America’s $37 Trillion Financial Reset Just Started - Do This Now! | Andrei Jikh

20:12So it's the fundamental rules of Bitcoin have never been changed. But if you were like a rogue nation or a government and you wanted to destroy Bitcoin because you're like, hey, this Bitcoin thing looks cool. Like, how would I control it? Well, I would figure out who the developers are and I might offer them like a salary, like 20 or 30 million dollars a year. and I would tell them, I want you to make certain propositions in the software that changes the core aspect of what Bitcoin is. And I would put out a huge propaganda campaign that's like, what is Bitcoin? Is it really gold? Is it really digital gold?

20:45Is it really money? Or is it a database of all sorts of immutable information, right? So here's specifically what I'm talking about. This kind of gets nerdy. But there is this feature inside of Bitcoin called the op return feature. Op underscore return. And that feature has an 80-byte limit, meaning that's the storage capacity of it. It's very small. It's about the size of a tweet. You can attach certain random points of data like metadata or some kind of proof or some kind of message. Fun fact, in 2017, during the block wars, the core development team, which runs the Bitcoin software, these guys are like the smartest, like nerdiest people, right?

21:28They do not like having a debate with people. So they shut people down. They censored people. And so the big blockers, the people who wanted Bitcoin to become a currency, they made a decentralized Twitter through this op return mechanism. And the way it worked is you could send a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a Bitcoin from your own wallet back to your own wallet. So you sent the money back to yourself and it cost you like a fraction of a penny. But in that transaction, you embedded a small tweet and somebody made that into a website. It was like a decentralized immutable. A small tweet into that data.

22:00Into that data, yes. A text, a piece of text. Basically. Right. And so they recreated a decentralized immutable Twitter on the blockchain. That's how it was used. But again, it has that limit of 80 bytes. Actually, I brought a cool thing to show you what that looks like. So here is an image of an 80-byte-sized image. Can you tell what that is? No. You can't really tell what that is. That looks like Trump. Heat up your 4th of July at The Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under$300 and make every gathering one to remember. Give your outdoor space a glow up. Whatever your budget is, the savings on seasonal plants starting at$5.

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22:59Graham Stephan:it does kind of i could see it the suit the blue suit and the hair that is actually it is it is it is wow did you figure that i had no idea actually but it's hard to see holy crap it's really hard to see right that was good jack good job okay so so right now the fundamental disconnect in the core development team is that they want to upgrade bitcoin to remove the limit of the op return, right? They want to get rid of the 80-byte limit. What does that mean? That means that within a transaction, people will be able to include images and videos up to four megabytes in size. So now that image that looks like nothing to most people, unless you're an autist like Jack, that's the real image.

23:50Wow. Right? That's the Trump image. Okay, but that's like a good example. What's the benefit of doing that, though? Well, the benefit is now you can essentially have programmable money, right? Like you can have Bitcoin that's somewhat programmable. You could have NFTs on it. You can do a lot of like more advanced things is sort of like what they're saying. Sure. But the Bitcoin community disagrees and they're like, this is the worst thing we can do. Because imagine you're essentially bloating now the software, the whole ecosystem with BS, right? Like with images. And imagine if I was like a pizza file person, right?

24:29Wanted to send illegal images or videos to somebody. And they didn't want to be stopped. They didn't want to be censored. They could now use Bitcoin and attach an image or a video that's illegal to transmit into this transaction. Right? So if I were a government, I might want to regulate that. I might be like, hey, all these nodes that are handling all these transactions, you guys are transporting and transferring all these illegal images.

24:58Graham Stephan:But here's the thing. Wouldn't that all be on the blockchain? And then eventually, if that were ever to be cashed out, you could trace it. Correct. And so the person who cashes out five transactions down the line 10 years later, they're going to get caught. It's not about who cashes out. It's about you transmitting things that are not necessarily something you agree with transmitting. You have no control over this because they remove that limit. But their argument is like, yeah, but you'll be able to do like NFTs on it. People like Michael Saylor and people like myself, investors, were like, I'm buying Bitcoin because it's the best place to preserve my economic energy, right?

25:34It's like the best place for me to put my time. and I don't want Bitcoin to be graffitied over with data. Bitcoin is not meant to be non-economic data. It's purely for economic information, not NFTs and videos and pictures, right? So there's a big divide in the community right now and the core development team, they're proposing that this change goes through. They want to get rid of this limit. The people on the opposite side, the people who oppose it, not that you need to know this, but it's the knots development team and this guy, I think his name is Luke Dash Jr., which a lot of people don't like, but he's like, let's just keep it as is.

26:13And a lot of investors are like, let's not change anything. Bitcoin's not broken. Let's not upgrade it. Let's not do anything. So the most likely outcome that will happen in October, this upgrade's gonna happen in October, is that there will be no upgrade. So the nodes and the miners, they're not going to upgrade their software to software 30. They're gonna keep it at 29. That's most likely what's gonna happen. So only people like Michael Saylor really understand what's happening. But I think in the next few weeks, there's going to be a huge wealth transfer. So from a 30 ,000 foot view, what is your strongest argument for Bitcoin and against Bitcoin?

26:46What is the strongest argument for Bitcoin? Oh, man. If you were to pitch me, I don't have very much Bitcoin. Maybe like 1 % of my portfolio is Bitcoin. And my portfolio, it's not that big, guys. But like, actually, let me say. It is actually really big. It's half a percent in Bitcoin, I think.

27:03Graham Stephan:Pretend he is Alex. Sure. Pitch Alex on Bitcoin. He doesn't own anything. And we've always joked, Alex, if you're watching this, whenever Alex buys, that's the thing. Alex is our old producer, for those that aren't aware. Alex. I love Alex. So this is borrowed directly from Jeff Booth. This is not my thing. But Jeff Booth says something really, really profound. So he says that the natural state of the world and the economy is deflationary. Do you understand what that means? Mm-hmm. Yeah, stuff goes down in prices. Stuff goes down in price. Like if you were to just have a fixed supply of money, like let's say I had a hypothetical$100 bill.

27:43I don't have one to show you, but like I laid it out and I was like, this is the world's money. Like it's$100. There's never going to be more of it. So naturally, the price of everything in that world would always go down forever. It wouldn't go up because as we get better at producing stuff, as we get more efficient, we invent better technologies. the price goes down, right? But for some reason, we don't find ourselves living in that world. We live in a world where prices of everything goes up forever, right? That's counterintuitive to how the universe should work. Why? Well, it's because the government has this special ability to make more than just this$100, right?

28:22So now if we duplicate that$100, the price of everything now is essentially doubled because it costs twice as much to buy that same amount of stuff. Because the amount of stuff didn't double, it was the amount of paper that doubled. Right with me so far? Okay. So now that money, that excess piece of paper, all of that economic energy, it needs to go somewhere to maintain and preserve its value. So that's when we hear, oh, did you hear stocks went up to an all-time high and gold reached an all-time high, real estate reached an all-time high. It's because the amount of money keeps increasing and it's always trying to find a place to go to preserve its value, right?

29:02So it's basically like the actual value of something doesn't necessarily, the value of an asset doesn't necessarily increase over time, but the amount of dollars that it takes to purchase that does increase. Exactly. Right. So when you compare that asset to a benchmark like the dollar, it looks like that thing went up in price, right? You're like, oh, well, you know, gold went up or real estate went up and now it costs more dollars. That's how we visualize it. But then if you were to take all of those things, right, and compare it against Bitcoin, then literally all of those assets are also deflationary against Bitcoin.

29:43Like take real estate, for example, a couple of years ago when Bitcoin was at, what, 20 ,000, it took 20 Bitcoin to buy a house. Now it's like four Bitcoin, like a little over four to buy a house. and it'll continue to be lower and lower and lower. It'll take less and less Bitcoin. So all assets are being demonetized against a money that is fixed. It is the only thing that exists in this world that is stationary, that is fixed, a true money. And so through the lens and through the perspective of Bitcoin, everything is going down against it. So I have a couple of questions about that then. what is the difference then between like Bitcoin and gold or Bitcoin and silver or raw materials that there is a fixed amount of?

30:31Right. And you could take the same exact example for gold. Right. It's like, okay, with this much gold right now, you could buy like a crazy mansion probably or a really nice house. Sure. You know, with this much gold back in the day, you could have bought more. Yeah. Well, gold has certain qualities that are not quite on par to Bitcoin. And also there's not an exact finite amount of gold. There's also an inflation to gold as we discover and as we dig up more of it. I mean, we can find one on the meteorite tomorrow for all we know. So like gold is not necessarily finite.

31:02Graham Stephan:It's funny you say that because we just had RJ Mitty on the podcast and he said he bought into a penny stock where apparently they owned the rights to an asteroid that is made of gold, full of gold that they're going to find a way to mine. Right. So imagine if you're not going to. But imagine if that were to happen. Like, what would happen? It would decrease the value of gold. Right. The deflation would, or the inflation of gold would increase, and therefore the value would be suppressed. You know what's funny is that they found a way to make gold. Just like you could make a diamond in a lab, like a lab-grown diamond.

31:37They figured out alchemy?

31:38Graham Stephan:Yes. How? They found a way to make gold. The problem, however, because this was a big discovery, is that it was - It costs more to make the gold than the gold is worth, right? Yes. But the other is that the gold was very unstable. And so they were only able to make the gold appear for a short amount of time before it disappeared. Right. But the fact is, there is a possibility. Jack thinks I'm joking. I'm not joking. I don't think you're joking. Look it up. Look it up. Where's it going if it's disappearing? It's just going away. It's like, poof. It was unstable enough to be a solid form for longer than however many, like a fraction of a second or whatever.

32:15Graham Stephan:But point being is that they could find a way. just to manufacture gold and have synthetic gold that would be identical to the real thing at some point in the future. No, I believe it. Yeah, I believe we will have the technology someday to make and reproduce gold on some affordable economic level. We can't yet, but maybe in the future we could. But Bitcoin is programmed to be fixed forever. Most investing platforms feel exactly the same. You sign in, you see some numbers, and that's it. But the truth is, serious investors need more than just a place to park money. That's exactly why today's sponsor is Public, the investing platform built for people who actually want to understand and grow their portfolio.

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33:25And it takes less than five minutes to open an account. All you have to do is go to public.com slash iced, or you can click the link down below in the description. Once again, that is public.com slash iced to get started today. Paid for by public investing. Full disclosures down below in the description. So then what should the average person do with this information? If the natural state of the economy is supposed to be deflationary, things are supposed to get cheaper as time goes on. But because we're working off the U.S. dollar, which we could just print more of, it's costing more dollars to buy goods and services.

33:53If someone has this information, what should they be doing with their money? I think it depends contextually like what that person's situation is. But like for me, I've diversified enough to where if all of this is wrong and all of this is crazy, I should still be OK. But for me, Bitcoin is a roughly 30%, 30 to 35 % of my net worth. So it's kind of high for most people, but it's still not crazy for most like Bitcoin people. That's pretty conservative, if anything. So that's just my approach to it. But it's funny because like when I look at crypto, I feel like it's such an appealing industry for a lot of people because there's this promise of like get rich quick.

34:32It's like a thousand fold of your money. and what I find really interesting is that people make a decision that sounds intuitive, but it's completely wrong. Like for example, I see a lot of people that are like, oh, I think XRP, let's just use that for example, is going to go to$1 ,000, right? It's like once you've convinced yourself that it's going to go to the moon like that, you've kind of already lost. And at that point, when people have convinced themselves it has the chance to go with 1 ,000X, they put most of their money into it, which is actually completely counterintuitive. What instead you should be doing is allocating a very small amount to a conviction like that, right?

