Cryptocurrency Investment Tools
So now that you know the basics of crypto from our last episode, it's time to start maybe investing. (Don't forget, we're not here for investment advice.)
But the big question is where do you even begin?
In this episode, Gary Leland and I discuss how you can start investing in cryptocurrencies. The good news is that it doesn't have to be huge amounts of money, as you can start investing just a small amount.
And the even better news is that you don't need to actually be investing in order to start getting some. You can start just by buying other things (see below for some great links).
Interested in getting your feet wet in Crypto?
Download the Chrome Extension Lolli to get money back on some of your favorite purchases. Get $10 in Bitcoin when you use this link: https://lolli.com/ref/su72Kpnsem
Get the Fold App to receive Satoshi's (a type of Bitcoin) for gift card purchases from some frequently used brands (Starbucks, Amazon, Target, etc. Use this link to receive 20,000 Satoshis after your first purchase. https://use.foldapp.com/r/gTcqtrPk
Ready to start Investing?
I use Coinbase for Bitcoin purchases. Use these links for $10 at Coinbase.
Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/smith_2o5
Want to Join BitBlockBoom in August?
Head over to BitBlockBoom.com and use the code COUSINS for 30% off!
See the Full Transcript Here:
Erin Gregor:
All right, so welcome to another episode of Clarifying Crypto. I'm Erin Gregor, and I'm joined here by my co-host, Gary Leland. Gary, welcome.
Gary Leland:
Howdy, howdy, howdy. I'm glad to be here.
Erin Gregor:
Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah, we're recording right before Thanksgiving.
Gary Leland:
Yeah.
Erin Gregor:
Very excited, but we committed to Tuesday, so thank you, because I know you've got a lot going on today. But today I want to talk about ... we talked about Bitcoin kind of giving the background in the first episode and now it's like okay so I'm interested, right? This is intriguing to me. How do I get involved in Bitcoin and not just investing but other ways even to get involved. And we're not going to dig deep into all of them, but I want to talk about them. But first before we jump into this episode, we kind of had a dip. We didn't kind of, we did have a big dip this week, so any insights ... what was it around? I say we like I own Bitcoin or I do own Bitcoin, but like I-
Gary Leland:
Make up your mind.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah.
Gary Leland:
It went around 8,000 it was like 8,100 and it dropped down to the low. I think it hit 6,600 I think before it bounced back up and now it's at about maybe 7,100 at the time of this recording.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. So we're recording on the, I think it's the 25th today. So any insights on the dip? I know. So you have a podcast called four minute crypto. I know every day you do a news, a piece of news on crypto. Did you cover this specifically in your news or anything that you have to for any insights on this?
Gary Leland:
I didn't cover this specifically. I covered why ... two of the reasons I don't think anyone needs to worry about the dip, but I didn't cover this specifically. But if you're new in the crypto or Bitcoin, this is kind of panic time for you. You're going oh my gosh, I just bought this stuff at $8,000 and it's down to $6,000 to set like you know, 20% or something so you just really lost some money. But if you're average costs buying, which is probably the best way to buy, you just buy every week or every month, whatever a certain amount. This is what you were waiting on.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
That's what I posted the way it did the big drop. I said, hey, for all you guys who are average cost buying, this is what you've been waiting for is the drop so you can lower your average price. Because the thing about Bitcoin is it goes down and it goes up. It's easy to manipulate, which is good and bad. So a big whale can manipulate it still. It's still at that stage, but that's why it has the drastic ups and downs and the ups are what you're hoping will be drastic is why you're investing it. Because you know a lot of people say they invest for the tech. But really when you get down to it, most people are investing because they want to make some money.
Erin Gregor:
Right, exactly. So, and again, let's preface it. We should preface it to say we're not financial advisors so we don't ... this is purely just two people who are interested in Bitcoin, not financial advising. But for me, and I think I told this story last time, my first step into Bitcoin was at 7500 and then it dropped immediately to 3,500 and I got scared and I'm like oh is this, I don't know what I'm doing is this the downfall? Did it at all crash and kicking myself because I didn't jump in at more at the 3,500. I got scared. I didn't sell, thank God.
Erin Gregor:
But I just kind of sat back and let me see what happens before I keep putting more money into this. But now I've told you, I told this last time, my strategy is so when it dips, I'm like oh let me buy a little bit more. That's what I've been doing.
Gary Leland:
And so a lot of people buy, like I said, average cost buying. They'll buy every paycheck, 50 bucks every month, $1,000, whatever you can afford. You know, you should never invest more than you can afford. But actually if you buy on that average, you're going to make money longterm. I mean you have always, so you should make money longterm. Because from since Bitcoin started till now, people who've done that have made good money.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. So yeah. Any other news you want to cover too while we're here?
Gary Leland:
Well, I think one thing that is good is Fidelity. Everybody knows who Fidelity is. They're huge. Right?
Erin Gregor:
Yep.
Gary Leland:
They got approved by the SEC to store and sell Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
Oh I know they've been working on this for a while so that's awesome.
Gary Leland:
You know, so they got their approval. So that's a big, big deal. And they just got bought out by Schwab, which is even bigger. So hopefully that will transfer over to Schwab and maybe Schwab will move into since Fidelity has done all the investigating into this already. Hopefully that'll make it move quickly into Schwab.
Erin Gregor:
And do you think stuff like that ... I mean, I would assume this is the answer of yes, but that's just going to help mainstream crypto and yeah, just more and more people feel comfortable buying it.
Gary Leland:
My thing right now that I'm kind of like into is Bitcoin for boomers. You know, it's like okay boomers, it's time to start learning about Bitcoin because I'm embracing being a boomer instead of looking at it as an insult. But you know, boomers got a butt load of money. I mean, they really do. Compared to millennials and X gen and everybody else. So they have a lot of money sitting around that they'd been saving forever and investing. So if we can get them comfortable and make it easier for them to do, because by the same means, boomers aren't as computer friendly as a whole. I'm scared I'm going to break this thing or something. That's what my sister always says.
Gary Leland:
So if we can make it comfortable and easy for them by whether it's Fidelity or whatever to invest in Bitcoin, well they got the money and they feel comfortable with who they're doing it with, it wouldn't take a lot to make Bitcoin go through the roof to be honest with you.
Erin Gregor:
When you're talking to boomers, how do you get over the high risk objective? Like they want to be safe right now, right? They saved up all this money. They want their money and something maybe not very high return.
Gary Leland:
One of the things I always talk about [crosstalk 00:05:58] is the 1% thing, if I'm talking to someone.
Erin Gregor:
Inflation?
