Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Welcome to 'Stripping Off with Matt Haycox,' where we bare it all on business, money, and life. Get ready to peel back the layers of success with entrepreneur, investor, funding expert, and mentor with over 20 years of experience building and growing businesses, Matt Haycox.
Tune into steamy conversations with industry titans, celebrities, and successful entrepreneurs as they strip down their stories of triumphs, setbacks, and the raw realities of their journey to the top. Matt is going down on business, money, and life, and will take DMCs to new heights!
Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
From Supermarket to Crypto Billionaire: Carl Runefelt’s Unbelievable Rise
Tell us what you like or dislike about this episode!! Be honest, we don't bite!
In this episode of Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, Matt sits down with Carl Runefelt, the Bugatti-driving, crypto-billionaire who’s reshaping the financial world. From a supermarket worker to a global crypto entrepreneur, Carl doesn’t hold back as he shares the strategies, decisions, and mindset shifts that skyrocketed him to success.
Who is Carl Runefelt?
Carl is a self-made entrepreneur, crypto investor, and YouTube influencer known as The Moon. With an empire that spans crypto businesses, sponsorships, and online education, Carl has built a reputation for making bold bets and inspiring millions to take control of their financial futures.
Key Takeaways:
- From Supermarket to Billionaire: Learn how Carl went from stacking shelves to dominating the crypto world.
- Navigating Crypto Markets: Carl’s approach to bull and bear markets, and why the bear is your biggest opportunity.
- Personal Branding ROI: Hear about Carl’s Formula 2 sponsorship and why he believes it’s all about timing your investments.
- Wealth Diversification: Why Carl prioritises Bitcoin, gold, and silver—and his bold predictions for the future of fiat money.
- Trading Lessons: Carl’s biggest wins and losses, and why managing emotions is the key to sustainable success.
Connect with Carl Runefelt:
▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMoon
▶ Instagram: @TheMoonCarl
Connect with Matt Haycox:
▶ Instagram :https://www.instagram.com/thematthaycox/
▶ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-haycox/
▶ Website: https://matt-haycox.com/podcasts/
▶ YouTube: Matt Haycox - YouTube
Subscribe for No-BS Business Tips and Millionaire Advice: https://nobollockswithmatthaycox.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Share this episode with anyone curious about crypto or looking to break free from financial limitations!
#CryptoBillionaire #Bitcoin #CarlRunefelt #Entrepre
Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer
Are you ready to unlock your full potential and take your business to the next level? I’m Matt Haycox—entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and your go-to guy for no-bollocks advice on business and personal growth.
With over 25 years of experience building and funding businesses across industries, I’ve faced it all—wins, losses, and the ultimate comeback story. Through my podcasts, No Bollocks with Matt Haycox and Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, I cut through the bullshit to bring you real, actionable strategies and raw conversations with entrepreneurs, celebrities, and industry leaders.
Whether you’re looking to scale your business, secure funding, or avoid the mistakes I’ve learned the hard way, my goal is simple: to help YOU create YOUR success story.
Want more? Subscribe to my No Bollocks Newsletter and get weekly insider tips on entrepreneurship, strategy, and business growth—because learning in 10 minutes is way better than wasting years on an MBA.
Ready to make moves? Let’s go—your success starts here.
Guys, matt Haycox here and welcome to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox today on Christmas Day. If you're watching this later on, this was released on Christmas Day as a Christmas present to my next guest today Carl Ruhnfeldt. Carl Moon Ruhnfeldt crypto guy, bagatti driver, entrepreneur, extraordinaire. You are going to love this episode, whether you're into crypto, whether you're into flash lifestyle, whether you're into inspiration or whether you're into business.
Speaker 1:Carl was on a podcast of mine previously, about two years ago. We had a great chat then, but it was never deep. We didn't get into the real tactics of how he makes his money. We talked about law of attraction and his life from being a supermarket worker through to being a crypto billionaire. But as popular as that podcast was, we got a lot of comments about well, it's lovely that he made all this money, but how did he make it? You know Law of Attraction Law of Attraction but I want to know how I can make money like Carl too.
Speaker 1:In today's episode, I ask the questions that you want to know the answers to. I ask him how did he make his first money to get into Bitcoin? How did he then invest that money? What happened with the Bitcoin? How does he now invest in crypto businesses. How has he gone from supermarket guy to Bugatti driver, to world famous crypto entrepreneur? And Carl doesn't hold back. He tells us the truth, he tells us what we need to know, and we also stop talking about business and we talk about his personal life, his family.
Speaker 1:Carl has a brother who was born with down syndrome, who suffered cancer. You know that's inspired carl to go on to charity work. We talk about his love for music and much, much more. So tune in, enjoy this with your christmas dinner or whatever you're eating. If you're watching this in the future, guys matt haycox here for another episode of stripping off with Matt Haycox, and today we have got a repeat guest. Very excited to have him here. Mr Carl Moon Runefelt is in the house, in the studio at least Crypto expert, entrepreneur and Bugatti driving legend, to name but a few things. Carl thanks a lot for being here, buddy.
Speaker 1:Thank you, man Happy to be back Two years. I mean it's gone fast.
Speaker 2:We were just talking before we started. I can't believe how quickly it's gone, yeah yeah, crazy, it's um.
Speaker 1:It feels actually quite long time ago, you think. Yeah, I mean I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just a lot of things that happen, I guess I'm getting old, so, uh, so, so time.
