What Are Alternate Coins (Everything That's Not Bitcoin)

In this episode we're talking all things Alternate Coins. When it comes to Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is by far the favorite, and the one most people will know. However, there are hundreds of other coins out there, and it's time to find out which ones are worth looking into.

We also cover forks, and diving deeper into why someone may want to start alternate coins.

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Full Transcription: 

 Erin Gregor: Alright. Welcome to another episode of Clarifying Crypto. We've got another interesting podcast. This one, we're gonna get into alternate coins. But of course, I have my awesome co-host, Gary Leland with me. Gary, welcome.

Gary Leland: Thank you for having me again. Hello everybody out there. I hope you all had a great holiday, 'cause I guess it'd be after the holidays when this comes out.

ES: Yes. And we're talking right in between Christmas and Thanksgiving, so I am actually... I'm gonna preface this episode with I pray to God the quality is good on this one. I am at my parents' house in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin with very shoddy, shoddy, shoddy WiFi. It's actually off my phone. So I'm gonna apologize first hand. But did you have a good Thanksgiving with your family?

GL: I did. We went down to San Antonio and spent it with my youngest daughter. She's 32, so she's not that young, but I had a great time. I had a great time. I'm lucky I'm not up north for Christmas with you.

ES: Yeah. [chuckle]

GL: 'Cause I bet it's cold.

ES: It sucks

GL: And the WiFi sucks. [chuckle]

ES: The WiFi sucks and let me just say, my Dallas-Fort Worth winter boots and winter coat just don't cut it up here. So yeah. My kids love it though, they're in heaven. They haven't been in the house since we got here.

GL: Is there a lot of snow up there?

ES: A ton of snow, yes. Yeah.

GL: Yeah, I've seen snow a couple times.

ES: Yeah, it makes me realize why I don't wanna be here in the winter, so it's a good reminder if anything. But anyway, so I wanna get into this week because you host another podcast called 4 Minute Crypto and each day, you do a four-minute segment on news of crypto. I...

GL: Every week day. Every week day.

ES: Every week day. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, every week day. So I wanted to talk to you about it 'cause I saw the post you had about Mark Cuban saying Bitcoin's never gonna do anything. Then the other one, there was a couple of companies out in Europe that shut down that were crypto-related. And so it kind of seemed like a doomy kind of week for crypto, and wanted us to talk should we be worried...

GL: I guess if you're looking at it as the cup half full thing, it is.

ES: Well, yeah.

GL: You're looking at the cup half full, so don't look at that side of it.

ES: I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's what I'm doing. I'm sitting here like, "What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen?" But do you wanna elaborate on the week in news? Is it just kind of par for the course? Is there anything that was of concern?

GL: Well, on the Cuban... On the Cuban thing, he's been anti-crypto forever, it's nothing new. And all the reasons that he's against crypto are all the same things, for the most part, that people said why the internet wouldn't succeed back in the '90s. So a lot of people are really down on him going, "These are the same things that you were told when you started the company that made you a billionaire. That it wasn't good enough, it wasn't easy enough, it was too hard to use, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And then there are people who think he's saying to drive the market down to buy more, which I'm not saying that's what it is. But he takes Bitcoin, he's one of the only pro basketball teams that takes Bitcoin so he takes it, and he's gotten involved and helped back a couple of blockchain companies. And one of them was a cryptocurrency, I think he got into in 2017. I can't think of the name of it now. I think it went defunct.

ES: Maybe that's why he's so bitter.

GL: Maybe, but I don't think you need to use Mark Cuban's comments as a reason to form all your opinions.

ES: Alright.

GL: Personally, personally. I just like to bring you the news, good or bad, what people are saying out there.

ES: Right. Well, and you know...

GL: And then on me... Oh, go ahead.

ES: No, I just was gonna say you know that there's people listening and I kind of even... You know there's people listening just waiting for the proof that this isn't legit, you know what I mean? They're just waiting for it just because they're skeptical already, trying to figure out if this is for real. So anything that is semi-negative they're like, "Oh, okay, never mind. I'm not gonna put my money in after all."

GL: Right. Well, something for people to think about, which we were talking just a second ago, the market cap right now for cryptocurrency is $180 billion and Bitcoin is 68% of that. We're not talking $5000 or a couple million dollars, we're talking about the market cap being $190 billion, this is pretty big. I mean this is real big. So it's not some little thing worth $2, $3 million that people are thinking about. And the piece in news that you were talking about, I had two articles on the EU and companies that were startup companies that cancelled or closed up from the EU. In the EU, starting in January, I think, middle of January or near the end of January, they have new laws that go into effect all across the EU that cryptocurrency companies have to do Know Your Customer procedures is what it's called. And that's stuff for... I guess it was really started more so for terrorism and things like that, that you know who's transferring money, who's getting money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

ES: Oh.

GL: And the companies involved were Lightning startups and Bitcoin startups, and they didn't wanna go through those procedures. I think it's a lot of work, a lot of bookkeeping, and if you're really into Lightning and Bitcoin, you're kinda like anti the government controlling what you do. So when you put all those factors together, they decided it was better off not to go down that road any further. That it wasn't gonna... They didn't wanna put their customers through it or maybe it wasn't worth the trouble of going to do financially, whatever their reasons. Many companies do KYC, everybody you're gonna do business with in the US is doing it. Coinbase, everybody. So it's just a part of the world we live in. You gotta do it. And they didn't think it would apply to them, but the EU voted it in, and it does apply to them.

