Libra, Lightning Nodes, and Other Cryptocurrencies

There's so much to learn when trying to figure out Cryptocurrencies, and understanding what you should be paying attention to can be exhausting.

In this episode, we started digging into other currencies, like Libra (and why having some of your money linked to Facebook might not be in your best interest).

Plus we talked about the Lightning Node, and discussed the purpose of it, and which currencies are meant for saving and which ones are made for spending. So much to know, but once again, I had a lot of questions for Gary.

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Here is the official episode breakdown:

Erin Gregor:

All right, welcome to another episode of Clarifying Crypto. I am Erin Gregor. I'm here with my cohost, Gary Leland. Gary, welcome.

Gary Leland:

Howdy, howdy, howdy. Good to be here again. Did we do this last weekend? It seems like a long time.

Erin Gregor:

We did. It was a long time ago. I was in Vegas for CES, so it feels like a lifetime ago, I'm telling you.

Gary Leland:

How was that? How was that? That was your first time there, right?

Erin Gregor:

It was my first time there. It was really good. I was very disappointed, because I wanted to walk the floor where all the crypto booths were. Honestly, I just wasn't planning well enough, and that thing was so overwhelming.

Gary Leland:

It's big.

Erin Gregor:

Oh my gosh, and it's exhausting.

Gary Leland:

Vegas is probably the only place that's got enough convention center area to handle that.

Erin Gregor:

Yes.

Gary Leland:

That's why is there. There's nowhere else you can really do it.

Erin Gregor:

No. I mean, it was, you've got the whole convention center. Then, you've got another area, another convention center, the Sands, which, it's funny, so my first time at CES, we were at the Sands first, which, the Sands is like the ghetto of CES, let me just put it that way. It's very small booths. I mean, you had some of these people paying for booths, and then, there was crypto watches and stuff over there, which, I didn't quite understand why you need a crypto watch, but that was one of the products over there.

Erin Gregor:

It was very, very ... What's the word I'm looking for? Sometimes you had people just with one sign. I couldn't believe you'd spend money to come to CES and just put one small sign in your booth. Just very, I was like, "Okay, well, this is-"

Gary Leland:

You're saying they're not good marketers?

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. I just feel if you had the money to spend to be at CES, you'd spend a little bit more on the booth. That was our first day there. We had some interviews for the podcast that we do about emerging tech. We're going through, and I'm like, "This is CES? This isn't what at all you see on the pictures or anything."

Erin Gregor:

Well, then, that evening, we went over to the main convention center. Oh my gosh, that is where ... I mean, these booths-

Gary Leland:

They're 40 foot TVs, I mean ...

Erin Gregor:

Yes. I mean, the money that these companies spend it insane on these. Samsung has, it wasn't a booth. It was like a whole section of the convention center. I can't imagine what that thing must have cost them. It was insane. They had, I mean, a lot of really cool stuff there, but I told my friend, like, "You know what this reminds me of? It's like a really expensive science fair," because half the stuff, you're never going to see it in the real world. It's just all theory, but it was cool.

Gary Leland:

The samples made just for that show, even.

Erin Gregor:

What was that? Yeah, 100%.

Gary Leland:

They're just things that are made just so they can show it at the show that they may never come out with.

Erin Gregor:

Right, like the folding TV. I think Samsung, that was their big thing, like the rollout TV. This was like the third year in a row they've demoed the rollout TV, and you can't buy it, still. They keep demoing the same thing, but you're never going to be able to do it.

Erin Gregor:

Unfortunately, I really wanted to hit the fintech side. Unfortunately, I didn't even actually get to sit through any sessions. I sat through one session. That's not true, one session through the whole thing. Everything else was just walking the floors and doing interviews. I maybe saw a quarter of what was there, like maybe, maybe. It was-

Gary Leland:

That's pretty good, if you saw a quarter, probably.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. I think that's very hopeful, that I saw a quarter. I mean, we walked, I pretty much saw the whole convention center, ish.

Gary Leland:

Well, it's bad when you start out in the ghetto, you know?

Erin Gregor:

It's actually good, because you're like, whoa, this ... You get to the good stuff, you're like, this is why you come to CES. I went as media, and let me tell you, media is where it's at, too. You can reserve rooms. You get FED for media, so they [crosstalk 00:04:24]-

Gary Leland:

That's at everything, though, Erin. That's not just at CES. You want to go media anything you go to.

Erin Gregor:

That's true.

Gary Leland:

If it's any kind of size, even if it's a college world series, they got food for you. They have a menu time. We serve you lunch at 12:00. We serve you dinner at 4:00. You go here for your drinks. You go here to get all your ... Yeah, that's the one thing good about what you and I do is we get to take advantage of that.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, so that was well worth it. Yeah, it was a cool experience. Like I said, there was a whole day, and I'm trying to figure out how to get access to the recordings, if I can, on the whole, like, one of the topics we're going to talk about today, there was a whole panel that I want to watch the replays. I wish I could have sat down and actually gone through the whole day that they had set aside just talking about cryptocurrencies. Like I said, I just, there's no way. I don't know how people do this show. It feels like it's almost too big, but I'm sure they're never going to tone it down at all.

Gary Leland:

Well, next year, probably the cryptocurrency portion of it will be even bigger than this year. It's like South by Southwest. Every year, cryptocurrency stuff is getting bigger and bigger. Maybe I'll go next year, and I'll see you out there.

Erin Gregor:

Are you going to South by this year?

Gary Leland:

Yeah, I did. Shane, matter of fact, we were going to Cabo. My wife had Cabo at the beginning of the month. I said, "Hey, you got to move it." I missed South by Southwest last year, and I wanted to go this year, so we're going to Cabo in April, instead. Yeah, I'm going to go down there probably Thursday, Friday, Saturday, something like that, Sunday, just for the weekend. The first weekend, because that's when everybody, I think, most of the crypto stuff's going on.