Speaker 1:Time goes so quickly. But I think that's the thing about being in dubai for me as well. I literally always say I wake up in the morning, I go to the gym, I do a little bit of work, blink twice it's 7pm, 8pm, and the time just disappears. But listen, it's great to be here. We were talking when we bumped into each other about how popular that last podcast episode we did was, particularly the video version. I think it's my first, first or second most uh, most downloaded, uh downloaded youtube video. So, uh, plenty of comments, plenty of, uh, plenty of people loving you and uh, plenty of people asking more questions. So, thanks, uh, thanks, for being here to dig deeper. Uh, one thing I've got I've got to ask from the beginning is when we did the podcast uh, march, april 2022 bitcoin was about 40k. It wasn't about about 40k dollars back then, I think. Today, what are we on? We're middle of december. It's about about 105, 106, 106 a day. What's that? What's that done for you over the last couple of years? How much have you made?
Speaker 2:uh, well, obviously my net worth has increased like 3x probably, um, which is great, uh, and yeah, business is booming and you know I'm very busy now because now all the companies that I'm involved with um have a lot of things to do. You know, there's a lot of money to be made and things to attend to and but yeah, but busy is good. That's, that's the good thing with crypto. You have, I mean, one year of bull market and then three years of bear market. That's usually the case in crypto. So you have one year of, like, you know, making money and building things or like setting things up for the bear market, and then you have three years of bear market where you just have to maintain and build and kind of, you know, build up for the bull market. So you're essentially planting seeds in the bear market to reap the rewards in the bull market. And that's basically what I'm doing now trying to reap as many rewards as possible and and collect and basically Prepare for the bear market, because that's very important.
Speaker 1:Most people don't do you make money in a bear market as well? I mean, are you just kind of maintaining, waiting, waiting for another bull, or have you got trading strategies and and your investments that you do that still make your money in?
Speaker 2:the bear market. I don't trade, uh, not much. I I do small trades, but it's it definitely not is my main income at that point. Then it's more my businesses. I have, um, you know, my youtube channel, where I make some money, also in the bear market, and then I have other companies that I'm involved with, um, either I'm a seed investor or I'm a incubator with my, my group of companies, the moon group, uh, and some of them made money in the bear market. Some of them were just maintaining, but uh, but yeah, I mean I make money in the bear market. Some of them were just maintaining, but yeah, I mean I make money in the bear market, but way less. Bull market is like 10, 20 times more.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll come on to talk about some of your businesses in a minute. Two things I wanted to pick up on in the beginning Again, I guess either things that have been personal to me or things that have happened since we last spoke. You sponsored a Formula 2 race team. I think it happened the season after we recorded. Did you do one season or two seasons? Two seasons, so I think you were just doing it at that point, and not only did you sponsor a team, but you stuck your face on a Formula 2 car. I like to think of myself as pretty out there with my branding and with my marketing opportunities, but that has to be the biggest and best marketing opportunity ever. I mean, what was the background to it and what did it do for you?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I met Ralph in monaco, like three years ago probably, um, in the grand prix. I was renting a yacht and I had it there in the harbor, and then we had a party with some friends and he came over and then we just talked and he was such a cool guy, we both like had a good vibe and uh, and he was looking for sponsors for his car, which he told me like a month later and he just asked like hey, do you want to like do something there? And I was like yeah, sure, and then I just started with like putting my instagram handle on the car for like 15k or something, um, just like a, like a small, uh, small sponsorship, um, and then the next season, uh, whoops. I I told him like um, bro, um, I want to do something crazy, like well, how much to get the whole car? And he was like, well, that's like I think it said like 2 million, 2.5, something crazy, you know, um, and I basically said, well, let's just do that, because I want to have the whole car.
Speaker 2:And the thing is like, first of all, I, um I made very good money. Then, like it was a bull market and like I was like. It was like peak bull market that was very wealthy. So I had some spare money to to to to spend and I love racing, um, and I think ralph is such a cool dude, like he's always been uh trying to get money himself uh from from investors because he doesn't have rich parents like most of the other drivers, and yeah, so I thought I'm helping someone else, I can maybe do some marketing out of it and hopefully have some fun as well, and all of these things were true. Like I had a lot of fun. We were traveling around the world following the car, following Ralph. A lot of wins, a lot of losses, he made podiums and yeah, honestly, like it was a blast and you, you took the whole car.
Speaker 1:There was no, there was no other sponsors on there there was a couple of small sponsors as well yeah but that was like 90 percent yeah yeah, like, like, like being able to be on your feet while you're all body basically but you used the word spend.
Speaker 1:You said you know you had some spare money to spend. Did you see that as a spend or did you see it as an investment? And I guess setting the question up more whenever I make high-value purchases or if I spend large amounts of money on something, even if to other people it looks like spending. I'm noticing your beautiful watch underneath your sleeve there. I've had Pat X and Richard Mills and obviously you know I've got the boat.
Speaker 1:People look at these as big spends and almost like a waste of money or a wealthy guy spending money.
Speaker 1:But I always say that every big purchase I make, I tend to be able to wrap it into some kind of investment, typically an investment in marketing, an investment in brand building, and that if I spent 100 grand on a watch, then I would use. Yes, I would enjoy the watch, but what people don't realise is that 100 grand is probably still there in value if I wanted to get my cash back. But it's opened doors to be able to network with other Patek owners, or it's a talking point when you walk into a room that people come to you and obviously you know as a well, I like to think of as a prolific networker, I find all these things very useful to me, and you know as expensive as two, two and a half million dollars must be to put yourself on that car. I would imagine the branding opportunities and the doors that open for you should be able to far outweigh that um actually no, really, yeah, I would say, um, I don't think so at all.
