back to indexATHLLC9764124561
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Hey everyone, since recording this episode, a lot has happened with crypto and specifically 00:00:06.520 |
I'm recording this on the morning of November 15, 2022, and after the downfall of the crypto 00:00:11.720 |
exchange FTX, BlockFi put a hold on all customer withdrawals, leaving many people, myself included, 00:00:21.120 |
I am angry about the way this was all handled and communicated, and certainly not happy 00:00:26.400 |
about the financial situation they've put me and many others in. 00:00:30.080 |
I truly hope that they're able to find a way through all of this that results in everyone 00:00:34.480 |
getting back their money, so obviously any recommendation you might hear for BlockFi 00:00:38.920 |
in this episode should be ignored and considered outdated. 00:00:45.560 |
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of All the Hacks, a show about upgrading your 00:02:29.200 |
life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more. 00:02:33.720 |
I'm Chris Hutchins, and today I'm talking to Zach Prince, the co-founder and CEO of 00:02:39.920 |
If you don't know BlockFi, they're a crypto-first banking platform where you can earn interest, 00:02:44.800 |
borrow cash, and trade crypto all in one place. 00:02:48.020 |
In our conversation, we not only discuss crypto things like earning 8.6% on your cash and 00:02:53.480 |
how to think about holding crypto in your overall investment portfolio, but we also 00:02:57.480 |
discuss Zach's favorite investing hacks, like how to use options to generate income. 00:03:03.160 |
And before we jump in, if you're enjoying the show, I'd really love your help. 00:03:07.120 |
If you could either pick your favorite episode and share it with a friend or leave a five-star 00:03:11.480 |
review in the podcast app, I would really appreciate it. 00:03:20.560 |
All opinions expressed by Chris and his guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect 00:03:26.640 |
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment 00:03:39.320 |
So before we jump in, could you give everyone a little background on yourself? 00:03:46.000 |
I grew up in Texas and moved to New York City after I finished school. 00:03:51.200 |
I've always worked at venture-backed technology companies. 00:03:53.880 |
I was originally in the advertising technology sector and more recently, I've been in the 00:03:59.680 |
fintech sector at a couple of online lending businesses prior to starting BlockFi. 00:04:06.120 |
While I was at one of those online lending businesses, I got a ton of exposure to all 00:04:12.280 |
We were kind of like a data aggregator and technology provider and so I just saw so many 00:04:16.680 |
interesting things happening in the ecosystem and I started writing a blog about whether 00:04:22.720 |
or not people should be using robo-advisors or whether or not you should be investing 00:04:27.080 |
in fractionalized real estate and nobody ever read it and podcasts weren't a thing yet, 00:04:36.080 |
But that experience led me to Bitcoin for the first time and I was basically yelling 00:04:43.880 |
on this blog back in 2014 that just from a risk-return perspective, you should be buying 00:04:50.440 |
a little bit of Bitcoin if you were young and had any amount of risk tolerance because 00:04:55.800 |
And unfortunately, that kind of came true in early 2017 on the momentum of excitement 00:05:01.800 |
from the price appreciation, I decided that I really wanted to get involved in the crypto 00:05:05.440 |
space full-time and that desire led me to the idea for BlockFi, which originally was 00:05:12.540 |
to build debt and credit products for the crypto ecosystem. 00:05:17.360 |
And we've, from that starting point, expanded to where we are today, which I would describe 00:05:21.320 |
as crypto-first banking solutions or crypto-first wealth management solutions, but yeah, that's 00:05:29.960 |
So what made me reach out was I opened up a BlockFi interest account and right now, 00:05:34.960 |
interest rates are kind of at all-time lows and kind of give people an idea of what it 00:05:42.760 |
So you can go in and out in a 48-hour window if you want, which is very different than 00:05:48.480 |
a lot of other kind of online lending or private credit opportunities where sure, you might 00:05:53.440 |
be able to get high single-digit yields, but you're dealing with something that's illiquid 00:05:56.860 |
or on a much longer duration than the BlockFi interest account. 00:06:00.760 |
But the way it came about is we started originally with our first product, which is enabling 00:06:07.120 |
people to borrow dollars secured by the value of their cryptocurrency. 00:06:11.560 |
And launching and starting to scale that product led us to the realization that there was a 00:06:15.720 |
lot of borrowing demand for cryptocurrencies in the marketplace because prime brokers weren't 00:06:22.320 |
supporting big trading firms that were getting active in the crypto market. 00:06:26.680 |
And so we started lending cryptocurrencies to these big institutions and then we needed 00:06:32.200 |
more and so we launched the interest account, initially just offering a yield on Bitcoin, 00:06:37.160 |
Ethereum, and a couple of other cryptocurrencies. 00:06:40.200 |
But then we quickly expanded that to include stablecoins, which are one-to-one interchangeable 00:06:45.960 |
