Where To Start In Cryptocurrency As a Parent?

#039  Having existed for over 10 years now, cryptocurrency is gaining popularity and power around the globe, so it’s time to start talking to our kids about it. Many parents don’t want to get involved with cryptocurrency because they don’t understand it… but today, that’s going to change.

“Crypto is doing for money what the traditional Internet is doing for information.”

In this episode of Raising Financial Freedom, Eric welcomes Shahar Abrams, Founder and CEO of Road to Babylon, an organization focused on educating the masses on cutting edge financial tools, like cryptocurrency. Shahar explains what cryptocurrency is, how it works, and the different types of crypto coins available on the market so that you can start sharing this information with your kids.

“It’s a way for people to use money in the way that they want without anyone’s permission, without needing a bank account, without needing permission from a government.”

Listen in to learn about the technology behind cryptocurrency, known as block chains, as well as the basics of managing cryptocurrency online, where to safely set up a digital crypto wallet, and how to get your kids involved in investing in cryptocurrency. Plus, you’ll gain expert insight into what the future of crypto looks like and the pros and cons of investing in it.

“What I love most about [cryptocurrency] is I think it promises a better future. It promises a more inclusive financial future for everyone around the world.”

Resources & Apps Mentioned:

MetaMask: www.metamask.io 

Celsius Network: https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/197418b27f

Coinbase: www.coinbase.com 

Kraken: www.kraken.com 

Play to Earn: www.playtoearn.online 

Want to dive deeper into this topic? 

Stay connected with Shahar to enroll in his online course, The Complete Crypto Investor’s Toolkit: www.roadtobabylon.org/crypto-investor-toolkit-course 

Connect with Shahar Abrams:

Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter: www.roadtobabylon.org 

Follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ShaharAbrams 

Email him: Shahar@roadtobabylon.org

 

Disclaimer:This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.  

Transcript

[00:00:00] Eric: As parents, we strive to know as much as we can so we can pass that information on to our children. But what if the information is new? That means you have to go out there and teach yourself and learn about this new information. That's what I want to talk to you about today. The new asset class of cryptocurrency has been here since 2008, 2009.

[00:00:23] I would say now a lot of people don't believe in it. Don't care about. Or just don't want to talk about it cause they don't understand it. But as a parent, I feel you should know at least something about it because your kids will learn about it eventually. Financial institutions that shamed it before is now buying it secretly, or just switch their whole mindset about crypto and now offering it today, clients to add to their portfolio.

[00:00:54] Now you don't need to know everything, but you better know something. So when your child gets [00:01:00] involved into this asset class, you are at least knowledgeable in some sort of. That's where our guests today, Shahar Abrams comes in and helps us out to understand cryptocurrency in bite size pieces. Now Shahara Abrams is the CEO and founder of road to Babylon an organization focused on educating the masses on cutting edge financial tools like cryptocurrency and FinTech.

[00:01:28] So I am excited to have Shahar here because we are going to be talking about in new asset class. Now think about it. How often in your lifetime are you going to see a totally new asset class? So let's get started.

[00:01:47] Host daughter: Come on dad, stop playing around and play the music. 

[00:01:50] Eric: Sheesh. Tough 

[00:01:50] crowd.

[00:01:57] Introducer: Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have it [00:02:00] all financial. Do well-off parents. If we handle children money or is there more to this welfare welcome to raising financial freedom. The podcast, we are here to talk about everything you never knew to teach your children when it comes to starting their financial future, the principles behind wealth and methods that are out there to teach your child.

[00:02:19] Personal financial freedom. There was no real tricks to earning other than learning. We are here to discuss, teach and grow with you. Raising financial freedom, the podcast with your host and concerned parents, Eric yard, let us get right into today's show.

[00:02:38] Now they had to be a beginning and this beginning was right at where the financial system was at a wreck around 2008, 2000. And that's where Bitcoin came in now, what is Bitcoin? Where did it come from? But 

[00:02:54] Shahar: this is a technology that's solving. I think our two largest problems, [00:03:00] you know, right now, which is trust online.

[00:03:03] How do you trust what you're, who you're interacting with online and security online, right? How can you transact things online and have it to be secure and have it be trustworthy? You said. It really hit me from the beginning as this is a trust layer for the internet. And I later on I've refined that a little more to say, you know, what, what I like to explain it as it's.

[00:03:29] It's sort of a next phase of the internet itself. Oh. Which I like to call the internet of value. So crypto is allowing us to, for the first time transaction value on the internet, just like we might send an email or a text message, which is permissionlessly, you don't need anyone's permission to do it.