Gary Leland:
Well no. How much would you miss ... when you look at your portfolio at the end of the month and you get your portfolio from your investment company and it's down 1%. What kind of heart attack do you have? Not much. You go less than 1% would be ... You really don't care that much. So don't go overboard. Just get in there and get your feet wet. Actually, I feel everybody should just get their feet wet, whether they put $100 in the game or whatever. Get your feet wet. You've got setting in the game. Some skin in the game, you look at it. Baby boomers even if you spend $100 would be better than putting nothing just to get comfortable and get some skin in the game.
Gary Leland:
But after it reaches a certain amount of a dollar amount, I think there rises as it increases in values, the amount of swings a lesson too, because more people have it. It's more spread out instead of a handful of whales because there are a ton of people who have a lot of Bitcoins. You know, you got the Winkle boss brothers, they have like $1 billion worth of Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
And they're the ones who got kicked out of Facebook. Right?
Gary Leland:
Right. Yeah. So they're actually pretty smart dudes if you think about it. They did Facebook right? And they didn't get kicked out of Facebook. They worked with Zuckerberg and supposedly stole it. He paid them. So they must've won the case. So they came up I guess technically with Facebook. And so that's number one. So a lot of people can't even create one future wave. So they created that and then they got into Bitcoin like at $13, $16. They bought $100,000 worth or something. So they saw a second wave and got into it. That's really pretty smart when you can do two waves like that.
Erin Gregor:
In a lifetime and they're young. They still have a lot of lifetime left in.
Gary Leland:
At the rate they're going, there'll be on the third one, whatever it is.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. That's interesting. All right, so let's talk today. So we talked a little bit about what Bitcoin was and today somebody's intrigued by it, right? They want to get involved in it. They're interested in maybe putting that 1% over. I want to talk about the tools that you can use to start getting involved. Thanks to Gary, we finally had to hit record because we were talking about all this stuff. He's been introducing me to a lot of fun apps and I've been ... I do invest, but I've also been accumulating Bitcoin and fun little areas by shopping.
Erin Gregor:
And I know one of the goals of this podcast is to get more women involved in Bitcoin and what a perfect way to associate it with shopping. So you're getting a Bitcoin for it. So let's talk about first on the investment side. So I'm interested in buying ... You talked about Fidelity possibly opening up a possibility. I know I've bought some on Robin Hood, which is an app that allows for stock trade in Bitcoin. That's one of the places I've invested. What are some other ones that are the more mainstream good for starters, place to go?
Gary Leland:
I believe, and like I said, I haven't been to Fidelity this place either, but I believe TD Ameritrade is now approved.
Erin Gregor:
Really?
Gary Leland:
Approved, yeah. I believe they got approved a month or so ago. So you may want to check with your ... if you have an account with Fidelity or TD Ameritrade, you may want to check with them and see if they are ... I know they're approved. I don't know if they're doing it yet, but I know they're approved.
Erin Gregor:
So let me ask you this too. Sorry to stop you. But we're going to talk about wallets in the next episode and really understanding wallets. If I buy with TD Ameritrade, I still want to get my Bitcoin off of TD Ameritrade into a wallet. Correct?
Gary Leland:
If you buy it with them, they're probably going to hold it just like they do your stocks.
Erin Gregor:
I was wondering about that but then is it FDI-
Gary Leland:
I don't know for a fact.
Erin Gregor:
But is the FDIC insured then if-
Gary Leland:
That I don't know.
Erin Gregor:
Okay so this is going to be interesting. All right, so I'll take it off to research that. Okay, so we talked TD Ameritrade. We'll check that out. Robin Hood I know. What other places?
Gary Leland:
Well then you can always go to the place most beginners go and I think because people who've been doing crypto a while send them there, because it's the easiest place to go, is Coinbase. They had the worst rates as far as exchange rates.
Erin Gregor:
It's expensive.
Gary Leland:
But it's the easiest place to go. You fill out very little information in your end. Then if you've got an account at Coinbase, you can switch over to Coinbase pro, which is where you would go if you were buying and selling. They bought an outside app, an outside service, and merged it in, and made it Coinbase pro.
Erin Gregor:
And that's more for the trader, right? Like I mean and you need to have ... Do you know if there's a cutoff where you need to have so much money to get the lower fees? Because I know they were going to punish the ... not punish but charge for the people like buying at $100 or you know what I mean?
Gary Leland:
I still think that even ... they did. There's two fees that they charge on that. I can't remember the names of them right now. And now they're both like 1.25% or something more where one was 1.25% and one was like 0.25% or something. So they did go up. But yeah, if you're a huge account, if you're a whale and you're buying 500 Bitcoin, you may not pay anything in fees hardly percentage wise compared to some guy buying $100. But there is going to be much cheaper than Coinbase and you already have an account there if you have a Coinbase account. So you just log in with your Coinbase account and just transfer your money from your Coinbase account to your Coinbase pro account and you can buy it there, if you have something sitting in your Coinbase account.
Erin Gregor:
And I did that and it's super easy.
Gary Leland:
It is easy. Like I said, it's one account. And then you can use ... we were talking about earlier, the cash app. That's an app for iOS and Android you can download and you can just transfer your money straight to it. You can actually buy stocks there now too. So you can buy Bitcoin or stocks. You can buy stocks there and buy a half a stock.
Erin Gregor:
Really?
Gary Leland:
Yeah. You can buy percentage of stocks there. They just added that feature. I haven't used that feature yet, but they just added it. Cash app is owned by Jack Dorsey who owns Twitter.
Erin Gregor:
Oh Twitter. Interesting.
Gary Leland:
He's a big Bitcoin [crosstalk 00:11:55].
Erin Gregor:
Is he square or stripe? He's one of the two.
Gary Leland:
I think it's square.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I'm not sure.
Gary Leland:
He's one of those people. He's got a lot of successful businesses doesn't he?
Erin Gregor:
Yes.
Gary Leland:
Twitter and he's doing cash app. Cash app ... a lot of people know Venmo and cash apps is like that. Cash app allows you to buy Bitcoin inside of the app. So you could transfer $500 to your cash app or not even transfer. Just come out of your credit card and you sync it to your bank account. You know, and you can just buy Bitcoin and you can keep it in a wallet there or you can transfer it to your own personal wallet, which I recommend if you don't have your keys to your Bitcoin, it's really not your Bitcoin. Yeah. Because if this ever did get shut down, I mean that's what they would do is shut down all of the on ramps. And if the government ever did confiscate everybody's Bitcoin, they'd go to all of these exchanges first and take everybody's Bitcoin. You know, just like we were talking earlier. Bitcoin became the world currency by some fluke chance. They aren't going to have enough of it. They're going to be confiscating peoples and they'd go to exchanges first and confiscate everything there. That sounds crazy to you, but it's not that crazy.
