessible by Blaze. So when I buy a ledger, I then go through the signup process, which is going to give me two things, it's going to give me a bunch of words that I need to save somewhere securely and not share with anyone, it's also going to give me a private key. Both of those things are your access point. But they're also and this is really important. This is the number one weakness in cryptography right now, they're also your attack vector. So if somebody wanted to steal your network, that $2,000, that you've just put on that ledger device, or that you have attributable to you, they're going to come after those things. But we know that if we can protect them, then you know, we own them. And so what you're gonna do is you set up your ledger, you have those private keys that you store safely and securely that nobody else has access to, but in the event that you would have passed away your loved ones know who they go and give this to to recover that or it's in a safety deposit box in at a bank that you can then go and also recover. And give this to somebody that knows how to extract those private keys and get your wealth. If if something were to happen to you. Then once you've once you're feeling comfortable with that, you can then transfer the money that is on your exchange account to that ledger device and you secure that ledger device. The cool thing about Ledger's is that if ledger specifically, there's a bunch of other security wallets that you can get, but I'm quite comfortable using my ledger is that if you were to lose that device, as long as you have your private key and you have those 12 or like 24 words, you can buy another ledger device, and you can recover your Bitcoin. So don't worry too much about the device, they cost a couple of 100 bucks to buy it. But as long as you have those words and those alphanumeric, like strings, you can recover your Bitcoin. So that's the other thing that I would say, and then just hold on to it forever. Or until it appreciate so much that you want to go and recover that. Yeah, I hope that made sense. That is how I would secure it. There's plenty of really great resources out there. So in Australia, I would recommend a guy by the name of nuggets news. He's done some really 101 stuff. He's got a great YouTube channel, if you're also looking to understand private key security and a few other things, independent Reserve has their stuff. And then there's also binance Academy is quite good. And then you've also got Coinbase, they do a lot of education as well. So there's plenty of resources out there. The number one thing I would say to people is approach it with a level of pessimism and optimism, equal parts pessimism as well as optimism, if you feel like you're getting ripped off, you may be getting ripped off. If this feels shady, it's it's probably shady. So approach it with that level of pessimism. And don't get swept up in the in the media narrative of you're going to be a millionaire overnight is what I would say. I know that's like a very addictive narrative to a lot of people because some of us were uncomfortable with our lives, and we're willing to jump on opportunity. But we've got to manage that when we're getting into this. But for Bitcoin, specifically, the fundamentals are starting to stack up as you know, like I said, large companies are starting to add it to their balance sheets.
Dan Jovevski 24:06
That was there was a lot to take in there. But I think overall gonna play their back. Basically, you can buy, you can buy crypto on an exchange, one that's regulated and it's insured, I think is very important because we've had, if anybody's heard of Mount Gox, there's been a few times where some of these exchanges where you buy crypto, and I've actually had a business and I think that's really important that we buy while it's insured but also this concept of not trusting the exchange completely and then getting your crypto to become offline. And all I'm imagining is me wearing a necklace that's got a USB stick attached to it all the time. Also going down most of my bank has got a safety deposit box anymore, but I'd imagine that throughout the KB the guides, it feels like a spy thriller. And to the amongst it It feels Yeah, it was like it was like we're completely changing the way that we're going about Using money and right now, I think what you've mentioned this is that we're we're getting to the point where it's becoming way more consumer friendly. And in the next maybe five or 10 years time, this will become so mainstream. And it's something that if you've heard the term huddling before HMO deal in capital letters, volunteer? Yeah, let me just could talk to us about where they came from. But they're holding for the long term, because this is not something on one article that I've seen here, of the guy that bought a pizza, that was worth $200 million when he first had his Bitcoin, and I'm sure there's plenty of stories like this, that they will have heard about. So the things that I took away from you, well, you just mentioned Nish is that find how to buy crypto, get it safe and secure, and then hold on to it for as long as you can.
