How Much Does it Cost To Buy Cryptocurrency?

When you begin buying Cryptocurrency, you may come into a bit of sticker shock when you start seeing the fees that are charged. However, the fees are not all the same.

In this episode, we discuss the main website to purchase cryptocurrency, and what kind of fees each charge.

Interested in getting your feet wet in Crypto?

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Get the Fold App to receive Satoshi's (a type of Bitcoin) for gift card purchases from some frequently used brands (Starbucks, Amazon, Target, etc. Use this link to receive 20,000 Satoshis after your first purchase. https://use.foldapp.com/r/gTcqtrPk

Ready to start Investing?

I use Coinbase for Bitcoin purchases. Use these links for $10 at Coinbase.

Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/smith_2o5

Want to Join BitBlockBoom in August?

Head over to BitBlockBoom.com and use the code COUSINS for 30% off!

Full Episode Transcription

Erin Gregor: Alright, so welcome back to another episode of Clarifying Crypto. I'm Erin Gregor. I'm here with my cohost, Gary Leland. Gary, welcome. Yeah, so it's good to be back. And I've got an official announcement. We are finally officially up. Well, everything's been sent, I don't know where exactly we're all up yet, but by the time this goes live.

The website is live, we're up on all the major places now. So finally got the wallet set up. So if anybody wants to donate, they can go onto the site clarifyingcrypto.com and go do that. So we are. We are finally official, official, official. It took me a little bit longer than it typically does, but, had to build a website, had to get a wallet, had to do all kinds of stuff.

Gary Leland: So, we are official and I'm excited to see, what you've done. Yeah. Make sure right now this is going to be fixed by the time this goes live, but you gotta type in www.clarifyingcrypto.com. I'll get all the non www done. Yes. So, but yeah, so we're official and we are recording this. It's been an interesting week.

Erin Gregor: You and I have talked, we were pre talking before hitting record. So today is March, I guess, 12 we're in the huge downfall of the, the free fall of the stock market, which has also shown a free fall of Bitcoin prices. As we're recording this right now, it's at $5,800. I know we're talking about, you know, picking some up and buying some again, we are not financial.

Investors or advisors. So don't listen to us, do your own research before you decide what you're going to do, but, tell me your thoughts on this whole crash. Like we're watching Bitcoin fall or watching the stock market fall. Kind of where we were. Have you been sitting in all of this and how are you doing well?

Gary Leland: You know, I'm just little said. I just thought we just, my wife and I just did put like seven grand each and two for one or two IRAs, like a week before this happened. You, I wish we waited till now. I mean, we've seen a good bit of that gone, but you know, I'm just kind of riding it out and in the stock market, I mean, you know, I feel like everything comes back sooner or later.

I don't think this is the end of the world. And I think there's some great values out there. I'd probably if I was buying it, but I'm putting my money right now with the Bitcoin, you know, I just did IRAs cause I'm, you know, in a stock market. Cause that's what we do. But I put it in a Bitcoin company in the stock market from IRA, but I'm riding Bitcoin.

I've been buying every day. We were saying earlier in the show, I'm really excited. I've been dollar cost averaging. I was going to buy a bitcoin about three weeks ago. And I decided just to buy like a hundred dollars worth today and yeah, I'm cleaning up. I'm really glad. It's the way it's going. I might end up with a bit Quinn and a half where I went ahead of Bitcoin, you know, with a mail or mine, you know what the price dropping I saw this morning.

I didn't get to read the article, but I just saw a few minutes ago during this crash, the number of people that own one Bitcoin is it all time high. So evidently a lot of people have been taking advantage of it. I didn't get to read much of the article there. So that's really good to know because. I recall it was our last episode.

Erin Gregor: When I, when I had asked you, I said, you know, I thought it was interesting because we were starting to see some dips and I had the impression that, and, and a naive impression, I'll just put it that way. Uneducated thought, like maybe Bitcoin will go up when the stock market went down, but we're seeing it flow.

And so I did some research. since then, just to say, okay, you know, what can we, what can we expect? Or what does this look like? And it is one of those things where there's just not enough history. Like, it looks like Bitcoin goes up with, but we don't know. And a lot of people, because it is an investment and especially like a.

more risky investment. We'll just say that a lot of people get more scared when the stock market's going down. You know, if they're safe, money's going, that's, I'm using air quotes. As I say, safe money is going down, then, you know, what about Bitcoin? So it's interesting to say that you say that like maybe possibly more people are buying.

And now as this, I mean, we're about, I don't think what we're seeing of downfalls and free falls of the stock market. I don't think it's over because we're not even going to see yet. What's happening to these companies that are going to be affected by, you know, the airlines, the restaurants, the, you know, all of these companies that are going to be affected by what's happening with the coronavirus.

Gary Leland: And so it's going to be interesting. To see what happens in the longterm. Yeah. But you got people like Scott towels who must be cleaning up. I mean, they are close to running out of toilet paper. I guarantee you that there's tons and tons of that stuff around, but that's, that's being bought up like no tomorrow.

Erin Gregor: Yeah. I 

Gary Leland: bought some 3M cause they 

Erin Gregor: make the masks. Like there are some winners on this, you know, it's an interesting winter that I didn't even think of. Like zoom as we're recording this on zoom, zoom software, like they're going through the roof right now. Because all these companies are making people work from home.