Speaker 2:I think that the value financially that I got back like you could count it and like maybe a few hundred thousand dollars, oh really, so maybe. So I would say 90 of that was um, uh was not coming back in any form of ROI financially. So I think sponsoring in F2, f1, it's hard to make that money back unless you have like a clear product you're promoting. Back then I was basically promoting like a couple of my companies, but they were a little bit too early stage at that point and mostly I was just like promoting myself, I would say, which in hindsight, like maybe I mean I wouldn't do it again because there's other ways to do it with higher ROI, but I would definitely want to be part of that. So if I went back in time I would make a smaller sponsorship, like maybe two, three hundred K or like something like that, because would be um more like for fun kind of money, but that's millions of dollars, that that you can easily put that in google ads and get like you know, you can take over a country of marketing ads. You know um, which is better, um roi, I think.
Speaker 2:But I still don't regret it because I had so much fun and, um, it was such a door opening for me for also going into racing. So now I'm going to start racing myself soon, but then I'm paying for my own racing, um, and I'm also very happy that I was able to enable ralph to race, so I definitely don't regret anything. But I'm not going to be spending that kind of money on on on sponsorship in racing um, probably ever again, unless it's like f1 with one of my companies in the future. But then it's going to be a little bit different setup, but uh, but roi needs to be the focus, I would say it's interesting that you mentioned um, better spent money on google ads.
Speaker 1:To take over a country was uh, was your words. Because I I have this same kind of conversation with people myself and literally this morning I got a phone call, a voice note, that was returning in the taxi on the way down, from a guy who puts on celebrity football matches and I played in one, I don't know four or five months ago, where they bring over from England to Dubai 20 players, ex-premiership football players, you know some celebrities, some TV people, and then they sell sponsorship to go on the shirts and all that kind of stuff. And I knew somebody who knew them. They reached out to me, said would you be interested to sponsor? And I said, look, I'll only be interested to sponsor if you're going to play me, because I know I'm not going to get great value from the actual name on the shirt itself, but I'll get good fun from playing. And you know I took it as an opportunity that we planned well to meet the other players, to maybe get some guests for podcasts, to get some good social media content, etc. Etc. And listen, we're talking microscopic amounts of money compared to what you're talking with the Formula 1, formula 2. We paid 10K for that.
Speaker 1:When you look at what happened afterwards, was it worth 10K? It probably wasn't worth 500 bucks. And the guy messaged me this morning saying we're coming back again. Are you interested to do it? I said, listen, no disrespect to you or your business model or everything you do. It's great fun and you put a good product on, but I just can't see any return on that spend. I actually said.
Speaker 1:I said if I took 10k and put it into facebook ads, into google ads, into podcast ads, I could literally grow my audience to a to a hundred thousand, you know, a hundred thousand new, new people.
Speaker 1:And, um, I think, uh, you know it's still, despite the fact that we, you, that business owners have all heard about Google Ads or Facebook Ads and are on the receiving end of them for 10, 15, 20 years, there's still so much value to be had in that With this podcast, we started to do audio podcast ads that pop up on the app maybe six months ago and we've got from relatively modest spends small five-figure spends. We've grown our audience 40x in the last six months and it's interesting to hear someone with a big public profile like you talk about those things, because I think people often look at YouTubers or guys who've been successful online and think of it as just oh well, these guys have popped a few good videos and you know everybody just organically arrive, arrives on their page anyway. But I think you know people, people don't realize how you know what effort and spend and control you know goes into into building that brand yeah, I agree, and I mean personally my youtube channels I've, I've, I did grow them organically.
Speaker 2:But for the businesses, of course, I think you need to be smart with how you spend the money and sponsoring things. I would say that should come very late stage. For a company it's only about brand awareness. So like when you're Coca-Cola and like Microsoft and like Apple, yeah, it makes sense to do that brand awareness kind of thing. But for earlier stage, like even mid-stage, I would say it's too much money because you can just take that and literally do Google ads or do other kind of paid marketing which gives you direct referrals like direct clients, gives you direct referrals like direct um, you know clients, um.
Speaker 2:So roi is much higher and way more easier to measure, because that's the problem also with the sponsorship in f2, f1. It's very hard to measure because you don't know, there's no link that people click. They see it on tv, they see it when they're in the paddock and they're like maybe they go to your website, maybe they do something with you, but you don't, you can't measure where they came from. But with google ads and facebook ads and and other kind of marketing you can directly see where they came from how much money you made from it. So you can see if you spend one dollar, if you get two dollars back or not. But with f2, like I can just estimate, and I can estimate that I didn't make that money back and you say say you grew your YouTube channels organically, 100% organically.
Speaker 1:You've never used YouTube ads and things online.
Speaker 2:No all organically.
Speaker 1:What do you see as your tactics or your hooks to be able to have grown those YouTube channels? What could someone listening to this who wants to grow online not necessarily in crypto, but just you know build a YouTube presence? What are the key secrets?
Speaker 2:I think the key secret is to, first of all, be consistent and don't overthink the videos. Most people they have an idea oh I want to make a YouTube channel, but then they overthink it too much and they never make that first video. Or they make three videos and then they give up. I think consistency and just start making content any kind of content is very important and even if your content is shit which it probably will be, to be honest, the first few videos, my first videos, were very bad.
Speaker 1:I can't even watch my first videos. They're cringe. It brings tears to my eyes, I know that's how I feel.