And now using the interest account, folks can get a high yield on all of those assets. 00:06:51.560 |
So it's a 5% on Bitcoin, 4.5% on Ethereum, 8.6% on stablecoins, which are interchangeable 00:07:02.160 |
And the reason, often, the first question we get from folks who are like, "You're paying 00:07:06.600 |
me 8.6% on cash, this is insane, why is this even possible?" 00:07:09.800 |
Well, the fundamental reason why this is possible is that banks aren't active in the crypto 00:07:17.080 |
The crypto space has experienced a ton of growth, there's been a ton of wealth creation, 00:07:24.920 |
And all of those things combine to create a pretty large market of borrowing demand. 00:07:31.040 |
And because banks are not actively lending into this space, and in general, the crypto 00:07:36.280 |
world doesn't have access to traditional sources of capital, the cost of borrowing is high. 00:07:41.760 |
And what we're doing with the BlockFi interest account is basically giving folks a really 00:07:45.720 |
easy, seamless way to take advantage of that market dynamic and earn 8.6% on your cash, 00:07:56.360 |
And then you can also, of course, buy Bitcoin on our platform and earn interest on that 00:08:02.000 |
If anyone's used a fintech platform, they'll feel very familiar with how things work at 00:08:07.520 |
You go through a quick KYC process, connect your bank account using Plaid, transfer some 00:08:11.080 |
money in, and then the next morning you'll see your accrued interest, and once a month 00:08:17.160 |
And it's a relatively straightforward user experience. 00:08:19.520 |
There's a lot of fancy stuff that goes on in the background in terms of how the lending 00:08:24.720 |
I'm really happy to say that we've never lost a penny across any of the lending that we 00:08:29.880 |
It's a very low risk type of lending where we're getting collateral for every loan that 00:08:40.400 |
I've signed up, I've put cash in there, and I've earned interest each month at a much 00:08:46.200 |
I think in the finance industry, there's always this trade-off that everyone talks about of 00:08:53.200 |
Can you talk about the risks that someone might take putting money here versus leaving 00:09:00.240 |
Yeah, there is a very important disclaimer, which is this is not a bank account, and as 00:09:05.560 |
a result, it does not come with FDIC insurance. 00:09:10.840 |
It's also not a securities account with CIPIC insurance. 00:09:15.800 |
This is really from a, where does this fit in the spectrum of investing? 00:09:20.600 |
I think it's closest to private credit opportunities or maybe real estate financing platforms. 00:09:28.320 |
But the risk, in my mind, is much lower because similar to real estate, you're participating 00:09:35.040 |
in something where there's an asset that's being provided as collateral for the loan. 00:09:40.120 |
The big difference is just that the asset that we're financing at BlockFi and folks 00:09:43.940 |
who are holding dollars on our platform are financing is a liquid asset. 00:09:48.920 |
So you're basically taking part in a system that lends folks 50 cents on the dollar secured 00:09:53.320 |
by their Bitcoin, and then BlockFi manages all of the risk management related to that 00:09:58.000 |
in terms of if the Bitcoin price goes down, we're issuing margin calls or selling a little 00:10:02.140 |
bit of the Bitcoin to make sure that there aren't any losses. 00:10:07.720 |
So if I'm putting money in my BlockFi interest account, you're loaning that money out, you 00:10:12.520 |
said it's collateralized, like 50 cents on the dollar, somewhere in that ballpark. 00:10:16.500 |
That means that someone borrowing has to put more money in than they're actually borrowing 00:10:25.000 |
And you can actually see this dynamic within your BlockFi account. 00:10:28.600 |
So in the same account where you can earn 8.6%, if you're holding dollars in the account 00:10:35.040 |
as stablecoins, you can also access our loans product where if you borrow dollars at a 50% 00:10:40.680 |
LTV relative to your Bitcoin, so let's say you have one Bitcoin, it's around $55,000. 00:10:46.640 |
So you could borrow up to $27,500 secured by that one Bitcoin. 00:10:54.800 |
What we're doing is charging one side 10, paying the other side 8.6, and then also managing 00:11:00.720 |
a lot of just liquidity and kind of portfolio level risk. 00:11:05.240 |
So for every $100 that comes in and is held in an interest account, we're not lending 00:11:14.960 |
And the reason for that is that you want to make sure that you always have ample liquidity 00:11:18.560 |
in the system to process withdrawals or originate new loans. 00:11:22.480 |
And so there's a bit of, you know, complexity behind the scenes, but fundamentally that's 00:11:27.480 |
And is your system fully automated such that if Bitcoin at three in the morning starts 00:11:32.840 |
going down and the interest account holders are all worried, what's going to happen? 00:11:36.740 |
Are you able to sell the assets that you have on collateral in real time or as things are 00:11:42.080 |
falling if you need to, obviously you don't want to, but if you need to protect the people 00:11:48.840 |
I mean, that's one of the unique things about the crypto market. 00:11:53.000 |
I think one of the products that's relatively analogous to our loan product would be a margin 00:11:59.360 |
account for securities or a securities backed loan where you have a bunch of shares of Amazon 00:12:07.120 |