ES: Alright, so nothing major.

GL: Yeah, I don't think that's negative, that's just people who didn't wanna go down the route of following the law, basically. Whether they thought it was for a good reason not to, whether the reason was financial, whether the reason they didn't believe in it, I don't know and I don't care, it's just what happened. So I don't think the news was as bad as it may have sounded, coming out... 'Cause I guess that made three articles, three out of five last week, negative. So I guess more negative the last week than this week.

ES: Alright. Well, hopefully we had a dip in the market. And again, I'm not a financial advisor, Gary's not a financial advisor, we just happen to be people who... Gary knows a heck of lot more than I do about Bitcoin. I just happen to invest in it.

GL: Yeah, I did tell you... I did give you some good advice though. I did give you some advice.

ES: You did. You did... Yes, you're kinda like, "Hold... " And luckily... And so I've told you this before, I really like just to kind of follow it and buy at dips is what I've been doing and it's working out pretty well for me so far. But you said, you gave me advice to watch for a bigger dip, than I... 'Cause I think it was at eight or something and you and I were talking about it, and you're like, "I think it's gonna go down a little bit more." And so it did and I picked it up a lot lower than eight, so I was pretty happy about that. I don't know...

GL: And so did I.

ES: I feel like such a hypocrite 'cause I've already... I'm invested in some and then it's like, "Yeah, go lower, go lower, go lower." I'm like, "But that's my money, I'm telling to go low." But it always seems to come back.

GL: Oh yeah, you're right. You're sitting there telling you got money in it, but you know to me, that's when you know that you've become a believer.

ES: Yes.

GL: When you're not sitting there going, "Oh my gosh, should I sell because the price is going down?" Now you're going, "Come on, come on. I want a great buying opportunity. Come on, come on, let's tank." You know?

ES: Exactly.

GL: Actually I wouldn't mind right now if it tanked down to 3500.

ES: I'd pick up a ton. I agree.

GL: Yeah. So would I, yeah. So, but it's... I don't think it's gonna go, I don't think it could go to that low. But who knows what's gonna happen? You know, there's manipulation, it's still small enough it can be manipulated by many things. So, it's just a matter of time though, it's a matter of time. Everything's timing on this.

ES: Exactly, and no emotion. I can't stress it enough. Again, not a financial advisor, but I found the best... We've talked about this before, you can't get super excited while it's going up, you can't get super sick when it's going low, you have to learn to be even keel and just kinda look at what makes the most sense for you. And I feel like that's been my best investment opportunities, is when I don't let my emotions get the best of me. 'Cause sometimes like, "Oh my God, it's going up. I gotta buy a whole bunch right now. Or it's going low, I gotta dump everything." And you just gotta stay, it's par for the course, right?

GL: Yeah. I think that you make more money, personally from everybody I've talked to and the experience that I have, if you just sit there and ride it out.

ES: Exactly.

GL: I see people buy and sell, buy and sell, buy and sell, and they always, when they re-buy they have less Bitcoin than when they sold.

ES: Yes.

GL: 'Cause they didn't time it right. It's hard to time right, it really is.

ES: It is 'cause no one knows. I mean, it's the stock market, it's anything. Selling a house, you're trying to find the best opportunity to sell the house and you're lucky if you do. So it's not even just a Bitcoin problem, it's truly just an investment problem in general. But okay, so today I wanna go into the alternate coins, and I know you and I were talking about, okay, how to set this up and you sent me a list. There's like 100 there, we're like, "We'll cover the top five." But, I wanna even back it up because we talk about... This podcast is called Crypto. So crypto falls under... There's a lot of different coins. Bitcoin is the main one. We've talked about this before, that you are a Bitcoin maximist. And just in case this is someone's first episode, can you again just briefly describe what a Bitcoin maximist means?

GL: Yeah, I personally believe that Bitcoin is the only coin you need. It's the true coin, it's the one that's gonna be on top, if you just invest in that, you're gonna be the perfectly fine. I mean, that's the coin to invest in. All the other coins depend on Bitcoin. Which is really true. I mean, not only do they...

ES: It is now from what I've seen, yeah.

GL: But actually they depend on Bitcoin to even pretty much get in and out of the other coins. If you're gonna buy a lot of these coins, not all these coins are available on a cash exchange basis. You have to buy Bitcoin on an exchange and then trade the Bitcoin for the other coins. Especially when they're little coins like Ravencoin or little coins like that, it's harder to buy them with cash. You know what I mean? Maybe there's some small exchanges but if you want them on the big exchange, you're gonna trade buying Bitcoin. That's one of the things about Bitcoin, is you can use it to buy anything as far as other cryptocurrencies go. But yeah, there are thousands of other coins. I would guess there's maybe three... I mean there was 2000 a year and a half ago, there's probably 3000 now. But Bitcoin is the top one, it's the one that everybody follows, it's the one they all follow. If Bitcoin drops 20%, all the other coins drop 25%. I mean they do whatever Bitcoin does.

ES: And so, and I don't know, I should know the history of this and I apologize, but when cryptocurrency... Was Bitcoin the first currency?

GL: Yes, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, it was the first use of the blockchain. The person who invented Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, actually invented blockchain, that's why cryptocurrencies exist is because of Bitcoin.