Erin Gregor:
No, you can't. You can't put anything past the government at this point. But it's crazy. What's crazy about it though is like part of why I'm investing in it is just for that secondary safe currency. Because like we've talked about in the first episode, the U S dollar is not as stable as we believe it to be. Right. So for me it's like, well in case of a collapse, I feel like I'm saving up for the zombie apocalypse or something. But in case of like some sort of crash, I have another currency sitting on the side. I mean that's what I look like. So what's crazy to me is that we're saving for that just in case. But then in the just in case they could come and take it to, so you [crosstalk 00:13:49].
Gary Leland:
Yeah if it's online, so for sure they won't even ask if it's online. Just like in Greece. Was it Greece or ... I think it was Greece that-
Erin Gregor:
They had the big collapse.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, and they took 10% out of everybody's checking account, savings account across the board. Everybody had a bank account. They took 10% out. And so whether if you had $1,000 you lost $100 that day. If you had a million, you lost $100,000 that day because they needed the money or they would collapse. So they just took it out of everybody's account. So I mean that can happen anywhere. I mean, especially with the way they're printing money now. There's probably more, I don't know. You know, I don't know what they do at the treasury. I know they control all the money in the world for the most part since the feds own those banks all across the world.
Gary Leland:
But I think they probably could, just like anyone, they could screw the pooch up there because they're greedy.
Erin Gregor:
It's crazy. So all right. So we've got Coinbase, we've got Coinbase pro, we've got a couple that we can go invest in. How about some of these apps? Because I know I've been having some fun. I know you kind of get on the inside scoop of stuff that's coming out. I've got-
Gary Leland:
Well you've been enjoying the fold app I told you about.
Erin Gregor:
I've been enjoying the fold app so, and I'm going to put all these links that we're talking about over on a resource tab on clarifyingcrypto.com just so people can go. So Gary introduced me to fold, which is an app and they've got ... they don't have a ton of companies on there right now. I'm really excited when they get a ton of companies, but they've got some pretty useful companies that we already use. So what you do is you go buy gift cards and they give you, is it Satoshis?
Gary Leland:
Satoshis.
Erin Gregor:
Satoshis. Okay, so that's just a another like-
Gary Leland:
That's the smallest denomination of Bitcoin because it can be broken down into $100 million. So that's $100 million in Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. So they've got Amazon, which I've already used a lot of that. They've got what else? Starbucks.
Gary Leland:
Best Buy.
Erin Gregor:
[crosstalk 00:15:45]. Best Buy.
Gary Leland:
AMC theaters. I've been going to the movies. I've been using this for a while now. I mean, matter of fact I've seen, just to let you know, Erin, I've seen gift cards come and go. So I go to the AMC movies. Almost every week my wife and I go to a movie, so I bought like 10 of them, 10 of the $50 gift cards. So to get them in case they disappear, I've got my movies paid for for a year now.
Erin Gregor:
So sometimes they will list it and then it'll go.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. Sometimes they'll list it and maybe the people who are doing it and association with it say we don't want to do it anymore or something, or maybe the negotiations fell through. I don't know what happens.
Erin Gregor:
I've got to stock up on my Amazon.
Gary Leland:
But I know I have seen them come and go. I've seen Amazon disappear and come back.
Erin Gregor:
Oh my Gosh. Okay. I'd have a heart ... Okay, so that's good to know. Now they have Delta airlines and Southwest airlines. When American comes up there, mama's going to be happy.
Gary Leland:
Yeah so would I because I'm an American airline person myself.
Erin Gregor:
I am too. I'm like ah this might be, but what's funny too is they have Uber up there right now. We're going on a trip this weekend and I don't like Uber. I've gone Lyft only, but now the Uber gift card is up there. I was joking with my husband, I'm like, I may be more comfortable risking our lives by getting in an Uber than I was getting an a Lyft just so I can get the kickback on it.
Gary Leland:
Well, you know, the thing is, this is something, if you're getting ready to spend $100 or $50 on something, you're still spending $50 or $100. You're just now getting a rebate. And you know, the cool thing about this is, I'm not a tax expert. I was told this by Alex Adelman who owns Lolli. Rebates are not taxable.
Erin Gregor:
Oh, so I get a rebate. Oh, so if it goes way high or when it goes way high, let's say that, and I bought it at ... I technically got it at let's say I got $10 worth or whatever, and that $10 turns into $1000, I don't have to pay taxes on that?
Gary Leland:
I don't know. That's just what Alex told me that owns Lolli, that rebates are not taxable. So I don't know if you don't have to pay tax on ... Let's say if you got a $5 rebate, if you don't have to pay tax on the $5, but you've got to pay it on the $5 to $5,000 I'm not sure where that falls in, but when you get the Bitcoin itself or the Satoshis, you don't have to at the end of the month or at the end of the year go okay, on rebates this year I made $5,000. It was given to me.
Erin Gregor:
Interesting.
Gary Leland:
And that's what I was told. But like I said, I'm not a tax expert, but the guy that owns the company told me that. So it came from a good person.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. So home Depot is on there. That's another one. You're doing a project, I mean $10,000 of Home Depot is [crosstalk 00:18:16]-
Gary Leland:
Oh that can happen easy.
Erin Gregor:
... on a project. Yeah, that's one trip. So this is what I've loved. So I've also told Gary, so I know Old Navy, I get a lot of my kids' clothes at Old Navy and Macy's are on there. And then so you just mentioned Lolli.
Gary Leland:
Airbnb.
Erin Gregor:
Yes. I'm going to use that because we're going to Hawaii in February.
Gary Leland:
And hotels.com. I mean, you know. I'm not an Airbnb person.
Erin Gregor:
I'm noticing there's travel stuff too, which here's why I love travel is because-
Gary Leland:
TJ Maxx, Target.
Erin Gregor:
Yes Target I've already used to. I mean I'm telling you like it's not a ton but it's stuff we use. Chipotle for a restaurant. So I know like-
Gary Leland:
I use Chipotle.
Erin Gregor:
Between this and Lolli, I've already accumulated a couple of hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin. So Lolli is a browser plugin that you can again-
Gary Leland:
For Google Chrome.
Erin Gregor:
Google Chrome. So what it does is you're on a website, you're about to pay for something and you check Lolli to see if they have a link or if they have a kickback. I've made several just from Marriott because I love Marriott. It's where, and I travel a lot.
Gary Leland:
I went to guitar ... is it Guitar City or Guitar World?
Erin Gregor:
Guitar Center.
Gary Leland:
Guitar Center. Thanks. I went there because I was buying new headphones and new mics Bit Block Boom, my conference, and it was like $600 for the set and all of a sudden I didn't do anything. On the screen popped up toe Lolli.
Erin Gregor:
Yes.