35:11It makes sense because then you work backwards. You say, okay, if I think this thing's going to 1 ,000x, I'm not going to mortgage my house and then put everything into it. I'm going to instead work backwards and say, like, let's say I put in$10 ,000 and at 1 ,000x, then I end up with, what, a million, right? cool now I made a lot of money but if you sell your house so the equity in your house and let's say you're like I'm gonna go all in and I'm gonna put in a hundred thousand because I know it's gonna thousand x okay fine but the difference between you being right in that scenario is the difference between making a million dollars which is still nice and making 10 million dollars there is a difference there for sure but the pain between having a million and having 10 million is way less than the pain of being completely wrong and losing your house.

35:58Does that make sense? That does make sense. So if you really believe this thing's going to 1 ,000x, don't put your entire life savings into it. Put in a smaller amount.

36:08Graham Stephan:Does that make sense? Yeah, I like Alex Becker, his approach. He made a video a while back when we were talking a few months ago with Ethereum. Yeah. And Ethereum at the time, I think it was like$1 ,500. This was recently when everything kind of fell. and he says guys i think there's a 50 50 chance you're going to lose everything that ethereum's going to go from 1500 it's good you're going to lose all of your money right but i think there's a 50 chance it's going to go to 6 000 okay and so that's an asymmetric reward yes risk versus reward that hey you could it's a 50 50 you lose but in the other 50 you could 3x your investment right and i thought you know what that's it's a great phrasing right and i invested an amount where I'm prepared for that 50%.

36:51Graham Stephan:For sure. And I bought in at 1 ,500 bucks. It's all risk management. And now it's 4 ,200. That's exactly a great point that you brought up. It's all risk management. So if you see an asymmetric bet, that's exactly what I'm describing. Don't put your entire life savings into it. Just put enough to where if you lose it, it's not a big deal. And if you make it, it's still a lot of money. That's essentially a roundabout way of saying that. So how are you investing your money now? If you have 30 to 35 % in Bitcoin, what is the other 65 % looking like? It's real estate, cash, stocks. and miscellaneous things.

37:22And what's the best investment you've ever made? The best investment? Definitely by far Bitcoin. By far. Really? Yeah. And it's not even close? Not even close. What's the worst investment you've ever made? Oh, worst investment? The drone? I mean, that's not an investment. That's like a consumer thing. I would say probably so far, honestly, out of my bucket, real estate. Really? Yeah. But have you made money in real estate? I still made money, but it wasn't as much money as I could have made if I had bought literally anything else. If it was like the S &P 500 or anything else. NFTs. That's not an investment.

37:56I never considered that an investment. I considered it as like a marketing expense for YouTube. But, Graham, you buy a lot of Ethereum, right?

38:05Graham Stephan:Yes and no. I bought at$1 ,500 and I've not touched it since then. I've not added on to it. I've not, yeah. I still have that and it's up almost 200 % since then. What's your theory behind why Ethereum will be valuable someday? I think the fact that Bitcoin is as valuable, I just, it's a pure speculation bet that some of that's going to funnel into Ethereum. That's it? It's just like it's like a second place thing. Sure. Yeah. What? Yeah. But then again, when you look at Ethereum in comparison to my entire portfolio, I think it's like 0.1%. Okay. So it really, I don't care. If it goes back down to 1500, I don't care.

38:42Graham Stephan:This sounds so out of touch. So out of touch. there was a rolex oyster quartz that i wanted and it was twelve thousand five hundred dollars and i thought i would invest in ethereum to pay for the watch okay and i was going to sell it when it hit like twenty thousand in profit to be able to cash out pay the tax and that way i get a free watch and i've just kept it and now i'm up quite a bit so i got a free watch times many times over from that investment that that was all it is it was it was the same thing as me going to a casino except it was that 50 50 risk reward right where i was like all right 50 chance i lose it or 50 chance i could three act and just buy the watch that i wanted right but you're still holding on to it yeah i haven't sold it okay do you buy any ethereum jack i don't think i have any ethereum i might have like like like a couple grand okay in ethereum five grand in it okay yeah from my understanding and and like this is again that goes back to like risk versus reward management is uh i think tom lee from funstreet i don't know if you guys had him on yet no um and uh i guess uh larry fink from blackrock this is like their thesis for why ethereum could someday be like the thing but here's why i could never like put in a ton of money so so here's kind of how it looks for ethereum so ethereum is supposed to be the blockchain that will be the rails for the tokenization of a lot of assets across the world including physical assets like watches art and real estate and things like that.

40:10So we're going to digitize and bring things like real estate onto the blockchain, Ethereum's blockchain. So like, for example, JP Morgan, they tokenized, what is it? Treasury bonds. So they actually tokenized treasury bonds on Ethereum. And then BlackRock tokenized money market funds on Ethereum's blockchain. And I thought that was really kind of interesting because I could imagine a world where, for example, like, let's say I'm an investor and I want to buy a REIT, right? But I don't want like a specific REIT that I see as an ETF. Instead, I'm like, you know, I love Hawaii and I love this street or this area, like this area called Lanakai, right?

40:48I think it's going to be a strategic street for real estate. So I want specifically this section or specifically that house. And maybe that corporation or that owner could issue some percentage of that house. Like, let's say, like the issue 50 % or 10 % or whatever it is. So that on my app, on my brokerage app, I could be like, you know what, instead of buying an ETF, that's a REIT, I could buy this area like Summerlin or like Henderson or this specific street. So you're going to get so granular because of this tokenization and it's going to be accessible to everyone. And I think it's a possible reality that that happens.

41:24So and that's the same thing for watches, maybe cars. It's like, well, you know what? I want this like 20 million dollar Ferrari collection from Hamilton, the guy you had on, right? And, but I can't afford a Ferrari. So maybe that guy issues some percentage equity in his collection on the blockchain. Maybe that's Ethereum. Does that make sense? Yeah. So now I could buy it in my brokerage app. Like that's going to happen. That's what BlackRock sees is going to happen. And presuming that it's going to be on Ethereum's blockchain, that's when you get all the gas fees and all the burning things, burning mechanisms.

41:57And that's when Ethereum could become deflationary and maybe that's how it becomes valuable. But the point I'm trying to make is like creating this like universe, which might happen someday is these are assumptions of assumptions of assumptions on assumptions, right? Like we are making so many assumptions about it that it like, is it going to be this way? Will it actually be Ethereum or will it be Solana or it'll be Cardano or something else? We don't know. And so the more assumptions there are baked in, the more you could assume the price will go up. Like in Bitcoin's case, the difference between Bitcoin at a dollar and a thousand, there's far more assumptions that were in place than there are from a hundred thousand to a million.

42:38Like that's only now a 10X. And that's because so many of Bitcoin's early assumptions, like adoption by Wall Street and the securitization with ETFs and all these things, like they've happened. Adoption by corporations, adoptions by countries. These are all things that have happened already. So now the jump between 100 ,000 to a million is only 10x. It's still a lot of money, but it's nowhere near the jump between a dollar to a thousand dollars. That's a thousandx because less assumptions had come true.

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43:29Graham Stephan:varies 18 plus. What has to happen for Bitcoin to hit a million dollars? We talk about like these cycles, like these mega cycles that Bitcoin goes through. I don't know if we'll see another huge one. I think it'll be a slow, but by slow, I mean like still like 20 to 30 % a year, melt up to a million from here on until like 2030 or whatever the year is going to be. Like nothing has to change. Just keeps on going at the same rate that it is. You take all the crazy assumptions out of it, I still think it ends up at a million. Like inevitably. So isn't Bitcoin about one-tenth the market cap currently of gold?

44:04Graham Stephan:Yeah, about one-thirteenth or so, yeah. I can't help but think that it has to be at some point one-third of gold. Or half of gold. I think so too. I think it's inevitable, yeah. But then I can't help but think, if I think that way, It has to be priced in. Yeah. Like that, this isn't like some mysterious sort of like no one's ever thought of that before. People are paying the price today with everything currently priced in as to what they believe is going to happen with it. Do you remember Chris Camillo from Dumb Money? Mm-hmm. I really like his thesis on Bitcoin. Like he does not care about Bitcoin.

44:38He's like, I'm just a pure like social, what is this thing?

44:41Graham Stephan:Social arb. Social arb, right. Social arbitrage. And his entire thesis is really simple. It's just a reshuffling of monetary assets from things like gold and real estate and all the things that we will inherit from our parents and our grandparents. And it's like, well, thanks for the$2 million house. I can't afford the property taxes on this thing. I'm going to sell that. And gold, thanks, but I don't really get gold. It's not part of my generation. I'm going to sell that. I'm going to put some of it in Bitcoin. I'm not going to put all of it maybe, but some of it. And it's just like a simple reshuffling of assets and money from all of those back into Bitcoin.

45:16and a little bit from each little bucket, from bonds, from gold, from watches, from cars, from real estate, they might not be able to afford to keep up with. And it goes into Bitcoin. And that's like a slow melt up to a million.

45:28Graham Stephan:Gold is becoming cooler now. It is, yeah, that's true. That's the other thing, is that I'm seeing a lot of people our own age now interested in gold just for the fact that it's gone up in price. They don't get about it though. But they just know, hey, it was a thousand bucks five years ago And now it's, you know, almost 4 ,000 an ounce. Just on the basis of that, it makes money. I like it now. And so gold is coming back in style. Whereas before it was kind of unpopular. But it does seem like overall people are more likely to buy Bitcoin who are younger than gold. They had to choose between the two.

46:05I agree. I don't think I'm that particularly old, but I miss the gold train. Like I don't own any gold. I wish I did, but I don't have any. And I imagine the younger generation is totally out of it too. Maybe they're a little more in tune with it now that you said the price has gone up, but I don't own any gold at all. What do you think about altcoins? I think there's a lot of interesting projects. I'm just not into any of them. I think they're a distraction for the most part. I'm just focused on Bitcoin mostly. And even Ethereum, I'm like, I don't know. Like all those assumptions we talked about, they might come true over time, but I'm not interested in venturing beyond it.

46:38Graham Stephan:You know what's going to be really interesting? At some point, they're going to do an ETF of the top 10 crypto holdings. I think so, for sure. Just like the S &P 500. Yeah, I think so. Except of that. Yes. That is going to be very interesting. And I think that is going to spur the market. Because I would place, let's just say I have 5 % of my portfolio in IBIT. Yeah. But then they offer an ETF of the top 10. Right. Oh, man. I would probably put a percent or two into that. Right. I think that is a huge opportunity. Because there's a lot of projects out there that are interesting that I would never invest a dollar into on their own.

47:12Graham Stephan:But I would into an ETF. What's also interesting is that years ago, I did this whole analysis on the top 10 cryptocurrencies by year, going back to like 2015. And the consensus was that really almost all of the profits in cryptocurrency came from Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that the chance of making money on anything else was pretty much like a moonshot. It was like a one in a hundred chance. And so even if you invest in 100 different projects, you're going to break even because 99 % of them are going to lose money. But that one is going to have 100 extra turn. And so it's just going to balance out between how much you make and load.

47:54Graham Stephan:But overall, it was really just the majority of profits came from Bitcoin and Ethereum, and that's it. Yeah, Europe actually had a product, an ETF, that combined the top 10 cryptos for a long time now. but I imagine that if it came in the US, depending on how it was like allocated, if it was weight-based, which I'm guessing it would be like 80 % Bitcoin, 10 % of the, whatever it would be. I think it would be a really interesting product, but I also think it would be kind of like a Trojan horse. I think companies like BlackRock would make a ton of money on the expense ratios and the management fees.

48:22But I think from a performance perspective, they would just be diluting it. Like it's not worth it. I wouldn't be buying it, but I can see how it's interesting too.

48:30Graham Stephan:It's also interesting to see how many brokerage coins are going up in price. Like the BNB? $1 ,000? That's interesting. Wild. Yeah. I'm not messing with any of it, man. I'm just keeping it really simple. Good. Same. I just do IBIT. It's so easy for me just to do IBIT in a stock account, and then I don't have to worry about self-custody, losing access. If you forget the password, It's like I hate all of that. I like the simplicity of Ibit. And I would and all I care about anyway is the investment purpose of it. The downside of Ibit, though, is that the year to date performance is there's a delta of like 6%, which is pretty significant.