Speaker 2:Everyone feels like that, because your first videos are going to be horrible. That's just how how learning works and if you don't make those first videos, you're not going to learn. So you have to make bad videos to eventually make good videos. And I think people overthink it too much and never get started and um, and that's the most important, thing.
Speaker 1:You probably won't remember this but um, we, um, we had dinner on my boat in um in barcelona after Barcelona, after the Barcelona Grand Prix, and we were talking about YouTube videos at night and you said to me that you never see me make content that kind of shows lifestyle for me. And I said I always kind of have a bit of a what's the word Not mental block, maybe like a psychological block or embarrassment factor. That you know I'm not a Tai Lopez or you know I'm not a guy who feels comfortable jumping on the bonnet of a Ferrari, going, yeah, you know, I've got so much money, look at my car and I know that would get views, but A, it just doesn't feel like me. And B, I think, if you know, my business is quite, you know, quite mainstream, serious financial stuff with, you know, with, let's say, more older, serious investors, if they saw me jumping on the bonnets of Ferraris or go, hey, I'm going Bugatti shopping, I think they'd think I've lost my fucking mind and pull the money.
Speaker 1:But you said you know, know, look, you're already doing stuff. You don't even need to go make any new content. Um, you can just document what you're already doing and um, and literally the week, the week after um, I saw you, I I was in england with elena, um, anyone listening that's my girlfriend and I bought her. But she didn't know. I just bought her the, uh, the, the ladies nautilus with the diamond face.
Speaker 1:I thought you know what fuck it. I'll listen to what Carl said, I'll make a video and see what happens. So I took my cameraman down with me. I just told Elena that he was just there to vlog a bit of the day because she had no idea that she was getting this watch. I just told her we were going to a well, it was true, we were going to a well, it was true. We were going to a nice hotel where we'd been invited by Patek to have a dinner there and meet the other Patek owners which was true, because I had a Patek at the time. So in we went and at half time I was hanging out in the room, like a little room like this, on the big sofa. I said, oh Elena, I want to show you something. And like a little room like this on the big sofa. I said, oh Elena, I want to show you something. And the cameraman was there waiting in the background and, you know, pulled the watch out. She had no idea. And I said, oh my God. And she starts crying, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And we made like a 90-second video with the very obviously the in-your-face title of I Bought my Girlfriend a 70K Watch and literally within within I mean within two hours, three hours, I think that one video it was an Instagram reel had had more views than probably every, than probably every other video I'd done put together and over the course of the next days and week. And so it was, I think. I mean it was to this day because it's still there. It's not now. Over a million views on a typical reel for me might be mid-five figures. A very good reel might be a couple of hundred thousand if it's got somebody good in, but it was a real lesson, wake-up call, whatever you want to call it. It wasn't a great surprise to me because I obviously knew you were writing what you say. I see all the content that pops for the people, but you know, for me it was that balance of how do I make it so that I don't feel a total twat doing it, I think you know, for me you do a good job of that.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it because you're here, you know. Obviously you show a flash side of life, but you do it still in a reasonably humble way. I mean, there's a guy I follow online. I've been trying to delete him for ages but I just keep having to say one more day you might see him here in Dubai Sona, a Dutch, a black guy, dutch guy, early 20s. He owns I forget what the label's called. He owns like a clothing label, sells e-concourseses, and every day he's on there. He's like look at my Lamborghini, you're fucking broke and I'm fucking amazing, and if you live in Thailand, you live in Thailand because you can't afford to live in Dubai. I think I just it gets to views, but I just feel like such an asshole doing it.
Speaker 2:I mean I think some people like to watch that kind of vibe. I mean, same like andrew tate, he also like he will call you loser and like try to get you to. But yeah, I, I personally don't really put like a character on, I just document my life and that's that's what I do, because I I want to inspire people, because when I was in the supermarket, when I was working in the supermarket, like over six years ago, when I was visualizing my dream life, I was watching videos from people like that who were making videos about their private jets and going shopping and buying cars. Because that made me inspired and that made me actually go out there, like visualize my life and go and make my life amazing as it is today. Go out there, like, visualize my life and go and make my life amazing as it is today.
Speaker 2:So my vlog channel, where I do show my lifestyle you know it's actually not to brag, it's or actually, yeah, it is to brag to make sure that people see how my life changed from nothing to where it is today, and so people can take that bragging and use it for inspiration. So basically, I don't think bragging necessarily has to be a bad word, right, because if it's for inspirational purposes, which it is for me, then I'm feeling that I'm giving something to people. You know, because I remember my feeling I had watching these people bragging to me. It made me so inspired. I was like I also want that watch, I also want that lifestyle, I also want to buy private jet. I also want to be rich like these guys. You know, I want to have their lifestyle. So it made me feel good actually, like I was like inspired.
Speaker 2:Some people they just get jealous and they hate it and they, you know, but my content is not for them, you know, my content is for the people that want to change their life and that need someone to show them how, basically, I'm an example of how the law of attraction works, because I use the law of attraction to go from there to where I am today and I'm just documenting my life. And I mean people that watch my videos. They love it. And then, of course, there's always going to be people.
Speaker 1:I see some comments sometimes oh Carl, you're bragging too much, like so flashy and blah blah. But I'm not making my videos for them and I I don't really care if they don't like it, I mean. But typically, like with anything in life, you know that the people who were saying the negative comments are, you know they're, they're coming from their own, their own place of of, of something missing. That you know their own place of negativity. But like you say, and I mean, anything's in the delivery, isn't it? You can, you can deliver flashy content that makes you look like a dick because you're just trying to brag for the sake of bragging, or it can be. It can be presented in the way that you know. This is inspirational, this is helpful. It's like look, I've got a great life I didn't used to, I have have now, and this is how I did it and this is how you can do it too. And ultimately, for me, that's how your stuff comes across. I mean, there's always going to be people who look at anyone with more money than them and say that they're bragging just because they're pissed off that they've got more money than them. But you don't just show the lifestyle, you show the theory that goes behind it too.