Nesh Sooriyan 25:50
Yeah, that that's the key. These markets are designed to wash out their short term thinking. And they're designed to reward the long term thinking in the involvement. Yeah, I've got some interesting stories there. So one of my close friends, she had $250,000 in Mount Gox. Needless to say, this was years ago. Sorry. So mount Gox was one of the largest exchanges to be hacked or to, you know, just go out of business. And back in the early days of cryptocurrency, a lot of these exchanges, like Dan was saying, kept all of the accounts on a USB stick. Even bitmex, which is a billion dollar exchange, you've probably seen Arthur Hays, the founder of bit Mex in the news, they used to have similar operational security. So it's important to know that, but we've come a long way from there is obviously more institutional grade custody solutions that resemble your bank, which has given large institutions comforting going into this space. So fidelity in the US, they're heavily in this space now and a number of others. The other interesting thing there is that, yes, it is somewhat archaic. But like Dan said, because the user is taking responsibility for the security, and the user is taking responsibility for a lot of things, we're also benefiting a lot more. So if you think about the infrastructure of our banks and our modern financial system, we place a lot of trust in our brokers and our financial advisors, and like all these other layers, and for each of those layers that we have to protect us, there is a cost. And it's a cost that I'm willing to pay in a lot of instances. But if you so choose with crypto, you can choose for that cost to become your own revenue, if you do it in a safe manner. So I'm all for people learning how to do it in a safe manner, as long as we can detach ourselves from the bubble narratives, the getting rich quick, and we approach it systematically, because that is how you generate wealth.
Blaize Pengilly 27:56
I think if I get into crypto, I'm just gonna get a floppy disk because you know, the USB is clearly not safe. And who knows how to use a floppy disk? Or who even has a device that's currently working that has a floppy disk radar. So if I if I learned enough today about crypto and start investing, I'll be going floppy all the way I think. Nash, so you can so my understanding is you can use Bitcoin as a reserve and whatnot. But why do people actually why do people care about it? Like, did someone just wake up one day and go, alright, I'm going to invent a currency like, Can I do that? Can I go out there tomorrow and get by watercolors and paint a bunch of notes? And besides that it's a currency. How did it actually come about to be? And why do people had how to people now worldwide respect and trust that it's a form of currency?
Nesh Sooriyan 28:48
Yeah, it's a very, very good question. So I guess I'd start with how our modern currencies developed, right? enough people trust it as a unit of exchange, and then enough people accept it. And there's enough infrastructure there that signaling. So there's enough, you know, these are these data points that we all view that encourage us to continue to trust this currency. So talk about the old state of the world where Bitcoin was essentially born. And then I'll talk about the current state of the world where we're starting to see traction again. So the old state, where we saw Bitcoin come to fruition was the global financial crisis, where the trust that we had in our institutions and our governments was questioned. And so needless to say, people went, hey, we're trusting all these people. And we just lost money that we've invested in stuff that we thought was relatively safe, which unraveled because of the subprime mortgage crisis because people were taking greater and greater risks, low loading those risks on top of one another within institutions, and then subsequently we have like a global market failure. So the money that you have in your bank account or The money that you would invest in in your superannuation wasn't worth as much anymore. So Bitcoin was kind of born of that, that era of thinking, and also born of the era of the original cypherpunks, where they were thinking, you know, people need to be responsible for this security. And there's all these benefits that kind of come from that. So it's like, pot idealism part, you know, social reform. And part just like sticking it to the man.
Blaize Pengilly 30:28
cyberpunk.
Nesh Sooriyan 30:31
And so there's a couple of the original cypherpunks, still in the crypto space. So there's, if you're on Twitter, follow a guy by the name of Adam back, it was an amazing cryptographer, and always has like this real cutting sort of these cutting tweets that talk to, you know, the social narrative. So what happens there is Bitcoin is released, people start mining it. And gradually, people start going, Hey, there's this reserve asset. And there's this thing that can be traded among us, as nerds, or as people that believe that we can create a better financial system. And you've got to understand that these people at the start, what they're doing is they're taking a really long term view. So there was lectures at MIT, they got a bunch of Bitcoin, there was, you know, just hackers, and they're in the garages, you know, starting to use it. And some of the early people that really saw a benefit in this of a transaction that cannot be reversed by let's say, a credit card provider, or a bank was gamers. So gamers were trading virtual assets. And they were like, hey, every time I trade somebody buy virtual assets, they could always charge me back on the credit card, and then I don't make the money. And they've got my virtual assets. So gamers started using it. And there's a bunch of other transactions that also said, Hey, Bitcoin is more functional than our current financial infrastructure, because two people can just agree and transfer people money. And we don't necessarily need to come into the purview of the government. And also, there's this this way that things can't be charged back to me. So it starts to get this momentum as a result of that within the fringes. So all technology kind of forms in the fringes and then kind of takes over. This is one of the reasons why I like where you money as well, you guys have like this tight knit community. And it's forming like this revolution in the fringes that eventually takes over the the general infrastructure. And so that's how Bitcoin forms. And then if we look at the modern era, and now people are going, Hey, all