Gary Leland:
It just popped up. I said oh my gosh Lolli. I had forgotten all about it and I'm going oh my gosh, Lolli's on here. I said, oh I'm definitely buying from them.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And as we record this, and again it could change, but Macy's is on Fold. Macy's is on Lolli, and so you can double dip, you can buy the gift cards on Fold and then jump over to Lolli, make the purchase and you're getting sometimes, I don't know what the percentage is, I mean, but anywhere from 5% to 10% back total of your purchase, which now I'm determined ... We're recording this right before black Friday, but I want to get this out before the holidays so people can ... I mean you're shopping, you're buying stuff already. You might as well get some Bitcoin for it.
Gary Leland:
Right. Now the thing that I do like about Fold more than Lolli, I think Lolli has more places that you can get Bitcoin from.
Erin Gregor:
Yes, they have a lot of places.
Gary Leland:
But Fold you get your Bitcoin immediately, I mean as soon as you buy the gift card. Where with Lolli, like I did a hotel room down in Austin. It took me a month to get my Bitcoin where it's like they got to get confirmed with the company that you didn't cancel the reservation because that's what they told me. It takes a little while because they have to get a confirmation that you stayed at the hotel, that you didn't cancel and now the company, the hotel, is paying you Bitcoin and you didn't even stay there. So there's a process it goes through.
Erin Gregor:
So here's my question though. With Fold, you can't take it off your app yet. Right? If I've got-
Gary Leland:
No but that's one of the upgrades they've announced they're coming through. Yeah. They haven't done that. Haven't put that in yet, but they've already announced they're going to.
Erin Gregor:
Because that's my goal with these is just to pop them over to a wallet. I mean to me this is funny money and I love money of all kinds, whether it's funny or not so funny, but I mean this is just, it's one of those things that you literally can start accumulating with these things. Now, are there any other apps that online-
Gary Leland:
Well it's not an app, but if someone is more ... well, there are apps. I mean, of course they are more apps. One of them is-
Erin Gregor:
Anything that you like?
Gary Leland:
Well, one I like is one I'm an advisor to is Give Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
So has that launched yet though? Or is it launching?
Gary Leland:
I think it's launching this week as a matter of fact.
Erin Gregor:
So tell everybody what that is.
Gary Leland:
If you go to Give Bitcoin.io, I believe, or .com. I can't ... you'd have to search it.
Erin Gregor:
I'll look it up.
Gary Leland:
But this is for giving and receiving Bitcoin. But you're not really getting an award from it. But if someone wants some Bitcoin for a Christmas present and you're going, oh my grandkid would really like some Bitcoin, but I don't know how to do it. Yeah, I don't know what it is. You could go on there and it's real simple. I call it Bitcoin for boomer approved. You can go on there with your credit card and you buy $100 worth of Bitcoin and send them, you can buy $10 worth. I'm telling you, if you give a kid some Bitcoin, you give someone who's like 18 or 19 or 20 $10 worth of Bitcoin, they go through the moon, like they just got the best gift in the world.
Gary Leland:
Because they don't have any and they know all of that and they go oh my gosh I got ... It could be the $10 worth of Bitcoin you gave them for Christmas could be their favorite Christmas present out of everything they get. And you're going gosh, it was only $10. Where you gave him $10 for the cash, even if you gave them $20 he wouldn't give that excited. But you give him $10 worth of Bitcoin, they go off the hook. It's kind of weird. So check out to give Bitcoin for that.
Erin Gregor:
And what kind of transaction fees are on that? Do you know?
Gary Leland:
It's just regular credit card transaction fees. That's where they make their money off the transaction fees off of that. So it's a good deal.
Erin Gregor:
So it's not even bad. It's not like a Coinbase where it's 100%.
Gary Leland:
No, no it's not killing you. So that's a really good thing. Oh and if someone was like more technical and they're really starting to get into Bitcoin and they want to set up their own node, which a node is a good place to store your crypto and it's got a full copy of the blockchain on it and if you had a store and someone's paying you, it would go straight to your node so you wouldn't be paying fees because it's your node. Okay, if this makes any sense. You can get a Casa node for like $300 bucks. It costs some money. But if you're doing enough with it, you might want one of those and you can get 10,000 free sets every week with your node from Casa just for sending in your test report. That's kind of cool. You know?
Erin Gregor:
So what's the difference between a note and a wallet?
Gary Leland:
A node has a full copy of the blockchain on it. You're actually running a copy of the blockchain and you're transferring the Bitcoin to it and the node has a wallet built into it. So it's kind of like it's running a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain on there. So actually your money is safer in your node, in the wallet in your node than anywhere because it's ... you don't have to upgrade the node and upgrade it. So if something happened to the Bitcoin blockchain well you don't have to upgrade yours to that. And it's also supporting the Bitcoin network and the more nodes there are running full copies of the blockchain, the stronger the network is and harder it is to do an attack, 51% attack.
Gary Leland:
So you're also kind of supporting the network in the Casa node there. There are a lot of nodes, but the Casa node is like the easiest one to set up. I just have it running all the time.
Erin Gregor:
It's Casa, like C-A-S-A?
Gary Leland:
C-A-S-A. Yeah. Like house. Casa node and it's the easiest node. I still have a noddle which is much harder to set up. I've been working on that one for about a month, you know, so it's much harder to set up. The Casa I didn't like in two or three days.
Erin Gregor:
Wow.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. Yeah. And that was only because I dedicated just a little bit at a time. And then that's kind of on the noddle too. But the noddle was pretty difficult. You have to set out an outside wallet, but stay away from the noddle unless you're really into doing a lot of work. But anyone can figure out the Casa node and so you'd be out $350 so, but because of my shows, I buy things like this also just to like educate myself.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
Now I know what a Casa node is and that's why [inaudible 00:25:30] so much more enlightening. If someone buys my stuff, I can have it go straight to my node. If someone pays with Bitcoin, I can have the money go to my node and so I am doing the transaction so I'm not paying an outside party to do transactions. Does that make any sense?
Erin Gregor:
Yeah 100%.
Gary Leland:
If you had a store or something ... If you're actually moving Bitcoin, you're not buying and selling, it may not be as great of a thing to have. It's just if you're operating in the Bitcoin world. But you do get free sats is what you're asking. I mean I get 10,000 free sats every week just for sending in the report, so that's cool.
Erin Gregor:
And that's a dollar?
Gary Leland:
Yeah.
Erin Gregor:
About.
Gary Leland:
It's a dollar and I'm all excited. That's what I'm telling you. People get excited about it. You send a kid 100,000 sats, that's $10. He's going 100,000.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly but the thing is to me, it adds up, you know what I mean? Like you're getting it over here. Like I said, I've made a couple of hundred dollars between Lolli and Fold of stuff I would've bought anyway. So yeah why not?