Erin Gregor:

I'm curious, because this is a question I have. We've talked a lot about beginner stuff, like learning where to get into Bitcoin, some fun apps to try to get into Bitcoin, mining stuff, like really all at the beginner. From a seasoned veteran like yourself, when you go to South by, what are you hoping to achieve as you go to some of these conferences? Is it-

Gary Leland:

I go more for networking. I just like talking to other like-minded people. I mean, I'm not really going to learn as much as I am network with people. I'm more one of those people anyway that even when I go to a conference, I hang out in the hallway. I never sit in a session. I can watch the recordings, most of them, if I want to sit in a session. I think it's kind of pointless. To me, it's pointless to go sit in a session. I may sit in one for a little bit, but I hardly ... I think I saw you in on at Jeremy's thing, we were in one. I was in there for about a half an hour. That's probably the only session I was in the whole time I was there.

Erin Gregor:

[crosstalk 00:07:07], yeah. Yeah.

Gary Leland:

When I went to your thing, I didn't go to any sessions, when I went to your event. I'm not big in ... I find I do better networking with people in the hallways. That's how Podcast Movement was born. I was networking in the hallway in Vegas with somebody else who liked that, so we came up with that. I've done real good in the hallways. I think that's the best place to be. That's what I want to do, is find hallways to network with people from out of town that I don't get the opportunity to meet, you know, maybe people from out of the country.

Erin Gregor:

When you're networking, from a crypto perspective, it's more learning about what's coming out, different opportunities? I'm just trying to get in your brain as you're-

Gary Leland:

Yeah, different opportunities that I can ... I'm an advisor for, again, Bitcoin.io. That's from people I have networked with, when that was going around, when they were setting up and getting their advisories together. I was talking to someone who told me about it. I said, "Well, I'm going to contact them." That's why I contacted them, said, "Hey, I want to get involved with your project, here. Here's who I am." Yeah, but I wouldn't have known about that if I hadn't have been talking to people, so I'd have missed that opportunity.

Gary Leland:

Again, Bitcoin's a great idea. It's one of those things, as an advisor, I have a small piece. If the company does fantastic, it's a really good deal. If it doesn't do that much, well, I just wasted a little bit of time, but I've made more contacts that may lead to more things. You know me. I'm pretty much of a guy that likes to make money. I've been saying that ever since you've known me. That's what I like to do. I'm a capitalist. I wake up in the morning and say, "What am I going to go do today to make some money?" Networking's a good way to make money, in the long term, because you meet people that can help you, that have the same like-minded goal.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, awesome. Okay, well, South by, hopefully, we're working on media passes for South by, so hopefully I'll see you down there. Fingers crossed.

Gary Leland:

I need to start on that, because I haven't even started on that, and it's probably too late. Did y'all just start on that, or you've been starting it for a while?

Erin Gregor:

No, we just started on it. I got to see where my business partner's at on it. We just got in at CES like two weeks before the event was when my pass got approved, so I think there's time.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, I need to do that, because I actually haven't gone into anything CES except the times I've spoken there. If I hadn't have spoken there, I'd never even gone in it. I've just gone to events surrounding CES. There's more events surrounding CES that have nothing to do with CES than there are at CES.

Erin Gregor:

Same with South By.

Gary Leland:

Yes, yeah, yeah. That's what I mean to say, South by. That's what I meant to say.

Erin Gregor:

Well, but it's just so overwhelming, though. You got to find the right things. Yeah.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, well, that's the thing is finding out where they're out. That's, once again-

Erin Gregor:

Networking?

Gary Leland:

... spending those time in the hallways helps you know people going down there and find out where they're going.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, all right. Well, all right, so I always like to start off with this, because you're the host of a podcast called Four Minute Crypto. You keep up on all things crypto, and news, and all of that. I always like to make sure, like anything that in the crypto world? Obviously, every weekday we should be tuning into your podcast, but anything that's really good stuff we need to know in the crypto world?

Gary Leland:

Well, something that I think's interesting is coming out on tomorrow's show, and that's the fourminutecrypto.com. If anyone wants to check it out, you can subscribe there. Tomorrow's, I just got through recording, the rumor is that Jack Dorsey is going to put a tipping-

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, I saw this.

Gary Leland:

... a Bitcoin tipping tool on Twitter. It's going to work with the Square. It's two of his companies working together with ... He's real up front that he loves Bitcoin, and he thinks it'll be the currency of the internet, so it makes sense. Maybe within a month or two we'll see where you can tip, you like something that someone's doing, you can tip them.

Gary Leland:

Then, they'll get Bitcoin. I just think the fact, though, that if he does that, if he adds a tipping feature for Bitcoin, just the fact that everybody's Twitter page is going to have a button on there for tipping, and people who will look at it, and that's positive news for Bitcoin, it's kind of like when the iPhone started putting podcasts on the phone when you bought it, where it used to be, you had to go download the app if you wanted to find the podcast app. Then, one day, they said, "Hey, why don't we put it on the phone?" Actually, podcasting took off through the roof not shortly afterwards.

Gary Leland:

Some people say it was because of a podcast that was so great, but I think it had more to do with the fact that people found this podcast app. They started saying, what in the hell is this? I think Twitter would be a big, good move, if they did that. It'd be good for Bitcoin.

Erin Gregor:

Well, isn't there a plugin? I think we've talked about this. There's a plugin or something that already allows for tipping on Bitcoin on Twitter, right?

Gary Leland:

Yeah. Tipping.

Erin Gregor:

This is just going to ... Okay.