You borrow against the value of those shares. 00:12:10.040 |
If Amazon stock goes down in value at a certain point, you're going to get a margin call from 00:12:17.480 |
The big difference is that in crypto, the market trades 24/7. 00:12:21.560 |
So our system runs 24/7 and in that scenario where the price is falling at 3am, our system's 00:12:27.940 |
working at 3am and it can issue margin calls and sell Bitcoin if it needs to. 00:12:32.920 |
In the traditional market scenario, it's a little bit more risky in some ways because 00:12:38.240 |
what happens is the market closes, Amazon releases earnings and whether those based 00:12:44.180 |
on how those earnings do, and Amazon's a really large cap stock, so probably not the 00:12:47.920 |
best example, but it releases earnings after hours, liquidity's thin. 00:12:53.880 |
By the time the market opens the next day, you might have gapped down pretty significantly 00:12:58.140 |
by the time you can actually sell or do anything again. 00:13:04.720 |
Now, in part of my diligence, and again, full disclosure, I'm a BlockFi customer, I noticed 00:13:09.960 |
there are lots of other companies out there doing various versions of taking a stablecoin 00:13:16.480 |
Is there something different that BlockFi does that people should keep in mind if they're 00:13:23.960 |
BlockFi is the only company that offers this type of functionality in the crypto ecosystem 00:13:30.800 |
that is available to retail investors, domiciled and regulated in the US. 00:13:36.420 |
So we're regulated like a fintech company, we have numerous licenses across the US. 00:13:42.320 |
And that is led by a team of financial services professionals who come from precisely the 00:13:49.320 |
backgrounds that you would want folks to come from if they're managing a platform like ours. 00:13:54.280 |
If you get into the crypto world, there can be spectrums of shadiness, for lack of a better 00:14:01.080 |
And there are some folks out there who cosmetically might look the same as BlockFi, offering you 00:14:09.220 |
But they did an ICO, which was effectively an illegal securities offering, and they're 00:14:13.380 |
domiciled in some foreign jurisdiction that doesn't have as strong of a rule of laws as 00:14:19.620 |
And then the last thing I would say is just our track record, we really invented a lot 00:14:23.940 |
of this stuff in this market, we've been doing it the longest, and we've had perfect performance 00:14:28.860 |
for our clients throughout our entire history. 00:14:31.660 |
Within the crypto lending world, I would say that it's a very reasonable assessment to 00:14:37.500 |
make that BlockFi is the safest bet for this type of activity. 00:14:42.620 |
And then the last thing I would add is that we really pride ourselves on providing world-class 00:14:49.780 |
And so there'll never be a scenario with BlockFi where if you have a question or a concern, 00:14:57.180 |
or you want to get in touch with us about anything, that you won't be able to really 00:15:01.260 |
We have a phone number and really great response times on chat and email as well. 00:15:06.860 |
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Yeah, I've heard people talking about how, "Oh, the rate might be higher with all these 00:18:17.260 |
I assume that none of those come with customer service and liquidity and the structure and 00:18:21.760 |
security of a company that's regulated in a modern first-world country. 00:18:27.100 |
And the rate is actually not higher unless you prescribe value to the tokens that are 00:18:35.260 |
The actual yield on your stablecoin will be much lower than 8.6%, but then these protocols 00:18:40.740 |
created their own token, and they give you some of that token as rewards. 00:18:44.620 |
And if you go and sell that, then maybe your all-in yield becomes higher. 00:18:50.460 |
I wouldn't want to say anything negative about DeFi whatsoever, but there are some big differences, 00:18:58.100 |
And in times of market stress, companies like BlockFi have the ability to do things with 00:19:05.100 |
We're structured in a way where our equity capital, which is very substantial, would 00:19:09.660 |
take the first loss if there ever were any losses. 00:19:12.940 |
And that's very different than a DeFi protocol. 00:19:15.900 |
What's happened in times of market volatilities with some of these DeFi protocols is, whoops, 00:19:19.940 |
the smart contract failed and everybody with a loan got liquidated, or people that were 00:19:23.780 |
depositing had to take a haircut, and nobody cares. 00:19:30.420 |
That's just the polar opposite of how we view the world at BlockFi. 00:19:35.340 |
And you said you guys have a lot of equity capital. 00:19:36.740 |
Can you give me a sense of how big is BlockFi the company right now, either from a fundraising, 00:19:44.540 |
So we're actually over 700 people now at the company. 00:19:47.820 |
The most recent round of funding that we did was a $350 million Series D that was led by 00:19:53.980 |
Tiger Global and DST and Bain Capital Ventures. 00:19:58.420 |
And that round was done about six months after our Series C, which was a $150 million round 00:20:09.620 |
So we've been on a great fundraising trajectory. 00:20:15.000 |
My co-founder has claimed that we're the fastest in-tech company to go from zero to a $3 billion 00:20:23.220 |
So we're very fortunate and we've done really well in capital markets and just in terms 00:20:27.420 |