[00:03:47] You can do it. You can, as long as I have your phone number, I can send you a text message no matter where you might be or what provider I'm on. All I need is an internet. So crypto is doing for money, [00:04:00] what the traditional internet did for information. But yeah, it's a trillion dollar question. Nobody knows who created the coin.

[00:04:06] We only know the pseudonym that Kishi they used, which is the Toshi Nakamoto. It could have been one person. It could have been a group of people, or it could have been anyone. We really don't know. They went to great lengths. Stay anonymous. And perhaps they knew how big and important it was going to be, or perhaps they were just being safe, but we really don't know, oh, we do know why it was created.

[00:04:29] And it's pretty clear why it was created because in the very first set of transactions, what we call a block in Bitcoin and the very, very first. Kind of a data block of the network of founder. This anonymous person recorded a message, which was actually an excerpt from a headline and a UK newspaper and the expert wasn't the headline was chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

[00:04:57] This was in early 2009. [00:05:00] Right. The whole kind of financial crisis was in high year. Everything was falling apart. The banks that had gotten us into this mess were getting bailed out right at the expense of everyday people that had nothing to do with the problem. And so he encoded that in the first block and it was pretty clear to everyone.

[00:05:20] And even in everyone now, the purpose of the monetary system was to bring power back to the people. And that sounds cliche, but literally we were in an environment where the government was doing whatever they wanted with money printing as much as they want. Handing it out to people at their whim. And that still happens today.

[00:05:40] Sometimes it's good. And sometimes it's not, I would argue very often. It's not, unfortunately. And so the whole idea behind it is separating. We have separation of church and state, and the idea of Bitcoin is separation of money and state. Right. But why do we need. Governments who have traditionally mishandle the, their [00:06:00] stewardship, if you will, money and current.

[00:06:02] And they're examples of that throughout history. Why should we allow them to keep being in charge of money? If we have a better way, we have a way to do it ourselves, maybe that's a better option. And so that's the whole. Ethos and philosophy behind the coin and by extension behind a lot of the crypto industry.

[00:06:21] Eric: So now seeing that Bitcoin it's giving freedom to your money from the government and from third parties. Now, after hearing the history of Bitcoin, this digital money, what is the actual technology behind it, which is called blockchain? How does that work? And, and how was it being used? And I think that's where a lot of people get confused that blockchain is the technology that a lot of companies are trying to implement into their everyday use in order to be more efficient, which is an indirect way for these companies [00:07:00] to get involved in this cryptocurrency, blockchain alone has opened up the eyes to a vast new world for.

[00:07:09] Shahar: Yeah, that's a great question. The blockchains have actually been around for a while, the concept of a blockchain, or it's really just a special title, that database that uses advanced cryptography to link data together. So they can sort of form sort of a chain like an actual. Right. Where if you change any sort of data in that chain, because of how it's cryptographically linked to each other, it will bring it right in.

[00:07:35] And it'll be very obvious that you have changed something. So because of that, blockchain step is really rate property. Uh, what we would call like immutability or tamper evidence where they're very hard to tamper with. And they're pretty much impossible to tamper with without everyone knowing, right? So that had been around for a while, but the integration with Bitcoin and crypto that got introduced was [00:08:00] binding this method of storing data in a blockchain with, with a bunch of concepts around distributed computing.

[00:08:07] How. To operate it as distributed network. So that means is that on these crypto networks, anyone can contribute to recording transactions, right? And the more people are validating and recording transactions on the network, the more secure it is as the more people you have to fool, if you're going to try and hack it.

[00:08:27] And so it allows everyone to do this right. And in that, when it is. This property is decentralized and that's why no government or nobody, no individual purchaser and shut down. And now, because anyone can just download the code and start running it and contribute to the network and keep it healthy. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak.

[00:08:47] So, you know, the idea of crypto is we use these blockchains to record beta that represents the money that represents us here as assets like Bitcoin or the other cryptos. Right. [00:09:00] We actually can track who has what? And if you have someone, then you have everything, you need to create a monetary system, right?

[00:09:10] Like you're going, a lot of people will say, oh, but there's nothing there. It's not physical. It is. And what I like to ask those people is what's your money in the bank? Just numbers on a screen that the bank doesn't actually have all that cash there, but we all tried to go get our cash out of the bank.

[00:09:26] It's what's not there. There's not there that they only have maybe 10% of it at any one time. So all the bank is doing is recording this ledger, right. Of credits and debits. That's why, whenever you want to send your money from one day to another. Because this thing has got to call a bank and they have a set.