Speaker 1:Hey, matt here, thanks for listening to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, but did you also know I've got another podcast, no Bollocks, with Matt Haycox. Both of these are very different. If you're enjoying the deep dives with the guests that I have every week on Stripping Off, then you're going to love the quick, short business tips, strategies and tactics I give you on no Bollocks. This comes out nearly every day. Make sure you go and check it out on iTunes, spotify, youtube, wherever you listen to your content, and I'll see you in a future episode.
Speaker 1:Well, look, let's talk about that theory because obviously, when we did our video podcast last time, we talked a lot about the time in the supermarket, the law of attraction and, I guess, how you visualise what you wanted, and that's the life you've got now. But a lot of the comments that we get on the video, a lot of what people would ask me is what does Carl actually do? Yeah, he's crypto. Yeah, he visualises life, but there's got to be more than just visualisation. Know that there's. There's got to be strategies and tactics and action too. So let's, let's, let's talk about, about your actual businesses. And you know, you've got, you've got the moon group. You know, I know, you trade crypto yourself. You invest in in other businesses, you incubate other businesses. You give us, give us the the lowdown on. You know what, what you actually do, what, uh, you know what does a typical investment look like for you? How do you get involved? You know what's a day in the office for for the moon man well, um, okay.
Speaker 2:So first of all, I mean, the most public part of my business is, of course, my youtube channel, the moon show, where I make daily crypto videos about bitcoin, altcoins, and I show people what trades I make and what investments I do um and um, and I educate people about bitcoin and financial markets and like the monetary system and and all of that stuff and the sort of interrupt.
Speaker 1:But the monetization of that is that you have a popular, popular youtube channel that, um, that earns you money from AdSense and YouTube ads.
Speaker 2:Well, AdSense is probably like maybe 1% of the money I make from there. What I actually make from there is, you know, sponsorships and partnerships with the affiliate. Partnerships like exchanges, like Bybit, binance these kind of guys, because when I make trades, when I make investments, people want to know which platform I use for it. So, binance these kind of guys, because when I make trades, when I make investments, people want to know which platform I use for it. So, of course, I have links in my description where people can use those links to go to Bybit and Binance or whatever it is I'm promoting and, yeah, like they're going to sign up anyways. So when they use my link, I get a kickback. And that's how I built my first wealth in crypto. Actually, that was my first big money and I still make money from it, but it was like that was the kickstart of my career.
Speaker 1:So you made the channel. The channel would generate income and you invested that income in crypto and it was a kind of a virtuous circle.
Speaker 2:Exactly so you can say that exactly. So I made good money from from affiliate partnerships and sponsorships put everything into crypto. Crypto has been booming. I've been investing that later then into companies. Uh, I've, like you know, I acquire companies and I incubate them like that uh and um and yeah, so it's been exponential from there. But but basically how it started was like that and people always want to know, like, how did you make your first money? And that's affiliate partnerships and sponsorships with my YouTube channel, and I think you know attention is very monetizable. Like when you have people's attention, you can easily monetize it. And in crypto, the revenue you can make from that is 10 times any other business. So I think, yeah, people underestimate how much money you can make from that is 10 times any other business. So I think, um, yeah, people underestimate how much money you can make with, with social media, if you know how to monetize it. Some people have no clue how to monetize um and um and then they don't make. But with attention, you should make money.
Speaker 1:If you don't, then you just don't know business well, I love that comment because it's again, it's very, let's say, personal to me right now. At this time that I've been working on my 2025 strategies and plans with various members of my team and with a couple of them I've been talking about the fact that the big focus for 2025 is on massive audience growth on the podcast. And they're saying, well, what's the end game? What are we doing with that massive growth? And I said, well, I can't tell you today what we're going to do, but what I can tell you is that by the end of next year, if there is X amount of growth, if we have X amount of eyeballs, if we have Y amount of earlobes watching and listening, then there is no way we can't generate opportunity and monetize that.
Speaker 1:And obviously, you're from the crypto space. I'm not. People are in the fitness space or the nutrition space or whatever it may be. But if you can build audience and get attention, as you say, in any space, then if you can't monetize it, then ultimately you're doing something very wrong and you just haven't got the right strategy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, so the businesses that you invest in.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, you're doing something very wrong and you just haven't got the right strategy. Yeah, I agree. So the businesses that you invest in, the businesses you incubate, they're crypto businesses. Can you tell us what some of these companies are? What do you look for in an investment and how actively do you get involved?
Speaker 2:Yeah, only crypto, of course.
Speaker 1:So when you say only crypto, is that crypto, crypto, crypto crypto. Can that be? Be blockchain?
Speaker 2:be nft be ai um well, for example, crypto gaming is something I'm very involved in. I've invested in the multiple crypto games, um, and that's crypto. I mean they they do have nfts in them, but it's it's not really like the main, like the main product is the the game. So it's a fun game like that's, that's the main part of the the product and then there is a crypto elements to it. But but no, I I don't like make nft collections or like meme coins, like other influencers. I think that's, uh, it's a good way to uh, um, basically like steal money. I would say like that's what people do like with these meme coins and empty collections. It's just they promote it to their, their audience and then they take the money from their audience, basically. So I don't promote that. I think it's very shady. But I promote real businesses with actual products and long-term visions that make actual revenue. Because meme coins they don't make money. They only make money because someone loses money.