Gary Leland: All these gaming companies are going through the roof too. And I bet Netflix is because people aren't going to theater. So I'll tell you what else is going through the roof right now? Probably that we don't see is Uber probably going through the roof. They're charging, the accelerated rate almost everywhere.

Cause no one's wanting to take trains or buses, especially like in New York, my friend, Marty, Ben. He usually takes an Uber to work in New York and it's $8 cost him $55 the other day. Cause they charged for those. High rates because it's so busy, but it's so busy. Cause everybody's taking Uber's no one wants to take the subway, you know?

So, and there's some things, you know, when you think about it, there's, there's no way they're going out of business. I mean, I can't think of a thing, but there's some companies that you just think about it, it's a stable it's that matter where there's a chronic virus or not, it's just, everybody's like scare, they're fearful and they're worried.

And, you know, Warren buffet says, you know, by when there's blood in the streets exhibit, and there's a lot of blood in the streets and I've been the sad part. He's got a lot of blood right now in the street. There's a lot of blood and I've been, I've been picking up some good deals, but then the deals just kind of keep on getting better and I'm like, damn it.

Erin Gregor: So I shouldn't have bought yet. Yeah. I kinda bought, I bought some, I got some Apple quote unquote shoe. Like I said, I picked up some 3m, like, you know, Disney, like you're going to see these. You know, they're going to, I think, going to fall even more because you're going to see it affect it. So anyway, it's just really interesting, but I'm, I'm sticking to my guns and, I loved you when you told me, cause we're going to talk about the cash app and so.

I was using the cash app. I was really annoyed. I was ready to throw my phone through the wall with trying to get the cash app to work. And I remember, and you said, Oh yeah, I just buy a hundred a day. I'm like, Oh my God, that's so genius to do so I put some money in another account and started buying every day.

And I'm sticking to that. Like, I'm going to keep. You know, now is the time I'm, I'm going to keep buying, keep going in. And, I'm just glad I'm at a place because typically when we've well, in 2008, I wasn't at a place where I could pick up a lot. So I feel very grateful that I can, you know, hang out in the sh in the bloody streets right now and pick up some stuff.

Gary Leland: Dollar cost averaging is the way a good way to buy. I mean, as over, especially in Bitcoin, if you go over the history of Bitcoin, if you. Had dollar cost average, you know, over a certain over a year period of time, you always are a winner. You know, actually in 2017, you know, in 2017, Bitcoin had reached a 19,000 and change and dropped all the way to 3,200.

And then, so a year later it was 3,200, but if you had bought every week, starting at the 19,000. And bought for two years, you were up, even though you started buying it a price, it still hasn't reached yet. Exactly. Yeah. Cause it wasn't that high. It wasn't $19,000 that long. Yeah. So yeah. I'm all right. With some deals and I'm going to, excuse me.

Erin Gregor: I still am getting over a cold. We've been, we've been quarantining ourselves here cause we've been all sick. So I'm going a little stir. Crazy. Just. In the house and I pray to God, we all don't go through a massive quarantine cause I'm going to probably lose my mind if that's the case. But, all right.

Let's I always love to start the show too with, you have a show called, Four Minute Crypto, five days a week. You post a news story about crypto. We haven't talked in a couple of weeks, so we'd love to know anything that really sticks out for you on news of, of crypto. It seems like there's been a lot of good stuff coming through.

Gary Leland: There's been a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff too, but, you know, not really that bad stuff, just I'm real depressed with the, conference situation across the country. Yeah. So what's happening with the big conferences you're going to stick. You've got Bitbucket. Boom. I would assume you're far enough out that there's no decisions being made yet, right?

I'm into August. I feel pretty comfortable. I think that they'll have this. I would think almost everybody would have caught it by August. You know what I mean? I mean, this sounds crazy, but I mean, you know, the way it's spreading, I would think everybody's got it and got well by then, but I'm still going with mine, but you know, I was supposed to, during between the last week of February and the first week of April, I was supposed to go to five conferences and they're all canceled.

Erin Gregor: Wow. I was going to consensus in New York and may, that may be canceled, you know, so a South by Southwest was canceled. South by Southwest was canceled. That is crazy to me. It's like 250,000 people and they're not refunding people. Did you see that? No. No, I didn't. I'm glad. How can they not refund people?

It's like in a clause that they're trying to get around the we're possibly going to reschedule it. But what I saw, the last news thing I saw and know this could change that they were not going to refund people who bought tickets, which I think is total BS, but they've laid off like 30%, 30% or something.

Gary Leland: They have 175 employees. And I think like 35 or 30% of people have already been laid off from there. Like there's a lot of money being lost by what's happening right now. Yeah. And think of all the local vendors and local bars and local musicians and maintenance, a lot of people who bought, saw it at money, you know?

And then, then again though, you know, if you think I'm just going to use my conference, as a base, you know, cause that's the only one I do. I've already guaranteed. All those homes, hotel rooms, I've guaranteed almost 300 hotel rooms. I've guaranteed, you know, thousands of dollars in food expenditure.

Erin Gregor: And I don't have an escape clause for a pandemic. I mean, we didn't think of that. So it would be up to the hotel. The hotel could go. Hey, sorry, dude. So we can't help it. You're not having your conference. You owe us thousands and thousands of dollars. So a act of God though, like if there's an, a national or a state emergency or something, I don't know.