Gary Leland:
Well like we were talking about before the show, and like I said, I'm not saying this is going to happen, but it used to be, there used to be a thing called Bitcoin fountains or Bitcoin faucets and you'd just go to it and play a game and you'd get five Bitcoin, 10 Bitcoin, 50 Bitcoin in the early days. You'd get it just for playing a game and people ah that was fun. And they thought nothing of it. Now Bitcoin's $7,000.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah, that would have been $70,000 for the [crosstalk 00:27:01].
Gary Leland:
So you know, how about if a Satoshi in 10 years is worth a dollar? People are going to go man I can't believe you used to get 20,000 Satoshi just for buying something on Amazon. So that's the thought pattern. I'm not saying it's going to reach a dollar, I'm saying, but that's the thought pattern.
Erin Gregor:
If it does, [crosstalk 00:27:20].
Gary Leland:
And if it reaches 50 cents.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah exactly, I'll take it.
Gary Leland:
There's still $10,000 you know?
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. No, absolutely. All right. Anything else from an investment [inaudible 00:27:28] or how I can accumulate ... I want to touch a little bit about like mining and other things I can do, but anything else from like apps, perspective, websites I should check out if I'm trying to dip my toe in this?
Gary Leland:
Well I'm going to have to look at my phone here, girl. Something else that's kind of cool. I don't know if this really falls into it but are for familiar with drop bit?
Erin Gregor:
Nope.
Gary Leland:
You should get the drop bit app. Well it allows people to pay you Satoshis just with having your Twitter account, so I'm just giving you apps. So it's not a way to make free Bitcoin, but someone could see your post that has Bitcoin and you could post something great on Twitter and they go I like that and they can send you tips. All they need is your Twitter address to send your money.
Erin Gregor:
Do you have that hooked up to your crypto cousins?
Gary Leland:
Yeah.
Erin Gregor:
For Gary Leland.
Gary Leland:
Well it's just Gary Leland. I just have it under Gary Leland. There's also Tippin dot ... it's the same thing. Actually with Tippin, if you have the Tippin plugin, I believe it's Tippin.io but I'm not sure. But if you have the Tippin plugin set up, anyone who has Tippin sees that you have Tippin. It shows up on their Twitter page. So I would be on my Twitter page. I'd say, oh Erin has got Tippin. Gosh that was a great post [inaudible 00:28:57]. Let me send her 50 cents. So it's just micropayments so people can send you easily. So it's a way to get money, but you're going to be working for the money. I mean if someone is sending it to you, it's probably going to be a tip on either one of those.
Erin Gregor:
And the important thing to know for Twitter is that Facebook kind of pushed everybody out talking about blockchain. Twitter is the place that people talk about crypto, correct? Like that's the channel.
Gary Leland:
That is the crypto world. Crypto Twitter is where ... everybody who's really into crypto is really probably at Twitter, all your high stake people because that's where everybody talks about Twitter. They don't get fined. They don't get censored where they do ... I can't even post about my Bitcoin conference, Bit Block Boom.
Erin Gregor:
On Facebook?
Gary Leland:
Facebook, yeah.
Erin Gregor:
Really?
Gary Leland:
Yeah, yeah. I tried last year, like four or five times for making ads and I argued it with them and going I'm not selling Bitcoin. This as an educational and I'd get the same [inaudible 00:29:53]. I was just talking to a machine I guess. This is against our policies to talk about cryptocurrencies.
Erin Gregor:
Well let's talk about Bit Block Boom. That's your conference August ... what's the dates for 2020?
Gary Leland:
I think it's like 27th.
Erin Gregor:
27th? Okay.
Gary Leland:
Yeah something like that. If they go to the site they'll see for sure.
Erin Gregor:
You should know when your conference ...
Gary Leland:
I know I should. I know I should. But you know it's like I don't.
Erin Gregor:
It's okay. There's enough going on but so-
Gary Leland:
They've got plenty of lead time to find it.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. We'll link it to the show notes. All right, so people that are "involved in crypto" and I just want because this is what my always question was, if I just buy some Bitcoin, am I involved in crypto? Like what makes me involved in crypto? I'm interested in this. I want to get more involved. You've got hundreds of people that come for this. Obviously they own some Bitcoin, but what else do they do in the world of Bitcoin that puts them under the I'm involved in Bitcoin umbrella? Does that question make sense?
Gary Leland:
Yeah. And I would say that's a good question, but I hate that when people say that. You know what I mean? That's a good one.
Erin Gregor:
Why?
Gary Leland:
Because I hear people say it all the time and it's not a good question.
Erin Gregor:
Okay.
Gary Leland:
I hear that so often I'm going that's really not that great a question. You know? So I try not to use that term at all, but that was pretty close to it. I'll use the term, I wouldn't put a-
Erin Gregor:
Check mark it yeah.
Gary Leland:
I would put it there. You know, I guess anything is being involved in crypto. It's just according to how involved in crypto you are I guess more or less. I'm going to a conference I'm speaking at in Nashville, Tennessee or Memphis, Tennessee in February. It's a blockchain crypto conference and it's all levels. My talk is okay boomer, let's start learning about Bitcoin. It's for everybody where Bit Block Boom is for people who are heavily involved. And you went to the conference and if you're a beginner it's all over your head.
Erin Gregor:
I'm like what? Yeah.
Gary Leland:
And I advise people, unless you just want to come, I'll take your money, but it could be all over your head if you've just bought your first Bitcoin, your first [inaudible 00:32:08] Bitcoin. It might be over your head, and I'm not trying to do that anybody. I guess it's all being involved. It's just the levels you are involved at. There's people who make artwork. I mean there's a lot of people involved. Like, I just bought a new logo from a guy in Europe who would only buy it if I paid him in Bitcoin. That's only way he'd buy it. I hate people paying people in Bitcoin, but he does a good work.
Erin Gregor:
I don't like spending my Bitcoin.
Gary Leland:
No, I don't either. And I don't understand why people won't give a discount for Bitcoin. I haven't figured that out either. Because I see a lot of people doing like Bitcoin 2020 conference in California that I'm going to in San Francisco. If it's $200 you get $50 off to pay with Bitcoin. So you get a 25% discount. Well I don't understand that. Why don't they just take the $200 and buy Bitcoin? If they want Bitcoin that bad and they only pay like 3% fees, they'd do a lot better. So I don't understand the purpose of discounting. The guy who I was in [inaudible 00:33:03], it's a lot cheaper if you buy Bitcoin. It turned out that was the only way you could get it was by Bitcoin and he didn't even want your money.
Erin Gregor:
That's interesting.
Gary Leland:
So I don't understand that. Yeah, that's kind of weird to me. I take Bitcoin and cash and it's the same either way to me.
Erin Gregor:
Well, and I'll take Bitcoin all day long. Here's what weirds me out about spending it, is that okay, so if I were to spend my money right now, if I were to buy something with a Bitcoin, it'd be way worth way less if I bought it today than I did several days ago. So I feel like, I'm like, I don't mind watching it as an investment, but I don't want to spend money. I don't want to be spending money when it's only worth ... You know what I'm saying?
