Lisa's Journey: Energy Trading to Bitcoin Enthusiast
Lisa's journey underscores the transformative power of Bitcoin's simplicity, purity, and potential for financial empowerment.
To reach Lisa, email Info@CustodiaBank.com. https://custodiabank.com/press/custodia-bank-welcomes-lisa-hough/
To learn more about Bitcoin: Join the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. Visit https://www.meetup.com/womensbitcoinreadingclubwithorangehatter
Please email questions/comments to tali@orangehatter.com
HODL UP is available at www.freemarketkids.com.
Remember: Knowledge is empowerment! 🍊🎩
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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,:
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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:
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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:
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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:
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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.