ES: So then why 3000 other coins? And I want you, 'cause before we hit record you told me a really interesting statistic about the percentage, I think it was 68% of cryptos is Bitcoin which means all these thousands...

GL: Of the money invested into it, the money invested into it, yeah.

ES: Money invested, okay. So why would we have... What's the purpose of these? I personally, I just don't get why all these other people would create all these different coins.

GL: Well, some of them are scams.

ES: Okay.

GL: Some of them will end up being scams, even though the people didn't plan on them being scams. Sometimes people might make a coin for... You may have a blockchain video game and they use their own coin. They could use Bitcoin but they decided to make their own coin.

ES: So why would they decide to make their own coin instead of just using Bitcoin?

GL: I don't know. Sometimes I really don't understand, 'cause I read today that Iran, country of Iran says, "We need to make a crypto coin for Iran to compete with the US dollar." Well, I don't know why they just don't use Bitcoin, it's already there. They wouldn't even have to create anything.

ES: Yeah, like didn't Facebook come out with their own coin too?

GL: Well, they are planning on it, but they haven't done it yet. But I think that if Iran and all these other countries that we hate technically, come out with them, that's good for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook because the United States would go, "Well gosh, we need to get something going," and that'll help them out. But you have a coin called Litecoin, it was started by Charlie Lee quite a few years ago. You know Litecoin, if there's a million Bitcoin or 21 million Bitcoin, in Litecoin there's like four times as many. So theirs is supposed to be 25% Bitcoin to Lite, is what the deal is, so that was their thinking. Then you had Bitcoin Cash. And Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin, okay?

ES: Okay, explain what a fork is. Can you explain what a fork is? 'Cause you've said that a couple times.

GL: Yeah. What a fork is, is Bitcoin is an open code, anyone can look at the code. And what they do is Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, for instance, that's the number six and five coins by market cap. They're both forks of Bitcoin, which meant they went and took all the people who had... All the things that had happened to Bitcoin up to that point and then branched off a new, like a fork in a road, it was a branch.

ES: Okay.

GL: And for both Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, if you owned, I'm just gonna use the number 100. If you had 100 Bitcoin when Bitcoin Cash forked off, you got 100 Bitcoin Cash.

ES: Okay. So, let me stop you there. And I'm apologizing if these are stupid questions, but... So right now if I own Bitcoin and there's another fork, I could technically get some alternate coin, just because I own Bitcoin, if a fork occurs now?

GL: Correct, correct.

ES: Okay.

GL: And Litecoin, like I said, I think Litecoin is four times... And I should know this and I forgot to be honest with you. But I think for every Bitcoin you had, you probably got four Litecoin.

ES: So if it forks off though, does it basically distill the value of Bitcoin? Almost like a... Is it like a stock split, from a standard investment perspective?

GL: No, not really, it's a brand new fork in the road. It's not like a stock split, it's like a brand new fork in the road. And technically, I guess you could say where right now there's $190 billion and 68% of it's in Bitcoin. Well, if all 100% was in Bitcoin, of course Bitcoin would be higher. But Bitcoin does just fine, it's not like it gets hurt by the split. It does fine, 'cause it's so... People are more apt to get their free new coins, sell them, and buy more Bitcoin than they're apt to sell their Bitcoin, 'cause they got the new coin.

ES: Yeah.

GL: And the thing about some splits, like Litecoin, it's supposed to be faster is their deal. Bitcoin Cash is not supposed to have a maximum block size, but neither one of those seem to affect Bitcoin. Also, you gotta realize, and I use this scenario a lot, Erin. The gold standard was invented by Isaac Newton, the same guy who discovered gravity, it's been around a long time. When you think about gravity, they didn't know there was such a thing as gravity and the same tech invented the gold standard, which worked really good until the early '70s when Nixon took us off the gold standard.

GL: But anyway, the fact that gold is used as the most secure method standard for money, is not because gold's the hardest mineral to find, it's not. It's not because gold is the hardest mineral to mine, it's not. It's not because gold is the most rarest mineral, because it's not. But it was the first on the scene kinda, with the gold standard. That's why it's the goal standard instead of the platinum standard, or some other rarer mineral that's harder to find. It's the gold standard 'cause it kinda beat everybody to it and got in place there, and that's what people believe with Bitcoin, to a degree.

GL: It's there, it got there first, it has the bulk of the money in it, it's got the most belief in it. It's gone 10 years without the chain... Without being hacked so it's got a lot of security and a lot of believers, just because of how long it's been there.

ES: Interesting. 'Cause I know a startup company and they're... It's a blockchain company where you can actually get paid by... I'm gonna just butcher the crap out of describing what they do and I apologize. But long story short, you can set up a router in your home, that if somebody pings... Basically it's sharing wireless and you can get paid cryptocurrency based on that. And they are the ones that created their own crypto. And it just, it boggles my mind, like, "Okay, why would exactly I do this?"

GL: Well, let's look at it this way. If you're starting a new company, Erin, and you need some currency, is it easier just to make up $100 million of money and just make it out of thin air or to go buy a $100 million in Bitcoin to put in there? Let's face it, you're just making it up. It's make-believe money, you're making it up.

ES: And so this is where... Okay, so this is, and I'm so... This one really boggles my mind, because it feels like if I can just go make up money.

GL: I have some money. I made a crypto. I made a crypto, Cousin Coin. I never distributed it, and I think I have $21 million and the motto was, "It'll never be worth anything, 'cause there's so many of them."