Gary Leland: I called my contact. I don't negotiate with hotels. I use a hotel negotiation company, but there is something in your contract that should have a clause of act of God. And I actually have a friend, we were in a mastermind together and she's got an event coming up and I'm like, I would just cause she's going to keep up with it.

She's like two weeks away. And, and I'm like, you gotta talk with them. Yeah. Like what a mess. But, is the conference I was looking at, I tried to get a ticket, the big one in San Francisco. It's at the end of this month. Is that canceled? I guess it is canceled. It's canceled. Yeah. Yeah, it's canceled for sure.

So, yeah, that's bad news. That's bad news for them. They're rescheduling, they said for third quarter, but I'm, you know, talking to them a lot because, you know, mindset and third quarter, you know, and there's this huge in mind say more of a, you know, a smaller conference in there. So, and we had a lot of the same people that, so they, when I talked to them, they said, yeah, they'd been contacted quite a few times by people to let.

People letting them know the Bit Block Boom was the same time, you know? So, so they're aware of that and are trying to work around it, but that's a big conference to reschedule and, I hate to be, sounding like I'm, I'm not concerned, which I definitely am concerned, but you know, it actually could be great for a Bit Block Boom.

I mean, you know, every conference cancels up until June, June, and then they cure it and everything's okay. And. You know, my conference is coming up. I mean, it could be great and it could be bad. I mean, it's going to be one way or other, so you're going to be a nightmare or the best thing that could happen to the conference.

Not the best thing that happened to the people or the world. I'm just talking, I'm just being run, just being realistic here, you know, and, and open them at. So we'll see what happens, but I'm open next year at next week. And no one else has a cancer conferences and no one else has to get sick or die. You know, you could be in a perfect storm of good, not gonna lie.

So, you know, stock market goes down. People may be going into crypto, which will affect the price. Cause it is, I mean, it's, it's going to happen happening coming up in 60 days. And then you've got all these conferences. So you could be, yeah. I talked to a friend of mine. He just did pod Fest. I just got through talking to him this morning and last weekend in, Florida, it'll probably be the last podcast conference in the U S for awhile.

And he say, he gave me a lot of great tips, what they did. They had everywhere. They had those PRL stations set up, you know, and then they had a dots on people's badges, like a big red dot. If the person could say, put one of those dots, my badge, and I meant that person didn't want to shake hands. So don't try to shake hands with them.

So he gave me lots of things they were doing to make people feel more comfortable, you know, at the thing. So even if it's over my August, I think they'd be good things to do, you know, to follow through. I can't believe we're at this spot we're at, and obviously I have nothing. I can't predict anything.

It's I think we're going to be over this by, I mean, I wouldn't say that they're warms up. It's I think as the weather warms up, I think these foreign countries that are working on this cause you know, China did release the DNA sequencing of the virus or whatever. And so everybody's working on it and not all of those countries are like us when it comes to testing stuff.

Erin Gregor: Right. You know what I mean? They are going to do the years of testing. So somebody is going to some country is going to whip that thing out quick and start putting it in people. Well, sorry for those people, but are people are probably going to be the test subjects and we'll find out that it's working or not.

So I think it would be cure fast. And I mean, here's the thing like, so my husband, JJ is a chiropractor and he even told me this back in December. I remember he's like, you know, there's this weird strain of need. I don't think he actually called it the flu. And he's like, there's this weird strain going around.

What's really affecting people in the upper respiratory. He said it. We've not tested for it yet. So you can't tell me, it's just getting in the U S it's BIA. And if you're not sick enough to go into the doctor, no, one's going to know you had it. Right. So I think it's, there's no way it could have just stayed in.

I mean, The, like I was at CES in January, if that thing was coming, I mean, there's no way that, that the, the show was like, yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, that's true. It was half Asian there. Yeah. So, I mean, it's been in the U S like, there's no way it just came in the U S we just happen to just test for it. So it's like a flu where I think sure.

Gary Leland: It'll trickle out, you know, but. And I've read it hates heat. So hopefully I asked, I'm thinking summer's coming August. You know, someone posted the other day going Gary Leland could look like a genius doing a conference when it's hotter than hell in August. Exactly. He'll just like lay out in the Texas heat for about five, five minutes.

Kill all the Corona virus that's on you and then come on in. Well, yeah, I really feel bad joking about it cause it's not a joking matter. So I'm not, I'm not laughing about it, but. I, I said, I hope it's over with, I have financial things. I'm kind of concerned about in the back of my mind, I guess. And, still, I'm hoping those work out for me, but, I am a cannabis greedy pig when it comes to money.

I don't want anyone any harm, right? I don't want anyone to be harmed in my process of gaining my money. So how about good news? Like we talked about any, like, I know I saw a square, just put out a grant for people. Well, they've been doing grants for awhile. they just, the press release just went out with the rules of how to apply for the grants.

You know, develop a rockstar who does BTC pay. He got a a hundred thousand dollars, maybe three, four months ago. He's one of the speakers at my conference. and he's a really great guy. you know, and then there was, there's three other people who've gotten money that I don't know any of the other three, two when I'm his name's went in announcing the two.

I don't know, but I know. Like I said, I'm a rockstar developer got a hundred thousand dollars and they're pretty simple rules. I mean, you basically have to come up with something that helps the Bitcoin community. So is it Bitcoin or crypto or blockchain? Bitcoin. Bitcoin. Yeah. Jack. Dorsey's a Bitcoin enthusiast.