Gary Leland:

You have to actually go get that plugin, so you have to know about Bitcoin, first of all, and you have to know there's a plugin that does tips, and you have to go get it, and sync it with your ... I'm sure there's other ones. I'm sure that's not the only one. That's the one I know of. That's really not the same. I mean, the amount of people who would be using that would be nothing compared to the amount of people who would use it if it was on everybody's website or everybody's Twitter page.

Gary Leland:

This way is, like I said, the educational amount that people would be seeing it and go, what in the hell is this? They're looking at a post going, what in the hell is this tip this person? How do I tip them, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Right. There's rumors of this coming out. Are the rumors, do they include when we can expect this, or is it just, it's on the horizons?

Gary Leland:

No, there's no confirmations. No confirmations, yet, but supposedly two of the people who are working on the project leaked out. If two of them leaked out, it probably was a purposeful leak, I would guess. That's [crosstalk 00:13:03]-

Erin Gregor:

Or there's going to be some heads rolling at Twitter. No, I'm just kidding.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, but they don't have that big of a crew, is the thing, of people working on it. I could be wrong, but I think they hired like five people to work on their Bitcoin part. I mean, if two of them said something, that's almost half of the damn team.

Erin Gregor:

Right. If they roll, then the project's off the table, so either way, either way, we're going to see something.

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I would think something's going to happen. I think that'd be really cool. I think that'd be a really cool deal.

Erin Gregor:

Well, and the one thing I like about Jack Dorsey is that he really hasn't gotten involved in the BS that I think Facebook is getting into. I understand the fake news thing. There's an appreciation to try and alleviate some of the fake news, but I also appreciate what Jack Dorsey's stance is on some of these, because fake news can be a very ... You saw it with crypto, right? Like, "Well, we're not going to talk about crypto because ..." and Facebook put the kibosh on some of the talk, where I appreciate Jack Dorsey [crosstalk 00:14:07]-

Gary Leland:

Yeah, I can't promote my conference on Facebook. They won't let me. I mean, they go, "This is unapproved." I go, "It's just a conference. I'm not selling anything." I'm going to an event in March, end of March, in San Francisco at Square's headquarters with Dorsey [crosstalk 00:14:31]-

Erin Gregor:

He's doing the event there?

Gary Leland:

Yeah. Yeah, there's going to be 40 of us there, so it's not like it's a small event, but there's 4,000 people in town for the conference, so I'm one of the 40 that got invited to this event.

Erin Gregor:

Look at you.

Gary Leland:

I've never met him, so I'm excited to meet him, and excited to ... I'm hoping that maybe that's when he announces it is when he has all these crypto people there, because I think that, because I know one of the people there are the person who invited me. I don't think this is any secret, so I hope not, so I'm saying it, but he is the person that runs BPC pay server. BPC pay server, they got backing from Twitter. I mean, a couple hundred thousand dollars, I think, six or seven months ago.

Erin Gregor:

Wow.

Gary Leland:

When he invited me to it and said Dorsey was going to be there, I wasn't going, "Wow, how'd that happen?" I figured it was because of his connection with the money that was donated to his to build BPC pay server, which is a way to take money on Bitcoin. Then, when I heard this yesterday, I'm going, gosh, that would be a good place to announce this. It'd make sense, the guy who they sponsored to build stuff is going to be there, and he's inviting the people he chose to be there. He's the one doing the invitations. I don't know. Maybe that's going to be it. If it is, I'll be on the spot [crosstalk 00:15:54]-

Erin Gregor:

I know. Yeah, exactly. Well, no, and it's, like I said, I appreciate ... Jack Dorsey's a character. I've read about his ... He's very, what's the ... bio-hacking. Like I said, I really appreciate his stance, because there's several topics that I think it's BS.

Gary Leland:

He came out with a podcast directory back in 2006. Do you remember that?

Erin Gregor:

Really? No, I had no idea.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, called [Odio 00:16:22]. It was 2005, 2006. He had sold whatever was that he made a ton of money from, a blogging site. Maybe it was Blogger. I'm not sure what it was. Then, he started working on Odio was the name of it. It was just a podcast directory that you could play podcasts on. Actually, I think Podcast Pickle did better than it did, but it got a ton of press, because he's Jack Dorsey.

Erin Gregor:

Because he had [crosstalk 00:16:47]-

Gary Leland:

Then, maybe a year later, he shut it down and refunded all of the money to all the investments that put their money in it.

Erin Gregor:

Really?

Gary Leland:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was millions of dollars I think he refunded back to the investors. I guess he wanted to be able to get them on board for the project later instead of being screwed. I mean, I'm sure he had a business motives to give them back their money. I mean, maybe he would have gotten sued. Who knows, maybe they had to give them back their money and shut it down, but yeah, he had Odio for a while.

Erin Gregor:

It's always good to hear that they sometimes have a failure here and there.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, yeah. Makes you feel better, because I have so many in my life.

Erin Gregor:

Makes you feel better. Exactly, exactly, that he's got one or two. He struggled with Twitter for a while, too. I know there's been talk, but I-

Gary Leland:

Yeah, yeah. It's still not the most profitable thing in the world.

Erin Gregor:

No, but I think he's got his own little niche, like I said, because of this, he's not taking a stance in the whole free speech kind of stuff, he hasn't taken a stance in. All right, I want to talk about another topic with you. In moving along with CES, there was a panel last week that the ... Who was it? He was the vice chairman at the Libra association spoke out specifically against Bitcoin. There has been talk about this. I was telling you before we hit record, I was listening to another podcast talking about the lack of adaptation for an app called Lightning and really around ...

Gary Leland:

I don't see that. I don't see a lack of adaptation for it. I see a ton of people using it. I mean, it's only like a year old. I mean, it's still in beta, basically. I see a lot of people using it. You use it.

Erin Gregor:

I think I downloaded Lightning, but I haven't used it yet.

Gary Leland:

You used it. Don't you use Fold?

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. Is that Lightning?