[chuckle]

ES: That's awesome. But doesn't stuff like that like, "I'm just gonna go create a currency out of thin air... " It just feels like to me, this is exactly what you don't want happening in a currency that you want people to embrace and get behind.

GL: There are a lot of scams, whether it's cryptocurrency or real money, Erin. People are gonna scam you, whether it's crypto... In a perfect world, and since we want cryptocurrency to grow and do well, we would prefer there weren't any scams. But when you have money and you have people buying things or wanting to invest their money and they don't understand, you're gonna have scams. You're gonna have new coins created that are gonna do nothing. You're gonna have people going, "Gosh, if I can make me $21 million worth of coins out of thin air, it takes me like a year to have a guy write my code and do it all." People are gonna do it, it's just the way humans are. So, I don't know what to say about that.

ES: Yeah. Well okay, I just wanted to... As people are just trying to figure this out, I know as I'm trying to figure this out. So, when it comes to...

GL: Well, I tell everybody that my opinion, you should buy Bitcoin to start with and maybe you should own a Bitcoin before you start doing all this other stuff, 'cause by then you've been in it a while and you've been following it a while and you're buying into something that's, I'm not giving advice here, but that would be my advice, if I was to give it, buy something that's stable, the most stable and go with it, while you're learning the ropes. You know people have a tendency, for some reason and I did it too, when they first get into cryptocurrency or Bitcoin. I'm gonna say Bitcoin 'cause I first got into Bitcoin, thinking, "Oh, look at all these other coins, Bitcoin's worth $7000 today. If I buy one of these coins that I can get a thousand of for $1000 and it turns into $7000 I'll be rich."

ES: Yeah.

GL: Thinking but that hasn't happened since I've been into it, I haven't seen that happen and I've been into it since 2017 now. And I haven't seen any other coin come in that I could have bought for dollars or pennies go up to thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars.

ES: Yeah, you're not kicking yourself over anything right now? [chuckle]

GL: Well, I'm kicking myself that I put money in some stuff that went down, but not that I've missed some opportunities that went up 'cause I just haven't seen it.

ES: And so there's been... The Litecoin has stuck around, Bitcoin Cash has stuck around, it's Ethereum, is that how you pronounce it, right? I always feel like I pronounce it wrong.

GL: Yeah, it's Ethereum. That's the second on the market cap.

ES: Yeah, so that's the second one. And that... Again, I feel like Ethereum's got some foundation, like some basis to it. Where I also feel Bitcoin does, where it doesn't feel as made up, even though I know it's made up, is that true? I feel like it's got a little more stability.

GL: There's a lot of things that people are building with Ethereum, it's open source too...

ES: Yes. That's why, yeah.

GL: And you can build with it and you can do your coins with it and things that are regulated with it. But you've gotta remember the main thing here to me, out of all this, when you talk to it, when you look at it, the top 10 right now, the top 10, which are Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Tether, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, and Tezos. All 10 of those, and probably the first 2000, they're all run by someone, they're all centralized, they're all run by someone. If someone said... You're hoping no one would, but somebody basically has the key to the vault, so you're having to trust them. So, number one, if they wanna take all of it back or take it or shut it down, they can. Number two, if the United States government said, "Hey... " Or any government across the world, I'm not gonna say the United States government, any government said, "Hey, we don't like this currency and you're in our country, you have to shut down or you're going to prison or give it all to us." They can. Where with Bitcoin there's no boss, there's no one to go, there's no main office, there's no president, there's no anything to do with Bitcoin.

GL: And also by the same means, Erin, people need to really sit back and think about this, I believe. Let's go with Bitcoin Cash, Roger Ver owns that. He used to be, they used to call him Bitcoin Jesus 'cause he used to push Bitcoin so much. Well, he came out with Bitcoin Cash, and he's got a ton of money. He probably had a ton of money before he bought Bitcoin really cheap back in the day. Well, he has an advertising budget. So he can set up booths, he can do shows, he can do events, he can sponsor events, there's nobody to do that for Bitcoin.

ES: Interesting.

GL: Bitcoin, there is no boss, there is no company, there is no advertising department. So Bitcoin has 68.3% of all the market cap and there's nobody there to help promote it. There's no meeting once a month, "What are we gonna do this month to promote or help out Bitcoin?" It just does its own deal by itself and volunteers, some get paid by sponsors or other help improve the code. And some of them get sponsorships to work on it, some of them work on it for free, but it's all done without a central planning, a boss.

ES: See all these other currencies now that you said, it just feels shadier and shadier and shadier and maybe I may swing to the maximus side, I don't know, we'll see. 'Cause it just feels... There's so many and trying to figure out now what to invest and where. Have you seen for the ones that have stuck around longer, is there something? Obviously, with Ethereum, there's people open source and coding on it, so that makes more sense. On these other ones is it...

GL: Well, let's take Ethereum. Let's take Ethereum. Let's take the highs, the price highs of these coins. I'm just using memory, so I could be kinda off and let's go...

ES: Yeah. I bought Ethereum kinda high.

GL: Let's go to December of 2017.

ES: Okay.

GL: December of 2017 approximately, Bitcoin was $1900 today it's $7200, so let's say it's gone down 55% maybe. Ethereum was $1400, today it's $127.

ES: Was it really?

GL: Yeah, today it's $127.