[00:09:43] All HR has ledger to make sure that your account was credited here and debited there. And so all of that, right? The keeping of the ledger, figuring out who has, what, when right. That's all accomplished now on the block. Right. So the blockchain whores, all of that and it's [00:10:00] public. We can all see it so you can right now go look up the Bitcoin blockchain, and you can find every transaction that has ever been made on Bitcoin says back since 2009, that is public information.

[00:10:12] You'll see what you'll see is. Right. Basically like phone numbers, et cetera, longer or more complicated, but basically a, an address right. Of someone's wallet and what, who they've sent points to and how much and when, and what time, the exact date. Right. You can find all transactions that have ever been made on Bitcoin or on a network like a Sirium or unlike coin or on doge coin.

[00:10:37] And all of these transactions are recorded on this distributed ledger that we call a blockchain and they are open and public for anyone to see, and anyone can make one, right. Anyone can send a transit. To the network. These various people around the world are helping you validate transactions by just downloading some free open source of code will hear it, and they will add it to the ledger and the network keeps [00:11:00] going.

[00:11:00] And so this operates 24 7, 365. It's had pretty much no downtime and over a, and it's working and it's a way for people to use. Do you use money in the way that they want without anyone's permission without needing a bank account without meaning permission from a government or anyone else? So it's opensource money, right?

[00:11:21] It's it. And that's the new paradigm that we're talking about here. And that's what gives us the internet of value, where we can now use the internet to transact value. And that opens up just a whole host. Extremely exciting, I think, and it powerful type of use cases in a future business models and all sorts of 

[00:11:40] Eric: stuff.

[00:11:41] Now with all we've learned about Bitcoin and Bitcoin's history and the technology behind Bitcoin, where do we get it? Where do we keep it? When we first get off first Bitcoin or other old. Especially for us parents who want to get our children involved in it [00:12:00] very early. 

[00:12:01] Shahar: So I think the easiest thing to do is set up a wallet for your kid, right.

[00:12:05] And maybe give them some crypto or give them the means to buy a little bit of crypto. A great thing about crypto is you can buy any. Right. People say, oh, the coins, $50,000. I can't afford that. You know what? You can buy 10 cents worth of Bitcoin and you'll still have, it still works the same way. Open your kid in a wallet and even let your kids figure out how to open a wallet.

[00:12:24] You don't know, there's a, there's lots of places you can do it. There's a mask. There's a Celsius network, which is the name concerning wallet. There even wallets on the traditional exchanges like Coinbase or cracking, which is what you should be using for crypto. Something like Robin hood, because they actually don't give you a wallet.

[00:12:40] They don't give you the actual crypto show your kid, let them in to set up a wallet. And I think that your people will get it pretty quickly. Okay. Get kids to have a much easier time with this than their parents most of the time. And I know that. Your kid is going to figure it out pretty quick. And it's finding a bike.

[00:12:58] Once you are familiar [00:13:00] with the crypto wallet, and once you send the transaction, you'll know how to do it. You'll it will seem a lot easier after that. I would love to say, start getting your kids involved, crypto internet, and like all these applications at different DPI application. Showing them what they can do with money, how they can start compounding money for themselves without having to use a bank just through using apps.

[00:13:22] And there's a lot there. And that's one of the reasons I've actually created it in my online course. That is releasing in the next couple of weeks where I give out a lot of that information and I do demos and I explain all sorts of stuff about different apps and what they do and where they came from and all that stuff.

[00:13:42] And that's a great resource do, and I do a lot of free resources. Well, but the course is a big thing that I've been working on for close to a year. And you're a parent that really wants to. Get your kid headstart on finances and on what I believe will be the new financial system and [00:14:00] crypto, then I think that's a great idea that can give them a huge leg up whether or not they make or lose money and getting that experience with how this system is going to work over the next five to 10 years and how it's going to evolve.

[00:14:11] Is incredibly valuable. I think incredibly valuable. If you'd like to do that, I would definitely urge you to check out, see if it's for you. Or you can always send me an email and ask questions and I'm happy to help you out with that stuff, because I think it's so important and I've taught kids this stuff and I'll generally say they find it very interesting and, and they take to it pretty quick.

[00:14:31] Eric: This is digital money. This also has to be a digital wallet in order for you to keep your digital coins. And also, I wonder how that word. 

[00:14:40] Shahar: Yeah. Great. A good, great question. It's a digital wallet. So just how to get, you might have a normal wallet, hold your money. And it, maybe it holds some like ID cards there holds other stuff.

[00:14:51] Uh, digital wallet is just that, but it's kept online. It's not necessarily online. It's something that's interacting with a [00:15:00] blockchain networks. So you can have a wallet for the serum, or you can have a wallet for Bitcoin, or you can have a wallet and it has within it, within the app, the several wallets for each of those different coins.