of being able to build a large business really quickly. 00:20:30.580 |
We talked a lot about the interest on stablecoin, something that's dollar-denominated and easily 00:20:35.740 |
liquid, but holding another asset is part of an investment strategy. 00:20:41.140 |
And I think it, while it might not seem like a hack, putting my money to work over the 00:20:45.180 |
last 10, 15 years of savings has been how I saved all the money I have. 00:20:52.300 |
That's a big hack for me is just putting money in a market that earns. 00:20:56.120 |
Given the state of crypto, an emerging asset class, how do you think about that as part 00:21:01.620 |
I mean, look, obviously it's a very personal question and it depends a lot on where folks 00:21:07.680 |
are in their life and what their risk tolerance is and all of those typical kind of personal 00:21:14.980 |
But for me as someone that is relatively young, fortunate to be successful in my day job and 00:21:21.460 |
have enough discretionary kind of income to invest in things like crypto has been the 00:21:29.580 |
And it started out as 5% of my personal asset allocation, but because of the performance 00:21:38.440 |
and also increasing conviction that I've had in the asset class, especially after I got 00:21:43.760 |
involved in it full time, it's around 50% of my asset allocation now. 00:21:48.680 |
And I think there are these kind of underlying trends in the crypto market that are, regardless 00:21:57.400 |
of the day to day volatility of the market, Bitcoin can go up or down 10, 20% in a single 00:22:04.960 |
But if you put that to the side for a second and you zoom out a little bit, this market 00:22:09.440 |
has so much potential and I don't think that's changing anytime soon. 00:22:14.880 |
And so what I tell folks that I recommend with crypto is invest an amount that you're 00:22:21.920 |
Understand that you're making an investment for the long term. 00:22:25.240 |
You're not turning into a day trader that's going to buy more or sell it tomorrow, depending 00:22:30.320 |
on which way the wind is blowing in the crypto market. 00:22:33.940 |
And you're probably going to be pretty happy. 00:22:35.440 |
I think there's a very small number of days that someone could have possibly invested 00:22:40.840 |
in Bitcoin and they're all probably in the last 45 days where you'd be down on it. 00:22:48.680 |
If you bought it two or three or four years ago, you're up a lot. 00:22:52.560 |
And Bitcoin in particular is one of these, in my opinion, genuinely unique assets because 00:22:58.880 |
it is both a kind of store of value hedge against inflation like gold and a venture 00:23:09.240 |
And this is a network that is attracting new users, making more connections into traditional 00:23:15.360 |
systems and garnering more adoption every single day. 00:23:20.160 |
And then there's a lot of other exciting things happening in crypto beyond Bitcoin. 00:23:26.240 |
But I think that thesis and then when you take that thesis and you just compare it to 00:23:29.880 |
the TAM of some of the things that could be disrupted, it becomes clear that this is still 00:23:36.760 |
And for me, those are the types of investments that I like. 00:23:39.800 |
Ultimately, I think what you want in an investment is something that has a really big upside 00:23:45.280 |
I think Bitcoin kind of fits that mold perfectly. 00:23:50.640 |
We have an automated portfolio that we offer people to help them build their wealth. 00:23:55.800 |
And we recently announced that cryptocurrency is something we're exploring bringing onto 00:24:00.640 |
But when I talk to traditional financial planners and financial advisors, it seems like crypto 00:24:06.080 |
is not something they're considering putting in the portfolios for their clients. 00:24:10.440 |
How far out are we from mainstream investment kind of practice being including this asset 00:24:18.840 |
I think the key qualifier there is investment practice. 00:24:22.240 |
We're already well along the S-curve, I think, in terms of adoption of crypto. 00:24:28.760 |
It's hard to get perfect data, but there's estimates that 10 to 15 percent of Americans 00:24:35.440 |
Well, only about half of Americans own investments. 00:24:39.340 |
So out of your population that owns investments, you're already at 20 to 30 percent in the 00:24:47.960 |
That's not like a fringe thing off to the side that can just be completely written off. 00:24:54.840 |
The establishment of financial management infrastructure, whether you're talking about banks or private 00:25:00.480 |
wealth groups or financial advisors, these things take time. 00:25:04.560 |
And I think that in 2017, we had a big run up, we had a lot of retail adoption, which 00:25:09.760 |
is really cool because this thing really came about driven by retail, which is pretty unique. 00:25:16.320 |
And then it cooled off and everyone was like, oh, yeah, maybe it's dead. 00:25:19.720 |
Then COVID hit and Bitcoin went down a little bit. 00:25:23.180 |
But then COVID highlighted for us how everything that's digital is preferred to its analog 00:25:29.080 |
counterpart and how stores of value that can potentially retain or increase in times where 00:25:38.560 |
we have a rapidly expanding money supply are important to have in a diversified investment 00:25:43.900 |
And Bitcoin just nails it on both of those points. 00:25:46.360 |
So we come out of the financial craziness caused by COVID and Bitcoin does a 5x in six 00:25:53.560 |