ES: I bought it at $328 a couple months ago, I'm regretting that, but keep going, sorry.

GL: XRP, and like I said I'm using memory for all of this, it got up to $397, today it's 18 cents.

ES: Wow.

GL: Bitcoin Cash, I think when it came out, got as high as $2000, it's $188. Litecoin got up to $300 or $400, today it's $39. I'm not working the percentages of these, but I don't think it takes a lot to understand that going from $1400 to $127, is more than a 55% drop.

ES: So what is it about Litecoin?

GL: Or going from $379 to 18 cents is more than... These are huge drops 'cause there's nothing there supporting them. They don't have the support that Bitcoin does.

ES: So how are they still around today? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Like what...

GL: Well, they're all going lower and lower and lower than market cap. Let's go down here, I'll go further down market cap to Zero X. It was maybe number 11 or 12 at a dollar, it's 18 cents now. Now it's number 42. There's 42 coins worth more than it now. I mean Z-Cash was $400 at that time period, today it's $28. It had made it into the top 10, it's number 34. They're dropping. A lot of them are dropping down. And there are people who still have their money in them who are just watching it go down and now they're so low that they're going, "Gosh, I really don't technically lose my money until I get rid of it, I might as well just stay now and see if something happens."

ES: Right. Okay.

GL: I know a guy in Fort Worth who's got thousands, I mean thousands of Z-Cash that were worth $400 at one time when he owned them, and now like I said, they're worth $30 something or so. So...

ES: Interesting.

GL: I'm just scrolling down looking to see what's the biggest thing. Bit Shares, it was... I think it made it to 20 cents. It's worth a penny.

ES: Wow, okay. And so what if those if you were to pick it up for a penny and even goes up to a dollar?

GL: Yeah.

ES: It's not bad, but you're gambling. You're gambling.

GL: FunFair, number 127, it was in the top 50, it was 20 cents since at its high, it's 0.003. It's not even a penny, it's a third of a penny. I can do this all day.

ES: Wow, yeah.

GL: So if you want to, yeah, you can throw some money at something and see what happens. Now, they're pretty cheap if they... I guess basically what's either gonna happen is they're gonna completely just drop off eventually to nothing or else they'll last long enough that when Bitcoin does go back up, they'll follow up 'cause people will be putting money into stuff, 'cause people just start throwing money into stuff. They come in, they see Bitcoin on the news all the time and everything, they're going, "Oh my gosh, I need to get some of this." They start following in and they go, "Well gosh, while I'm doing this, why don't I throw something in this coin over here? It's only a penny." Just like you're saying.

ES: Yeah.

GL: Then they start moving up, 'cause all of a sudden people are starting to buy and it's all supply and demand. And they bought... Maybe they say, "Oh, I'll throw $1000 in there or $100 in there." You know how many you can get for a thousand dollars at a penny? You know if it did go up to a dollar, you're gonna be in a pretty good shape.

ES: Yeah.

GL: Cardano, it was a dollar and it's three cents right now. So if you bought 1000 Cardano at three cents and it goes to a dollar, if it does go back down... You know it's only dropped from number nine to number 13. So if you bought $1000 worth of those and it went up to a dollar, you're gonna clean up because you're gonna get a lot at three cents.

ES: Well, and let me ask you this.

GL: I'm not telling people to do that, though, I'm just saying...

ES: Right. No, no, no, no.

GL: That's the thinking people use.

ES: Right. Which again, you could take a chance. So you were investing in Bitcoin during the big rise when it went up, what 17,000 18,000, 19,000 I think you said.

GL: I had bought mine all under $4000.

ES: Right. No, no, no, and I know that.

GL: I just watched it rise.

ES: Yeah, I hope I'm at a point where I can watch it rise.

GL: I wasn't buying it as it rose.

ES: No, no, no I know. But you were in it, you were just watching Bitcoin during the whole rise. And I'm sure at that point, I can only guess, I was not paying attention, but I can only imagine during that time a ton of new coins were coming into play. Is that a true...

GL: Every day.

ES: Okay.

GL: Every day. Every day new coins were coming into play and there were people like John McAfee.

ES: Yes.

GL: He would have coin of the day and a new coin. If they paid him $100,000, he would make them coin of the day basically.

ES: Wow.

GL: And him and his staff admitted that. I think maybe tomorrow's show's about that, one of the shows the next couple of days is about that. He's not promoting any more now, 'cause he's running for president. But if he promoted your coin...

ES: Oh, I did not know that.

GL: Yeah, yeah. If he promoted your coin, it went up a lot, really quick, but it went down really quick too, a few days later. So that was kind of like a scam deal there. And he just was doing it... If you paid him $100,000, he'd promote your coin, you were coin of the day.

ES: That's crazy and he could probably cash out. So, seeing that happen, where new coins were added every day and now Bitcoin is not the shiny new... Well, people are talking about it, but it's gone lower in price. I laugh that $7000 is something to turn your nose up at right now, but are you still...

GL: Well, if you think about it since a year ago, today, I think Bitcoin is up 60%, so it's really not bad.

ES: Really? It's up that... It was that low?

GL: Yeah, yeah. We got down to $3200 I think a year ago, today a year ago. It's down if you're gonna count it over the...

ES: Exactly.