Speaker 1:Do any of these meme coins have purported utility?
Speaker 2:No, that's actually transparently even the point of meme coins. Everyone says there's no point of them. They are just a meme coin. It's just a joke, like and I think that worked like many years ago with Dogecoin, like Shiba and Floki, like these big ones. But when it comes to these, like influencers launching meme coins, like it's just a complete, you know, money grab that's all it is.
Speaker 1:I read recently, like very recently, that um was, you know, the hawk to a girl yeah was? Was she involved in some kind of pump and dump or something?
Speaker 2:it said that she'd rugged people of like 50 million bucks or something yeah, so that's the story, and I would actually I mean, look, yes, it sounds very bad and it is bad, um, but I would like to defend her personally because I, I think I mean, I don't know her, but I'm very certain that she doesn't really understand crypto, right like I think there's one thing she understands I mean, look, I think she uh, she's not, she's not a crypto guy like the rest of us.
Speaker 2:Um, I think so. Um, I think she got taken advantage of. I'm sure she had some bad advisors next to her that came to her and told her, like look, we can make even 5 million, we can make millions of dollars with a meme coin. We call it Hawk Tua, and we can monetize your fame and you'll make money and your audience will make money. And she was like, yeah, let's do it. And then they do it. And then boom, advisors, they sell all their money, they take all the money and I think she most likely gets left there with almost no profits, if any at all, and just a huge dent in her reputation. I think that's what happened, without proof. I'm just saying I'm very sure that happened. And I think the same happened also with, like logan, paul and these guys. I think they, uh, they have bad advisors that tell them what to do.
Speaker 2:Um and uh and logan and hawk, two of these guys that have like huge following. They feel this FOMO that they should take advantage of the uh, the bull market and their audience. Um and they, they get bad advice and they launch these things with no experience, they don't know what to do, and the advisors they leave after they make money and then the project goes down. And yeah, I think because, um, I mean hoctua, I don't know, like maybe she's not, she's probably not so rich, but I mean logan paul, for example. He's worth probably like 100 million above. Like why would he create like a cryptocurrency to make like 5, 10 million? Um, if he knew that he would um damage his reputation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it's not worth it, you know so you know, but I I'm with you on the hawk tour because I mean, yeah, I'm sure, maybe, being unfair to her, you'd look at her and think, yeah, she probably, she probably doesn't understand anything about crypto. But then I do look at the, the logan, or you know, logan and j and Jake, who are probably some of the smartest business owners, certainly some of the smartest marketeers out there, and it's probably tougher to think that they don't understand. I'm not saying for one minute that they woke up and thought let's go and scam people, but it is harder to believe that they just do stuff because an advisor says so.
Speaker 2:I think so. Again, like Logan, he would never wake up, like you said, and say let me scam people for 5, 10 million because he knows that his brand is worth maybe billions, you know so he would never think like that. So I know that his intention when they started it was definitely to create the product, I'm 100 sure. But then the problem is nine out of 10 startups fail. You know of many reasons. You know, in this situation it was not because of money, it was just because I think maybe the product was just very bad. There was no one there to actually make a good product because they didn't really know what they were doing. So I think it ended up being a failed project. But I think that's probably what it was.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was necessarily a scam in the sense of that was the intention, but it became the image of it. But why would he risk his reputation for 10 million when he's worth so much more? So I would like to defend them, but I don't think these things were good things to do, right. But I also know that from experience, like I've seen my industry friends doing the same mistake, you know like I've done similar mistakes as well, like not at that scale. But you know, and I just think people get FOMO and they feel like they should take advantage of the bull market and they have bad advice and that's it. But people learn and but yeah, you, you're gonna see more of these things like you're gonna see more influencers launching meme coins and all this bullshit. You know, like, just don't buy them, like they're gonna go to zero. That's the.
Speaker 1:That's the thing I know you just said a minute ago that you, that you don't do nfts yourself, have you? Have you bought nfts? Um, you know, as in I don't't know, bored Apes, obviously a popular one. I mean, do you have Bored Apes? What are those cats called?
Speaker 2:I don't have any cats, no. But, I have a Bored Ape and I have a CryptoPunk, and then I bought a handful of other things as well, but I think most of them are down to zero now.
Speaker 1:What's your view on them, that it was a bit of fun at the time, but the financial model of them is gone. I mean, I guess if you bought a Bordate before, it must be worth cents on the dollar now, compared to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I lost money on them, for sure. I don't care, because I didn't make them as an investment. I made them more like. Just I felt like I needed a couple of NFTs. But I'm not an expert on NFTs, I don't really.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a bit about the crypto industry in general, insofar as regulation I mean. Obviously the sector has been growing massively over the last few years. It's become a lot more mainstream I mean it is totally mainstream and with that mainstreamness comes regulation. Where do you think ultimately that will take the industry? Because I guess my layman's view is that in the early days of crypto it was that lack of regulation, it was that ability to move money around without, without big institutions and and lots of eyeballs being on you. It was, it was banking for the unbanked and and all these kind of things. But you know, as as we move into even aside from crypto, you know what is just a constantly more and more regulated world with you know, with AML and all this business. Do you think that will fundamentally change what crypto was all about in the beginning, do you?