[00:15:09] And you can use that. Right? You're welcome. We'll have an app. Which we call a public key, which is basically, it's like a phone number, mailing address is how people can reach you, right? So you can give to that wallet, public key with there'll be a big string of characters to anyone, and they can use that to send things to your wallet.

[00:15:28] Right. They can send you anything that that wallet supports. So if you give them a Bitcoin address, They can send you a Bitcoin with that. If you give them an Ethereum address, they can send you a Sirium as well as thousands of other coins that are built on top of Ethereum to that wallet. And then you can use that wallet to interact with different apps to buy things, et cetera.

[00:15:48] Right. And so it basically is like a mailing address, but it's a wallet right in, and the wallet, uh, should say are very important. The wallet has what we call a private key, which [00:16:00] is analog to the public. Um, and the private key is basically the password that controls the wallet. So whoever has the private key, literally controls the wallet.

[00:16:10] They can make transactions from the wallet. So your private key, when you create a wallet, you'll be given your private key. It'll either be a string of characters, or a lot of times they'll give it to you as like a C phrase. So one radius of a bunch of different words, the mnemonic. And I can just, you write that down.

[00:16:27] You write down your private key or your seed phrase. You make more than one copy and you have it on paper. You don't store it on your computer and you keep it safe. Okay. And you never share it with anyone and that's all you have to do. Okay. If you just do those things, you'll be fine having your own wallet, right.

[00:16:43] You keep the private keys safe, you keep it accessible to you and you alone. Um, and you never share it. Now, there are lots of apps that kind of take that responsibility for themselves and they'll manage your key for you. And they're more like a traditional bank account where they're holding your [00:17:00] coins.

[00:17:00] They have the custody, they control the private password. You'll have a traditional. Just log in for them and you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. And so that's fine to do as well. And there is a lot of people that say that, and you have to do your due diligence on any custodial platform that you're using.

[00:17:18] Um, but a lot of times that's actually what's best for most people because the data, the data is that more people have lost their coins trying and failing to keep the Rockies. Okay. Then they'd have ever been taken or stolen and hacks to any third service. But I do both have wallets that I keep myself and then I can try.

[00:17:37] And then I also have wallets that are custody that I use because they pay really great interest, like I mentioned, and I just give them the coins and I trust them. I know the company you've been using them for a long time and I, and they pay me the interest and it's great. It works great. I need it. By the way, they still give you the wallet and you still have, you can still withdraw at any time or send more coins in.

[00:17:58] Do anything you want and [00:18:00] you still have a wallet. The only difference is like you mentioned, they're holding the keys, they're taking care of kind of that security aspect for you. So actually a lot of exchanges, will it set all that up for you? If you go to Coinbase, you're buying crypto for the first time you go to Coinbase and you buy some crypto for them.

[00:18:16] Well, they'll already have a set up a wallet for you. And again, that's a custody. Right Coinbase. Isn't giving you the private key. They're maintaining a wallet for you that they allow you to control, obviously, but you can't lose your key. Right. And then lose your whole point base account. So when you buy crypto on Coinbase, they all have an interface for you.

[00:18:35] That is just like a wallet where you can extend that crypto somewhere else. If you want to or send more crypto. If you want to. Yeah. So that's still a great experience you're using a wallet works just the same way as any other wallet would where you specify, where you want to send. And then you can use that to send a crypto or to receive it with your public key.

[00:18:54] And then if you want to go the next step, you can set up your own wallet and then you can use the Coinbase wallet that they [00:19:00] provide for you to send your coins from point. Into your own wallet and then, and that, while it can be on your phone, it can be a browser-based wallet. It can be even a hardware wallet, like a very secure wallet that just is on a piece of hardware.

[00:19:14] It never touches the internet, you know, something like that. So there are actually lots of options for how you can sell. Right. Crypto something you can do is really any other assets that for cash, you know, if you just keep cash, but if you buy stocks, how are you going to self custody stocks? It's a pain to do, but with crypto you have that option.

[00:19:32] And then once you have your own wallet, you can start even going out to the next level and started using copy on Ethereum or on other networks that are part of the internet of value and do a whole host of interesting things. Yeah. Yeah. I can talk about that. So there are all sorts of coins and anyone can create.

[00:19:50] It's actually quite easy to do so that's why you have thousands of different points and a lot of points to fall into a couple of different categories. Really. [00:20:00] The first category is just a payments coin, a simple payments coin. And that is what Bitcoin is. What light oriented is, what dose point is all these coins.