GL: And that's what I say to some people, I went to a thing and said... I was at a thing two weeks ago on a Friday and a bunch of us were there and someone said, "Bitcoin's down," he goes, "Oh, it's under $3000." That's 'cause he was going over the last year. He's saying, "Is it under $3000?" I said, "No, it's gonna hit $8000." I said, "Okay, I thought you meant it was down for the low of the year. So we're up 60% then, is what you're saying?" So...

ES: That's crazy. But are you still seeing... With it not being as amazing, 'cause it's not at 20,000 or 19,000, are people still coming in constantly with new coins and are any of them sticking around without the excitement behind them?

GL: Well, new coins are coming in and I don't think they're moving as fast, and I really don't keep up with it much 'cause I don't care about other coins.

ES: You don't care, okay.

GL: Yeah, I think during that time, I know these coin prices at the time 'cause I was watching them at that time, 'cause I was messing around with a lot of coins, so I know what their high was, but now I don't really do that so I don't know what new... But sure there are new coins coming in. I mean there will be forever, new coins coming in, new coins going out. There'll be some that are legit, like I said, some people are trying to make coins for shopping in their game.

ES: Right.

GL: And they wanna control their currency, so there is a use for it. Some wanna make coins and they've got an idea for it, and it turns out to be a scam, but they didn't plan on it being a scam, it just didn't work. And then some people are just making scams, so there's a lot of reasons. It's not like every coin that goes out is a scam, it's just people weren't able to do what they had hoped to do and maybe they had good thoughts to begin with, but...

ES: Yeah, it seems like the John McAfee thing could have been, like you create a coin, pay him a $100,000, know it goes up, sell it off. I mean you could scam that thing no problem.

GL: You sure could.

ES: If you wanted to, yeah...

GL: You definitely could. Yeah, I think that's why he's not in the United States right now.

ES: But he wants to be our president. [chuckle]

GL: Yeah, but he wants... He actually can't even attend the debates for the independent party because he'll be arrested if he comes in the country. So, he will have... From what he told me, he will have surrogates at the debates wearing a mask, a John McAfee mask. This is the plan. They'll wear a John McAfee mask and he'll be listening to the questions 'cause they'll have, I guess, an iPhone or something on them with a mic on it, and he'll answer the questions in their ear and they'll say the answers. So that's how he plans on doing his debates which is... I found crazy.

ES: Did you say he told you this?

GL: Yeah, yeah, I've seen the mask. A picture of the mask online.

ES: So you're talking to John McAfee?

GL: Yeah, yeah, I've had him on the show three, four times.

ES: That's crazy.

GL: I've met him a couple times in person. He's really a nice guy. He really is...

ES: He's probably the crazy smart.

GL: That's what I said, he's out of it. He really is, some of the stuff he says... But as far as just if you met the guy on the street and you didn't know who he was, he's really a nice guy. Yeah, I'm not saying he's not crazy, I'm not saying he's not a murderer, I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying he's a pleasant guy to talk with.

ES: That's awesome. Okay. Well, now I feel a lot better. And like I said, full disclosure, I have bought Ethereum. I bought way too high. I let the emotions get to me and I'm a little regretting it but hanging on to it, 'cause at this point, might as well...

GL: That's why a lot of people are hanging on to this stuff, even though it's dropped as much as it has, they're going, "By now, I might as well hang on to it and hope it goes back up. I mean I've lost 95%."

ES: Exactly.

GL: "What is it gonna save me now?" Unless they need it for a tax break, I guess they could take the loss there.

ES: Yeah.

GL: Which does happen sometimes at the end of the year, coins go down 'cause people are taking their losses.

ES: Well, and it makes sense, too, 'cause the company I was talking about, it's called Helium, and they just started launching, but like I said, it's a shared, almost kind of a shared wireless thing, so as a way... But it's using blockchain. So if my dog is lost for example and he's got this collar, it'll ping and I can locate my dog. So it's kind of a cool thing, but they end up going to their own...

GL: Do you really need blockchain for that? Couldn't you just use a database? Do you really need a really super slow... Because blockchain is slow...

ES: Right.

GL: It's not really fast. And you gotta count on all... So do you really need the blockchain to monitor who owns their dog? Are that many people trying to hack into databases to steal the dog information as to who owns the dog?

ES: But if it's instant location... I don't know, I don't know, that's a good question.

GL: Well, couldn't you do that with a database?

ES: Well, I could do that with a phone locator, I guess.

GL: Well, you could do it with a database, you could track it all. I'm saying that the blockchain part of that, really to me, just sounds more for advertising. I don't know the company, but to me, my first thought is that it's more for advertising. "Hey, we're on the blockchain." That's the hot keyword. "We can track your dog on the blockchain." Who cares if it's on the blockchain? I don't care if it's on a blockchain or tracked on a database, which would be way faster than a slow blockchain. So I don't understand sometimes these things on a blockchain, I think, are completely for advertising purposes, to say that they got the new technology.

ES: And maybe before this goes live, I should probably research it a little bit more to make sure I actually know what I'm talking about.

GL: Maybe you might wanna take out the word as to who it was.

ES: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

GL: Especially since I just tore them apart without even knowing...

ES: No, well maybe I'm like, "Maybe it's not the block," but I do know that there is a...

GL: No, no. I saw a thing about bananas being tracked on the blockchain.

ES: No, Walmart's doing it. Walmart's doing it. Yeah.