Speaker 2:think it will make it worse. Better, I think it's inevitable that we get full regulation and full KYC and everything, because that's what governments want. But it's not gonna necessarily hurt the crypto industry. It will, um, it will make it grow slower, um, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I, I prefer if there's no kose, because I think the point of crypto is that it should be open for anyone and and hide your, your.
Speaker 2:You should be able to have privacy of money. I think that's very important, doesn't mean that you do bad things with your money. But hey, maybe you just want to like literally hide your money from your wife, like you know, like, uh, or you know I'm not saying that, um, people necessarily go and become terrorists just because they have privacy of money. You know, like, maybe you just don't want people to see what you're doing, and I think that's perfectly fine. If I spend money on a car or let's say something more private, like, yeah, I just want, I don't want people to know exactly what I'm buying always, and I think that's the point of crypto to bring a degree of privacy. But that's not maybe the main point of crypto. The main point of crypto is that you can send it without someone stopping it. I think that's even more important.
Speaker 2:You know more more important than privacy and um, that you can keep the money with yourself instead of keeping it in a bank. That's actually the most important thing, because most people keep their money in the bank and in the bank. Now, the bank holds your money, they control your money, they make money on your money and they even lend your money out to someone else. So when you you want to get your money out, you're lucky if it's there. You know, like, if everyone goes to the bank at the same time and gets the money out, maybe only three, four or five percent of the people can actually get their money out, because that's the only money that's actually in the bank. So it's a fractional reserve banking system. Where it's actually.
Speaker 2:That's a scam, like you know, know, they woke up in the morning and they told themselves let's scam the world, let's scam every human being on the world. That's what banks do. Um, banks are, are, are evil in the sense that they basically prey on, on human, uh, human civilization and make us work for, for, for, for the money, while they just print it like this on a button um, and that's what bitcoin challenges, and I think that's a beautiful thing. So that's why most of my net worth is bitcoin and it will always be, and I, every day, I want people to buy bitcoin and accumulate bitcoin because I think it's um, it's like um, it's a, it's a human right to have ownership of your own money, like you should have ownership of your own money, which you should have ownership of your own money, which you can with Bitcoin, with gold, but with fiat currencies you don't, and I tell people every day to buy Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:But you'll always need that fiat system though, won't you, I guess? Even if you keep your wealth in Bitcoin or gold, like you say, that you're always going to need to off-ramp something at some point.
Speaker 2:No, you don't need the fiat system. The fiat system is actually completely unnecessary.
Speaker 1:But only if the entire world decided to dump the fiat system and adopt Bitcoin. Because I guess it's like, um, I guess it's just like having two currencies in it. You can say, well, the dollar is better than the euro, for example, but you can have all the dollars in the world. But if you want to, go shopping in paris, then then you need to change some dollars into euros okay.
Speaker 2:So basically, um, right now bitcoin is priced in dollars, right, we always say, oh, it's $107,000 or whatever. That will change, because soon one, bitcoin will probably be worth a trillion dollars. You know, because of inflation. The dollar loses value every single year through inflation, because they keep printing that money and, by the way, when they print money, they're still purchasing power from everyone who holds the dollar right and all the other fiat currencies. So it's theft, um, but in the future, we will not think in terms of dollars anymore. We will think in terms of bitcoin. So, basically, you will price, uh, bitcoin not in dollars, but in terms of what you can buy for it. Same luck with the dollar. You don't really price the dollar against itself. You use it as the measurement tool of other things.
Speaker 1:So you're saying that that house is one Bitcoin, that is 0.002.
Speaker 2:Because today you're saying, well, a house is a million dollars, but in the future it's going to be. Well, it's 1.1 Bitcoin, or maybe 13,000 Satoshis, which is the smallest part of bitcoin. That's how it will be in the future and that's when you know that bitcoin has taken over as the money of the world. Maybe it takes 20, 30 years, I have no clue, but I'm saying it's going to happen because I know it's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Um and um at that point, what the dollar is going to be at, I think it's going to be close to zero, just like Zimbabwe, and you have now inflation in Turkey and the South American countries. There's now so much inflation in the world where the national currency of those countries is falling so fast that people have to buy things just to kind of survive. They have to get rid of their fiat currency, and this will happen with the dollar as well. It is happening. It's just going to escalate over the next few years and I am very, very sure about that. So Bitcoin is like the Noah's Ark of a tsunami of fiat collapse.
Speaker 2:That's what I usually say.
Speaker 1:Only Bitcoin? Or where will some other big name coins, like an Ethereum or like an XRP or something? Where will they sit in this journey?
Speaker 2:I personally don't hold XRP for long term investment. I did make a bit of a famous trade actually on XRP.
Speaker 1:I watched it this morning. You ran $211,000 up to 5 million bucks or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, so I basically I took 200 000, a little bit more like two, I think it was 250 or something like this. Um, all in all, and I put it with the high x leverage and, uh, with an inverse perpetual contract on a bybit, which means that I make the profits in the xrp currency itself, not in us dollars. So the the gains were exponential and I made this public trade. Where I did it, I opened it up on my channel, I showed people and then, at the top, I sold everything and then in basically four weeks, I made 5.3 million dollars with xrp, like that. So, um, and I sold it already and I bought eth, dogecoin and Solana with those profits.
Speaker 1:And just so I understand, when you say you made a trade, was this like a single trade? So I guess, putting it in in layman's fiat terms, for example, this is like I bought this building for a million dollars and I sold it a month later for $2 million. It's not that you bought this building, sold that, bought another.
Speaker 2:This is not one single trade. I opened it up at $0.60. And then four weeks later, I closed it at I think it was $0.02. $0.07. But with high X leverage.