months and then everyone's like, OK, it's actually here. 00:25:57.480 |
So this is the first time that big institutions and the establishment is starting to say it's 00:26:03.640 |
And they're all in the process of figuring out how to integrate it into what they do. 00:26:09.280 |
You're seeing it with fintech companies like Square and PayPal and others. 00:26:14.480 |
I'm a Wealthfront user and I'm really excited for the day that I can either just automatically 00:26:19.320 |
or based on some configuration have Bitcoin as part of my portfolio on Wealthfront. 00:26:23.600 |
I think we're going to get tremendous adoption on that. 00:26:27.440 |
And that's part of the underlying trend that's going to drive the ecosystem forward. 00:26:33.440 |
And ultimately, when you're dealing with something like Bitcoin, there's a finite supply. 00:26:37.080 |
And if you get more adoption, there's only one kind of market impact that can have, which 00:26:41.840 |
is that the price will likely be higher in the future than it is today. 00:26:46.240 |
Do you think there's any truth to the idea that establishment finances, the traditional 00:26:51.640 |
banks, they're not hyping and pushing and talking about crypto being part of everyone's 00:26:56.400 |
portfolio because they're still a few years behind and being able to tap into the ecosystem 00:27:00.360 |
themselves from a technology or infrastructure standpoint? 00:27:06.400 |
And as soon as there was a decision within some of the big banks that, yes, we are going 00:27:12.960 |
to develop a crypto strategy, then the messaging flipped from, "Oh, this is a fraud and a scam. 00:27:23.480 |
We're working on a product to put it in our private wealth management portfolios. 00:27:29.720 |
And that's literally happening in front of our eyes today. 00:27:33.480 |
So, yeah, I think a hack is that you have these institutions that aren't necessarily 00:27:39.260 |
publicly embracing it as much as they want to, but if you hear them in industry conversations, 00:27:48.880 |
So by the time they're tapped into the ecosystem, I have to assume they're going to be talking 00:27:56.200 |
And if you're a part of something before that kind of a moment happens, it usually is good 00:28:05.280 |
So we're talking about traditional finance, traditional investing. 00:28:07.240 |
I'll deviate for a moment from crypto and ask, you've been in this industry. 00:28:11.440 |
Are there things, hacks, optimizations when it comes to investing that you think people 00:28:21.160 |
I basically, outside of crypto, have a part of my portfolio that's just diversified across 00:28:28.360 |
stocks and bonds and auto rebalanced, and I do all of that on Wealthfront. 00:28:32.360 |
I have a part of it where I more actively invest in tech stocks and do other things, 00:28:38.840 |
And then I do a little bit in private equity and real estate. 00:28:42.600 |
One of the things that I think, if people have the time and the inclination, can be 00:28:47.840 |
really valuable and is a total hack, is just getting comfortable with options and learning 00:28:53.620 |
how you can increase your returns from a position, either before you get into it or while you 00:29:10.300 |
If you've said to yourself, "I'd like to buy XYZ stock," one thing you could do is just 00:29:17.160 |
Another thing you could do is you could sell a put at or above the current price that the 00:29:22.720 |
stock is trading at, and then you collect a premium. 00:29:26.840 |
So you're basically decreasing your cost basis on the stock by getting into owning it that 00:29:35.960 |
And just for someone who doesn't know what a put is, when you're selling a put, what 00:29:40.200 |
When you're selling a put, you are selling the right to someone else to deliver a stock 00:29:55.960 |
And I could say, "I want to buy it at this price." 00:29:58.880 |
And someone will actually pay me to say, "In the future, I want to buy it." 00:30:05.000 |
Instead of me buying it, I can get paid and then buy it later. 00:30:10.120 |
Is it only if the price goes up or down or what are you giving up? 00:30:15.760 |
You're giving up the certainty of owning it now. 00:30:22.620 |
So let's say Amazon is trading at $100 and you want to sell the put at $105. 00:30:29.520 |
So there's probably a pretty good chance that as long as Amazon doesn't go up above $105 00:30:35.800 |
between today and the expiration of the option, that you're going to end up buying it. 00:30:42.040 |
And you might get paid for selling that Amazon put at $105, $7. 00:30:46.520 |
Your effective cost basis on the Amazon stock, assuming you get ownership of it, would be 00:30:54.640 |
So you got a deal just by giving up the need to get it right now. 00:30:59.760 |
You're basically using time and volatility and your willingness as a market participant 00:31:03.760 |
to be a certain kind of way for a long period of time up. 00:31:10.800 |
And someone else who might be more, they might be looking to hedge or they might be a little 00:31:15.360 |
bit of a faster mover in the markets, they're paying you for that optionality that you're 00:31:21.040 |
And then similarly, once you own stocks, you can sell out of the money calls on them and 00:31:24.560 |
you give up a little bit of the upside, but you also create some income. 00:31:27.280 |
And as long as you do these things in the right way, based on your objectives, I think 00:31:33.840 |