GL: Do you really need a blockchain for that? Are you saying that you couldn't do that in the everyday database? I mean really, you can't just put that in a database? You gotta make your database a blockchain. I just personally don't get it. I know there are a lot of people writing blockchain stuff making a living who are gonna tell me different, the blockchain writers, but I just have a hard time believing they just couldn't put that in a database. And it'd be much quicker and much simpler to do. Are that many people hacking into databases that say, "Hack into that database so we can say those bananas are fresher than they were?" I mean really? You can kinda look at a banana and tell, "Hey, that thing's not like from yesterday. It's from two weeks ago. It's all brown."

ES: Maybe there's a lot of banana thieves out there and they're trying to get a hold of the trucks before they hit a Walmart store, I don't know.

GL: Yeah, or else they just think that most people don't know what blockchain is, but they know it's something special, so we might wanna have some of it so we can use it to sell stuff.

ES: Well, and this is a whole another podcast... This is a whole another podcast. But you're seeing that with... It's with AI too. I've actually worked with companies where they're like, "Oh yeah, we bought this great new AI technology," and you start digging deeper. I'm like, "That's not AI. That is David sitting up coding some stuff for you. And David listens sometimes and changes your code based on that, but David's sitting in his basement in Pittsburgh, okay. That is not AI technology, but somebody sold him this AI sticker." You know what I'm saying?

GL: David is real life, he's not artificial.

ES: No, David is not artificial. David does help make your system better. I wholeheartedly believe David is caring about your system but the system is actually not getting smarter because of it, David is just making a few updates. And that's what's been happening in software over the past 20 to 30 years, so it is not AI I can promise you, but anyway... Well...

GL: And also maybe we should tell them that if they're curious to see... If they're new to crypto or something and they're curious to see the other cryptocurrencies, not that I'm recommending you buy, but all the cryptos are there and what the prices are, and you can actually click on the name of a currency and it shows you what it's done over the last year. They can just go to coinmarketcap.com.

ES: Okay. I'll put that down.

GL: And it's got all the currencies pretty much that are listed on it, thousands of them, pages and pages of them. And they're all done. You can do them by the top currencies, the newest currencies. You can look at them different ways.

ES: And that's a good way... So when I know when I first started getting into stocks, I didn't buy anything, I just watched things for a while and just kinda said, "Okay, what if I had invested $1000 into this, what would have happened?" And it just kinda gives you that ability to see like, "Is this something you wanna get into, is it not?" But you're not invested in it yet. You know what I mean? But it gives you that opportunity to see it.

GL: And also, if they want to... The sponsor of my daily show, three days a week it's sponsored by Eltoro. Eltoro... Etoro, sorry, etoro.com.

ES: E-T-O-R-R-O? Can you spell it?

GL: E-T-O-R-O.com. I had to spell on every episode so I'm really good at it.

[chuckle]

ES: Just 'cause...

GL: As part of their ad, they make me spell it. "At ETORO.com." Anyway, they have on there, that's an exchange and I think, my affiliate link might be GaryLeland.com/etoro. Check that out first. But if you use that, I think you get $10 worth free or something. But if not, it's etoro.com. And they have there a make-believe exchange, a simulated exchange where you can go on and...

ES: Oh, that's cool.

GL: They'll give you a make-believe amount of money and you can buy stuff and see what it would do and see how good you are, so it's like practice for if you wanna become a big trader and start buying and selling currencies. So you can go there at etoro.com and practice with their simulated trading. And you're not out any money that way, and you can see... And they got a big community, like a social community for traders, where traders are there and you can talk with them in social about different coins or blah, blah, blah. Which I haven't used yet, 'cause like I said I'm just really into Bitcoin.

ES: Yeah.

GL: But they're a big company, and they have lots of people that use it.

ES: Okay.

GL: And you're not putting any money in so you're not out anything.

ES: Yeah. I think I would just be really depressed if I put pretend money and then it shot up and I'd be like, "Damnit, damnit."

GL: Well, the thing is it's a lot easier to make money with pretend money than it is real money 'cause you're not looking at it the same way. If you bought...

ES: 100%.

GL: Let's just use stock. My dad used to always say, "I knew that stock was a good stock. We would be rich right now." We never had any money at all. And if you bought stock and you bought Facebook, for instance, they got down to a low of $17.88.

ES: Yep.

GL: And you see it go to $50. So you've made 300% and then you see it start dropping to $40, you usually get out. You didn't ride it out to $200 or $270 or whatever it is.

ES: Right.

GL: But if it's fake money you'd, "Oh, I'm staying in."

ES: "I'm not selling." Yeah.

GL: Yeah. And you ride it up to the high of $200 or whatever, so it's a lot easier to make money investing with fake money than with real 'cause you usually... Most people would have pulled it out, 'cause it always goes up and down, up and down, up and down. Most people would pull it out and take that big winnings.

ES: Yeah.

 

GL: Does that make any sense?

ES: 100% agree with you, no, I 100% agree. But before we run out of time, it's kind of the perfect segue. So if you don't wanna jump into alt coins, you wanna stick with Bitcoin, you've got an event coming up next year, in August that would probably intrigue some of the Bitcoin maximalists. Can you talk about BitBlockBoom? I'm telling you it's gonna be a tongue twister for children in a few years. BitBlockBoom.