He's not a blockchain or crypto enthusiast. He's a Bitcoin enthusiast. So you, your project has to help the Bitcoin community and he gave some guidelines as to. What you could work on, but then at the end of that, it's anything that we are even something we hadn't thought of, you know, and then you have to be in good standing with the Bitcoin community, you know?

So you can't be like Roger veer with Bitcoin cash. And a Bitcoin cash developer and come out with something for Bitcoin, you get bad in the Bitcoin can be, obviously they're ripping people off, but is there anything else that kind of, well, Roger veer went from, you know, Bitcoin, Jesus, the Bitcoin Judas by doing one yeah.

Bitcoin cash, which I kind of wish he'd take that off the cash. Yeah, we should take that off the site there. I hate that. Huh? The standard ones. I didn't know. I knew, I think it's super easy. It's super easy. It's evil. You know, they, he bought the domain bitcoin.com and he calls it Bitcoin. He didn't call it Bitcoin cash.

He calls it Bitcoin. He says it is a real Bitcoin that, that no longer is Bitcoin. The real Bitcoin that his is the real Bitcoin. So people are deceived. They come on to an exchange to buy Bitcoin. And everybody says, go get some Bitcoin. And then they say, Oh, well, I'm going to buy this Bitcoin, but it's not the same thing.

And they buy Bitcoin big guy. I can get this Bitcoin cheaper. And it's under bitcoin.com. If you want the bitcoin.com the buy Bitcoin you'd think you were buying Bitcoin, but you're not, you're buying Bitcoin cash. So I think he's very deceptive on his practices. I don't believe in his product anyway, but I think he's very acceptive on how he sells it.

I don't think he, he should actually say. This isn't Bitcoin. This is a, a fork of Bitcoin, but he doesn't. He makes he, he says that if he's pinned, but when you look at this stuff, you think it's Bitcoin, you know, especially owning the domain bitcoin.com. You know, and he's tried to buy the Reddit page Bitcoin, you know, which the guy who has the Reddit page wouldn't sell it to them.

So I think, yeah, I just don't think he's using, I don't know why he's using these tactics, but that's what he's doing, you know? So I don't like the product that many, you know, anything that's not Bitcoin. I don't like, but I particularly don't like that product because of his marketing efforts. And that's how you become in bad standing.

Erin Gregor: Right. You know, as by doing something to see people that would put you in bad standing are like Bitcoin SV. That guy says that he is the guy who invented Bitcoin, you know? So that would put you if it is, he has a million Bitcoins. So I don't know why he's not like, you know, the richest man running around in the world with a million Bitcoin, you'd be the richest, one of the richest men in the world.

It's not the reasons, but for some reason he just can't get to those funds right now. He says, That's kind of random. It seems like you developed it. You would know enough to where the courts, even if he's been sued and the courts even said, we need you to unlock that money and pay some of it because you lost the case, you know, to the wife of one of his partners that he stole a Bitcoin for mr.

Allegedly had. Wow. I'm just like a whole thing in there that, so that would get you in bad terms. Would they be, so yeah, they answer your question. There are ways to get in bad terms with the Bitcoin, people with Bitcoin. That makes any sense. Yeah, it does. My recorder just went out, so.

Alright, there we go. All right. So that's good to know, right? So they're not getting any grants anytime soon, but if you're in a good standing, all right, let's talk about let's since around Jack Dorsey, talk about the cash app, because in our last episode you suggested the cash app as a good investment tool, which I like a lot.

Yes. You like it a lot. So. W in investing, we've talked a lot about where it's my frustration. However, it has saved me a lot of money, the delay. So, couldn't buy Bitcoin. The fact that I did have to wait a week to buy Bitcoin because I got really eager, like, Oh, it's like, Oh, let me get it at 98. Let me get it at 98.

Hurry before it goes over 10, then. And then it crashes to nine. So it was a good thing, you know, at that point. And then obviously it's even crushed more. So, you know, that's the beef with Coinbase pro that's the beef with, it's the beef with I do, I do Robinhood. I don't want to suggest Robinhood cause it isn't, there are no fees, but you don't actually own it.

However cash app. You can just get it straight from your, pull it straight from your debit account. So it's, it's super fast. It's super easy. So if you want to buy Bitcoin, now you just grab it. So you suggested it. I'm like, all right, I'm going to bite the bullet. I'm going to sign up for this thing. And I'm going to start buying some bit point Bitcoin through cash app so I can talk about it, right?

Oh my gosh. I. It's really frustrating. It's a very frustrating app, just trying to get, and I get why they have to validate who you are and why they have to look at that. I completely understand. You're you're pulling out your customer rules, know your customer laws. Exactly. But like I was joking with you just trying to seriously, it means a picture of your.

Front and back of your drivers, that's hard to do with that app. I admit, I finally gave up and I get my daughter and I said, man, I'm going to say what you do this. And it took her about five minutes and she finally got it. I just didn't have the patience to hold the phone over for five minutes. I don't know what I did wrong.

And here's the deal I make direct electronic direct deposits. All the time bank account. So I'm very familiar with taking pictures. I'm very familiar with how to do that, but it's funny. You really don't take pictures. You just hovered over it. It finally decides when it's going to take a photo, but I can't decide what's hovering well, what's the decision.