Gary Leland:

You get paid in sats. Sat's a overlying layer that goes across Lightning, so you use it. [crosstalk 00:18:46]-

Erin Gregor:

All my sats, all my millionaire status of sats is still sitting in Fold, so I haven't done-

Gary Leland:

Well, you can only download off of fold your sats as Bitcoin. You can't download them off as sats yet.

Erin Gregor:

Right.

Gary Leland:

You can download them. You can take them off of there, but not as sats. I think that's going to be later this month that you can get them off as sats. [crosstalk 00:19:05]-

Erin Gregor:

I need to take them off. I need to take them off, at some point, but-

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I'm waiting till I can take them off in sats. I need some more sats.

Erin Gregor:

Why?

Gary Leland:

Well, because there are things you can only do in sats, like I wanted to pay for my ... For instance, the wallet I use, I started setting up a sat wallet, a sat wallet, and I can't remember the name, because I don't do much with sats. I'm trying to get more into it.

Erin Gregor:

This may be a stupid question. Can I convert them or no? Isn't it-

Gary Leland:

You can, but it's easier just to get them. I use the Breez wallet, and I want to put some sats in there. I don't have that many sats.

Erin Gregor:

I see.

Gary Leland:

I've got mostly Bitcoin everywhere.

Erin Gregor:

All right.

Gary Leland:

The Breez wallet looks like the best wallet for me for sats, but yeah, I think sats are taking off fine, in other words. I mean, yeah, the average person on the street doesn't know what it is, but gosh, it's only been a year since sats came out, which is Lightning network is for sending sat. Which, a sat is the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin.

Erin Gregor:

Bitcoin, yeah.

Gary Leland:

Used to be called bit, a bit. They named it a sat after Satoshi Nakomoto. Yeah, it sends them fast, it sends them quick. There are a lot of sites now that you can buy sats. You can go to BitBlockBoom and pay with sats. I have had people pay for BitBlockBoom with sats as well as Bitcoin, so-

Erin Gregor:

Maybe this is part of the conversation, because now, with sats being used more or more ... What I got out of the article, and what I got out of people talking, was that a lot of time we see Bitcoin really as this asset management, this thing, and we've talked about it, this buy and hold. I'm not really comfortable spending my Bitcoin.

Erin Gregor:

Obviously there's that I don't want to buy something for .0051 Bitcoin, but where they're talking about the Libra currency as more of a spending, and so, my question to you as someone who loves Bitcoin, do you find that to be true, first of all? The second question, will we see more cryptocurrencies come out, some more for the spending perspective, while others are more for the asset hold?

Gary Leland:

Well, there are already more for the spending that are out. I mean, you have Bitcoin Cash, which is for spending. That's their big thing is that you can spend it. There are several of them. I can't think of names off the top of my head.

Erin Gregor:

Can I stop you and ask you this? What makes more for spending versus hold? What is that?

Gary Leland:

Well, when it was designed, it was designed as a, for bitcoin, it was designed ... The code was written better, basically, because they'd had a few years, maybe they had eight years of bitcoin being out and see what could improve it. The code's better, so it's faster. It handles bigger block sizes. The mining fees are less. Just different things like that, so that makes it ... If you're spending $1000 on Bitcoin, and your fees to the miners on that $1000 for the transaction are 5%, 6%, which, they were real high in 2017 when that rush was going on, you're not wanting to spend your money.

Erin Gregor:

No.

Gary Leland:

When your fees are .002%, you don't mind spending it as much, so you're not taking a hit.

Erin Gregor:

I didn't realize it was the development that ... I didn't realize there was that friction in some of that. Is there always that fee associated with Bitcoin, or is it just certain apps that-

Gary Leland:

Yeah, someone's making money off of checking to make sure that Bitcoin hasn't been spent yet, because people are doing work and spending money on computers to do this, and electricity to ... When you spend a Bitcoin, someone's going to check it. A node's going to check it and go, "This hasn't been spent yet. Erin still owns it, and she didn't give it to anyone else already, so she can give it to Gary, and now it's Gary." This costs money to do.

Gary Leland:

People aren't just sitting there spending all this money on computers and stuff to verify the ledger system, because that's what they're doing is they're verifying the ledger. They're all doing that because they're all good guys, and they just want to spend thousands of dollars a year verifying a ledger. Yeah, it costs money, so there's going to be fees on there. The short of it.

Erin Gregor:

Then, what they're saying is they're going to, as they roll out Libra, this is going to be, the technology is set in place, and it's set up where, A, it may not be as many fees. It's faster. Is that what they're saying that allows it to be set better?

Gary Leland:

Yeah, well, Libra's going to be set up as money. It's going to be money for spending. I have people that contact me, or not contact me, I run into them places, and they ask me about Libra, because it's on Facebook. It's funny, people you don't even think would ever be interested in it, "Hey, you know anything about that Libra?"

Gary Leland:

Libra's not going to be something that you buy $10,000 of Libra and hope next year it's worth 11,000. Next year, it's going to be worse 10,000. Actually, with the way inflation works in the United States, it's going to be worth 9,500, maybe, because it's tied to a basket of currencies, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Okay.

Gary Leland:

It's always going to be worth $1,000, $1,000 worth of Libra. It's not an investment tool. It's not like you're going, "Man, I'm just getting as much of that when it comes out as it can. I'm really putting money into Libra." They're telling it's not going to do like Bitcoin. It's not an investment tool. It's a dollar. You wouldn't right now go down to the bank and go, "Man, I'm going to do some investing. Give me $1,000 worth of ones. I'm going to sit back, and wait till next year, and cash these puppies in."

Gary Leland:

It's the same thing with Libra. It's a different animal altogether. It is for spending. It is a money. That's their goal. Dash is another one that's really big for spending money. That's their whole thing, Dash.