49:12Like if you look at Bitcoin's year to date performance, it's six or seven percent higher than Ibit's. And I'm trying to figure out why there's such a big delta. Like that's a big delta. I know the expense ratio plays a small part of that. Very small. But the reason is that the Ibit trades on a price that isn't one-to-one with Bitcoin.

49:33Graham Stephan:So if everyone's buying an Ibit, there's going to be a premium. The stock's going to trade at a higher price than the underlying coin itself because there's more demand. But that also might be, there could be at some point, it trades less than the underlying asset. And there might be an opportunity to arbitrage that if that ever were to happen. But yeah, right now there's so much demand, it's trading at a premium. Right. I mean, that's a lot of premium to give up though, 6 % to 7%. Like imagine if it's 6 % to 7 % every year, compounded over like 20 years. Like that's huge. Isn't that a huge argument for self-custodying it?

50:06Graham Stephan:could be but then you're also paying quite a big spread on a place like coinbase like i remember seeing it recently even a robin hood is actually one of the cheapest places to buy bitcoin it was trading at 116.5 and if i want to buy it i have to pay like 117 and if i want to sell it i sell it for like 115 and that's a robin hood makes their money on that spread but that's a pretty big spread It is, but I don't think it's 1 % right there to buy or sell. For sure. But like 1 % compared to 6 % or 7%, that's still not. Could be too early to tell too. I'd like to see that over 5 or 10 years. That's true.

50:44That's true. We should look at it from 5 to 10.

50:46Graham Stephan:It's a bit new. Right. But yeah, sure. Up until this point, depends if you care about buying the Bitcoin itself. Like what are the advantages of actually buying Bitcoin and custodying it yourself? Well, those coins can't be rehypothecated. that can't be lent against by someone else. If something were to happen, you know you have control, full control over your coins. If an exchange collapses, you have to rely on the government to pay you back and that sometimes takes forever. There's a lot of cool benefits to it. Yeah. What about NFTs? What about them? What happened to NFTs? I don't know, man.

51:19They just, the fad died out, right? The whole, I remember talking about it on my YouTube channel. I'm like, you know when we hit a peak when people are spending millions of dollars on pet rocks? like jpegs of pet rocks yeah i remember those are going for four hundred thousand dollars sure

51:33Graham Stephan:and people were joking that you could just right click on it and then like have the same thing i never understood the nft my theory behind why nfts blew up is it was hugely a result of the government print that's all it was it was the ppp money it was the stimulus packages it was all of that stuff like people didn't know what to do with their money and it was just boredom from sitting at home. And I think that was that phenomenon. And I actually think NFTs will come back, but in a completely different way. Like it's not going to be, Hey, look at my pet rock. It's worth millions of dollars. It'll be maybe more in the digitization of like, like events.

52:09Like if you want to get like some concert tickets or something, that'll be an NFT, you know, or the, maybe depending on how they securitize real estate, maybe those will be some forms of NFTs, but I think they'll come back from a utility perspective, but I don't think they'll be the same as once what they used to be. What about CryptoPunks? Or CryptoKitties? I don't know anything about it. What happened to Bored Apes? I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm not following any of it. I know they're down like 90%. They're down a lot.

52:38Graham Stephan:CryptoPunks seem interesting to me. Yeah, well, doesn't Chris Camillo own like a bunch of them? Dude, Chris, we were talking in like 2021. He was buying, I forget what it was, like these nuclear sheep. and he's like if you buy these nuclear sheep they give milk and the milk you could use to then buy more it sounds dumb it's it's in a video we have it in a video in a vlog we're recording this i didn't understand it but you could like milk these sheep that give that and then use the milk to buy more nuclear sheep and they're they're about to like spawn you can breed these nuclear sheep to like give like offspring but then it's randomized to like one and it's it's sure and it reminds me a bit of like like a game axi infinity i remember that yeah yeah a bit where people were making like thousands of dollars a month playing this game and then like breeding the birds or something i don't jack do you play with this stuff i don't know man i do not play with this stuff this is more up graham's wheelhouse right there breeding and playing with birds milking sheep you put that in the intro i don't know the only alts i have are are just like the same ones i've always had omi and my nfts like the spider-man one and i have no idea what where they're at or what they're doing they're still around i still have them and would you sell them i'd totally sell them yeah like i've forgotten about them but if they're ever worth anything maybe i'll come back to it someday maybe they'll actually return i don't know but they're still around i still have all of them.

54:10I never sold them.

54:11Graham Stephan:What's crazy is that, uh, you know, we used to have this vlog channel, uh, Graham Stephan after hours and all the videos are still there. And we were covering a Logan Paul box break. Okay. And Grant Navarre purchased a pack of cards, I think for like$20 ,000 of first edition pack. But then in addition to that, Logan Paul was selling the NFTs of the box break okay all of them were sold out and all the nft was was him pulling out a card and it was like a hollow and he was selling these for like 18 to 50 000 he wasn't forcing anyone to buy them but people were spending 35 000 to get an nft of just logan paul opening up the card and showing a hollow you know what i think if if it ever comes back and is worth anything my theory is that it'll be like 50 years from now, when we look back at these moments at our youth, we look back at these memories so fondly and we're like, remember when that was a thing?

55:14And we're all like crypto billionaires or Bitcoin billionaires like I'd buy that again. Like that, I could see that. Pokemon cards. Yeah, like it's like a like a nostalgia thing. Like I could see it becoming a valuable thing when it becomes nostalgic. Like right now it's just too close to home. It just happened kind of recently. But I can imagine if like 50 years from now, we'll look back at it like that was the first nft ever the crypto punk or like the spider-man or whatever it is i could

55:40Graham Stephan:see that kind of like pokemon i try to think of that all the time of what is going to be the nostalgia play today right all the time like the the 2005 ford gt yeah was a nostalgia play it is they used to trade it like 120 grand they couldn't sell the cars and now it's like you you get that car because that was the car you admired pokemon is a good example of that too but are you ever afraid that that's sort of such a moving target that beyond a certain generation it's just it's not a thing anymore yeah of course i like old 1920s cars are plummeting in value right because the audience for that is they're passing away right no one no one cares that wasn't a part of their childhood right but the original iphone in the original packaging is now selling for like $70 ,000 or the original iPod, things like this that were like revolutionary.

56:29Graham Stephan:Now you go back and that was something recent. And I wonder, what is that today? What's out there? Because there's something today that is going to be, oh, my gosh, I could buy that right now and keep it sealed. And in 20 years, I'm going to make a fortune. 100%. Yeah, that's the Chris Camillo investing. Yeah, it's a social arb thing. And but it kind of also makes you think the other way, like, when is the top? Is it when I'm 90? is it like, well, our generation is the last one that remembers these NFTs, that remembers these Pokemon cards, that remembers the GT40. I don't know. But what are you nostalgic about today?

57:03That's what I think. For me, it's Pokemon cards still. I don't think anything tops that.

57:07Graham Stephan:And now they're back up in price. Are they? Pokemon, my gosh, went through its craze. I think we're getting wildly derailed from it. People love this. People love this, dude. And we'll get back. I know you've checked out. I've completely checked out. I know, I can tell. Pokemon went up. crashed, went up now even higher. I think the new sets have gone up. Nope. Nope. The Charizard is now selling for like$450 ,000 again. Really? First edition Shadowless Charizard. Wow, I'm rich again. I still have my base set. Yeah. Jack needs, what is it below the screen here? The subway surfers for this conversation?

57:45Graham Stephan:Okay. He's not, yeah. We could just talk about this, but. You make a lot of interesting videos about global affairs, the Russian economy, like China economy, Japanese economy. What would you say are like the top competitors of the U.S. economy? Do you think that the U.S. economy is falling from grace and that and what are your predictions for the U.S. economy over the next like decade or so? Yeah, I think the biggest competitor is definitely China. I actually went down this deep rabbit hole of like looking on YouTube of technologies and cars that China's coming out with. Dude, it's unreal. Some of the car brands and the features and the price, like it's no wonder that it's not allowed to sell these products in the US because none of our companies would compete or be able to hold a candle to these products.

58:38They are so much more advanced. Like Xiaomi released a phone that was kind of a carbon copy of the 17 Max Pro that just came out. And they actually called it the 17 Max Pro, I think. Like it was nearly an identical name. But I watched a review of that phone. Dude, it is legitimately like better on every front. Like it has such cool features. And I'm like, dude, if these products were sold here in the U.S., none of our companies would keep up.

59:04Graham Stephan:Reminds me of the sports car that they came out with. Yeah. Doug DeMuro reviewed. I saw that. It has the headlights of a McLaren and the body of the Perisangui Ferrari. It's crazy. And it has like 1 ,400 horsepower. If that were in the US, everybody would buy it. Like I would gladly pay 50 ,000 over aspect of it. It's just so unique and so cool. It's like a 40 ,000 car. Dude, it's unbelievable. $40 ,000? $40 ,000 car. It's unbelievable. It's like 450 miles of range. like ridiculous and so but it makes you think why can't we do that in the united states you tell me i don't know why my understanding is that loose labor regulations working conditions things like this uh and and they don't quite have the guardrails in place for like the government like meddling with every little thing that allows these companies to basically produce this for such low cost.

1:00:03Graham Stephan:I've also heard that they don't have the R &D. So they basically, we spend all of this money developing. Then China goes and looks at this, studies it and says, oh, okay, well, that's how you do it. And then they could make it without any of the initial investment. Right. That's very true. Yeah. Combined with a low labor cost. Correct. And then you have a product that people actually buy. Right. If it was made here in the US, like, sure, we could make it, but it'd be like 300 grand and nobody would buy it for sure. That's a huge part of it. But back to your original question is, I think it's separate.

1:00:35Like from an investment perspective, I think the United States is still far and away the best country to live and make money in and invest in. But from a quality of life perspective, I think this is not the best country to live in. What do you think is the best country to live in quality of life perspective? I think Switzerland is far better. Interesting. Hold on. Let me bring out, I think I have a chart here of the average life expectancy of people around the world. And we spend twice as much on healthcare in Switzerland. I'm sorry, here in the US than Switzerland. And we are, on average, we have a much lower life expectancy age.

1:01:15Let me find this chart. Check this out.

1:01:16Graham Stephan:I have a rant on this. So look at this. Do you see all that? Jeez. Like this is the United States, right? There's a dip with COVID, right? Makes sense. But that's a massive dip. Wait, why did we dip with COVID so much more than, what is that? We have a higher rate of obesity. And so we had more compromised individuals getting COVID. And so they were like, it was more lethal for them. Yeah, I imagine that's a big part of it. The other thing could be, in fairness. That's insane. We reported a lot of deaths as COVID. Because hospitals were incentivized to report it. So that seems to me highly skewed.

1:01:50I think that's probably true, too. But I think to your point or what you said about certain health conditions and preexisting conditions, I think we're worse off.

1:01:59Graham Stephan:So I want to rant about this. This was really eye opening to me. I went to the doctor for a checkup. I had not been in three years and she ordered a blood test and I wanted to do all these additional tests. And she says, oh, man, I can't order those tests. I said, why? She said, well, because you need symptoms to be able to order these tests. You need to be dying. And so she said, do you feel tired and lethargic? Andrei Jikh and Jack Selby and Graham Stephan.

1:02:58Graham Stephan:But anyway, I get it back and it turns out that I have like high thyroid antibodies, which suggest either high stress, I'm overtraining, lack of sleep, could be any one of them. So I thought that was interesting. And then I ordered my own blood tests and I paid out of pocket through a separate company. And they were charging like 500 bucks for like 100 biomarkers. And I did that. And I got the results basically instantly within a few days. And it turned out I had no idea. that I have like high LDL cholesterol. My heart biomarkers were like really genetically high, giving me a predisposition for like heart disease and building up plaque in my arteries, even though I'm like active and healthy.