[00:20:11] All you can really do is set it up, back and forth. I give, so if I have Bitcoin, I can send something to you. I can pay for something. I can go to the coffee shop and send it to them and to pay for a cup of coffee. Fine. But that's really all you can do. You can just send it from place to place as a means of payment.

[00:20:26] Then you have coins like. Okay. Or a theory or polka dot or a car Dano or Salana, which are their own networks. And these coins enable. Actual, basically computer networks that we call smart contract networks, where you can build all sorts of other applications where you can actually build things. You can build money now, applications, right?

[00:20:50] Cause you can code on top of these platforms like Ethereum, you can build an app that if I send money to the app, it does X, Y, Z. Like it gives me an insurance plan. [00:21:00] Or it puts me into a pool that makes loans that pays me the interest on those loans. So those are examples of some apps, right? And then the third category is a sub category of category two, really, which is applications that are built on these smart contract networks that contribute to the running of the application.

[00:21:22] So you can have like coins that you get for using an application and you can have points that are used. Literally you govern the application sorta like stock voting rights. You have coins that entitle you to part of the treasury of a certain project or lending protocol. And so those points have a big myriad of different uses.

[00:21:42] Some of them are good, some of them questionable, right? And that's the, a part of the research you have to do. If you're going to really go outside of the big coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, then you have to do more research on what the coin is actually doing in the context of an application or another note.

[00:21:57] And how has it actually deriving value? [00:22:00] So that's of course that's another very deep rabbit hole that we probably don't have time to go down. It is obviously covered in my course, but that kind of gives you an idea, I think, at a high level of the different sorts of coins that they are. Ah, okay, great.

[00:22:13] Let's go to stable coins falls into category three, where you know, most stable coins are built on top of networks or other smart contracts. And basically they're designed to hold to the value of some other aspects, right? Usually like the dollar, right? So there are a lot of stable coins to track the U S dollar and they can do it in various ways.

[00:22:34] Some of them are programmatic. So some of them literally use code to try and track the U S dollar. Um, and some of them literally keep just dollar reserves and they track the dollar that way, because for every dollar that they, every, a dollar coin that they issue, they actually have a real dollar deposit and that's coins like a USB-C or a PAX USB, a bunch of different stable coins.

[00:22:58] They operate that way. They actually do [00:23:00] have a physical dollars for every coin that they do, and they are audited frequently and they publish. I use stable coins all the time. Say what points are fantastic, because they're basically just a better version of cash because they're cash that you can send around on the internet basically for free, um, and send them anywhere and use them in crypto applications.

[00:23:22] So for instance, on my stable coins that I hold, I keep them on an app called Celsius. Which is an interest earning custody to wallet. When I earn a 9% per year on stable points. So literally I had to take my money out of the bank where it Aryans 0.1%. I convert it into stable coins on Coinbase for free.

[00:23:42] And then I send them, uh, from Coinbase to the Celsius wallet, using the Coinbase wallet for a very low fee. And then as soon as they hit that Celsius wallet, they start earning 9%. Now, at this point 

[00:23:54] Eric: you still have the right to be a skeptic and that's rightfully so, but like what I've said in [00:24:00] the beginning of the show, financial institutions are buying it and selling it to their customers.

[00:24:07] When once upon a time they also would have. And now here we are in 2021 about to go into 2022 and it's picking up, 

[00:24:18] Shahar: I think that first off the fact that they were fighting it and ridiculing it at the beginning was just a clear sign. That or we've got something here and now they have realized that just to tie in as turn post has been, especially this year as, um, really more to the mainstream with things like NFTs and other stuff.

[00:24:37] And quite frankly, they used legacy instead of banks and, and president, things like that you mentioned, or clients were demanding it, they, their clients wanted exposure and then they. Right at the end of the day, but I think they have woken up to the power of the movement that we have. And the fact that this is a really significant sort of [00:25:00] technological breakthrough that Bitcoin and Ethereum and others right.

[00:25:03] Have introduced and that it is not going away and that it is going to be disruptive. And we'll see, I think the next 10, 10 to 15 years are going to be really interesting with why that happens between the traditional financial industry. And crypto, and then the governments also have some questions that they need to ask about how to integrate this, how to get the most out of it.

[00:25:28] Really always the question that they should be asking, and it will be, it's not going to be smooth sailing. I mentioned that crypto is the internet of value. I think that's really the best way to think about it. And if you think about the internet of information right now, we're in the internet of information, and this has happened over the past 10, 10 to 15 years, and we're still feeling the effects, right?