Gary Leland:
Yeah but the thought pattern on that is that okay you're going to spend $100 worth of Bitcoin today, let's say. You're going to buy this thing for $100 and they want Bitcoin. What you do is you go buy $100 worth of Bitcoin instead of sending him the $100. So you go wherever you buy Bitcoin at and you buy $100 worth of Bitcoin and then you send him $100 for the Bitcoin. So your Bitcoin always stays the same. So it's not like you're just sending out a Bitcoin and not replenishing it. And in the case of this person, I paid him two weeks ago. Now Bitcoin is cheaper by 10, 15% so I can go spend that $200 on Bitcoin and I've got more Bitcoin than I had before and it's the same $200 I was going to spend. But then again though, there are situations like my conference, if you pay with Bitcoin in my conference, you get a cash refund and that could work good either way.
Gary Leland:
You know what I mean? Because technically I might've cashed your Bitcoin to pay for conference expenses. So now Bitcoin goes up and I'm going man I cashed in his Bitcoin, bought a projector for $600 because that's how much in Bitcoin he sent me. Now I've got to send $1,200. I can't afford to do that. So if you buy from mine, you're getting $600 worth of Bitcoin back, whatever. Now if I said you've got to pay in Bitcoin and that's the only way, it's just an option. So that's kind of a weird line to cross.
Erin Gregor:
This is starting to get confusing. And then like-
Gary Leland:
And I can do that when I talk. I can confuse people because I rattle.
Erin Gregor:
Because I know ... like I said it weirds me out. I get the perspective of I have to buy this person or I have to put $100 in and then pay this person. That makes more sense to me because I know like if I go overseas and go shopping in Europe, right. The exchange rate can change at any point. So it's the same concept, the exchange rate. My money could be worth more today versus less. And I think where I see myself going with this is like next year at some point I may have some crypto or Bitcoin or whatever just sitting there that I spend. So that's my spending money that I may have sitting there just a little bit, a tiny bit, not a lot.
Erin Gregor:
And then just start kind of playing with that from a spending perspective. What do you call them? What are the holders?
Gary Leland:
Hodlers.
Erin Gregor:
Hodlers. I'm just holding on right now.
Gary Leland:
You're hoddling.
Erin Gregor:
Hoddling.
Gary Leland:
Which is the correct term.
Erin Gregor:
Okay yes. So I'm just hoddling this stuff and I'm like, I don't want to be spending it because like I said, it could be worth less or more.
Gary Leland:
But if you do that method I was saying though, which a lot of people want you to do is to go buy the $100 worth of Bitcoin while you're paying him $100, so your Bitcoin is always the same. You're actually losing money because you're paying fees.
Erin Gregor:
Yes.
Gary Leland:
So you're actually losing money and they say oh you should do that because you're supporting the Bitcoin network because the more transactions, the more liquidity it is in the network and the more liquidity there is, the more chance institutions will go into it. Because institutions wouldn't go into like a theorium because there's not enough liquidity. There's not enough movement but there is in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is starting to get that size. So you're supporting the Bitcoin network by doing that. But you're losing money when you do it. But you know, if I pay someone in Bitcoin and they say, like the guy said, you've got to pay me in Bitcoin and then you know, I said hey I don't like your work. I just want a refund. I expect Bitcoin back.
Gary Leland:
But if he says hey I want cash and I go hey I'd rather pay in Bitcoin and he goes okay send me $300 worth of Bitcoin. Well if I cancel, I'm probably going to get $300 worth of Bitcoin back.
Erin Gregor:
Do you have protection like you typically ... like if I were to buy somebody something in PayPal and they didn't deliver, I've got protection. Do you have protection in these apps when you're paying through Bitcoin?
Gary Leland:
No. No, I don't think you do. Yeah. I don't think you do.
Erin Gregor:
It's another thing to consider.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. I think that's why PayPal doesn't let anyone really work with the Bitcoin through their sites and stuff like that because they can't regulate whether the people got it or not. People say I never got my ... That's why you can't pay on Coinbase with PayPal, because that's what I was trying to get at because people will say oh I want to buy Bitcoin and they PayPal Coinbase $8,000 and PayPal sends him ... Coinbase gives him a Bitcoin and they contact PayPal who said I never got that Bitcoin. I don't know where they said it, but it didn't come to my wallet. And then they don't have a way to really prove it because they don't have the analytics in place to track Bitcoin transactions and stuff so they just don't allow it at all. That's what I've been told, because you used to evidently at one time be able to buy on Coinbase PayPal. I think they had too much fraud, especially when it started jacking up.
Gary Leland:
Going to $17,000 and people were paying 17 and then it started falling down and going geez I'm losing all this money. Everybody was trying to-
Erin Gregor:
Get out of it.
Gary Leland:
Get out of their purchases.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah, that was a time when people were remortgaging their houses to put it all in Bitcoin.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. They were spending more than they could afford. Which is what I always say, don't spend more than you can afford.
Erin Gregor:
Scary.
Gary Leland:
It is scary.
Erin Gregor:
All right, well I feel like we've probably filled everyone's heads with a lot of different things right now, so probably a good time.
Gary Leland:
Well, you know as we go along though, let's tell everybody to make sure they know. As we go along more and more of this will make sense because you'll be hearing it over and over.
Erin Gregor:
Yes.
Gary Leland:
And things that don't make sense now, by episode 10 will start making sense.
Erin Gregor:
100% and what I was going to say like today we mentioned wallets and getting off wallets and the next episode I want to dig into wallets because it's shows you my lack of research, but I didn't even know I should be getting all my stuff out of the wallet. That was something you told me [crosstalk 00:39:25].
Gary Leland:
And you've got a treasure I saw there. So that's cool.
Erin Gregor:
Yes. So we'll be talking about this next week. My treasure. Because I didn't want it and we'll talk ... I didn't want it on my computer. I didn't want it on my phone. I want it off. So I will by next week get my money... my Bitcoin onto this and give a report of how easy it is.
Gary Leland:
You know your Bitcoin will always be on the blockchain.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. But then it'll sit here versus-
Gary Leland:
No, you're just putting your keys in there. Bitcoin is .. that's one other thing people get confused with. They think they're moving money around like gold bars. But the Bitcoin is always on the blockchain and never leaves the blockchain. You're just moving the keys that show you own that Bitcoin into that because whoever owns the keys, as I said earlier, you don't control your keys, you don't own your Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
And this is like if Coinbase gets hacked they could take every ... but if I have the keys on here and they get hacked, [crosstalk 00:40:19].
Gary Leland:
Yeah because that's all they would do if they hacked them is they'd take the keys.