1:03:43Graham Stephan:It's just a genetic thing. I never would have found that out if I didn't test on my own. And I started making these changes in my life now. Now I have a whole stack of supplements that I take on a daily basis, morning and night. I've adjusted my diet a little bit and it's been about three weeks now and I feel so much better just doing that change. I never would have figured it out had I not done it myself. But the whole healthcare system is just designed to treat the symptom. Dude, I wish you had told me this before. When did you do all this? Three weeks, four weeks ago. I could have told you this because, okay, so Corey and I went to Thailand specifically for that reason because we wanted to test everything about ourselves.

1:04:24And we went to this hospital, I forget the name of it, is like Bumrun Grodd or something like that. I don't know how to pronounce it. And we go in and it's this like 10-story building, super high end. There's like royalty there, I feel like, from the Middle East. Just people of all sorts of walks of life, right? So we make an appointment. We get the executive package. Costs like$1 ,000 almost. I want to pay, I paid like$1 ,200 maybe. So we go in there and they do like every test known to humankind, like everything. They do chest x-rays. They do like everything for your organs. They they do a heart test like they have you run on a thing.

1:05:04They monitor like everything. They have you pee. They have you poop in a cup. They take your blood. Dude, they do everything. And I got I have like a 10 page report on everything on my body. And it turns out I have like fatty liver, which is a very common thing for Americans. but you're right it's like you can't order these tests here in the u.s because you have to exhibit symptoms and in in that place where we were at they just do the diagnosis they don't do any kind of like treatment for it and that's probably because they don't want to have a conflict of interest maybe i don't know but that hospital doesn't treat against anything it just purely is a diagnostic center and they did just about like every test i could ever think of for a $1 ,000.

1:05:48How long did that take? And it took three hours, and I got the results within eight hours. No, dude, it's amazing. So if you ever want to do that, I would highly recommend go to Thailand. Thailand. In Bangkok? In Bangkok, yeah. Interesting. Get the executive package. Corey got like everything. And how much was it? $1 ,000. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

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1:06:40Graham Stephan:I wish you had an option to opt out or like just some sort of like some sort of health insurance that's just catastrophic over like$50 ,000. Because so far what I've done, I found it cheaper to pay for everything out of pocket. Yeah. Like I'm buying prescriptions out of pocket. I'm going and just telling them I'll pay cash. I did a whole heart screening. It's cheaper often. Yeah. Yeah. And I was asking like, OK, they asked me, do you want to go through insurance? and I was like does insurance cover this? They're like sometimes but we're going to be booked a few weeks out and I was like can I just pay cash and come today?

1:07:15Graham Stephan:And she's like can you come right now? And I was like yeah. Okay I paid 165 bucks winning the same day I just left did it and got my results back in three days. Does that ever make you wonder like as you get older if you realize how corrupt and how unfair the healthcare industry is does that make you think outside of that and like how many other things are not good for you? Like the food that we eat and like everything about the quality of our life here in the U.S. Do you ever think about that? I saw it was an Instagram post or like a TikTok that says like, you know, when you're grown up, when you go to the grocery store and you realize that 90 percent of it is extremely unhealthy.

1:07:54Graham Stephan:Right. And now it's all I see. I walk in the grocery store and think, who would eat this? Right. It's awful. Like everything has a ton of added sugar. They had sugar. The amount of sugar in ketchup is surprising. Like, sugar in that? Really? And then you start looking at the sugar content of everything. They put sugar in everything. High fructose corn syrup in everything, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the older I get, the more I become a conspiracy theorist about everything. Sound like that grumpy old guy that's just like, I don't trust anything. I don't trust anyone. I don't know if you're noticing that about yourself.

1:08:29Graham Stephan:No. No, it's just when it comes to government running things. So everything. No, not necessarily. I mean, healthcare, I don't think that's a government run thing. I think it's just the insurance companies that are just finding ways to gouge. And a lot of that, like certain things are really run up by lawyers and like insurance costs are high because it's so easy to litigate. And so they have to be high because your chance of litigation is high. because lawyers are very quick to serve you with something. Okay. Well, I guess we'll agree to disagree. I don't know. I've definitely become a lot more skeptical of things.

1:09:08Yeah. For sure. Everything. When I was a kid, I was extremely naive. And then you get burned a few times because you're naive. Yeah. And then you just have to become selective with what you decide to trust in. Right. Not trust.

1:09:18Graham Stephan:But I agree, yeah. And really quick, I just want to say, it is wild that we're almost at the end of the year, which means holidays are approaching. And for any of you who have hosted, you know that it could often be expensive and stressful. But it doesn't have to be that way because your sponsor Wayfair helps you tackle everything you need in one place at prices that just make sense. Wayfair has something for every style and home. You'll find holiday decor like wreaths, trees, and lights, plus everything you need to host, cookware, serveware, and festive touches to make the space feel complete.

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1:11:58Graham Stephan:Thanks again to our sponsor, Shopify. And now let's get back to the episode. Are you bullish or bearish for the U.S. economy? From an investment perspective, very bullish from a quality of life. And I don't think it'll be the best country to live in for the next 50 years. I don't think it'll be the safest. I don't think it'll be the highest quality of life or the longest lifespan. And you think Switzerland? I think Switzerland's far better. Yeah, for sure. What about Japan? Probably better. Yeah. probably better. Yeah. I think we're going to see a lot of people our age retiring in other countries.

1:12:29I think so too.

1:12:29Graham Stephan:I think that's just the only way they're going to be able to do it. If you have$200 ,000 to$500 ,000 saved and you're 60 years old. Which is nobody by the time they're 60. Like very few people get to that amount. If you're lucky enough to have$500 ,000 saved at the age of 60 and you're done with work and you want to retire and you lose your job because a robot just took it, you can go anywhere in the world and live a fantastic life on$500 ,000. I totally agree. There's a lot of alternatives. I think that's going to happen. In terms of the U.S. economy, what are your leading bullish indicators?

1:13:01In terms of an investment perspective? Yeah. Well, I think the same reasons that got us here in the first place, I think we'll still remain the world reserve currency. And I do think there will be a challenger. I think Jerome Powell even said that. He's like, it's okay. There's going to be probably two competing ones. There's probably going to be China's currency. It's going to be our currency. But as long as we have the world reserve currency, I think it will always squeeze asset prices up no matter what. Because we have the money printer. And as long as the world is still in need of those currencies, of those units, then we'll always export our inflation to the rest of the world.

1:13:37And with that money, they'll be buying our assets. They'll be buying our treasuries because they'll want an interest on it. And that'll push everything from equities to treasury bonds. That'll always. What determines the world reserve currency? Is it just like who has the strongest military? I would say that was a big part of it. Yeah. I think that definition is changing, obviously, which is why the dollar is losing dominance over time. Like not to be that guy. Yeah,

1:13:58Graham Stephan:I'll show you that. The dollar has had its worst year, I think, since 1972. Yeah. 2025, we've lost 10 percent. And here's what's interesting. If here strong versus weak dollar, let's see. Oh, there we go. So in 2025, the Dixie Index, which is measures the strength for the dollar in 2025s lost 10%, which is kind of crazy. So what that means is, like, I opened up my investment account, I look at my stocks. So year to date, on this portfolio, I'm up like 14%, which sounds really good. Like, cool. Like, that's great. 14%. That's not bad. But the reality is I'm only up like 4%, right? Because the dollars lost 10%, which means if you didn't get a pay raise this year that was 10%, then you lost money in terms of purchasing power.

1:14:47So that$100 at the beginning of this year now buys you$90 worth of stuff. That's literally this year alone, which means we're all forced to participate in the market, which is another answer to your question. Like why is the US going to continue to go up? Because we are literally forced to put our money in these assets. If we don't, we lose purchasing power.

1:15:10Graham Stephan:But here's the thing I'm noticing in terms of daily purchasing power over the last year, you say the dollar's down 10%. But I'm not seeing real estate cost 10 % more. I'm not seeing groceries costing 10 % more. I'm not seeing gas costing 10 % more. I'm seeing a lot of those basically in line. Do you go to grocery stores? Yeah. Where do you go? Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's? Yeah. Why? That's like, that's not middle class. Trader Joe's. No, Trader Joe's is nice. I like Trader Joe's. Yeah. I thought you said Whole Foods. No. No. Where'd you go? heroin yeah it's still the same price 20 strawberry is still 20 per strawberry that's funny i'm just not seeing everything rise by 10 if anything i'm seeing but gas prices are down a little bit um energy prices are more or less the same um i don't know but but maybe that's because I'm so isolated here in Vegas.

1:16:08Potentially, yeah. I mean, I think we're definitely losing purchasing power over time. We're making more, we're printing more money. It's constantly something that's going to keep happening. One thing I actually found really interesting is, I don't know if you saw this, did you see that? So Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company, in the last 27 years, it's actually matched the price performance of gold. Look at this. So in the last 27 years, gold and Berkshire Hathaway, they've basically been the same. So what does that tell you? And then there's this one. So the total returns, it actually goes back to 25 years.

1:16:50This is just a 20-year against the S &P 500. So literally a shiny rock has outperformed all the smartest people on Wall Street, all the innovation. That's kind of nuts. Sometimes I worry that these are very selective dates. I thought you were going to say that, but like 25-year period. It's not like I was like, let's start right here in a very recent time. It's 25 years worth of innovation.

1:17:15Graham Stephan:But sometimes going back 30 years could change the picture quite a bit. Or when you look at it from 1978 to today, you get a bit of a different idea. because gold, my understanding is that gold just hit its inflation adjusted price as to what it was back in the 1980s. Yeah, it's caught up for sure. It's caught up. So if you invested in the 1980s, you would have the same amount of money today as you would back then adjusted for inflation. And that's after, what is that, 40 years, 45 years, almost 50 years, we'll call it. And you have the same amount of money as back in the 1980s if you invested at the peak.

1:17:54Sure, sure. But the most brilliant investor, Warren Buffett, 25 years hasn't been able to outperform gold.

1:17:59Graham Stephan:It does make me worry, too, that maybe Bitcoin could be one of those of like Bitcoin's version is the 1980s version of gold. Right. Where it doesn't do anything for 25 years. Right. And then 50 years later, you're like, oh, my gosh, it just hit two million dollars. It's inflation adjusted. That could totally happen. Could totally happen. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to draw from that conclusion. It's like that's that's kind of crazy to me, though, that a shiny rock was able to outperform some of the smartest minds in the world. I think it's just the lack of confidence in the United States dollar right now is really contributing to that.

1:18:33Graham Stephan:And tariffs, I don't think, are helping confidence. And I think people just want a safe place to store their cash. And in terms of a safe place to put their money, stocks, investors feel like is overvalued. The dollar, they don't have faith that it's going to be worth the same three years from now. Bitcoin is a bit too volatile. Where do they put it now? Gold, silver, real estate, but even real estate is expensive relative to the current interest rate. Right. So it seems like, yeah, it makes sense how it's gold. And also interest rates are going down, which weakens the dollar. So, you know, less demand from foreign countries to buy our treasuries.

1:19:12So that also weakens the dollar, which partially contributes to the 10 % loss in purchasing power. It's a lot of things. Yeah. I'm curious. Have you made more money investing or with YouTube over the past year? So far, definitely YouTube by far. Definitely by far. By far. Have you ever had a year where you made more investing than YouTube? Before YouTube. Before YouTube. But I hope it doesn't come across that way on my YouTube channel. I'm not like, hey, I'm the investment guru. You should follow me because I make more money. I think I'm pretty transparent about YouTube being my main source of income.