GL: People are having a hard time saying that. BitBlockBoom at bitblockboom.com is the website to go to. It's in Dallas, Texas, in August, the last weekend in August. It's really starting to turn out to be a week of events, 'cause other people are doing events around ours, but the conference itself is on Saturday and then Sunday there's a brunch, a Bitcoin brunch from 9:30 'til 2:00. And then Friday night there's a dinner, the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute puts on. There are several people doing training and courses on Friday and I think we're gonna get maybe a golf outing for people to go to. And then Thursday there's Bitcoin and Barbells and there's Bitcoin and Bullets at a shooting range, and then we have a welcome to BitBlockBoom dinner, Thursday night.

ES: Wow.

GL: I talked to someone the other day who's trying to put something on Wednesday, so the goal is for this to eventually, slowly but surely, 'cause it's started out with just Saturday and Sunday.

ES: Yeah.

GL: And then Friday was added and Thursday was added and it looks like this year we may get it to Wednesday. So I'm kind of hoping this can become Bitcoin week in Dallas, basically. BitBlockBoom turns into Bitcoin week in Dallas. Now we've got three days going on a fourth.

ES: And it's not just a Dallas group of people, we are talking people coming in from all over the world.

GL: No, hardly anyone is from Dallas. Yeah, yeah, I have Asian speakers. I have one from Australia. We have people from all of the world coming to this event. We always have since the first one. I have more people from New York, for instance, than I do from the state of Texas.

ES: That's crazy.

GL: So it's not a local event and I've gotten some smack from people saying, "Hey, there are a lot of local speakers you could have speaking there." Well, you can just see those local speakers any time. You're a local.

ES: Exactly.

GL: I'm bringing in people you can't see any time. You can't go see Stephan Liveras in Australia speak very often. So if you wanna go see someone local speak, well just go see him. He's probably at three or four places a year. But that's not who I'm worried about bringing in to my event. I wanna bring in the people you can't see here, but I took some smack last year from people for not having more local people. But that's not... I don't understand that at all.

ES: I don't either.

GL: It's not a local event. I try and turn it into an international event, which I seem to be doing quite well with where everybody comes from.

ES: Yeah. Stick to your guns on that, too, because that drives me nuts. And that's where, when I was doing my big event, that's what I wanted. I wanted people from all over versus the same local people all the time, so I applaud you on that one and stick to it.

GL: Well, thank you.

ES: You're welcome. Now you feel validated and you can go on with your day, and go on with the conference and feel good about it, just in case you weren't feeling good about it before. So, anyway, Gary...

GL: I do now, but it's nice to be reassured.

[chuckle]

ES: So, Gary, as always, thank you so much. Best place for someone to go and find out more about everything? Obviously, we just gave the conference, that'll be in our notes page. It's @GaryLeland on Twitter, correct?

GL: Yes, yes @GaryLeland I post every day. And like I said, on the Four Minute Crypto Show, if you wanna learn it's four minutes. It's not like it's a lot of time out of your day. So if you listen or watch with us on YouTube or a podcast, you're gonna learn something in four minutes. It's not, like I said... And I try to get them under three minutes, it's just hard to get them under three minutes.

ES: Yeah. And I know I follow you on Instagram, and that's where I see most of them so, it's right there.

GL: Yeah, I try to be everywhere. I know I'm missing some places probably. I'm not a big Instagram person but I do... You know what's killing me is TikTok. Oh my gosh. Have you messed with that?

ES: Oh, I've tried and then I'm just like, I just don't have the time to figure out...

GL: No, I'm just talking watching it.

ES: Yes.

GL: I get hooked on that thing. I'll watch it next thing I know, 15 minutes have gone by. That thing's crazy. I haven't figured out how to take advantage of it, I'm just talking, I look at it and next thing I know I'm going, "Damn, I was gonna be at work 15 minutes early and now I'm on time, 'cause I looked at this thing." I'm taking it off my phone.

ES: Yeah, I actually posted a cat video on it. [laughter] I have a new cat, and so we made a funny video and I'm like, "I'm gonna put it on... " I actually put it on Instagram, my friend's like, "That's a TikTok video." So, I'm the jerk who put a cat video on TikTok, but that's all I've got.

GL: You aren't the only one, I've seen a lot of... There's a lot of cat videos and a lot of girls dancing.

ES: Yes, a lot of dancing.

GL: When you get rid of those, there's some really... There's a lot of neat stuff on there from all over the world when you get rid of those and a lot of creative stuff, but it's a lot of cats and a lot of dancing. And so, you kind of weed through the dancing and cats to get to the good stuff. But I'm just gonna have to take it off my phone, 'cause it's taking up too much of my time. And I don't like wasting my time on stupid stuff like that.

ES: I don't either. I 100% agree. I have it on my phone strictly from a perspective of, "Do I need to be paying attention to this? Do I need to figure out something?"

GL: That's why I got it. That's why I started watching it, to figure out what to do. But I don't know. I see Will Gregor, he does a good job on his.

ES: Yeah, but to that point, Will Gregor has a whole creative team helping him with his videos, too, which you know there's some massive editing that's going on in his videos.

GL: Yeah, yeah, it's more than I'm gonna do.

ES: Exactly, me too. So, who knows?

GL: We ended it with TikTok.

ES: Exactly.

GL: TikTok, TikTok.

ES: But if you wanna see a funny cat video, you can go watch my TikTok. That's my only video on there right now, but nothing about crypto at all. So, anyway. Alright Gary, well as always, thank you so much and we'll talk again next week.

GL: Adios, enjoyed talking.

ES: Thanks.