So anyway, and then fi, and then you can do it manually, but like I was showing JJ, if you take it over and you do it manually, it will. Thing that you see is not the image. And it like, anyway, I couldn't find any myriad of my life right there. Yeah. Well, I asked several times, got the front then, but never could get the back done and just gave up.

So I understand what you're saying. . I got half, excuse me, half of it done. Now I can get the other half done. Yeah. Yeah. So there was that I'll show you. So I was very confused. So what I'm showing here is. The actual purchase of Bitcoin and I, okay. I'm a guy in the sense of, I don't read directions. I don't take time to figure like I'm like, it needs to be intuitive enough, so I'm not a direction follower.

I'm really bad about that. But I kept thinking I had to add cash in order to buy Bitcoin. So it was trying to add cash and I'm trying to link my bank accounts. And for some reason, Wells Fargo is not, it doesn't have enough, authentication or something. I can't use Wells Fargo. I've got my bank account added.

I've got a credit card added and I still can't upload add cash. And I, I haven't tried lately. Well, you still can't add cash. I don't have any, I might be able to now I don't know, but when I was first starting with this, I'm like, okay, I'm assuming I have to add cash and then buy the Bitcoin. So that was my assumption.

So that was like a four hour spin, that it took me on and I, I couldn't figure it out. But as I was playing with the app, I figured out we've got this little investing side, like there's an investing tab. So if you are on the cash app and you look down like the fourth tab over it's. A squiggly Mark, that's your investing.

And so you can buy Bitcoin directly through that. So I'm like, okay, I got it. So I got my debit card hooked up. I've got enough money in my debit card. Like I just want to do a easy transaction. So I go in and I hit buy and the first transaction goes through, hooray, this is fantastic. And I did a low transaction.

I just did like a hundred dollars. Just to test this so fantastic. My, my thing is going through. Everything's wonderful. And so I say, okay, you know what, I'm brave. Let me do this, do a little bit more. And it just keeps telling me the transaction can go through. And I have no idea why I contact support. I'm like, why won't this go through?

I'm putting the right pin number in. I've got money in my account. I know you guys were able to hit the account and take it out. Like. For a week, I could not make a purchase. They couldn't tell me why nobody could help me. And then all of a sudden, A week later, it just randomly worked. So I still have no idea what happened or what went wrong.

It seems glitchy. I don't, but maybe it could be user error, but I don't know why I didn't change anything of what I was doing, but this was a really frustrating app. And now it seems like hopefully it's going to be okay. Well, I'm sorry. You ran into problems like that. I really am. But you know, there, there are things you can do easier.

 I was, matter of fact, I did another podcast today with someone else, and we were talking about the cash app. It's funny. We were talking about, we were talking about the fact that sometimes you have to spend Bitcoin, maybe, you know, like for instance, I use two artists to do certain things in Europe and they won't take cash.

Gary Leland: It'll only take me and that's all they'll take. And see now what the cash app I could actually, if I'm paying that person. $500 to do something. For instance, I have this well-known Bitcoin artists making a poster for the conference, and he's like really known in the Bitcoin world. And he charges $500 for his artwork.

He's really a nice guy and, but he only accepts Bitcoin. So before I'd had to go into my wallet, take Bitcoin and send them from my wallet and actually, you know, for tax purposes, the first Bitcoin you put in. Is the first you take out. So if I bought that Bitcoin at $3,000, let's say, and I took it out when it was $10,000, I'm paying 70% taxes.

You know, I'm paying taxes on 70% of that as a profit, but with the cash app, I can go, okay. I need to send him $500. I could buy 500 right now. And in seconds, send it to them and I'm not paying that tax bread. Cause I'm never putting that in my wallet. It's never the first thing the first hour. Right. So there are, there are times if that's a handy little device in the bypass easily and send it out that easy on your phone without having to dip in your wallet.

Erin Gregor: Right. Well, and I think too, like if I can ever figure out how to time this, like even just the benefit of, Oh my God, it's down today. Let me buy something. Like I like being able to, it just was the fact that nobody could tell me what I was doing wrong was frustrating. And then the fact that, it just wouldn't work.

Like it was just not working. like I said, it was probably all of a sudden done probably four to five hours of my life just, and now it's working, so we'll see. But, but yeah, it was, it was a. Yeah, I can recommend it now, but I'm like, there's no, it's frustrating to me too. When I couldn't get that done, I didn't have the problem with the bank not working, but it was frustrating to me, just not being able to get my driver's license done.

So yeah. Let's tell anyone if they're trying to get that it does work, you know, getting your driver's license in there. It says really hard and you aren't alone when you're having a problem. It's not like, Oh, you're having a problem. Both of us have had the problem. It's very weird. I would expect more from Jack Dorsey's teeth.

Like I would expect that they can actually take a picture of something, fairly easily, but that was a little more depth. That was a little more difficult. So let's talk about fees too, because I'm curious where we started talking about this and like, Oh, that's why, that's why it's wait. I did some research.

About fees. Cause you were like, I think the fee is pretty low and it's about 2.2, 4%. Yeah, that sounds right. It's just like, don't quote us on that, but right around there, Coinbase, which cause I started doing it. I'm like, what, what are these? Cause I remember when I first started trading, I was like sticker shocked at the trading fees.