[00:25:49] From the internet of information, the things like social media, streaming media, all this stuff has been an outgrowth. Our ability to use the internet to share and send [00:26:00] information almost for free. And that has changed a lot right now. I want to propose to you. Value is probably going to be even bigger than the internet of information, because almost everybody.

[00:26:13] Uh, deals with value and they deal with they transact value, they manage value and they have to use all these intermediaries to do it. When the largest intermediate mediary is the traditional financial sector, that is all they do is meet values. That's entirely what they do. And we needed them to do that for a long time because we didn't have a better way, but now we do.

[00:26:32] And now right now, as we see the financial system is getting rebuilt in the crypto ecosystem. You may have heard the term defy before. Okay. You five stands for decentralized finance, and this is the new types of apps. And there that are getting a bill on the internet of value is the first apps that are really usable.

[00:26:54] And now we have NFTs. And another really big app. And we have played around gaming, [00:27:00] which has become another big app, but the centralized finance system most mature so far was the farthest along because it has obvious first place to start, because like I said, the financial system is just a big evaluate intermediary.

[00:27:12] So we have rebuilt it. We have reprogrammed it now runs autonomously on these crypto networks. Right. And you can go and interact with. You can use these applications to earn really strong passive income with your crypto assets. I have some crypto assets I'm able to earn triple digit APY, which is yearly returns just by participating in these apps, by participating in the internet of value.

[00:27:37] If you're participating in the internet of value now, right? The fact is you're very early on and most people. Even the most people that are investors in crypto, aren't really doing this. They're not, you might buy some Bitcoin. Maybe you'll leave it on the exchange. We'll leave it on Robin hood. You actually can do so much more with it.

[00:27:54] You can use these applications. We're building in the internet of value to use crypto [00:28:00] really where it's used best at, which is monetize it. Right. Have it pay you passive income? You can use it to take out. I've got really low interest rates. You can take out a loan with my crypto, right. And I can do it in seconds.

[00:28:13] I don't need any paperwork. I don't need any bank sign off. I can literally do it. So, again, these are just some examples of what is going on here, right? And what the level of activity that there is. And I think it really rewards people that participate in it. So the fact of the matter is we're still quite early.

[00:28:31] You think about the internet of information. It took many years to reach maturity and even now. Internet of information winners like Google and Facebook, Netflix, Amazon stocks, everyone knows they've still done pretty well. They've been doing well for a long time, and we are not that far along, really in this internet of value transformation, right?

[00:28:52] The crypto world has around 200 million users globally right now. Okay. [00:29:00] The internet has four and a half billion. And in fact, it towed the internet about 15 years to reach its first billion user crypto is on track to hit that earlier. Okay. So we actually have data that shows that crypto is growing faster than the internet in which the internet was one of the fastest growing things in history.

[00:29:19] Crypto is growing faster than that, but we're still only at $200. Um, which is not a lot. And that's, that's not even like real heavy users, but it was probably just anyone with a wallet. But you have to think in the long tail, we are, we're going through this transformation towards the internet of value until we have everyone using these applications, actually using crypto crypto applications for mobile banking and stuff like that.

[00:29:42] I would say we're still at the beginning. We have not even been, like I said, most people, I know that invest. They don't actually use the apps yet today. They don't, they're not really participate. So I think we're still early in that regard. No, when it comes to the market is always tricky, right? Because the market will get ahead of itself and then it'll need to pull back, [00:30:00] but then they'll go up again.

[00:30:01] So crypto has followed these cycles of large expansion and then large contraction. So you don't want to get in right at the end of sort of an expansion period, because you might need to take, have you drawn out before the next expense? But the fact of the matter is everyone was saying it was super late at the end of 2017.

[00:30:18] And you know what you could have bought the very top of 2017 and now four years later, you'd be up over two, three X. If you had just held on a message, you bought the exact top, that's the power of these waves, right? I didn't, I think I'm not a, I can't tell you. I can predict a cycle of exactly, but I don't think that this cycle is over.

[00:30:40] I think that we at least have a few more months, perhaps several more months, perhaps even a year who knows other expansion left the crypto market. Now I think. Still, you know, have a, have plenty of room to go and over the longterm, which by the way, most of my crypto [00:31:00] investments, I think about in terms of the longterm, I plan to hold this stuff for 10, 20, 30 years.

[00:31:06] I might even do some of it to my kids. I'm, you know, I think on the longterm, you're very far from being late. And if you have the patience and the conviction, the storage is hold on, everyone who has done that has done. So it's really about understanding it and learning about it and getting that conviction to know, to not get nervous, right?

[00:31:26] If you buy in and that starts going down, you know what, you're investing in the thesis behind it, and you won't worry when people worry or when they get nervous, when they haven't thought through an investment. Well, That's fortunately where people make mistakes because they'll panic sell or they'll get too.