Erin Gregor:

See, and I didn't know any of this. I didn't know there was a different ... I thought a crypto was a crypto. I didn't know there were some just out for spending that you wouldn't expect a return on. Like for Bitcoin, I mean, I guess I can spend it, but my goal of this is to make some money on the investment.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, well, you're doing Bitcoin as an investment.

Erin Gregor:

Exactly. Exactly.

Gary Leland:

Then, their fees are high, so you probably don't want to spend them, anyway. I try not to, but I've had situations where I've had to spend Bitcoin, that's the only thing the person would accept was Bitcoin. If that happens, then you pretty much have to decide if you want the item or not. It's usually people who provide services and skills, artists, maybe, or something like that. You really can't shop. You can't go, "Well, I'll go buy my camera somewhere else that takes cash." Well, he does something that only he does. If you want him to do it, you're paying your Bitcoin.

Gary Leland:

Libra is going to be a whole different animal. It's not Bitcoin. It's not a store value. It's not a store against recession or inflation. It's not anything like that. It's a place where you go and spend it. It's just money. It's a worldwide money, controlled by somebody though.

Gary Leland:

The thing is, by the same means, Erin, with Bitcoin, if you have your Bitcoin on your wallet on your computer, or something, and someone says, "Hey, I don't like Gary Leland. He's a troublemaker. We need to shut him down." Well, there's not much they can do for your money, but what happens if you're on Facebook, and you're posting a lot of stuff they don't like, and they close your account? What happens to your Libra? Where are you going to spend it at? You can't go on Facebook, so what are you going to do with this Libra?

Gary Leland:

I mean, you can't go on Facebook, so you can't spend it, so you got $1,000 worth of Libra, and you don't have an account anymore, so you're going to have to make another account, but you can't log into your old account, probably, to get your money to transfer it. It sounds like a can of worms, to me. They can shut you down.

Gary Leland:

It's like, most people don't care about Wikileaks, for instance. When they shut them down for cash, and I'm not saying Wikileaks is good or bad. That's not my point, here. When they shut them down for cash and said, "Banks cannot send them money anymore. Credit card companies can't send them any money anymore." Lots of people started sending them Bitcoin. They got so much Bitcoin, at the time was nothing, now it's worth $10,000, almost $10,000 of coin. They're set for life. They don't even need any money. No one can shut them down, now. It's impossible, financially, to shut them down.

Erin Gregor:

That's crazy.

Gary Leland:

No one can go take that money from them. If that was Libra everybody gave them, the government would have said to Facebook, "You need to shut that account down." They would have taken it, just like they told them they couldn't use MasterCard. In the United States, I don't think the average person is worried about that as much as they would be maybe in Venezuela, or China, or other parts of the world.

Gary Leland:

A lot of thinking we're like everybody in the world's like us. We're the exception to the world. I was going to say something the other day, Erin, and I want to say this. I know this has nothing to do with what we were talking about, but it kind of does. Maybe it does have something to do. Maybe [inaudible 00:27:54]-

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, in a roundabout way. We can make it work.

Gary Leland:

Anyway, these people, a lot of people go, "The one percent." You've heard of the one percent, right?

Erin Gregor:

I've heard of the one percent, yes.

Gary Leland:

Okay, and everybody's upset at the one percent, because they got all the money [crosstalk 00:28:06]-

Erin Gregor:

They control everything, yup.

Gary Leland:

I don't think people realize that the people complaining about the one percent are the one percent compared to the rest of the world.

Erin Gregor:

According to the world, yeah, yeah.

Gary Leland:

If you point at them and say, "Okay, let's take the whole world," well, that person complaining about the one percent in the US is the one percent in the world. They need to start looking in the mirror. There's always going to be someone that has more. Those people that make $10 a year in Venezuela, they're looking at that person and going, "Man, you're a fat cat. You got a TV. You got a floor. You got electricity. You got cars and air conditioning."

Erin Gregor:

A house.

Gary Leland:

"You got running water, you got toilet, you got food, and you're bitching? I would love to have your life. You're one of the one percent." [crosstalk 00:28:49]-

Erin Gregor:

That's very true.

Gary Leland:

I thought it was interesting when I heard the one percent of the world. I had never heard that one percent of the world thought.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. No, and I want to bring up a point about, you made a really good point about Libra and Facebook. Again, I'm not anti-Libra, but I just want to share this story, because Facebook, as somebody who runs ads, they shut me down at one point. An account I was working with got hacked, so they came and shut me down completely. Luckily, I had somebody that I knew from Facebook who was able to get my account back up. It was a nightmare, because I'm like, "I didn't do this. You guys can see I didn't do this." The problem with Facebook is once the bot flags you, you're screwed unless you know somebody.

Gary Leland:

You can't get anybody. You can't get anybody.

Erin Gregor:

No, no.

Gary Leland:

You automatically get emailed back by the bot again.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, it's a nightmare. It's a really good point, like, okay, now, I got all this Libra, I get my Facebook account shut down for no freaking reason. I was so mad. Then, several months later, I'm running some ads, and I get this notification, "There's some suspicious activity on your account," which, the irony of this whole thing, the only ads I'm running are not shut down, but they shut down my master account, but they leave the ads, and they're collecting the money, supposedly.

Erin Gregor:

I'm trying to get ahold of somebody for a week. Guys, I need to know what's going on. You're still collecting my money, so obviously the ad isn't bad, but you've shut down my account. Don't ask me how this works. Then, a week later, I get, "Sorry, we're just kidding. That was a mistake."

Erin Gregor:

All this crap that Facebook had set up, that's a really good point about Libra. I could have all my money tied in there.