I really was when Coinbase was my first purchase, I think I bought, I think it was like a $2,500 transaction and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the fees. I was like, Oh my God, this is what people spend. But, 

Gary Leland: And I, and I don't know if this is, this is just from what I've seen on the purchases that I've made. I don't know if it's more of a flat fee or if this is the rate, but they're at about 0.0049, about a 0.0, zero 5% fee. So they're even lower. So those fee is on Coinbase and Coinbase pro if I'm correct in my memory, they change according to how much, How busy the coin Bitcoin blockchain is for instance, when, when people like, for instance, you look at these same fees.

When Bitcoin starts going through the roof and hit 17, 18, 19,000 on Coinbase and watch how much those fees are at that point go up. But this kind of cash app is going to stay the same. So I would venture to say that maybe the cash app might be a little bit more expensive right now, but I think that over the long haul, I think it'll probably be cheaper.

And also, I actually think Bitcoin's cheaper on the cash app than it is on Coinbase. You know, just from my buying it every day and looking at, the Coinbase price, you know, compared to this 1.49, though. I'll have to do more research on it because I thought I got it just from a poll on what they said that they charge and there's a fluctuation.

it's what the market charges or something that goes up on there where I think Coinbase always stays the same, not calling it base, but I think cash app will stay the same. But I think, like I said, I think when you see this stuff, start going through the roof, finish hitting 13, 14,000 when people were buying this like crazy.

I think dude go spend that money. On Coinbase or going Coinbase Pro, you can go, Oh my gosh. You're really high. Yeah. Compared to the Cash App. But I think right now they may not be. And that's good to know too, in case you're think as you sell, you're not. So that's, what's nice about it. Depends on, you know, with, like I said, with Robin hunt, I do a little bit in Robin hood and I know again, I've never used that at all.

I know, and it's going to happen. I didn't seen it bad press on Robin hood funds. They've gone down three times, like, yeah, this system's done good. That's not good. Hopefully no kick out. But I think also you were talking about to develop her stuff for the, for, that the Square's doing. I almost think that Jack Dorsey is spending that money.

I don't think he's very stupid. I think maybe will have that much money. Aren't usually pretty stupid or they don't make that much money. And he is a true Bitcoin believer. He's not a crypto believer of blockchain. He is a Bitcoin believer and we were supposed to be in an event they're in, they're in Bitcoin, 2020 at Square's offices.

There were 40 of us, somebody did, and I was invited and endorsed. He was supposed to come there and it was put on by rockstar developer, who was one of the people that got the a hundred thousand dollars. And I think though that. This money may be being spent on things that he's interested in seeing developed that he could lay it or use that, or maybe are open source and he can later could use on square.

Okay. So that would make sense to me if you're like wanting to make square and cash app and maybe add a tipping Bitcoin tipping on Twitter, you're wanting to incorporate all this stuff. You would have certain things in your mind, you would think would be good and you'd look at anything and say, Hey. That would be really great for us to have access to what support that.

And maybe it's cheaper to support with the development grant than it is to hire developers in house to work on that. Right. That's just my thoughts. I don't know that for sure. But that's just what I'm thinking. Oh, I would bet. Cause that way it would be. Can you. You can't pay him that quite on square yet, can you?

No, no, no. I mean, that is all, not that I'm aware. It makes sense that that's going to be a future thing for him. Yeah, I would think so. I would think that that definitely to me would seem like coming up as much as he likes Bitcoin and as much as he's supporting it that, and like I said, tipping on Twitter, I would think that would almost because there are people doing that now, you know, with outside tools.

Exactly. So why wouldn't he incorporate and say, well, hell, let's just make that a tool. Cause you know, recently he just made it. So when you put VTC hashtag BTC or hashtag Bitcoin, it shows the Bitcoin emoji now, you know, and that's something he didn't no one else does that just Twitter. Yeah. And we've talked about him before.

Erin Gregor: I appreciate his stance in Twitter where he has not, I really do appreciate that he has not tried to. you know, what you got Facebook doing and, what's the word I'm trying to look for? Like deciphering certain messages and determining what is legit. What's not, I appreciate Jack Dorsey stands on, you know, even what, what Facebook did to, to cryptocurrency.

Like you couldn't talk about it. You couldn't do anything on, on it. And, I, I understand. Partially why they're doing that. But I also, you can't determine what is really legit and you can't win what is not. So, I'm a Twitter fan from that perspective. I have an interesting story that we weren't planning on.

Gary Leland: You I'm opening up my account and recommended that I do an LLC for Bit Block Boom, my conference. And usually when I do something like a new little branch of a business, I just make it a, a branch of Leland's know. So the bank, I haven't opened up a new commercial bank account in a long time. The last time I did it, they were C Corp.

They didn't even have LLCs. That's how long it's been. And I'm opening up the account and everything's AOK and get my wife, you know, she's my partner. So I take her to paperwork, sign that she's, I'm 50% of the company or whatever. And I go, ah, I get phone call yesterday from. The bank guy at the bank. And I even know the biggest stockholder or the bank, you know, I mean, personally, I thought that I was going to open an account and he said, well, go see what's they don't do it.

Anyway. I got a call yesterday and he goes, the guy called the Neil with goes, I forgot to ask you what block boom does. So I looked it up online and it's, in Bitcoin, I said, right. And he goes, well, we're not allowed to open it. Bank accounts for company that, deal and cryptocurrency. I said, well, it doesn't deal in cryptocurrency.