Erin Gregor:
Keys.
Gary Leland:
Because there's no Bitcoin on Coinbase, just the keys.
Erin Gregor:
See this is why we need a whole episode.
Gary Leland:
I think people need to understand that when you say get hacked, because I hear a lot of people ask this. This is one of the top four misunderstandings in Bitcoin is that ... I just did a show on this today that comes out tomorrow, the top four misunderstandings. This is why it's fresh on my mind is that Bitcoin is easy to hack, but Bitcoin has never been hacked. The blockchain has never been hacked ever. It's exchanges that use bad security and maybe keep the keys in an online wallet that can be accessed by hacking. So to say Bitcoin is not safe because it's been hacked is exactly like saying the US dollar is not safe because banks had been robbed. You wouldn't quit using the dollar because a bank was robbed. You go, they robbed that savings and loan. I need some yen or something. I'm not taking a chance on this US dollar anymore.
Gary Leland:
Well, that's the same thing with Bitcoin. It's like a bank being robbed. Just because an exchange has been robbed, which is like a bank, that doesn't mean Bitcoin's not safe, which is like a dollar. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Erin Gregor:
I do, but wasn't there a big thing where a bunch of people lost a lot of Bitcoin like four or five years ago?
Gary Leland:
Yeah Mount Gox. It was Mount Gox. It was the biggest loss. It was one of the first exchanges when the guy Mark Carpolis, when he bought Mt. Gox, the guy that sold them to it said hey this security on this pretty much sucks. You really need to ... the guy built it, Mt. Gox, he had a site from dungeon and dragons, that's a dungeon and dragons thing, Mount Gox, and he was sitting around one night buying some Bitcoin and goes this process sucks. So he coded up a thing from an old domain name he had and they made an exchange and then he started seeing the law on money transfers and he realized he could get in big problems. So he sold it to a guy in Japan who was from France named Mark Carpolis. He told him this is not a secure site. He really needs security. The guy never did anything.
Gary Leland:
People were leaving their Bitcoin on exchanges or their keys, not your keys, not your Bitcoins. Someone came in, took all the keys and it was the biggest Bitcoin robbery and people lost thousands and thousands, now millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Some of them would be millionaire and billionaires probably now, but they got their Bitcoins stolen, but it's the same thing. You left it in the bank and that bank got robbed because they didn't have their security system on. They left the window open. I'm just trying to put it into a bank scenario.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Gary Leland:
So all those people, but Bitcoin didn't get hacked when that happened. All that money's still on the blockchain. It's just someone else owns the keys.
Erin Gregor:
Okay.
Gary Leland:
All the Bitcoins still in the blockchain. Someone said the other day, Annapolis, I can't think of his name right off the top of my head. He said that they were asked if it was worried about a nation state hacking into Bitcoin. He said that really is ... Bitcoin is too big for anyone to hack into Bitcoin now, because first of all, they would have to covertly without anyone knowing, buy thousands of dollars worth, I mean a tremendous amount of [inaudible 00:43:30] chips and mining machines. So they'd have to get all of this on the slide where no one noticed all these machines going there. Then they would have to resource tons of power to mining Bitcoin. And after two weeks it would be seen when the block was leveled and they'd get cut off. So they would redo the chain because they know what would happen.
Gary Leland:
So they would have spent hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to get nothing. It's too big now for that to happen, so Bitcoin is not going to be hacked. So that's the thing pretty much I think people can get out of their mind that's going to be hacked. It's just where you leave your Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
You've got to be careful.
Gary Leland:
Your biggest susceptibility now is the $5 wrench attack-
Erin Gregor:
Which is?
Gary Leland:
Someone comes with a lead pipe or a wrench and threatens to hit you in the face if you don't give him that.
Erin Gregor:
If I get it on this. It's not on this yet though.
Gary Leland:
No, but that's your biggest threat. You don't have to worry about online. You have to worry about, and that's called the $5 wrench attack.
Erin Gregor:
Or a fire, right? Like I need to put this in a fireproof thing.
Gary Leland:
Well you do, but you can still access your Bitcoin with your seed phrase that it'll give you, so even if that got destroyed, you still could rebuild it with your secret seed phrase.
Erin Gregor:
his is starting ... okay.
Gary Leland:
When you set that up it'll give you some words and you need to write them down.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. So hopefully those didn't get burned too.
Gary Leland:
You put those in a safety deposit.
Erin Gregor:
I'm not remembering them.
Gary Leland:
Put those in a safety deposit box.
Erin Gregor:
Okay.
Gary Leland:
And then at the end of the world comes and you know they're going to take your money, switch wallets real quick because they'll go to your bank and get your secrets.
Erin Gregor:
All right well we'll talk about wallets next week. I know, I'm excited. I talk about all these because I feel like I'm not technical enough to leave it on my computer. What if my computer crashes. So all of these types of questions I have, we'll ask next week.
Gary Leland:
I think we have so much stuff to cover.
Erin Gregor:
Oh my Gosh.
Gary Leland:
We're covering a lot and we're bouncing around on these first few episodes. You know, we're starting one way and we're bouncing back and forth on the other stuff because we've got a lot of stuff to cover and it all-
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And for these I want to get just a basic understanding. Yeah, there's bouncing but then you know we didn't even really talk about mining. So to get involved in a mining perspective, what does that mean? And I know you used to do a lot of mining. Are you so mining?
Gary Leland:
Yes, I am still mining.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. All right. So we'll talk about that.
Gary Leland:
People need to understand that we don't talk about this during the week either. We just get on here and talk.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
It's not like we've been planning all week our conversation.
Erin Gregor:
No, I have a little talk that I think of questions as I'm like doing other Bitcoin stuff. But yeah-
Gary Leland:
Because some people, I think some shows they get together all week and they plan out their show. We're like just flowing with it here. You know?
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And I'm just asking questions and Gary-
Gary Leland:
But now that I know the subject next week I'll be a little more prepared with the wallet.
Erin Gregor:
Yes. It'll be ... well it's on the sheet, Gary. You're supposed to be looking at the Google sheet.
Gary Leland:
I didn't look at the sheet and I'm the one that told you about it too.
Erin Gregor:
I know you're like start a Google sheet. I'm like okay. Then I'm like, well it's on the Google sheet.
Gary Leland:
I'll look. I won't make this mistake again. I promise you because I was kind of down on myself during the show that I was getting ... that I wasn't as prepared as I should have been.
Erin Gregor:
No, you're totally fine. I mean to me this stuff is, we're talking about it, but the mining, not the mining, that's not next week.
Gary Leland:
The wallet.
Erin Gregor:
Next week is going to be wallets, but then the four types of wallets. So you're ready now. You're ready.
Gary Leland:
I am.