[00:31:43] And they don't have a good enough understanding to know when it, when they should just chill out and not buy right at that time. So the more kind of you prepare yourself, right? The more you learn about it and what's going on, the more you use it, the more you're going to have that conviction to, um, hot.

[00:31:59] All right. [00:32:00] As we say, To, um, to stay in this different times are rough and wait for the good times to roll. And that's true in all investing. It's not just people think that crypto is like way more of all the time or way more risky than like the stock market. But really crypto is not that much more volatile stock market ends.

[00:32:16] You know, the stock market you have. Stocks go up, but 2000% and then crash 99%. And it's not that rare. So crypto is just the same thing. The only difference is crypto is open 24, 7. It's always there. So it can seem like it's more than that. And that's the way it is. And one thing, I talked a lot to, a lot of new investors and I've helped a lot of people become investors in the space.

[00:32:41] No one, I always say, is that move slow? It's your, before you have that conviction and you might never have it enough to like, want to just go buy everything at once, which is probably smart. I always advise people to do what's called dollar cost averaging. It's just, you buy a little bit at this. You [00:33:00] decide that something you want to be invested in, you want to have exposure to.

[00:33:03] And so you're just started getting that exposure and you do it very systematically to where you're not going to buy everything at the top, or you're going to be buying once a week or once a month. And you'll, and you do that over a few years and you'll get like a pretty good average price. And, and then you you're invested.

[00:33:20] Right? And you don't have to worry about your timing. I think it's very hard to time the market and it's probably not for most people that try. Especially, if you get nervous or stressed about it easily, you just don't want to put yourself in that position, but don't worry too much about the timing focused on the long-term.

[00:33:37] Is the thesis correct? Are we going to the internet of value? Are we moving more finance? Value kind of mediation applications onto crypto. And are those, how great are those applications now? How many people really liked their banks? How many people really liked their insurance providers? How many people really, the way of the social benefits programs work?

[00:33:58] Let's say how efficient they may or [00:34:00] may not be a lot. I think it makes a lot of sense for a whole lot of things to be moving onto the crypto internet of value. And I think it will be. Just part of the internet and it will seem normal in several years time. So that was a really long answer. But I think the point is I think that we are quite early, the market is never straightforward and it can be, it can be violent and have ups and downs.

[00:34:25] So for most people just buy in a little bit at a time. Don't rush. I'll be in a rush, focus on learning and understanding. I mean, in the meantime, I've use the apps that are out there, have fun and earn really great passes. So 

[00:34:37] Eric: with all this information that Shahar has given to us, I needed to know what did he love most about it?

[00:34:44] Where does he see cryptocurrency or blockchain technology going forward from 

[00:34:52] Shahar: here? What I love most about it is I think it promises a better future. It promises a more inclusive financial [00:35:00] future for everyone around the world. It promises more inclusivity to financial instruments like bones or earning interests, right?

[00:35:10] Making your money work for you. And it totally is going to redefine that. And it's totally going to redefine a lot of concepts of value. I mentioned that your wallet, now it probably has your ID in it, or it has your insurance card, but we can create those types of credentials on the internet of value and make those into digital credentials that you store on your wallet.

[00:35:28] And then you use a QR code. I approve that anyone can like scan the QR code and see, for instance, you're over 21 or you have the right to drive and Florida or whatever the case may be. So all sorts of credentials like that are also going to move online. That's going to. Um, make people much, much happier, not having to go to the DMV or go back and forth on the phone with, uh, some identity provider or a hospital or insurance.

[00:35:54] I don't know about you. I hate doing that. And all of that is it's going to make the system way more efficient. Yeah. You know what [00:36:00] say the government wants to do a social benefits program. So they want to do something like COVID released a payment. How many billions of dollars were wasted because of money that was sent to people or people that were committing fraud or people that weren't even here anymore.

[00:36:15] Imagine this, everyone just had a digital wallet that had their. Verifiable ID credentials in there. And you know what? The government could just airdrop money straight into your wallet, where you would see it the next day, or you see it the next hour. You wouldn't be waiting. You wouldn't be on the phone at the department of labor and you wouldn't have to go through any of that stuff.

[00:36:34] And it would be super efficient. So, so again, these are just some examples. Okay. I can give you examples all day. I used to work with this at IBM, so I'm very familiar with a lot of the use cases, even related to. Governments and the public sector and there's so so much we can do and make a system way more transparent, way more accountable, way more efficient, way less wasteful, way more inclusive.