Gary Leland:

If you had like 2 or 3,000 in there [crosstalk 00:30:35]-

Erin Gregor:

Exactly, exactly, and they came back, and they're like, "Just kidding. Sorry about that," but yeah, you're right, I've got all this tied up money. Their customer service is horrific. They don't help you. They don't have the ... Again, this is on the ad side. I'm not saying it's going to be a one for one. I pray to God it wouldn't be, but that's a really good point to think about, because I've spent the last several months very frustrated with Facebook, and their customer service, and their help.

Erin Gregor:

That's a really great perspective. If I'm tied up through Facebook ... I didn't even think of that. I thought Libra would be a little bit outside of that, but hell no. Not with-

Gary Leland:

I'll tell you another thing that you got to think about, which may be a good thing, I don't know. The United States, say they let them go and do this, because they're going through Congress and all this stuff right now. They say, "We're keeping it tied to this basket of stuff." Once they get it going, they can do whatever they want.

Erin Gregor:

Exactly.

Gary Leland:

They say, "You know what, a couple years go by, we decided, just like the government decided not to be backed by gold anymore, we've decided not to be backed by a basket of currencies anymore." Then it would be, I guess, the wild west, but Facebook's going to have a lot of control. That's the main thing between Libra and Bitcoin. There is no boss at Bitcoin. There's nowhere to go tell them to shut down anything, and there is in Libra. They're just two different animals.

Erin Gregor:

It's from a perspective of, if there's no regulation, I don't know how that works. Could Facebook just shut down [Erico 00:32:03] and take ... I don't know. I don't know.

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I think that's something Congress is trying to figure out right now, how that would work, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Screw Facebook.

Gary Leland:

Well, they're not going to [inaudible 00:32:14] anyway. They [crosstalk 00:32:15]-

Erin Gregor:

Exactly, exactly. Screw you, [Saki 00:32:19].

Gary Leland:

I always get turned down. It's against our policies. I'm going, "What's against your policy about this?" You can't find out, because you just get a bot answer.

Erin Gregor:

No, yeah. No, and like I said, I was sitting there, I'm like ... Like I said, the irony was, I had the Erin account, and then I was running ads. They flagged, your account's been flagged, but you're still taking my money on the ads that are being run, because I have a backup, just in case stuff like this happens. Anyway, I didn't even ... I'm so glad I asked this question, because I didn't even think about that.

Gary Leland:

Well, you have a ... Yeah. See, I have extra, whenever I build an account, I have a fake person that is also an admin of all my accounts.

Erin Gregor:

I do, well, yeah.

Gary Leland:

In case I personally get kicked off, but my thing is still there, I can still access it with my fake guy. If I got kicked out, then I got, I don't know Crypto Cousin's group going, but I can't access it anymore, because I can't go in to make myself a member, so Joe Blow, the fake guy, takes care of that.

Erin Gregor:

Better not get the word out that you got a fake Facebook account, because they're coming after you.

Gary Leland:

Well, no one knows who it is. They don't listen to anything. They have bots do it.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. That's true. That's true.

Gary Leland:

I tell everybody when I talk places about Facebook, I tell them first thing they need to do is make a fake account. Mine is named ... I can tell you the name of it. I don't care. Mine is named, gosh, Victor Ious. You know why?

Erin Gregor:

Why?

Gary Leland:

You can't be victorious without Victor. Victor Ious is victorious cut in half, Victor Ious. You can't have a victory without Victor.

Erin Gregor:

That's a good idea. I never would have put that together.

Gary Leland:

Yeah. Evidently, they haven't either. It's been like eight years. Then, I got an icon, and image of myself, a drawing of myself, a cartoon character. That's my, if anyone wants to rat on me, there you go. Go rat on me. I don't care.

Gary Leland:

I don't even like Facebook anymore. I got a million members in my groups. I don't even want to go there anymore. I hate Facebook.

Erin Gregor:

I took Facebook off my ... I know we're totally rabbit holing, but I took Facebook off my phone, and it's glorious. We run a group. We have a group that we still run and we make money off of, but that's, I mean, I'll go in there. I'll check the group, but that's it, and I'm done. I really have-

Gary Leland:

That's all I do is I go approve people for the group. That's all I do is get in and approve people for the group. Then, I don't do anything.

Erin Gregor:

Being in crypto, though, do you still get a lot of people joining the group over there? Is most of the conversation happening-

Gary Leland:

No, I have other groups. I have [crosstalk 00:34:54] groups in there, I mean, I have a ton of groups.

Erin Gregor:

You used to have a ton. I remember you used, like, you were in a group creating-

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I still have them. Yeah, I still have them.

Erin Gregor:

Are they generating money for you?

Gary Leland:

They generate ads money because people see my ads in there. The whole header on each group is an ad. Then, the first post is a pinned post with a video commercial giving a discount for softball bats. I mean, people still buy softball bats, because if I just go and approve ... I'm going to try to sell those accounts to somebody, because I got a million of them in there, so I figure, hell, if I can even just get a dime a person, I've got a ton of dough coming. I'm probably going to sell all those groups, because all I do is approve people just to keep the groups going. We really went off the rabbit [crosstalk 00:35:48]-

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, we went off a ... I thought you were talking about crypto groups, but then we were ... Sorry, my dogs are barking today, too. All right, so the other topic I wanted to cover was about the exchange and allowing Bitcoin option trading. A lot of news around that lately. I talked to you about it. You're like, "Yeah, not really that big of a deal," so I [crosstalk 00:36:06]-

Gary Leland:

I didn't say it's not that big of a deal. I said I'm not really into that.

Erin Gregor:

You're not excited about that, okay. Can you explain a little bit about what this means that it's allowed-

Gary Leland:

Yeah, I think I'm not excited about it because I got excited about it with Bakkt, which came out, and it's the same thing.

Erin Gregor:

With what?

Gary Leland:

With Bakkt, B-A-K-K-T. That came out, I don't know, four months ago. It's the same exact thing. It's a physical Bitcoin futures market.