It's a educational site. You know, it's an educational company. We do conferences, we do blogs. We do books. We do videos. You know, podcasts, but it's an educational site, but it is education about Bitcoin, but no Bitcoin is bought through this account. No Bitcoin is sold on any of the sites I have, you know?

so there's nothing really direct though to do with Bitcoin. He says, well, I understand that and I'll make a notation, but I have to send this over to, the department that. Looks to see if we can open you up an account. Cause we're not allowed to open up accounts with people who did cannabis gambling are cryptocurrencies.

No go good. What are the other two? You just think of they're all illegal and cryptocurrencies, not illegal, and I'm not selling cryptocurrency. I'm talking about Bitcoin. I tried to make a distinction because I believe there's an extinction distinction and he goes, well, I understand that. And I'll send it to, the people who decide if we can open up an account with you or not.

You know, I already transferred the money into the account and everything. So I'm curious to see. What happens? That's kinda like, yeah, cause I gotta have a way to take out the profits of my conference. What, I mean, I just can't keep them in PayPal forever. And it's technically an event. It's a conference.

And like I said, videos, audio, I mean books. I mean, you know, it's nothing to do with Bitcoin. It's about Bitcoin, but it has nothing to do with a Bitcoin, you know? Interesting. Yeah. So I'm interested to see how that happens. I'm kind of anticipating. So that was kind of interesting. So we'll see if they decide that my account can be open.

They're not, I mean, you know, and then if they say my account, can't be opened where they look at my Leland's account and go, Oh my gosh, he's been funneling the profits from the conference through this account. So even though he's had this account here forever, and there's like, Hey, they should like the account with the imbalance where they say, you know, we have to get rid of this account too.

And now I'm on the streets hitting for a bank account. Yeah, that's kind of a weird deal. It's a really weird, like I said, I could, okay. I can understand if you're trading it. yeah. If I was buying and selling and using the funds and dropping the funds into their bank account and then pulling the funds out, but actually all the Bitcoin I do, I do through my personal account and, you know, someone paid me for the conference, a Bitcoin, I keep it, you know, so I don't even cash that out.

So there's no way there's any Bitcoin funds. Going through this account. So, but I have heard of that happening to people and they don't even get opportunities to explain it. You know, they've got an account and they saw they had an account with Coinbase or they made a draft through Coinbase or something and they've shut down their accounts.

So that's. Not an unusual thing to have happened and they don't even have a say so on it, you know? So really, so like if, cause obviously you need a bank account to get money over to like a Coinbase. So I can potentially like they, if they see that I'm trading like pushing money over to Coinbase, they may shut down.

Yeah. It's very possible. They could shut you down on my Bank of America account. I made a move. I put some money in Coinbase, maybe eight months ago. And then, about an hour later, my wife called me, she goes, did you change our password on the account? And I said, no, I haven't been in Iran. She goes, I can't log in.

And I said, well, I just made a purchase of Bitcoin and clean based about an hour ago. I said, it's probably because of that. And so she calls him and said, no, it had nothing to do with that. It was just a glitch in the system and we'll open it back up. So it's kind of, it was just kind of weird the glitch and bank of America card system, some glitch.

Shut down online account, like an hour after we made a purchase. So that was kind of weird. And I think our account was big enough that I think if we'd have been some guy with $500 in our account, they might not mess with it, but we have enough money there. They're not one to go, whatever. Just get over that.

Yeah, I'll be interested. Well, actually, nothing comes well. That's actually the good thing about that hooked up to a cash app. So that's the good thing about a cash app because it's going in cash app and they don't know what you're doing. You know, another good thing about the cash app is something that, you know, this, you can get a debit card that goes with your cash app.

Have you gotten that applied for that yet? I haven't gotten it yet. I saw that I would do that. I was pretty angry at cash app to get anything more, but my anger is going down a little bit to do that. Cause like you can add, boosts or what they call them. You can add a boost. Like I have a boost on there for coffee and any coffee shop.

I get a dollar off the coffee. No, I just go in a coffee shop and buy coffee and it rings it up. At the end of the day I did, when it rang it up at three and a quarter, and then I get a text from the cash app. So you bought coffee at two and a quarter. It's only a dollar, you know, for doing nothing. And I think there's one in there for 'em.

this counts at Chick-fil-A chick, this and groceries, any grocery store, you in this cat, they're all kind of discounts and boosts in there and they call them. So that's a pretty good deal and doesn't cost anything to do. You know? So I've been doing that. I like that. I like getting, I like saving a dollar for doing nothing.

Erin Gregor: I do too. And, speaking of that, we, we are fans of the fold app and they've added some stuff. I'm just looking at what they do. They drive the wheel, the wheel. Oh, I spin the wheel every day, but then you have to buy more sometimes in order to get your thing, but sometimes you get a hundred percent that's or something for nothing.

Let's get some, some free, big one. What's that like a penny, you make a penny. Well, and I look at it like, I remember you saying, I mean, this is all longterm for me. I'm in it for the long haul, but like, I remember you telling the stories of people just getting Bitcoin. And I look at it like that, like who knows?

I have to take five seconds to spin a wheel. I'll spin my wheel, get my thing. And, maybe someday it'll be worth a lot of money. Like you just never know. I used to have it used to have faucets. They used to give out, I used to be to go on a faucet and get a 50 bucks, you know, for free, you know, just people were giving it away.