1:19:42But I think on a long-term scale, I think obviously investments will make a lot more money than YouTube. But investing just takes forever.

1:19:49Graham Stephan:Yeah, but you can't compare the two. Like even if you're in the market earning 8%, you can't compare that to like a job that you're working at eight hours a day, five days, six days a week. Yeah, I think most importantly, as long as I don't position myself and I'm not dishonest with people and I'm not like, hey, look at my portfolio and look how much money I have. You should buy my course because I know what I'm talking about. I hope I'm pretty transparent about that. And I don't think that should be a secret that YouTube is, you know, mainly it. And so why did you give up investing in dividend stocks?

1:20:18I didn't. I still have all my portfolio. So you still held on to them, but you didn't continue buying more of them. Correct. Yeah, I still have all of it. What do you make annually on your dividends? Like 30K. That's not bad. That's not bad. That's an income. Why were you doing dividend stocks instead of just normal? I think it made it really easy because the FIRE community, you know, they preached the 4 % rule and all these things, it's really easy to plan for retirement because you can see what your monthly income is. And I really like that aspect of it. And the reason that I changed it now back to index funds is just because of my tax rate.

1:20:52I think if it wasn't being taxed at the rate that I am, I'd be totally okay with staying in dividends. I think dividends are extremely powerful. And I would never knock anybody for being a dividend investor. I think it's really powerful. I know you don't like dividends. I know you're mostly an index fund guy too, but it's just the taxes.

1:21:07Graham Stephan:I look at the taxes and I'm like, oh, my gosh. When you're earning so much from a job and then you get a dividend, you know, obviously, if it's qualified, that helps. But it's still it's a forced tax payment. So automatically 20 percent gets taken to the side. And then if you pay a net investment tax on top of that, there's another 3.8 percent. And then there's potential state taxes on top of that. But it really adds up. Like imagine living in a state like California and you have a short term capital gain. You're paying 37 % federal. Then you could pay another 10 % to the state and then another 3.8 as a net investment tax.

1:21:52Graham Stephan:So you could very easily all of a sudden pay more than 50 % investing your money. That's true. That makes no sense. Unless you had it in a Roth, in which case it would be tax free. Correct. Right. So that's a workaround, but you're obviously limited to like what? 7 ,000 is it now? 7 ,000. Yeah. So I want to also talk about alternative investments because you bought a bunch of Pokemon cards. Yeah. So you have that. I still have that. How much money do you have in Pokemon cards? Probably like 150 to 200. 150 to$200 ,000? Yeah. Andre's got an amazing collection. He has something that I want. You could buy it.

1:22:31It could be yours for the cheap price of$300 ,000. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So you have$150 ,000 to$200 ,000 of Pokemon cards. Yeah. Would you spend on these Pokemon cards? I will say that's the principal cost. Like, that's my initial cost. It might be less. It might be more. I have no idea.

1:22:48Graham Stephan:If I offered you, I think you paid$150 ,000. For the base set, yeah. If I offered you$150 ,000, would you take it? I don't think so. You wouldn't take it? No, I don't think so. Because you can't find that set. So my set is one of 11 known to exist and one of only 15 that will ever exist. And the reason that we know that is because there's one card in it. There's this card called Chansey and the Shadowless PSA 10. There's only 15 of them known to exist. And it's still been at 15 through the Logan Paul era. Like remember when Pokemon blew up and everyone was buying and everyone was grading cards?

1:23:21Dude, it's stuck at 15 the whole way through because that's like the hardest card to grade. so from that set a PSA shadowless chansey is like impossible to get so there's 11 known sets like mine that exist and all the people that own them are like multi-millionaires like they don't need the money so you're not going to get them to sell unless they just absolutely need it so that's that's

1:23:44Graham Stephan:i would buy it from you i'd buy it at the price you paid if you just want to say i want to cash out of it yeah i'm sure you could also probably sell it for more maybe i i think over time probably but I just I don't I have not seen that set since I've bought it this set here's the thing with with Andre's set and just Pokemon in general with your set they don't trade and so you don't know what price it's worth it's also really difficult to sell because the market for that is very very very small and usually the the trades that do happen like the buys they're off market so you're never seeing them.

1:24:20It's not like it's on eBay or something. That's interesting. Yeah. And, and, and what about watches? I remember we were all in Japan at the same time last year. Yeah. You ended up buying what watch? Uh, I bought a Longinzona, a data graph. It's a platinum data graph. I believe the reference number is like 403.035. It's a platinum data graph. And the watch is like iconic because it's a chronograph and it's one of the most iconic chronographs that was ever released. I think it was released in like 1998. And it was the watch that changed high-end watchmaking or high horology as people call it because it forced brands like Patek Philippe and AP to make their movements in-house because prior to that watch, they were all manufactured and modified from a company called Lumania.

1:25:11It was the Lumania movement. So all these high-end watch companies, they would buy that movement, they would tweak it, and they would put it into their watches. In 1998, during like the watch, whatever gathering that they do, that watch came out and like stunned the world. And from that moment onward, the new benchmark for a high-end watch was an in-house movement. And so then what did you pay for that watch and what is the current value of it? I want to say that because we talked to Nico Leonard, we talked to like another watch guy.

1:25:43Graham Stephan:Yeah. And got his opinion on it. And they said that it was most likely the cheapest data graph in the whole world that I found in Japan. And I asked the sales associate, I was like, when was this watch listed? And they literally said yesterday. I was like, are you just saying that? And they're like, no, we just got it in yesterday. And I look at the reference number and it matches to my birthday, how old I am, crazy stuff. and I was not planning on buying it, but I've always wanted one of those watches. So I paid 54K for it. 54 grand. It was the cheapest one by probably$20 ,000. Yeah. So I think the next cheapest one, I don't know what the next cheapest one on the market is, but probably in the 70s, like low 70s.

1:26:32Graham Stephan:And this was at a time when the US to yen conversion rate was really good. Yeah. Like it had just ticked. And there's no sales tax. And there's no sales tax. Yeah. And so you got a smoking hot deal. I think so. Like if I wanted to get my money out of it, I think I easily could. So I'm curious, why are watches in Japan such a good deal? I've seen so much media on the secondhand luxury watch stores in Japan and how you can go and get like the craziest deals imaginable on some of the nicest, you know, watches like Rolex, Patex, APs over there. Why is that? I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

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1:27:43Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. I think, well, at least part of the reason is because anything that's used in Japan, just because, like, their culture, they keep everything in such, like, neat condition.

1:28:19It's, like, pristine. They have things that are, like, vintage from, like, the 80s, and they look brand new. And they also don't like to, like, Japanese people don't like to buy secondhand. They always go for new. I think because culturally maybe there's like bad things associated maybe with like buying used things. So from that reason alone, in Japan, their market is not necessarily for Japanese people. So all the people that are buying the watches are foreigners that are flying into Japan. So that's a smaller market than the entire country of Japan, obviously. So I think the prices are generally lower.

1:28:51At least that's one of the reasons why I think that.

1:28:53Graham Stephan:Yeah, there's more supply than demand. For sure. Japan is also really against anything counterfeit. And if they're caught selling any fake watch or any like kind of Frankenstein watch, they're going to be blacklisted forever. And these businesses have been around for decades with perfect ratings. So you don't really have to worry about like getting ripped off or getting like a fake watch. And we asked, do you guys sell fake watches? They're like, no, you can't do that here. Now, what's also interesting is that I heard that a lot of Japanese people believe that when you buy a secondhand watch, the original owner's sole comes with that watch.

1:29:33Graham Stephan:Like their sole is somehow attached to it. Okay. And so when you buy that watch, you get a part of their sole. And so it's not considered like good to, you don't know what you're getting. Right. In that sense. And so they just don't want to buy secondhand. So from a culture perspective, yeah, there's a little bit of superstition to it. Correct. Yeah. But you get a great deal. So the other interesting thing is that they will not really negotiate. They price it at a point where if it sells, great, but if it doesn't. I tried to negotiate a Zenith Rolex Daytona, and I was saying, hey, can you bring this price down here?

1:30:11Graham Stephan:Can we save here? Wouldn't do it. And then Macy found a ring. that she wanted i'm like okay but if i buy this can we throw in the ring at like half price no the the most they did is they said we're gonna throw in a complimentary like an extra rolex box right right and we'll give you the extra box if you buy it okay fine yeah but yeah they don't negotiate either no so that's that's part of the reason why i would say but what's cool is that they can take amex which is really nice and they don't charge you an extra fee well we did why are Why are you laughing, Jack? That's just funny. No, because the points, just imagine putting that on a 2 % or imagine the Robinhood credit card 3 % back or the Coinbase card and get 4 % back.

1:31:00Graham Stephan:Gemini, get some Bitcoin back. Yeah. I'm just saying, it's like not only are you getting no sales tax, a favorable exchange rate, but you could then put it on a credit card to get an extra 4 % back. Right. We bought our watches within a day of each other. Yeah. Yeah. How much did you spend on your watch? I think total. Including, because I count the exchange rate and I count also getting points back on the credit card. It was like 19 something. And what do you think it's worth? Low end. I'm talking like fire sale. 21. And that's like fire sale. I got to sell it in 24 hours. I think it's probably worth 24.

1:31:41Graham Stephan:Wow. Did I tell you that I bought a ring in Japan and I appraised it and what happened? Oh, I didn't tell you that story? Oh, dude, we were walking right by that store that Graham and I bought our watches from. It was called Okura. And I look and I'm like, dude, that's a really cool ring. It was a women's black opal ring, okay? And I'm, for whatever reason, just obsessed, as Graham is like with aquariums, I'm like obsessed with Australian opals. And for whatever reason, I just know it like disproportionately more than most people know about opals. And I was like, dude, that ring is so cool. So I go in the store and I'm like, how much is that ring?

1:32:19And they're like,$600. I'm like, there's no way this ring is$600. It's a platinum ring with diamonds and a black opal stone that's like two or three carats. And I'm like, this is a$10 ,000 ring. There's no way it's$600. And I was like, is this an Australian opal or an Ethiopian opal? Because there's two types of different opals. Ethiopian opal, which is, I think, hydrophonic, which means it absorbs water or doesn't, one of the two. and then the other opal is an Australian opal which repels water. It does not absorb water. But they have different characteristics. And I was like, which one is that?

1:32:50And they told me that it was an Ethiopian opal. And I was like, that's not an Ethiopian opal. That looks like an Australian opal. I know my opals, okay? And everyone in the store who was shopping there, they were like, no, that's definitely Ethiopian because Australian opals are only black. I'm like, that's BS. I know that's not true. So I gamble it and I risk it. I'm like, I'll just, I'll buy it, right? $600. and I'm bringing it back to the U S and I go to get it approved or appraised. And the appraisal came in at like$9 ,500 a ring that I bought for$600. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. I guess you never know when that niche knowledge is going to come to your benefit.

1:33:28Like that was like, again, so, so we, Jack and I talked about this, like you guys ever like go through life and then something happens and you're like, I live in a simulation all the time. Right. Like, we talked about how, this is a true story. It was like midnight. It was like past midnight. And we were, I was in a random arcade store with me and my friends in Kyoto of all places, in Japan, Kyoto. I don't even think I knew you were in Japan. We had no idea that each of us were in Japan, but we were in Japan together. And I look and I'm like, dude, that's freaking jack. We go up like the odds of us being in a city that we didn't plan to meet at past midnight at a random arcade store in a city like Kyoto.

1:34:09Like that was insane. And just like like the whole random knowledge of like an Opal ring. And I'm like, what are the odds that like I would find this random store that had this random ring that I knew so much about? What have you done with the ring? I still have it. I got it appraised and I'm keeping it. And, you know, once I get married, that'll be like my proposal ring. Oh, yeah, it's nice. Yeah, it was cool.