Gary Leland:

Now, they had, in 2017, if you take a look at the bust, the Bitcoin in 2017, what led up to it, when it got up to 19,000, it was going crazy. Then, there were two companies, two exchanges that came out with paper Bitcoin exchanges where you could short Bitcoin or buy Bitcoin, if you think it was going to go up, if you think it was going to go down, but it was just paper. No one ever bought any Bitcoin. There was no Bitcoin actually bought.

Gary Leland:

That's kind of how if you see gold and silver, right now, exchanges that you short stuff on, they don't buy any gold, really. It's paper gold and paper silver, but they use the price of gold and silver as their value. That's the way those were with Bitcoin, the two that came out in late 2019. When they came out, the price of Bitcoin went through the toilet.

Gary Leland:

Now, six months ago, Bakkt, Bakkt is owned by the New York Stock Exchange. Well, let me take this back. There's a company called Intercontinental Exchange. I'm going around the point to get there. Intercontinental Exchange is called ICE, for short. Bad name for them right now, but it's called ICE for short. ICE owns the New York Stock Exchange, so this is a pretty big company. If you own the New York Stock Exchange, you're a pretty big company.

Gary Leland:

They opened Bakkt about three, four months ago. Bakkt is the same kind of thing. It gets Bitcoin, and you can buy Bitcoin futures, or you can short it, or whatever, but they actually physically buy the Bitcoin for it. That was really supposed to help Bitcoin a lot, because now you've got this exchange, actually. If someone comes in and says, "I want to buy 100 Bitcoins through you," they actually bought the 100 Bitcoin, but Bitcoin hasn't done much because of it.

Erin Gregor:

Interesting.

Gary Leland:

Actually, Kelly Loeffler is the girl's name, she was running Bakkt, and now she is the senator. She just got appointed senator four weeks ago in Georgia. Their head of the crypto exchange that was taking Bitcoin, does Bitcoin is now in the Senate, which is good for Bitcoin. That might be better for Bitcoin than anything else.

Gary Leland:

Now, CME, which is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, I believe they're the ones that have come out with the futures. They came out with it a couple days ago. It was a lot of talk leading up to it. I haven't been excited or paid that much attention, because I've seen it with Bakkt. I was real excited about Bakkt, and it's the same exact thing, and nothing happened to speak of at all when Bakkt came out.

Erin Gregor:

Well, we saw crypto go up this ... Not crypto. We saw Bitcoin go up this week from like, I mean-

Gary Leland:

Yeah. Well, you don't know that had anything to do with Bakkt.

Erin Gregor:

I was going to ask, do you think that had anything to do with it? You can't tie anything.

Gary Leland:

Yeah, it could be as much from Iran as it is anything else. I mean, you know, they're rioting like crazy in Iran, and China's not happy. There's a lot of reasons it could be going up. I haven't seen anything [crosstalk 00:39:35]-

Erin Gregor:

Like-

Gary Leland:

... that it's going up because the amount of sales. I mean, they've done some sales, but it hasn't been that much that CME has done, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Right.

Gary Leland:

It's not like we're going, "Oh my gosh, they've sold 500 of them every day," or something. I think, I could be wrong on this, but I think Bakkt is up to maybe 500 or 1,000 Bitcoins a day or something. I mean, [inaudible 00:40:02], it's quite a bit that they're buying, but it didn't affect the price at all.

Erin Gregor:

Interesting.

Gary Leland:

The thing that's going to affect the price I think is most of all is the halving in less than ... Well, maybe that's less than 100 days from now. As soon as you got the Cash App, Jack Dorsey's app, it's buying like 10% of all the Bitcoin that comes on the market right now.

Erin Gregor:

Really?

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I think 10% of all new Bitcoins created by miners are being bought by the Cash App. Gosh, what was the other ... I saw that someone else, there's another company doing something with Bitcoin that's consuming approximately 20% of all the new Bitcoin that comes on the market. I just can't think of what that is off the top of my head. Basically, between Cash App and the company I can't remember, a third of most of all new Bitcoins created are being absorbed by those two entities.

Erin Gregor:

Interesting.

Gary Leland:

When the amount of Bitcoin cuts in half, if they stayed at the same quantity of Bitcoin they were buying, it'd be 60% of the new Bitcoins that come out, so it's not as much on the market. We'll see what happens.

Gary Leland:

I was watching a show this morning with, a TED Talk about, well, and they asked her about the halving, the girl doing the TED Talk, is that going to make a difference? She said there's only been two, so there's really not enough of a basis for them to decide what's going to happen, for anyone to really decide. From those two, you really can't make much of a guideline as to what's going to happen with the halving. I mean, you could guess, but she said that her company, they didn't believe there was enough information to make a decision on that, because the first one, when the first halving came, maybe it was $100. It's not like it is now. There weren't as many companies buying it as there are now.

Erin Gregor:

Exactly, and you're seeing it definitely more mainstream, now.

Gary Leland:

It's a whole different animal, this time around. I think it's good, CME, that they're doing it. It gets the word out to more people, and maybe, and more Bitcoins are being taken off the market if it is physically held Bitcoin futures, which I guess it is, but I don't think anyone would be excited about paper Bitcoin futures. If it's physical Bitcoin futures, it can't hurt, I guess, but I don't know if it's anything to be going, "I'm stocking up because of this," you know?

Erin Gregor:

Right.

Gary Leland:

There might be other reasons. Maybe the halving might be a better reason to stock up, you got to stock up. Everything I see, people that I believe, and then this lady this morning I was watching, I don't know who she was, but she impressed me just on her knowledge in her talk. She was the same way. They don't think that the Bitcoin halving is priced in yet, that the people haven't already been buying because that's coming up, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Yeah.