people can pick up an extra 5% to 15% a year on top of whatever their general portfolio 00:31:41.480 |
And for the second example, that would be, "I own a stock. 00:31:45.320 |
I want to sell it, but I'm not going to sell it today. 00:31:48.080 |
I'm going to sell a call that means somebody can buy it from me in the future. 00:31:52.400 |
And by letting that time go on, I get a better price, or at least I get income now. 00:31:57.960 |
I might not get a better price in the future, but I'll get income now." 00:32:03.040 |
So let's say you work at a company that went public and you're holding a ton of company 00:32:07.160 |
stock and you're like, "I want to get rid of this over the next 12 months or some of 00:32:11.280 |
You could just be earning money while you're waiting. 00:32:13.360 |
And unless you have an urgent need to sell it today, this could just be like a passive 00:32:25.220 |
There's so much stuff you can do with a good credit score. 00:32:27.120 |
Maybe the big hack is just focus on getting a good credit score if you don't have one 00:32:31.840 |
And then you can monetize that in all kinds of ways over time. 00:32:36.800 |
I drove a car that was a 2003 for almost 12, 15 years, and then I was like, "Oh, I got 00:32:43.360 |
I was like, "Wow, if you have a good credit score, maybe the car manufacturer has a great 00:32:47.760 |
deal right now where it's 0% financing if you have a good credit score." 00:32:51.400 |
And not, I shopped all these local credit unions, and I want to say three, four years 00:32:56.200 |
ago, we ended up getting 0.99% APR, which is an interest rate that I don't even know 00:33:02.600 |
how that's possible, but I know that they had credit score tiers, and if you didn't 00:33:06.120 |
get the right credit score, you were getting a much worse rate. 00:33:10.160 |
If you're out there, you're under the age of 25, and you haven't figured this one out 00:33:13.400 |
yet, just create a Credit Karma account, know what your credit score is, and do the stuff 00:33:22.280 |
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Do you all remember episode 122 when I spoke to Chef David Chang about leveling up your 00:34:39.700 |
If not, definitely go back and give it a listen, but one of his top hacks was using the microwave 00:34:45.720 |
I have to admit, I was a skeptic at first, but after getting a full set of microwave 00:34:49.840 |
cookware from Anyday, I'm a total convert, and I'm excited to partner with them for this 00:34:55.440 |
Anyday is glass cookware specifically designed to make delicious food from scratch in the 00:34:59.920 |
microwave, and honestly, using it feels like a kitchen cheat code because it speeds up 00:35:07.880 |
The cookware is 100% plastic-free, and you can cook, serve, store, and reheat all in 00:35:13.440 |
the same dish that happens to be dishwasher, freezer, and oven safe too. 00:35:18.200 |
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allthehacks.com/deals, so please consider supporting those who support us. 00:36:04.000 |
You mentioned earlier you had this blog where you were sharing all these ideas before you 00:36:07.800 |
started BlockFi, things like fractional real estate. 00:36:11.280 |
Anything back then that you thought was really interesting that you ever thought, "Gosh, 00:36:18.760 |
This was back in 2014, so I was like, "Phew, more people should be buying Bitcoin." 00:36:24.360 |
This is kind of more of a novelty at this point, but it was called Billshark. 00:36:28.720 |
Basically, it's these people that you could pay to call the phone and cable company on 00:36:33.560 |
your behalf and just tell them you needed a better deal, and they would take 20% of 00:36:47.680 |
I think there's a company called Trim that does this. 00:36:49.120 |
I'll put a link to whatever the right company is in the show notes and everything else we've 00:36:53.600 |
But this is a thing, and if you want to take the time to do it, you can call Comcast every 00:36:57.280 |
12 months and say, "Hey, I'm going to leave if you don't give me a better price," and 00:37:02.680 |
Or there's companies that will do it, and not only will they save you the time, but 00:37:06.640 |
you have to assume that someone who's living is calling Comcast to get a better deal, knows 00:37:12.320 |
So it's just what do you want to spend time in your life, and what do you want to outsource 00:37:19.240 |
To come back briefly to crypto, you mentioned you used to play the points game, and you 00:37:26.480 |
I know because I've been doing everything I can to move up the list. 00:37:32.560 |
We're launching the world's first Bitcoin rewards credit card. 00:37:34.720 |
It's going to start rolling out this quarter to folks on the waiting list. 00:37:39.680 |
The card has a 1.5% base cash back rate on every purchase, which we automatically convert 00:37:47.120 |
to Bitcoin and move into your BlockFi account where you can earn interest on a trade, get 00:37:54.000 |
In addition to that base cash back rate, we're giving folks a 3.5% cash back rate for one 00:38:00.600 |
quarter in their first year, and there are other benefits on our platform for cardholders. 00:38:06.600 |
So cardholders will earn an extra 2% on their stable coin balances at BlockFi. 00:38:12.640 |
They'll get a rebate on any trading volume that they do of 25 bips, and they also get 00:38:18.040 |
a higher refer a friend bonus of $50 instead of the normal 20 for anyone that they tell 00:38:26.480 |