1:34:30Graham Stephan:paid for the trip too well if i sell it but i'm not gonna sell it but but it does go to show you that if you come in with some knowledge right basically go to japan buy the right thing and pay for the entire trip and basically get the trip for free yeah yeah that's true what would you say is the best investing advice you've ever heard i don't know i think like the most important investing quality of people that i've seen that have built wealth is like their ability to delay gratification. It's just their ability to project into the future and see that there's an older version of themselves that is grateful for their younger self saving and investing money and delaying that gratification, delaying buying the things that you think will make you happy.

1:35:12And on that note, I don't know if you guys agree with this, but like for me, when I want something and I'm like, I really don't want to buy it, but I really want it. And when I buy it, I feel this like sense of relief. But I figured out that the relief comes from not in owning that thing, but in the peacefulness that comes with not wanting it anymore. Does that make sense? It's like, oh, I'm so glad like I have it now. I don't want it. And now it's not bugging me as much. And so if you're able to extrapolate that into the future, you could be like, okay, I could buy this thing. But maybe I can just skip the buying part and then go directly to the not wanting it.

1:35:52A lot of the pleasure is in being able to buy something. Exactly. And also I heard some wisdom, which was not wanting something is just as good as having it. Right. That's true. You could take someone that like, you know, really, really, really doesn't want a really fancy car for some reason. And they're living just as good as someone that like bought that fancy car just because it doesn't matter to them. Like they have other priorities, other things that make them happier, such as an aquarium or other things that are just more significant to them. But if you don't want something, it's just as good as having it.

1:36:25I remember reading a piece of advice on the old fire forums that was like, oh, use this one trick. It was like, I could buy that. I was like, oh, what is this? And I clicked on it. And it was like, the next time you want to buy something, save up enough money to buy it and then see how you feel about it. And oftentimes just the ability, like you said, to buy that thing is as good as owning it. So like, it's like, it's my, I could buy that trick. So the key is you could either save and make enough money to be able to buy the things that you want, or you could just want fewer things. Exactly. Yeah.

1:36:59You go directly to that part if you can. Um, and then also like, I think this is the dividend brain of me, which is like most people, I think when, when they compare, if they want to buy something, they're like, well, how many hours of my work does it costs. Like if something's$100 and they get paid$20 an hour, like, okay, it costs me five hours of my life to buy that thing. And that's how most people think about purchasing things. But what dividend investing has really taught me is to instead think about things in terms of 4%. So it's like, how much money do I have to have for that thing to passively exist in my life?

1:37:30And that's what we talk about all the time.

1:37:31Graham Stephan:I just love that. I love that. The 4 % rule. It's like, how much money do I need to invest? If you don't have that much money invested in the market, then you have no excuse to own that thing. Like you can't afford it. That's I've always looked at affording. So is that 4 % per year or 4 % of the amount? Well, it depends. If it's like a recurring cost, like for example, if it's like a Netflix subscription, what's Netflix right now per year? $12.99. Let's say$13, right? Times 12, that's$156 a year. That's 25. Or divided by 0.04, that's$3 ,900. If you don't have$3 ,900 invested in the market at 4%, you cannot afford you cannot afford that$13 a month like that's just how you think about it I've always thought about it that way I think that's the coolest way to think about it and so that that's what motivated me to to build a dividend portfolio because then I could be like okay now I know how much money I'm passively making and now I can delegate what things I can and can't afford it's so addicting once you start doing that though because I remember in a separate vein it wasn't dividends but for me it was youtube income because i viewed that as all passive because i would have done it anyway and i remember making a dollar a day and thinking oh wow that pays for and all you could eat sushi every single month right for free and then it started to become wow i got a free phone bill every single month at 50 a month and then my car insurance is 100 oh wow my car insurance is now free and everything starts to like stack.

1:39:01Graham Stephan:And then pretty soon it's like, wow, my mortgage is now free. Right. This is free. This is free. Now I just live for free because I would be doing this anyway and I'm making money. Yeah, that's so cool. And then you eventually realize that the quickest way to being financially free isn't necessarily by building a bigger portfolio. It's literally by removing those recurring costs because that's way easier to do than needing that money invested at 4%. She's like, hey, if I could remove this, this car payment or this, like I just saved a hundred grand from like retirement. That's like that's the coolest way of thinking about it.

1:39:34Yeah. Do you think that the money printing in the United States is a strategy? This is a conspiracy theory right here to keep people poor. That's a really good question. I don't think on that level of conspiracy to where I think that is an intentional thing that we're doing. I don't think people are that organized to be like, this is what keeps people poor. let's keep doing it. I don't think that's the case. What do you think? You think it's intentional? I tend to not buy into conspiracies, but also if you think about it, any money printing drives up assets. Assets are owned by wealthy people, not poor people.

1:40:12Poor people suffer with inflation. It's just what's happening. And they're printing money to try to help the poor people, but it's like clearly not. So I don't understand. I don't think money printing has anything to do with

1:40:23Graham Stephan:poor people, why would they want them to be, wouldn't, they would benefit more from people having more money because they spend more. Like if you gave a hundred thousand dollars to an average person, I almost guarantee to be gone average person, it'll be gone almost instantly. They're not going to save it. So it's better for people to make more money. Like there's no incentive for the government to keep people. Well, technically speaking, poor people are going to be easier to control with the government. What I, what I think is more systemically realistic is that the school system teaches people just to work and follow in line, listen to another person, do as instructed.

1:41:01Graham Stephan:You take your lunch here, you start here, you end here, you do this whole thing so you could work for someone else. It's just a very outdated system. That I think is probably more likely that they keep people in like a working hamster wheel and then they shove it down throats of like, oh, it's good to go to college. And then Now you borrow money. Now you're in debt. And then it's, oh, but you have to buy a house because that's the American dream. Now you buy a house. Now you have a$50 ,000 student loan and a$300 ,000 mortgage. You're not going anywhere. And now you have to take that job to keep making those payments because you don't want to lose your house and you can't default on your student loans even with bankruptcy.

1:41:37Graham Stephan:So now you're kind of stuck. But then you're 35 and you think, oh, crap, I'm getting to an age where I should probably have a kid. So now you have a kid. Now you definitely can't take the risk to start your own business or do anything. So now you're stuck working that job you don't like to pay for the house, to pay for the student loans. And now you have a kid to support. And now you're just kind of. And so you keep working until you're 70 and then you die. Right. So you're saying it's kind of a result of our own decisions and kind of as a byproduct of a shared delusion that we all have about what it's like to live a life.

1:42:07Graham Stephan:I heard that a lot of the school system was created by a factory owner. And this could totally be untrue. and I'm just rephrasing what someone else told me, was dictated by a factory owner who wanted more workers. And so they set up a whole system to basically keep people in this loop of like learning how to work for somebody else. And that makes sense. Makes perfect sense, yeah. So I don't know if that's true or not. I think that's separate from the money printer question, but I could see that. The money printing, I think, is purely a result of the government getting out of control on their spending.

1:42:41Graham Stephan:And this is the only way they could get out of it. It's just like, what do they do? Here's how I see the whole money printing thing. The money printer allows governments to do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. Because if we operated on a fixed supply kind of system, how long do you think people would put up with fighting wars or whatever the government wants? Because like if you were to fund a war, let's say, you actually have to tax people. You actually need the money and the revenue from people. But if you couldn't print money, if you could print money, then you can do whatever you want.

1:43:15And so I think that's a byproduct of power being exercised beyond what's in our best interest. And that's what Bitcoin is trying to fix. Like that's why people are obsessed with Bitcoin is because it's a fixed supply and therefore governments have to be responsible. Therefore, they can't just do whatever they want. So then what would you say is the main thing that is keeping people poor then? Just a lack of financial education and literacy mostly and lifestyle decisions. I don't, for whatever reason, these questions make me think of George Carlin. Do you guys know what that is? Comedian. He's like, oh yeah, the rich exist to kind of inspire the middle class and then the poor exist there to scare the out of them.

1:43:54What do you mean? Well, because it's like, keep being in the hamster wheel. Like if you don't want to be like these people, you got to keep working. You got to keep doing it.

1:44:02Graham Stephan:And the key working is look at this guy who just bought a Ferrari. Right. Don't you want to be like that guy? But you definitely don't want to be like that guy. It keeps you stuck in the middle. Right. I heard somewhere that the worst thing you could do to someone is pay them$80 ,000 a year because it's just the right point where they're making enough where they don't want to risk it. But it's not so little that they're forced to take big action and make significant moves to do something that would drive their income so much higher and give them so much more opportunity. It's like that safety middle where it's just enough to keep you going.

1:44:37Graham Stephan:And especially if you get promised like a raise to 90K to then 100. Like you see the trajectory going up. You're going to want to stick on that and not do your own thing. The slowly boiling crab, right? I don't know. I just feel like in order to be, like if you think about it mathematically, in order to be the one, like if you think rich is to have a lot of money, if that's your definition of rich, then you got to do like what the 99 % don't want to do, like to become the 1%, which is literally the opposite of what everyone else does, like not going out to eat in restaurants and saving money and not owning a car and bicycling to work.

1:45:12It's like, that's what it takes to just have enough escape velocity to get out of that. And I think that's what I focus so much on in my early 20s, because my parents were immigrants and they didn't understand money. And I was like, okay, let me not do that.

1:45:26Graham Stephan:I've really been following a lot of Alex Becker's videos. He has this new channel, Alex Becker Business. And he talks a lot about what people have to do today who are young to make a lot of money. And he talks about just like if you want to be that 1 % who succeeds and does something like really big, think of what everyone else is doing and then don't do that. And you put yourself in uncomfortable positions. And one thing I really liked is he said, the moment you turn 18, move out of your house, live with five roommates, just have a mattress on the floor and a computer and figure it out. Yeah.

1:46:02Graham Stephan:And I think that it's pretty good advice. That's a great point. Yeah. I think a lot of people would benefit from doing that. And no Netflix. Right. No video games. I think literally all three of us did our own version of all of that. Like, I know you've done that. you've lived with like five roommates and you were house hacking and you did that i did that in my own way with airbnb and i was renting out a room i was subleasing like we all had to do that and do what i think 99 of people just would not put up with but if you can just get to that escape threshold like that escape velocity to where you're not reliant necessarily on that paycheck even for a little to go out and you know build a business or whatever it's interesting i get really frustrated lately when I see people who are like 18 to 21 not doing anything and just kind of like coasting because I'm like they have no idea how much opportunities out there and just what they could get involved in and I'm like oh my gosh it's just it frustrates me to see a potential being wasted you know I've thought about that too and I'm I'm kind of like the devil's advocate on that because I think it's true that now more than ever there's more economic opportunity to make money with so many different things, right?

1:47:15With like the Ubers, the Airbnbs and like the task rabbits, like the task economy. I get that. And also with social media, obviously, like the biggest opportunity. But I also feel like if I view it from that perspective, it's also very selfish because those are my interests. Like I'm interested in those things. So I'm like, why aren't you doing that? But I feel like for a lot of people, like what if they're not interested in that and they like look at the the last generation and you know their parents and like how they got screwed by the system i could totally tell like why they would feel that way i just feel

1:47:48Graham Stephan:like as a young guy because that's like that's our audience it's like 90 something percent male uh you have to create some sort of value right there's got to be something that you're doing to stand out. And when you have that, like, that energy when you're young and you don't need to sleep eight hours and you don't always look tired in videos because you didn't sleep and you're stressed. It's just like this, you have so much opportunity. It's true. That's where I get frustrated. Do you ever think you're lucky sometimes to be interested in the thing that happens to make a lot of money? Sometimes I look at Warren Buffett and I'm like, that's a cool skill that he has, but it's so, like, one-dimensional and he happens to exist in a world that rewards him greatly for it.

1:48:34After I transitioned from the military, I joined the CIA. Now I conduct strategic operations and intelligence activities globally as a directorate of operations officer. Keep serving our nation.