of our nations around the world are going to print money. That is the way that our governments know, to stimulate the economy. And any of us that is holding a cash reserve. That is way too much right now. We know that we're going to get negative interest rate on that in the coming years. And so people are like, do I put my balance sheet all in gold, because gold is kind of underperforming at the moment. And I'm a technology investor, and I believe where the internet is going. And so now you're saying these people and we mean my partner, we're talking to our financial planner, the other week in Europe? And he was like, Yeah, I can put it in this cash account. And it's going to, it's going to generate a couple of percent. And both of us know the narrative that's going on, we were like, No, it's not. If you're holding cash, it's going to go it's going to go negative very soon. And so Bitcoin in the current era, the reserve asset narrative gains its momentum because of what governments are going to need to do to stimulate our economies back up post COVID. So that's how it gains gains its momentum, enough people holding it enough people believing in it, enough people accepting it, and governments starting to regulate it is an important building block. So right now, where the Australian Government has regulated exchanges, where the US government is starting to talk about this, these aren't negative things. These are great things. And the example that I would look towards is Gemini exchange, which was started by the Winklevoss twins who are also and I'll say this, it's a bit it's gonna be a bit contentious, the founders of Facebook. So if so the Winklevoss twins went into bitcoin really heavy, really early, they found a Gemini exchange. They've been working with regulators in New York, they've been working with regulators in Singapore. And they've got Gemini exchange, which is now one of the main exchanges that I use in Singapore. And, you know, they're, they're going, Hey, how can government get involved here? So we're seeing not this be an outskirts fringe thing anymore, similar to the communities that you're part of that are focused on financial wizardry, you know, people gaining mastery of their circumstance, it's no longer on the fringes, it's now moving its way in to the mainstream, where the companies, the private companies have moved to put it on their balance sheets, then now what we'll see is government start to go, Hey, a lot of our voting populace and the people that pay taxes in this so how do we also stay in this but how do we continue to maintain why people vote for us, which is to keep them safe.
Dan Jovevski 34:58
That's amazing. Nesh If I summarize that, again, I think I think what we're sort of seeing is revolution amongst people who, who see all the successes of money printing. So for money printing, the people don't know, what that is, is basically the government's just adding more zeros to the national account of the money that exists and the more money there is in a system, then the more likely that that may lead to in the future of things called inflation, which reduces your value of your assets, when there's more money chasing the same amount of assets, you're likely going to get inflation. A lot of listening to our podcasts are probably weren't around in the early 1990s. But for those who were Australia had 14 to 15% rates of interest. So you were earning literally 15 to 16% on your money when you put it into the bank. But also, conversely, you are paying the similar rate on your mortgage. And these are things that I think our generation hasn't gone through before, which is completely mind blowing and Nish to summarize what you've just said, crypto is like a hedge against what potentially might happen in the future with all this money that's been printed for the last 10 years in the global financial crisis, when all the big banks failed the US. And all these governments are not the thing I've heard on the twittersphere is this little soundbite called buzz of the sound of a money machine is printing money. And that sort of meme culture getting in, there's a lot of people actually aware that, gee, like, if my the money, the dollars that I've gotten in my bank account, are going to be worth less in the future? How do I protect myself and that feels like the site of pumps that you talked about, and now engaging into bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to bring this era of this new financial order, which is absolutely incredible.
Nesh Sooriyan 36:53
Yeah, so the other thing I would say to your listeners as well, Dan, like, it's crypto, we can't just lump together anymore. So something that helped me understand this is understand Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Don't just lump it in with crypto. And then we have, you know, smart contract platforms like aetherium. And then we have these defy or decentralized finance tools that are starting to emerge. So don't when you're thinking about crypto as an asset class divided up. So a good book to start with would be crypto assets by Chris Byrne iski. And he lays out a plan in there to put 1% of your total portfolio in Bitcoin, and how you would output and he simulates how you would outperform, which is just 1% exposure. So it's taking these asymmetric opportunities for upside. And limited downside. Wow.
Blaize Pengilly 37:49
I'm not sure if you guys can hear but this is my brain trying to understand everything that we've just gone over today, can you hear sticking away like that cash machine trying to make sense of Nash, thank you so much for joining us today. I think what I'm taking away from this is that you don't have to buy a full coin, you can buy a little slice of the pie, we have to get away from the buying or hold of one thing. Bitcoin will outperform cash, there are different ways to store it securely. And it's something that is the feature that is now becoming slowly becoming regulated to the markets that will become more and more part of our lives. Is that a basic understanding that I've got there? Am I still forgetting?
Nesh Sooriyan 38:31
That's totally. And remember that, for that upside, you're going to look after yourself. That's like the critical component here. So if your listeners is looking to get into this, make sure they understand the security side, or they should understand the security side themselves and take full ownership of that. Because it's not the market's job to get them rich. It's their job to get the rich by securing the right knowledge.