Erin Gregor:
All right. Well cool Gary. Thank you so much. Have an awesome Thanksgiving and hopefully we get some people shopping and using these apps and then if they want to learn more about you, so you-
Gary Leland:
Just go to my Twitter account. I'm Gary Leland on Twitter, one word.
Erin Gregor:
Gary Leland. And then it's BitBlockBoom.com
Gary Leland:
BitBlockBoom.com. That's my conference.
Erin Gregor:
That's a mouthful to say.
Gary Leland:
It is. People have a hard time saying this for some reason.
Erin Gregor:
I want to say bloom. Bit Bot.
Gary Leland:
You can't say it three times real quick.
Erin Gregor:
It's going to be when our children are grown and they have their own children or my kids are grown and your grandkids are grown, it'll be one of their tongue twisters.
Gary Leland:
I got my Bitcoin at Bit Block Boom.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. They're going to be saying it every ... it's going to be ... when the kids ask me about the Peter Piper pepper one, they're like, do you know that? I'm like-
Gary Leland:
Peter Piper picked a Peck of pickled peppers. How many peck of peppers did Peter Piper pick? Peter Piper picked so many peppers he had to put them back in the pickled pepper batch.
Erin Gregor:
I didn't know it so I'm like sorry.
Gary Leland:
We did that one as a kid. We did that when we was a kid. I never could do Sally sells sea shells by the seashore.
Erin Gregor:
Or the other one. A wood pecker. How much would a woodpecker peck if ... I don't know. Anyway. All right cool Gary.
Gary Leland:
Now we're just rambling everybody.
Erin Gregor:
We're rambling.
Gary Leland:
We're having fun. We're having a fun. So what's going on with you? I never hear you promoting anything. You are nice to help me promote. You got anything you're promoting?
Erin Gregor:
One of my other things that I do is innovation calling. So that's another podcast I do where we focus on ... I mean we do talk blockchain. We talk about businesses more at a higher level, but we're doing really well. We're hitting our 200,000 download of our episode.
Gary Leland:
That's cool.
Erin Gregor:
We're a year in and we do these live events. So we've got one coming up next month, well December 11th, so it'll be this month when this comes out. But we do a live show where we feature women in tech. So it's been really good. And that's-
Gary Leland:
Oh I see that on LinkedIn a lot. You're on LinkedIn a lot promoting that.
Erin Gregor:
I am on LinkedIn a lot. But it's been a really cool ... This is why I always tell people to start, like just explore things. Like even with this, I'm a very ... I love getting involved in stuff. I love educating myself, and the whole reason innovation calling came up was because of my event that I was doing, the entrepreneur summit, and I just saw this, I saw a ton of money going to South by Southwest for companies to try to attract talent because a lot of these companies they need blockchain, they need coders who know how to code blockchain, right? They're trying to get in all these emerging technologies, but attracting talent is extremely difficult in these more specialized places.
Erin Gregor:
And so we started innovation calling to feature companies, whether it's the Fortune 500 is doing cool stuff or startups to be able to pair. So it's been cool that that's ... it's been working and we're hopefully, I can't say it yet, but we've got a deal going with a huge company here. They want to leverage our podcast to help promote an initiative they have. So I mean you just never know. If you're curious and I know you're the King of curiosity and I'm just going to do it. You just never know what can bloom from it. You know, so.
Gary Leland:
I agree completely. You can't gain anything if you don't take the chance.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
You just got to go for it.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And you can make a plan of what you think it's going to be, but then-
Gary Leland:
You don't even need a plan. Just go for it. You know what I mean? You don't even need a plan, just start doing it. You'll make the plan as you go along. I've seen too many people make a plan and it takes them forever to make that plan.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
And they never do it because they spent all that time making a plan. So.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. Well, and it's funny because now that I've been doing a lot more listening of things on Bitcoin just to really continue to educate myself. And I told you I think a month ago or so, I'm like, well, I'll never be mining ... I'll never mine. So I just want to invest. I'll never mind. Now I'm like, well maybe. Maybe I will get a machine. I don't know. We'll see. So I've got a lot of questions about that, but you just never know.
Gary Leland:
You never know. It's like a moneymaking machine. It's like a money tree. Really it's hard to ... well we'll talk about all that online.
Erin Gregor:
Are you still selling over at crypto cousins?
Gary Leland:
No, no, no because those were mining [inaudible 00:51:09] coins or chip coins and-
Erin Gregor:
[crosstalk 00:51:11].
Gary Leland:
Well those are so cheap now that you can't make a profit off of them. For instance, we had a machine that mined, the Z cash, and Z cash was $500. $500 you can make your money back and eight, nine months. Now Z cash is 50 bucks. It'll take you five years to make your money back. It's not something we want to sell people because we can't show them a payback. You know what I mean? I'm still using those machines so they're still mine-able, but they just not making ... hopefully the people who bought them were using them full blast when they bought him because after the crash prices have dropped so much.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. See. So I have a lot of questions. I'll save them for the mining episode and a couple of down the road. But yeah, that's what's going on.
Gary Leland:
Understandable.
Erin Gregor:
And I'm going to Disneyland in two days.
Gary Leland:
Oh, that's even more exciting because your kids are the age to enjoy it.
Erin Gregor:
They are the age to enjoy it. So that'll be fun. But I will be using my Fold app for Uber. Unfortunately I could not get the plane tickets on it, but yeah so I'll be using it for Uber and some eating out. So I'll be making some Bitcoin while I'm on vacation.
Gary Leland:
Yes you will. I'm going to be going January to Miami for the North Texas Bitcoin conference. I'll be using some Uber-
Erin Gregor:
Did you just say the North Texas Bitcoin?
Gary Leland:
The North America Bitcoin conference.
Erin Gregor:
Okay I was like-
Gary Leland:
Yeah North American Bitcoin conference, and in Tennessee. So I'll be doing a lot of traveling with my Fold app as well.
Erin Gregor:
Maybe we should ask Fold to work with them, like send them a tweet and say, can you please get American airlines on this thing? Because that would benefit me.
Gary Leland:
Well, I'm interviewing the president from Fold, I think Friday or Monday.
Erin Gregor:
Okay can you add that to your questions and ask?
Gary Leland:
I will. I will. I'll say Erin wants to know when American airlines is coming.
Erin Gregor:
That's all I care. Marriott and American Airlines, I'm set, like I'm seriously. So anyway. All right, Gary, well have an awesome Thanksgiving.
Gary Leland:
I enjoyed it. Same to you and same to the listeners, but they're probably listening to this after Thanksgiving, so I hope they had one.
Erin Gregor:
Yes, happy holiday. We'll just throw out a happy holidays and then it'll cover everything.
Gary Leland:
Sounds good.
Erin Gregor:
All right. Thank you, Gary.
Gary Leland:
Adios.
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