1:48:46Graham Stephan:Visit CIA.gov slash careers to apply. I think I got lucky in the sense that I - You found a passion. I'm naturally a saver. No, I think I would have made money no matter what I would have done. If it were aquariums, I know I would have made money doing aquariums. Because now some of these businesses, like the aquarium businesses, they're profiting like$3 million a year doing aquariums. That's cool. It's incredible. It's a really, really, really good business. I would have done that. There's just like whatever interest you have, I bet there's a way to make at least$100 ,000 to$200 ,000 a year. I didn't schedule.

1:49:23At the end of the day, it's about not necessarily your interest, but are you the type of person to roll onto your back and just like kind of let life happen to you? Or are you the person that like comes up, fails against something, and then tries to learn from it and then uses that as like a tool in your belt to then, you know, help solve a problem later in life? It's just your ability to provide value and learn from failure. But then again, is that, are you born with that?

1:49:47Graham Stephan:Right. Or are you raised with that? Right, that's the trillion dollar question. And here's an interesting one between Jason and Brett Oppenheim. Twins, raised same parents, same school, same experiences, completely different. In what way? Jason is very like type A, very motivated business, works all the time. Brett is so laid back and chill. Is he lazy? No, I wouldn't say he's lazy. Actually, no, I would not say he's lazy. I would say that he just isn't interested in that constant grind and hustle. He just has zero desire to work himself beyond what he needs. And I remember like this is years ago, but he would basically do enough business in real estate to chill for the rest of the year.

1:50:35Graham Stephan:Obviously, if there's a client or something that came up, he would do it. But some of these years, you can make, you know, quite a bit of money and then just like, all right, I'm going to Greece for a while. It's relaxing. Right. And then if he needs more money, he'll just be like, all right, I'm going to go and make more money. Just makes enough. It's just a period. He's got a natural ability to just go and make money. I really admire people like that. I don't think I'm one of those people. I'm not like, I need to constantly grind and make more money. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like people are so poor that all they have is money, basically.

1:51:07I think if that's the only thing that drives you, that's cool. I just, I can't relate with that. How has your definition of success changed then going from being like from an immigrant family, not having a lot of money and then going through life, earning a lot of money to now having, you know, quite a bit of money post-tax, just like chilling. I think my definition changed a lot. Like nowadays, if I see someone with kids, I'm like, that's wealth to me. I don't know why I just view somebody with a family as like being wealthy, probably because it also costs a lot of money to have kids and maintain a good family.

1:51:39But that's just to me, like more important at this point. But also realize it's a privileged perspective because I didn't always have that perspective. It's obviously easy to have that when you have money. Speaking of family and relationships, what is the best relationship advice you've heard and what does the red pill movement oh my god right get right and wrong about dating i don't think i had i know enough about the red pill movement to like represent what it has right you tell me i don't know you know what it is you were telling me all of this red pill jargon that's red pills right right before the podcast you were like saying the craziest stuff i was yeah i was like what are you so what's the best relationship advice you've heard Oh my gosh.

1:52:22I don't think I've ever heard relationship advice. Never? Never. No, not really. What is the best relationship advice? Like what works for you in your relationship? Growing up, I saw my parents have a very tumultuous and like very bad relationship. And I always equated having a, like a crazy relationship where you always fight as like love. And I think over time, that definition has matured and changed. Like I was like, oh, I'm clearly, I'm fighting with like my girlfriend. So therefore, that means we really love each other. And the more we fight, the more in love we are. Does that make sense?

1:52:55And I think that's a really toxic way of viewing it. I think as I've matured and I've gotten older, I've realized that you can be chill and have your own time to yourself and not get bothered by a lot of things. And that can be love. And I didn't see that growing up. So I think that's just experience and time of realizing that. And also just being so much later in life to have kids or like to want a family and i think that just comes from maturing which i did not see my parents do because my parents had me when they were like 19 so it's always crazy to me because i

1:53:29Graham Stephan:think oh man if i had a kid at 18 years old how old would they be now it's like 17 right i always do that i'm like hey instead of having bailey we had a kid they'd be like five and a a few years old. It's weird stuff like that. But if you had a kid now, do you think you'd look back in your life and be like, I wish I didn't have a kid. I wish I could have just made a couple more million before I did it. It's less about that and more about just the time. If I had a kid today and a child appeared, I would regret not having traveled more and done experiences that you just can't do quite the same after having a kid.

1:54:10Graham Stephan:And I think travel is a big one. and I would have been like, man, instead of spending all the time working, I should have done all these other things that I just postponed. Really? I don't think you'd feel that way at all. I think you'd eventually get to do those things, whether it's with your kids or after. Bill Perkins, because we talked about this on that pod, really opened my eyes. And he's like, your window is closing of you before kids. And once you have a child, the you that's sitting here today is never going to exist again in the same capacity. And he said, now is your time to do these things in your life because it's your last chance.

1:54:44Graham Stephan:And I was like, oh, wow, he's correct. So I'm in the mindset now where like, hey, now is a good time to travel. Take it a bit slower, do these things that I just don't want to keep putting it off forever. That's true. I don't think you traveled quite a lot, right? Japan. But I want to spend a year and over the year, maybe spend two months of the year, just spread out throughout the year just traveling different places do you have like a checklist of places you want to go and then you're like okay i'm ready for a kid or is it like how you feel or what's it based on i think obviously i'd love a checklist but i think you don't need to hit everything on the checklist but you know hitting 50 on that list would be pretty good how many places do you want to see probably four or five okay but spend like a week and a half in each right so like two months out of the year oh you know every other month being away for like two weeks okay perfect maybe every three months being away do you think you're working towards that would you say yeah we're planning uh to go away this year doing a few little trips and then next year i want to plan and get that because i feel like at the at the rate that you're traveling that i know you to travel like you're going to take the next 10 years to get to the next five places because you don't travel a lot i said that i'm doing vacation like graham will treat everything as his priority.

1:56:03Like for example, some gas valve will go out on one of his rental properties and he has to spend like, you know, six hours of his time, six hours of his time comparing quotes from different contractors, stressing out about it. And that's just something that like should realistically be so insignificant in his life. But at the same point, if he just spent the six hours, like trying to optimize the quality of his life and doing the things that he says that he wants to do, like traveling the world and going to go visit places, it's like you should be spending that time optimizing for life fulfillment purpose meaning quality of life figuring out a few places you want to go to picking some people you want to go visit them with it's like that right there is actually like being meaningful with the way that you're spending your time yeah and you you prioritize so many other things that realistically you hate doing you don't need to be doing over the things that you want to do but you don't do yeah that's true that's a great observation that's a really good way of putting it from from what i've observed of you being the way you are and I'm similar in the sense of like once something's on my mind, like I got to do it right now.

1:57:01But then the things that are so important to us, we sometimes forget to do and plan for and just think they're going to like happen organically, but they don't. And I just feel like, man, I think about having a kid. I'm like, I'm 36 years old right now. When my kid's 36, I'm going to be 72. That's that's kind of depressing.

1:57:20Graham Stephan:I think we're going to live into into our 90s. But we have the same like quality of life and health. Like right now you're in your prime in terms of how you observe and view the world and experience it, how your health is like. When you're 70, like, okay, you might live to 100, but are you going to be as fit? And will you care about all this stuff? Like probably not, you know? I don't know. I'm planning to live to like, I want to hit 100. I'm just saying. Planning to do it. I want to hit 100. I think that would be, that would be ideal. So I'm doing everything I can to live to 100. Okay. I would love to live 100.

1:57:55You gotta go to Thailand and get those biomarkers tested, man. That's gonna be the hard part. And not take more than three hours. Saving up now. Not take more than three hours, hopefully. It could be days, man. I don't know. We've gone full circle. I just can't. We've gone full circle. I'm not like you, where I could just like... Wait, so are you planning to have kids, you think?

1:58:12Graham Stephan:One day. One day. One day. Like when? I don't put a win on it, but at some point, yes, I would like to have. Do you think you'll be like literally everyone that we know that's like, if I had known, I would have done it sooner? do you think you'll be that way? It's impossible to say because I'm not there. Maybe, but maybe not. But I just feel like we've heard that and I've heard you tell me that. Just anyone who has kids is like, I was scared and I was putting it off, but I wish I had done it earlier. And if you know that now, does that affect anything? Maybe. But maybe not. I don't know. Just because other people say it doesn't mean I always follow it.

1:58:50Graham Stephan:Right. I think you just come to your own conclusion. Yeah, I wouldn't know either. I don't have kids yet. And then what is the ideal amount of money to have? Enough to do anything you want with, but not too much to where you want to do nothing. How much is that? Somewhere in between. The amount? You got to give an amount. The way I would define it is just enough. Enough is different for everybody. So what's enough for you?

1:59:18Um, enough to do, to do what with though? Like just to live? Yeah. What's the perfect amount of money for Andrejek? I would say I'd be happy with like two million dollars. Even a million. I'd be happy with it. I would make it work. What do you mean? I'm asking you what's the perfect amount of money? You could just select an amount. Yeah. You could just select an amount. Yeah, sure.

1:59:40Graham Stephan:So select an amount. What's your guys' The ideal? Like a perfect? That makes no sense to me at all. What does that even mean? I would say the perfect amount of money for me is ten million bucks. I was going to say ten million too initially but I'm like yeah but like five million is fine too five million is great yeah exactly so like how do you answer that question five minutes fine 10 is better 20 might be better but you're 50 might be even better you know when i asked when i asked you the question though you're like well it's not so much that you don't want to do things right it's also not i do really you know what on the age you get the money too how old true like but at 30 i'd say it's a different age than at 60 dude i do believe that having so much money though like can be a curse at a certain point I haven't had enough to where it's like it's become a curse, but I think there is a amount.

2:00:26Here would be a good way to phrase it. Yeah.

2:00:27Graham Stephan:You could gift somebody a lottery ticket and you could dictate how much money they get. How much would you give them? And it wouldn't ruin their life. You don't want to give too much where all of a sudden it screws everything up. Right. But you don't want to undercut them either because you could decide how much they get. Right. Yeah, I would say$10 million is a great amount. $10 million is great. I would say like$4 million. What's that$4 million for you? I would probably... $4 million would be buying yourself a house, putting some money in stocks, spending a little bit of money. Give me like a picture of like how you've allocated that$4 million.

2:01:04You have$4 million net worth. What does that mean? $4 million net worth? You said$4 million. Me personally or this is like a hypothetical situation? You said$4 million. Let's say you take 4 % from that. That's$160 ,000 a year. Let's say you take 3 % from that. That's$120 ,000. $10 ,000 a month. That's what you can spend. Realistically, they're going to go F off with some of the money. They're going to spend it. But if you have$10 million instead of$4 million, I do think that once you add that extra digit in there, people are going to be like, oh, I need a Ferrari. I need a Lambo. I need this. I need that.

2:01:29With$4 million, realistically, people are not going to be buying. Well, I'm sure they will. But I think$4 million is solid because it doesn't appear to be this insane, insane, insane amount of money where you're going to go buy a bunch of new Lambos, some Ferraris, and you could still just put it away in some stocks. Hold on. But you're saying people or you? People. People? Okay. I bet they would. I think they would. I think you give anyone a million dollars, they'd be gone in a year. Okay, so what's the perfect amount for someone to win in a lottery then? For 50 bucks? But that's what I'm saying.

2:01:56But I'm assuming you're asking me or I'm asking you, Jack, like what is your amount? Not like a hypothetical for an average person. My perfect amount of money, I would say would be probably between five and 10 million. Okay. Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah. Graham? Me personally?