Gary Leland:

If it hasn't been bought in yet, priced in yet, then you're sitting pretty good. I don't know. I'm not a financial adviser, you know?

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. I'm not a financial adviser, either.

Gary Leland:

I don't think you are, either.

Erin Gregor:

I am not, nor do I want to be, nor do I play one ever, on a podcast or TV. No, I mean, like I said, I'm hopeful for it. To me, it hopefully, by seeing it in places like this, people get a little more comfortable with it, that it is more real, and that's the whole [crosstalk 00:43:18]-

Gary Leland:

Anytime you see it. Anytime you see it, they see the word, see it used, see it anywhere. It's the same principle as if it gets on Twitter and you can do donations in it.

Erin Gregor:

Exactly.

Gary Leland:

The more you see it, the more people start going, "This just isn't for drug lords and scammers." I went to go, I saw someone the other day, I said, "I'm kind of into Bitcoin." Yeah, that's what I did, I said, "I'm really into Bitcoin right now." He said, "I'm into crypto, too." I said, "You bought some?" He says, "No, but I've been thinking about it, and I would buy ..." I think I told him I was into crypto. He goes, "I'd buy any crypto except one." I said, "Really?" I said, "Which one would you not buy?" He goes, "Bitcoin."

Erin Gregor:

Bitcoin.

Gary Leland:

"Because that's all drug lords that use that." I said, "Really?" I said, "Okay, I didn't know that." I didn't want to argue with him [crosstalk 00:44:01]-

Erin Gregor:

Yeah.

Gary Leland:

There wasn't any point in it. I just let him go about ... I thought it was so funny that he would buy anything, he would even buy the ones that are for drug lords, like Monero and stuff, but he wouldn't buy Bitcoin.

Erin Gregor:

You're like, "I am exactly the opposite of you, like exactly the opposite."

Gary Leland:

Yeah. The one that the blockchain is so visible anyone can see the transactions, that's the one the drug lords really want to use. Not Monero, where no one can see who bought what. They want to use it as ... John McAfee told me, he said, "If you want to buy a monkey in China, you got to use Monero so no one knows you bought the monkey."

Erin Gregor:

Well, good thing I don't plan on doing drugs or buying monkeys anytime soon.

Gary Leland:

Right. I don't have a monkey or any drugs.

Erin Gregor:

That's the one animal I'm not going to add to my house. Anyway, well, cool. Well, I-

Gary Leland:

You have to get some Monero if you wanted to [crosstalk 00:44:51]-

Erin Gregor:

Yeah. Well, I will [crosstalk 00:44:53]-

Gary Leland:

... financial advise, if you want a monkey from China-

Erin Gregor:

Or drugs.

Gary Leland:

... I would buy some ... Yeah.

Erin Gregor:

If you want some illegal drugs, Monero's the place to go.

Gary Leland:

You might want to get you some Monero. Yeah.

Erin Gregor:

That's good to know. Anyway, well, Gary, as always, thank you for joining me and helping clear up some stuff. I always appreciate these talks, because, like I said, I'm getting more involved.

Gary Leland:

I always look forward to it.

Erin Gregor:

I know, me too.

Gary Leland:

I always look forward to them.

Erin Gregor:

I do, too.

Gary Leland:

I feel like we're starting to bond and become friends.

Erin Gregor:

We are.

Gary Leland:

We were friends to begin with.

Erin Gregor:

Well, we were friends before this, right?

Gary Leland:

Yes.

Erin Gregor:

All right, but I want to-

Gary Leland:

I felt so bad when you asked if you could come to BitBlockBoom, and I was making you do all this work. I said, "What in the hell am I thinking? You let me come to your event twice for free." I said, "You don't have to do anything. Just come."

Erin Gregor:

I don't mind.

Gary Leland:

I'm such a greedy little capitalist pig that [crosstalk 00:45:41]-

Erin Gregor:

You always need to make money. No, but my viewpoint is, I know what it's like to put on events, and I'm always happy to help any way I can. Let's do some promo, though, for your event. BitBlockBoom. I always struggle with that darn thing.

Gary Leland:

Everybody does.

Erin Gregor:

August. Where can someone go?

Gary Leland:

August 27th through the 30th, I think. There are different events. Just go to BitBlockBoom.com. Some of the things are already starting to sell out. If anyone wants to go, if they go there, and they see anything they want to do, if they used the code COUSINS, C-O-U-S-I-N-S, at checkout, they can get 30% off their ticket.

Erin Gregor:

Hopefully, they've been listening to this, they've maybe got a few Bitcoins, and now they're like, next level is where they're hoping for. Then, if they wanted to connect with you anywhere, where should they go? I know Twitter is [crosstalk 00:46:29]-

Gary Leland:

I'm Gary Leland about everywhere. Twitter's my favorite.

Erin Gregor:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:46:32]-

Gary Leland:

You can go to my website, garyleland.com. I posted there this morning for the first time in a year.

Erin Gregor:

On where did you post?

Gary Leland:

Garyleland.com.

Erin Gregor:

You haven't been using that?

Gary Leland:

Yeah. I put it on my schedule, every Tuesday at 12:00 to write a post. [crosstalk 00:46:52]-

Erin Gregor:

Today was the first time you actually listened to it?

Gary Leland:

Well, it's the first time since I've done it. I just added it, I think, a couple days ago. [crosstalk 00:46:58]-

Erin Gregor:

Okay, okay.

Gary Leland:

Yeah. It doesn't take me that long to crank out something. What I say is not that great, but it's there.

Erin Gregor:

Hey, that works. All right, cool. Well, I will have all of that over at the notes page, over at clarifyingcrypto.com. Thank you so much, Gary. I appreciate it.

Gary Leland:

I enjoyed it a lot. Adios.

Erin Gregor:

All right, bye-bye.