Yeah, try it. Cause they were trying to push the push Bitcoin and get it out there. Yeah. When you like now to have been one of those person that back in 2008 were just like getting all that free Bitcoin 50 Bitcoin a day. You can be, you can be rich right now just from the free Bitcoin. You got. Don't even, yeah.

Not even talk about that. So hopefully we'll get rich off the free Satoshis we're getting. So, yeah, no, we're definitely in interesting times. Hopefully it's going to be really like, I'm just so interested to see now what happens, how this pans out, because we've been in a pretty safe again, quote, unquote safe, you know, like the stock market's been going up, everything has been going so well now, That whole not, I don't want to say the sky is not falling, but what goes up must come.

It needs to correct itself. Like there's obviously there's stuff happening. So it's going to be super interesting as people don't have that trust in the stock market, as much as they once did. What happens now with like, will people take more crypto more seriously? Will the price go up? We've got a lot of good stuff kind of happening with crypto.

So I'm excited. I'm still gonna keep my investments and hopefully, yeah, well, I'm not selling anything. I'm especially not selling my Bitcoin. I'm long haul Bitcoin. And I think that's how you be. You've got to really, if you're going to put money into Bitcoin, to me, you need to be able to say, I can afford to put this money in there for five years that I'm not going to miss it.

This isn't a quick. Get rich, quick scheme, but over the long term it could be. And I'm not saying it's still will be, but I'm saying you're going to make money. I think not a financial advisor, but I think that you will make money in five years. If you set your money in Bitcoin, actually, even right now, even right now with the market being in the toilet and we're crying about how is down 35%, you know, if you go back just a year ago, it was $3,200.

So it's still up over the last year. Exactly. So, you know, almost. Yeah, the longer, the term is the better you do. So. Exactly. No I'm with you. I'm on long hauling it. It's just, it's super interesting to talk about. So catch up is another one I wanted to talk about the fees this time, just to kind of understand, cause I know the fees definitely are.

If you're used to a stock market trade, you are going to have a little bit of a heart attack when you see the fees going over to, a, if you're used to a $7. No trade, you know, no matter what to buy, you know, that's a big difference, you know, you can go buy, you can go buy yourself 500 shares of Facebook and you pay $7.

Exactly. You know, that's a hell of a deal. Yeah. That one hurt my heart a little bit. I remember the first time I'm like, okay, well hopefully that will say it now. If you'd been buying Bitcoin, when I was first started, when it was like going through the roof, you'd be going out. At least for me, it's pretty damn good.

So it was pretty great. Yeah. Cause that's what I'm remembering is I was like, Oh my gosh. You know, so yeah, it was, it was much more expensive than it is now. Well, we're going to, we're about to hit some, some interesting. So today, like I said, 5,800. As we were recording this, we'll see what happens. but, I'm excited.

I'm excited to see it. I, I, I have good feelings about this. I really do. Like, I think we're going to see some pretty cool stuff coming up where, you know, anything can happen though. So, everybody needs to be aware. Anything can happen. Anything? No one was looking for this to happen in pandemic to come, you know, anything can happen.

I don't want to get in the conspiracy theorist side, but it seems a little too convenient not to get into politics, but not vote for Trump. However, the one thing that would keep people voting for Trump is the, is the market and like the economy. Where the economy is, what the number, one thing they vote on.

I saw there's only been two presidents since Kennedy, that haven't been reelected. I haven't been reelected and the economy was bad going down when they were. And the thing is like, he's pushing back on China. The disease comes back from China.

Who knows. I don't know, but he took us to the Slack. He took some flack though, when he shut down China for shutting them down. I know, but that's like actually, so on the another podcast I do call it innovation calling. We had general Robert Spalding. There's some crazy stuff happening over in China, like, that we probably should be more aware of and be, but a lot of times the politicians that are making the decisions are getting money from China.

So again, talking about the weavers and all that kind of stuff, or. And there's a lot of stuff happening over there. There's a lot of stuff happening, like just, I mean, there, you see a lot of the cyber cyber attacks that are happening are coming from China. you can like time it basically, like you can see, like, we'll get a TA, like, you'll see the attacks happening.

And then when they're like on their lunch break, they start like, just stuff like that. But like in Japan, you know, Japan and them had an argument about an Island. I was watching this and then they told Japan said, okay, we're going to quit delivering this product to you in Japan, kind of backed off. You know, so I think, I think this could turn out to be good for the economy in the longterm, because now we'll start maybe making more stuff here that they would have had a hard time getting that done before, but now people are going to my gosh, we don't even have any medicine here, you know, made here.

So maybe they'll gear that up and that'll be good for the economy and good for the country as a whole, as. Yeah. Well, we'll see. So anyway. Yeah, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin, but it does. I'm just chatting the economy though. And it all kind of wraps around. So we'll see, but Oh. Has to do with money, but you know, I saw the data, you're doing one and a half trillion dollar quantitative easing.

That's a lot of money. Yeah. You know, that's good for Bitcoin, but I don't know that that's good for our country. That's good for Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. All right. Well, I mean a wrap this puppy up for another episode as always, Gary, thank you for joining me and talking about this and thank you for listening and getting my text messages about my rant for cash app.

no problem. Sorry. I, we were supposed to do this the other day and I was in the dentist. I apologize again for that. You're good. You're good. But anyway. Alright. Thank you so much, Gary. Hey, have a good one. Everybody. Thanks for listening. .