2:02:16Graham Stephan:Or for the average person? because we're talking about you personally 50 million. 50 million? Yeah. Because it's not enough where you could just private jet all the time, but you could get a nice piece of beachfront real estate. Right. You could be bi-coastal. Sure. You could take first-class plane tickets without really thinking through it, and you could have a great collection of something that's unique. You don't think you do that with 20 million? No, no, you're not buying first class plane tickets with two beachfront prop. Dude, a nice beachfront property is going to be eight to 12 million dollars.

2:02:56Graham Stephan:Oh, if it's that expensive property, yeah. But you could even have just a normal 2 ,500 square foot house on the beach in a great location in Santa Barbara, and that's going to be 12 million dollars. The thing that I take away from this conversation is that I'm very glad I am not in your perspective. I'm so glad that I don't have that same perception of like how much I need. I think that's like a burden that I don't have that you do. If that makes sense. I don't think it's a burden. I think it's a complete burden. How is that a burden? It just is. It just makes, it makes. So the way I would define happiness for people is the difference or the delta between their reality and expectation, right?

2:03:38It's like where you are today and where you'd like to be. And the delta between where you are and 50 million or 100 million or a billion is like crazy. Now, once you've reached like, let's say, it gets like, why are some of the richest people, some of the most miserable people in the world? Because their reality is like at utopian levels. Where do you go from that point? There is no more expectation there. Like there's nothing money will increase. so therefore their happiness level there is there's no space there's there's no i would say

2:04:10Graham Stephan:i'm i would say i'm pretty happy though i'd say most days like 10 being the happiest i've ever been in my life and one being like really unhappy most days i'm like a solid eight to like yeah 8.5 i'm not saying you're unhappy i'm just saying anybody who ties their happiness to like some perceived like wealth level it's it's like it's not but i like i like having a goal and then going after the goal and always having something of like, hey, this would be cool. Like your Pokemon collection, like 150 grand. That to me would be like, that would be cool. That would be awesome to have. And so then I think about that and I think, oh, just the aspect of wanting something, like here's an example of something I've postponed for a long time.

2:04:55Graham Stephan:I really want a Tesla Model S and a used one too, like a 2023 Tesla Model S long range. I could go out and buy that thing right now. Okay. But I purposely don't buy it. Because you're edging yourself. Yeah, right. But it's just the idea of like, hey, it's cool. But I have fun going and looking and like every day be like, is today the day that I can... Because you subconsciously understand that by owning that thing, It's like that happiness that you have right now, the excitement, like that's what you're holding on to because you don't have it. You could get it anytime you want. That's exactly what I'm trying to prove.

2:05:35Graham Stephan:Yeah, but my point being is I'm still happy just not getting that thing as I am just looking at them online and maybe getting one one day. Right. That's fine. But that proves my point that like there is some burden that is attached to like thinking that you'll be happier at like a 50 million dollar thing. I think at some point I get the car, I get the 2023 Tesla Model S, I get a good deal. I really, really, really enjoy it. And then after a year or two, I think, oh, wow, maybe this Model X. And then I just edge myself a little further. But I'm constantly just leveling up. It's like every year is a little better than the year prior.

2:06:12Here's the way I view it is once you're on that hamster wheel and like you'll find the next thing to edge yourself with, right? You'll never find finality in that spectrum.

2:06:23Graham Stephan:I would hate to find finality though. Right. And I agree with that. But if you only attach that level of like happiness to just material things, that's fine. I'm not saying it's wrong. But like for me, I think there's so many different aspects of life that you can chase and edge yourself with that are not necessarily attached to like some financial figure and still find happiness. But here's the thing. To get to that financial figure, you're not just making money out of thin air. You have to do something productive. True. You have to do something meaningful. So in the pursuit of that, you're doing something that's hopefully bigger than yourself.

2:06:59Graham Stephan:That's true. So it's part of the process. Yes, but that's financially. But then there's also so many different ways to explore that. Like that's, you're talking about depth. I'm talking about broad, right? If that makes sense. Like you're talking about depth of economics. I think you could have length and girth. Oh, well, so I'm a girth kind of guy. I think you could still hit that beachfront property with a nice yard that goes out into sand. The waves break. You could still do that while at the same time. Listen, I rented an Airbnb in Hawaii for like, dude, I spent stupid amounts of money for like a week.

2:07:33I spent like 15 grand for a week on like it was like a 20 million dollar house on a beach. And I lived there for like a week. I'm like, this is cool. but like what I dedicate my entire life to chasing this thing like I'm like no I'll skip it like I I don't want to attach my perception of like the journey of life to this thing that I just got to experience and it's cool but like I'm cool without it it's not the end of the world for me if I don't have that I'd be nice to have but I don't want to spend the rest of my life like not traveling or not having kids or not having more meaningful experiences in lieu of this thing?

2:08:10I think you could do both. I think you can.

2:08:12Graham Stephan:I think you could still pursue that and still have a meaningful life and have a family and all that sort of stuff. I think it, for sure, it depends on how you want to structure your life. So there's nothing at this point that you want besides a family? I think so, yeah. There's nothing that I'm like, oh, I got to build a business because I want this thing. I'm so glad I don't feel that way. But what about a yard with a pool? That's nice. See, I got you thinking now. What do you mean? Here we go. I got that. You don't have a yard in the pool. What? Well, I don't need a pool. You know what? It's way more enjoyable to have a pool to go to a friend's pool because they pay for it.

2:08:51And they maintain it. Only if they heat the pool, which they don't do. Which my friends don't do. Nope. They don't want to spend the money. Nope, because it's expensive. Dude, we went to Graham's July 4th party and he's like, I'm not heating up the pool. Like, dude, I'll pay you$5 to heat up the pool today.

2:09:07Graham Stephan:It's way more than$5. I got to get that beachfront property, man. That$5 compounded in Bitcoin. I don't know. Haven't you like had the same experience where it's like eating someone else's snacks is always more enjoyable than like having it yourself or like going to swim at someone else's pool. It's just so much more enjoyable. I like to have it myself, but I also don't. I have very few like desires. Like there aren't many things that I feel like I need in my life to be happy. Why is that? I think it's – But don't you want a beach house?

2:10:02careers to learn more and apply.

2:10:08No. No. No. Why not? Why? Because I just got another house and it's such a pain in the butt. And I'm like, ugh, like I just, I want few things. But if you have$50 million, you're going to have to worry about that. I would rather just rent it, you know? You could rent the house, Jack. There's nothing that says you have to buy it. But I like, what I really love doing, what I absolutely love doing and I wish I could do it more often is work throughout the day, see my friends, eat some good food, play pickleball at night. That's all I want. That's all I want and I'll be extremely happy and that's it.

2:10:43Do you think that's like boring or like wrong? No, not at all. Okay.

2:10:48Graham Stephan:No. Okay. But then again, you walk in Jack's house and there are 30 pairs of shoes. The dining room is a ping pong table. Okay. The furniture is completely mismatched. And there are steps in the walls. The new house is going to be nicer. It's going to have, you know, I'm going to dress it up well. In fact, maybe I'll put some pictures here or at some future episode of the before and after old house, new house. Yeah, you got to subscribe because in like two months, you're going to see this new set and it's going to be amazing. Does it look incredible? Oh yeah, we have a big announcement to make here on the Ice Coffee Hour.

2:11:22Guys, this set that we've been using for the past few years, it will no longer be the set of the Ice Coffee Hour. Okay? If you want to get a behind-the-scenes glance at the set, I'll tell you what, we'll post a picture on our members-only page. Oh, ooh. Okay? We'll also unveil it as soon as it's done done. And I'm telling you right now, the iced coffee hour is going to have a massive, massive upgrade. Massive upgrade. How about this? For the members, do a tour of the warehouse. Sure. That's cool. What are you going to turn this bedroom into? Guest bedroom. Okay. This is a guest bedroom in Graham's house, and we've long overstayed our welcome.

2:12:00And on top of that, it's just so small in here. You guys can't really tell how tiny this room is, but it's cramped. I hit my head on that light all the time. And so we are going to be making an upgrade and it will be insane. That's all I'm saying. Not many podcasts out there that are going to have a set like the iced coffee hours. It is beautiful.

2:12:16Graham Stephan:And the funny thing is too, I do really good work from the bedroom. Like my favorite is to be in bed with my laptop, coffee to my side and just work. Yeah. And so I'm going to use this as my office to work in. And I just work from the bed. I don't know what it is about that. Just waking up and just being in a bed. And we have windows over here that overlook the tree and everything. So like I'm looking forward to having that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. It's a nice bedroom. It's got an attached bathroom too. It's nice. It's an ensuite. Good talk. Are you going to buy a new house? Am I?

2:12:53Graham Stephan:Yeah. Yeah. I, so Jeremy has been trying to get me to buy a new house. Like every week he's like sending me listings and like, look at this and look at this. And he's like, my agent found a house and we could go see it this weekend. I'm like, no, Jeremy. But I do look at the market daily. Me too. And I would say if there's a house that came up that is perfect and if I could get it at a price that it just, I'd be dumb to turn it down, I'd do it. Hmm. What's the price range? It just, it's, it sounds dumb. It's less about the range and it's more about how good of a deal I could get. So it's like, if it's worth this, but I could buy it for this, I'll buy it.

2:13:36Huh.

2:13:36Graham Stephan:But it's gotta be, but it's gotta be perfect. And there are very few places that I've seen that have been perfect. In fact, in the last three years, there has only ever been two places in Vegas that I loved. One of them, I couldn't get at the price that I thought I would need to pay to do that. If you go back in time, do you wish you bought it? No. No. I'm happy without the house. Because the monthly increase, because where I'm at now, I have like a 2.8 % interest rate. I put so little money down. It's not stressful for me to be here. Spending the money on the other place would, that additional stress just wasn't worth it.

2:14:16Graham Stephan:Like I would get a benefit, like a happiness boost of five, but I get a stress boost of seven. And so that's not worth it. So I need a happiness boost and a stress boost to either be lower or the same. And this was not, but it was a beautiful house. The other one sold for$15 million, but the house was perfect. I'm talking like as perfect as you could possibly get as a house. This was it. It was one of a kind. It's truly trophy property with a view of the strip, with a yard. It was everything was perfect. But obviously it's 15 million. I can't do that. But if that house were six, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

2:14:59Graham Stephan:Heartbeat. I would find a way to make that work. That's cool. So if it got sold for less than 50 % of its value, then you would have made it work? Way less. 15 million to six. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But it's just it wouldn't. But I bet at some point there will be a perfect place at a perfect price. It's going to happen. Okay. But it could take 10 years. Huh. Well, I'm excited to see it. So there you have it. Every day it's like unboxing a pack of Pokemon cards. When I check the market. Yeah. And I see what's on Zillow. It's like, oh, there's a new listing that came up. Let's see that. Right. Yeah. It's cool.

2:15:33I look at houses all the time, too. Final question. This is kind of an interesting question. we've asked quite a few people on the podcast. Uh-oh. Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? One horse-sized duck, for sure. Andre? Yep. Thank you so much for coming on the ice. Thanks for having me. This was a blast. Great to talk to you. Nice watch. Thank you, likewise. By the way. Oh, thank you very much, Graham. Nice watch. That's a Casio. Thank you, guys, so much for watching. It really means a lot. Shout out Andre. Andre's information will be linked down below in the description.

2:16:06shout out that health thing that you did in Thailand shout out the other thing that you shouted out the biomarker thing that you guys got tested

2:16:13Graham Stephan:function health and don't forget to sign up for the memberships to see the tour again Mikey our editor loves this he's been telling us to promote the memberships more we've been terrible about it but it really helps support Mikey so just do that for Mikey I'm sure he'd really appreciate it and you get to see all of the episodes before they go live publicly you get to see them in full without any sensors or anything like this. And I think you'll like it. And if you don't like it, you could always just cancel. But don't do that. Shout out, Gavin. Thank you for listening to the audio. Thank you guys for watching so much.

2:16:47We wouldn't be here without you.

2:16:48Graham Stephan:Until next time.

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