We think that there's a lot of folks that have bought Bitcoin and become very excited 00:38:32.960 |
by it, who just want ways to earn more all the time and integrate. 00:38:38.200 |
That's the thesis for this show is I'm on this quest. 00:38:47.040 |
And look, if this card would have been out at any point in time in the past and you were 00:38:51.200 |
earning Bitcoin, you would have earned way more in rewards at the end of the day by just 00:38:56.020 |
auto-converting it into Bitcoin, and then on top of that, getting interest on the Bitcoin 00:39:00.160 |
in your BlockFi account than any other rewards card. 00:39:02.960 |
It would blow everything else completely out of the water in terms of value that you get. 00:39:07.800 |
But we also think it's an exciting moment for the industry. 00:39:11.720 |
Another part of this mega trend of integration into the traditional financial system and 00:39:17.120 |
And we think it's a product that will hopefully reduce the risk and complexity of someone 00:39:22.320 |
that hasn't bought any Bitcoin yet, getting their hands on Bitcoin for the first time 00:39:29.040 |
Everyone, just about everyone, if you don't, you're living under a rock. 00:39:32.200 |
Everyone knows how to earn rewards on a credit card. 00:39:34.800 |
And so it's a really familiar and unintimidating way to get some Bitcoin. 00:39:40.080 |
I think one thing I regret, I searched my history before this for all my emails from 00:39:44.600 |
Coinbase, and I looked back and I was like, "Man, in 2013, I bought 30 Bitcoins?" 00:39:51.200 |
And then I'm like, "Ooh, in 2014, I also sold 29 Bitcoins." 00:39:56.300 |
And I felt like a hero making 30% return in one year. 00:40:00.200 |
And then throughout the years, I found random ways to buy things for fun with Bitcoin, and 00:40:06.800 |
And so it just seemed like it never made sense to go buy $5 of Bitcoin today, $50 of Bitcoin 00:40:13.320 |
The other thing I'm really interested in this card is it automates something that you want 00:40:17.040 |
to do, but you don't want to think about every day. 00:40:19.280 |
And I think it would be really cool, whatever you want to save in. 00:40:21.960 |
Obviously, this isn't what you're building, but if you could just automatically have all 00:40:26.440 |
of your excess cash, excess savings, credit card points, go into some predetermined formula 00:40:32.320 |
that, "I want to every month buy $100 of Bitcoin. 00:40:39.040 |
I want to put $200 towards my kid's college fund. 00:40:42.280 |
I recently launched a service at Wealthfront called Autopilot where you can automatically 00:40:48.440 |
It would be so cool if you could tap that in, do it over the blockchain, save to whatever 00:40:52.960 |
you want, whether it's crypto or a college fund. 00:40:57.120 |
But this seems to be the first credit card that comes close, and I'm very excited to 00:41:03.240 |
Hearing you talk, it made me think of that expression from Dollar Shave Club, "Shave 00:41:10.320 |
I think at the end of the day, that's what it's ultimately all about. 00:41:13.040 |
There's stuff you can do in the financial world and with hacks for fun, but I think 00:41:18.160 |
we all hit certain points in our life or just in general have a desire to reduce complexity 00:41:26.000 |
and just set things up, know that it's running, and not have to think about it or take action 00:41:34.040 |
to keep whatever plan you're doing in motion. 00:41:37.120 |
And I think that that type of tool that you just described is fantastic. 00:41:43.320 |
You just got to get the Bitcoin allocation in there. 00:41:47.400 |
The more people that have to wait every month and decide to save versus set it on recurring 00:41:55.700 |
And if you want to invest in Bitcoin and you don't want to think about it, you could just 00:42:05.840 |
There's all these other things outside of stablecoin. 00:42:08.560 |
There's Ethereum and there's just millions of other coins with totally different names. 00:42:12.960 |
Some that sound like toys, some that sound like a kid's game, some that sound more serious. 00:42:19.760 |
People have been talking about it like it's the craziest thing. 00:42:22.800 |
When you talk about crypto and you talk about investing in the market, are you talking about 00:42:28.720 |
How should someone think about all the things as they're thinking about it as a place to 00:42:34.800 |
Yeah, look, there's a lot going on in the crypto world. 00:42:37.960 |
The mental model that I have for things is that you've got the store value kind of Bitcoin 00:42:44.360 |
category of crypto, and there's Bitcoin, which is the clear leader in a couple copycats. 00:42:50.480 |
You've got a category of protocols, which was really started by Ethereum, and the idea 00:42:55.880 |
there is that you can make a blockchain a little bit more like an iPhone, where there's 00:43:04.480 |
And you've got a whole category of folks like that. 00:43:07.080 |
And then you're also starting to see as a subcategory, some of the first applications 00:43:12.720 |
And that's where things like NFTs are coming from. 00:43:15.480 |
But when I think of crypto and the investment opportunities that come from it, I would think 00:43:18.480 |
of buying Ethereum tokens as a play on that adoption that these applications that are 00:43:27.040 |
And then you have a third category, which is like traditional assets being tokenized. 00:43:32.160 |
And in that third category, the big thing today is stable coins. 00:43:35.960 |