[00:36:55] That's what's and that's what I, that's why I think it says a really familiarity. So [00:37:00] there are a lot of standards out there. There are a lot of people that take advantage. That people may not be familiar with wallets or private keys or how you send a group, their transaction, you cannot get it back. It's the one, it is the wild west out there.

[00:37:15] I will say that crypto very much is like the wild west. I, for one do hope we get some good and regulation around it because that will actually be really helpful for the industry and for the new people getting into seems, unfortunately in our regulators are so far behind the curve that they're going to have some trouble really doing that, but the cons are that.

[00:37:33] Because it's so early and mean there's a, it's a wild west and it's a dangerous game out there. And I've given some great examples with how you can get involved here and do it the right way. I also devoted an entire self-paced online course to help people get up to speed. You know, so that they don't make a bad mistake or costly mistakes fast.

[00:37:53] They're getting familiar with it. You just gotta be careful. And I think that's true of any investment that you would make. And I think it's especially [00:38:00] true here and we're thinking the client, because it is a really new thing. And there are people out there that want to take advantage of people that don't know that aren't so familiar by really saying if I can tell one thing our audience, and I really think it's worth it to take the time to understand.

[00:38:15] To get involved, whatever that might look like for you. And because it's incredibly empowering, it's incredibly lucrative. And it's incredibly, I think, hopeful that some of the ways I described, and once you start earning 9% on your stable coins, so you're going to be pretty happy. You're going to get it being paid every week.

[00:38:31] And whether that's just some more beer money or whether that helps you pay rent or whatever it is, it's going to feel great. And we have a long way to go. It is thought too late. I think it's worth it to put in the time. To learn this stuff, to teach it to your kids. I actually think it's very important because I think people need to be aware of how important technology is and what it can do.

[00:38:51] And, uh, and be informed 

[00:38:53] Eric: seeing what Shahar future outlook is for crypto and how far crypto can go. [00:39:00] I needed to know what he has going on with road to Babylon. 

[00:39:04] Shahar: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a website focused on education is called . That's w road to babylon.org. And you can go there. You can find me there. I do lots of free content.

[00:39:17] I do a weekly newsletter, which I'll be sending out tomorrow. I do it every Monday and just keep people up to date on the market and what's going on and share my thoughts. And you can also reach me via email at a shop bar at road to Babylon. You can find me on Twitter, Shahar Abrams and the project. I'm really excited about that.

[00:39:36] I mentioned I've been working on for quite a while. Is a fully self-paced online course, it's called the complete crypto investors toolkit and it is designed to be. A Swiss army knife, toolkit of all sorts of great information, knowledge demos, hands-on experiences using crypto over six hours of content [00:40:00] that I think will get anyone way up to speed and ahead of where most investors are.

[00:40:05] I know for a fact that in this market, so I think I've tried to price that a very accessibly and I really encourage people to check that out. You can find it on the road to Babylon. And yeah, and I would love to hear from you if you just have questions or want to chat usually up for that when I have time and I love talking to new people in the space I do.

[00:40:25] If you're happy to be local in Atlanta, I was just where I'm at. I run a meetup group. We do meetups every couple of weeks. We do classes. I did a live class demo of using a particular crypto application a few weeks ago. It was really great. I also definitely encourage you to come out to those. If you're ever in the area, we have a lot of fun and get involved in the community, but yeah, find time me and wrote a babylon.org.

[00:40:47] And I hope to see you there for you. And of course, absolutely it last lost.

[00:40:54] Eric: Now, with all the information that Shahar has just given us, you are on your way [00:41:00] to a good start in crypto. Now this is a new EPR changing and volatile asset class, but take baby steps into it. Then take that same information you have and pass it along to your children in even smaller bites. The question is now, do you want someone else introducing your children to cryptocurrency?

[00:41:23] Or do you want them to say when the question is asked, do you know anything about cryptocurrency? And they say, yes, my mother and father taught me this, this and this, and also not to do this. It all comes down to be improved. As always, I would like for you to tell other parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, everyone about the show and tell them to subscribe or.

[00:41:56] You thought, or it will definitely help out the show [00:42:00] until next time stay safe. 

[00:42:03] Introducer: We really hope you enjoy this episode of financial food of the podcast. Stay connected with us directly through raising financial freedom.com. You can also join the discussion on social media, which you can also find links on our website.

[00:42:17] If you would like to speak with us, please send us an email to info@raisingfinancialfreedom.com. And as always thank you for pushing your mindset towards a better reality. This concludes the most thought provoking portion of your day. Don't forget to please like, and subscribe to stay fully up to date until next time.

[00:42:36] Be kind to yourself and each ot