Blaize Pengilly 38:56
All right. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nesh that that was very enlightening. And it's nice to have an understanding of what crypto is and not just say it in the news, Dogecoin and Bitcoin and the price is changing. So really appreciate you joining us today and taking the time to walk through all of that. Now, if our listeners want to find out more about you, where would they go?
Nesh Sooriyan 39:16
Yes. So you can catch me on LinkedIn. So it's necessary. And you'll find me there. And you can also catch me on Twitter. So it's Nesh_S on Twitter, and you'll find me there as well. And yeah, that's that's kind of where like the crypto space is moving. So we're mostly on Twitter. We're mostly across discord channels and telegram.
Blaize Pengilly 39:37
Alright, beautiful. Well, Nesh, I will check those links in the show notes. So if anyone would like to get in touch with Nesh, that's how and Nesh, thank you so much for joining us today and for blowing my brains on crypto. I really appreciate it. We loved having you on the show. All right.
Nesh Sooriyan 39:51
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Blaize Pengilly 39:58
We Talk Cents is a Podcast Producer By WeMoney. WeMoney is an Australian Smart Money app that helps you manage your finances better. Now Dan, you are away money user, what is something you've seen in the way money app or in the way money community feature lately?
Dan Jovevski 40:14
Blaize one thing that got me a little overwhelmed a few days ago was going into the community. And for those people that aren't aware, WeMoney recently released the new goals feature, which allows you to track and monitor a gold. So if you want to save up for say it has you deposit an emergency fund, you can track that on the app right now. And some really cool features in there where you can do things like putting a photo of your goal. So if you're wanting to save for a car deposit, you want to buy a new car, you could put the photo of that car in the background to keep you motivated to help reach your goals. And one thing that I completely did not expect to say that we went to community Blaze, which really caught me by surprise, but it was so overwhelming is a member talking about a goal of saving up for IVF treatment. And that was a personal story to share. And they were using the WeMoney goals feature to share that inside the WeMoney community, which I thought was a double e bonus cool thing to see. But the fact that people are, you know, sharing some of the most of the personal insights and getting support from all other community members, rallying behind them to help them do things like start a family is just amazing. And it really sort of caught me back when I was scrolling through the feed. And that just hit me in the face. And that made me feel really awesome about helping people on that journey. And then also what we're doing as a team here to help support that. But yeah, Blaize What about you? What have you seen,
Blaize Pengilly 41:35
I was gonna make some goals as well, actually. So I have set my own goals within the app. First one is building up an emergency fund. And then one is a adventure fund because I can't wait to go on another holiday. But also in the community feature. One of our members posted their goals for April. And you know, theirs was I think it was side hustle $500 add $1,000 to their saving for a car fund and decluttering 20 items around the house. And I just thought that was really awesome. Because you know, okay, side hustling $500 is, for me, that would be a bit of a task, I think. But this is a member that I know is super proactive and loves side hustling. So that's awesome. It's just cool seeing someone make smaller goals that they can achieve each and every month to keep themselves on track, and to really work towards their financial goals. So I really like the accountability of seeing that in the community feed and seeing her updates as she goes on to achieve that. But if you want to check out the WeMoney community, set your own goals or just get a feel of your financial health, I highly encourage you to download the WeMoney app, it's completely free. And if you use the code word podcast, when you download, you'll get a $5 bonus on sign up just for signing up and connecting an account so it's very much worth a try and you can download it for free from the Apple or Google Play stores.
Dan Jovevski 43:01
Thanks for tuning in to We Talk Cents if you want to get in touch with us feel free to reach us on Instagram at a handle get weed money. And if you liked the podcast, give us a review on Apple podcast help other people find the show.
Blaize Pengilly 43:12
Yes, please give us a review that is super helpful and helps us to know that you're liking the show and helps others to find it. So we would really appreciate that. We'll be back next week for crypto part two. So we'll be looking at decentralized finance and understanding a little bit more about crypto yourself. You're ready to jump in for round two. We'll be back next Monday, joined by our special guest David Beros. Until then you have a lovely week and can't wait to see you next time
Dan Jovevski 43:40
Arrivederci.
Blaize Pengilly 43:41
Goodbye.
Disclaimer:
The author is not a financial advisor and the information provided is general in nature and was prepared for information purposes only. This article should not be considered to constitute financial advice. Accordingly, reliance should not be placed on this article as the basis for making an investment, financial or other decision. This information does not take into account your investment objectives, particular needs or financial situation.