There's really two interesting things you can do with stable coins. 00:43:38.840 |
One is use them as a vehicle to earn a yield, a really safe yield in this crypto world that 00:43:45.800 |
And then the other thing is you can make cross-border payments dramatically more easily than you 00:43:52.280 |
can using the traditional system, because in crypto land, there's no concept of, oh, 00:43:57.680 |
there's a border here in between the US and Mexico. 00:44:00.200 |
It's just like the email just goes through, you know, just goes through when you send 00:44:09.640 |
I have 90% Bitcoin, seven, maybe 8% Ethereum, and then I own a little bit of Solana, which 00:44:20.640 |
is basically the up-and-coming Ethereum competitor. 00:44:26.800 |
If Ethereum doesn't work out, you've got the backup. 00:44:29.080 |
It's a little bit of a hedge, but it's all about risk tolerance. 00:44:32.320 |
I haven't done anything with Dogecoin or NFTs because I'm not really a meme stock, time 00:44:43.640 |
I like buying stuff that I can have a long-term view on and not put myself in a position where 00:44:51.760 |
And I think one interesting thing was if you were around 20 years ago and saw what was 00:44:56.320 |
going on with the internet and you're like, "Wow, this is the future. 00:44:59.320 |
I think everything will be online," there was not an easy way to make an obvious bet 00:45:07.400 |
What's happening on Ethereum, the kinds of software getting built on top of it and programs, 00:45:12.240 |
is buying Ethereum, the token, effectively a way to bet on that whole network being the 00:45:22.560 |
Similar to how mobile brought about this whole world of apps and everything, and can the 00:45:29.640 |
And if so, is buying Ethereum tokens the way to bet on things in the future happening on 00:45:39.640 |
I don't know of a better way to holistically express that view than buying Ethereum. 00:45:45.600 |
Ethereum is like oil meets stock in the company that makes the network, but it's definitely 00:45:55.960 |
So it's like in between those two things, but I do think it would be the thing to buy 00:46:01.800 |
if you want to express a view with an investment that, yes, these applications built on top 00:46:08.240 |
of blockchain networks are going to continue to expand and gain adoption. 00:46:15.800 |
And I think that's something that a lot of trends people see, there's not an easy way 00:46:20.840 |
If you thought mobile was cool, yeah, you could bet on Apple, but who knew that there'd 00:46:24.920 |
be all these companies that are monetizing these apps and Instagram would be huge and 00:46:31.600 |
And this is one of the first times in my kind of career/life that I've said, wow, this thing 00:46:38.440 |
And there's actually a way that a regular person could invest $1 in, and you don't have 00:46:43.800 |
to be a venture capitalist to invest in the company. 00:46:46.200 |
And I think who knows what the future holds, but the sheer fact that you can participate 00:46:50.960 |
in it with any amount of money, I think is something that hasn't happened in the past 00:46:56.760 |
And I would add globally, it's not just America, China, Europe, Africa, like literally this 00:47:06.080 |
And so I think that's also really powerful and frequently underestimated because we're 00:47:10.640 |
so used to just thinking of things in our U.S. centric view or folks in other countries 00:47:16.600 |
are used to thinking about their market, but this is really a global market and so that's 00:47:25.300 |
Where can people find out more about you and BlockFi online? 00:47:30.240 |
We're pretty easy to find, blockfi.com is our website. 00:47:32.720 |
Like I mentioned earlier, we really love hearing from folks, so don't hesitate to reach out 00:47:41.240 |
I'm usually pretty good about responding to DMs and I also like hearing from folks personally, 00:47:47.200 |
so don't hesitate to follow me or shoot me a note on Twitter. 00:47:54.240 |
I'm a big fan of BlockFi, so I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. 00:48:02.220 |
As always, you can reach me at Chris@allthehacks.com or @hutchins on Twitter. 00:48:07.200 |
And if you're enjoying this show, please consider sharing it to anyone else you think might 00:48:11.600 |
enjoy it or leave us a rating and review in the podcast app. 00:48:31.640 |
I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money. 00:48:36.220 |
That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement. 00:48:40.040 |
It's called the Personal Finance Podcast, and it's much more about building generational 00:48:44.380 |
wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is about clipping coupons 00:48:50.260 |
It's hosted by my good friend, Andrew, who truly believes that everyone in this world 00:48:54.200 |
can build wealth and his passion and excitement are what make this show so entertaining. 00:48:59.360 |
I know because I was a guest on the show in December 2022, but recently I listened to 00:49:04.560 |
an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind, and it was so crazy 00:49:09.920 |
to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating in their employer's retirement 00:49:15.880 |
And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared. 00:49:19.300 |
The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone. 00:49:22.040 |
It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with your 00:49:29.680 |
Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you