Speaker 1:So what we're saying is in that four-week period, the price of XRP actually ran from 0.6 to 2.11. And you bought loads of it because you bought it on leverage. How much can you lever up?
Speaker 2:You can do like 100x, I would say Really, yeah, you can do, but basically yeah. So you saw a massive Burj Khalifa candle and that's basically what I was expecting and it was a perfect trade. I think it's one of my best trades ever, for sure. Um, so that was an incredible trade, but it doesn't mean that I endorse xrp, like I'm not a fan of xrp. Uh, it's just a trade for me and that's the thing same with most altcoins. I I don't endorse them, I don't tell people to buy them long term. I just open up a trade if I see a good trade. Uh, and on my channel, the moon show, I show people which trade I make and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but when I win, usually I win big and that's how I pay for my losses. What's your biggest loss, worst trade you've ever done?
Speaker 2:definitely, I lost millions in the past, but there's not one that sticks to mind that terrible decision you made well, I mean, yes, but that was like very long time ago when I lost like $300,000, which to me then was like a huge amount, and but that was like four or five years ago. I remember that very vividly. That was bad, that was horrible. What did you learn from it? Well, I learned to not do not. Well, you shouldn't trade with emotions. First of all, don't do revenge trading, because that's what I was was doing there. I was, I lost another trade before, even maybe two trades, and then I increased my position more and more to kind of win back what I lost. And by doing that I I completely messed up and I I lost a lot of money. So revenge trading is the the first thing you should never do like like emotional gambling, basically like trying to get back what you lost.
Speaker 2:That's, that's bad. When you lost, you should just turn off the computer, take a couple of weeks in the in the forest to come back with a new, fresh slate and think make new money, don't make money back.
Speaker 1:Because making money back usually you you getting emotional and you make bad decisions do you use the words you know, take some time off in the forest as a, as a figure of speech, or or, or do you have that side of your life like do you turn the phones off, turn the computers off and, uh, disappear to the wilderness.
Speaker 2:I wish I could do more of that, um, and I mean, I live in Dubai. We don't have a forest, but I guess what I mean is like just take a break from trading, from investments, and just like take a couple of weeks of doing other things, like focus on life, you know, and then come back with a fresh mind. That's important.
Speaker 1:What's your 2025 Bitcoin prediction?
Speaker 2:2025, I think we're going to be probably like 200, 300k, if not way higher. I think it's possible that we could see something like 600, 700k, which would be mind-blowing, of course, to most people, but for me, I would not be surprised at all, because we have the ETF now, so it's easy to buy Bitcoin for anyone in the world Just like buying a Facebook stock, you can buy Bitcoin. So liquidity is much higher now, like the access to liquidity is much higher. Trump is president. I mean, look, people say what they want about presidents but he is bullish on crypto. That's very good for crypto, that's just a fact. And then we have Michael Saylor is buying billions and billions of dollars worth of crypto and bitcoin, and that's good. But also what he's doing, which is even more important, that people talk not as much about, is the fact that he's inspiring other big companies to do the same. So you have his billions coming in, but also other billions coming in thanks to him, so that's huge. And then you have inflation. So inflation is increasing all the time, not only in the united states or in in uae or europe, but like literally everywhere in the world, and it's even worse in in many countries. So you know, with high inflation that you see in many countries now people are buying bitcoin now not because they want to buy it. They're buying it because they literally have to buy it. They don't really have a choice, like they need to save their purchasing power of their wealth. And when this skyrockets, when this spirals and you have the snowball effect, eventually Bitcoin will become like a black hole that sucks in all of that money printing, because the more they print, the less confidence people have in the fiat currency system. Sucks in all of that money printing, because the more they print, the less confidence people have in the fiat currency system. And then people's money will go somewhere else and I am extremely confident that Bitcoin will be that financial monetary black hole where all the money goes in. And then we're going to stop talking about what's the price of Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is going to be the actual instrument we use to price other things in. So, like I said, it could take 20, 30 years, but also if the dollar collapses in 10 years or five years, it's going to happen at that point. So I think we're on the verge of that happening and if you want to be on the right side of that wealth transfer, because that's all it is actually actually like.
Speaker 2:You can't destroy money. Money is energy and if people went to school, which I kind of did, I learned, you know the loss of thermodynamics. In English I'm not sure, but basically, energy can't be destroyed, it cannot be. It can only move places. You can change energy's form, but it cannot be. It can only move places you can. You can change energy's form, but you cannot destroy it. That's the same with money. So just because the dollar collapses doesn't mean that that money is gone. Now the energy, the monetary energy, will just go somewhere else. It could go to gold, it could go to real estate, could go to Bitcoin. In my opinion, most of it will go to gold, silver and Bitcoin. Raoul PAL.
Speaker 1:What about luxury goods?
Speaker 2:VLAD HYRBAL. I don't think so, because luxury goods right now most of it, is propped up by the fact that people need to buy them. So if I explain it like this, inflation… RAOUL PAL.
Speaker 1:When I say luxury goods, I'm not talking about a gucci handbag.
Speaker 2:I'm talking, you know, the pateks, the rolexes, the richard meals you know, um classic cars art um, I would say no, because the the problem with art and classic cars and even real estate, uh, and watches right now is that people are using these things not for their true intended purpose, but they're using them as money. The reason why they're using them as money is because their other money sucks. The dollar absolutely sucks. The fiat system sucks. It has so much inflation that and that's actually the intended purpose of fiat they want to print it so that you go and spend. That's actually how the monetary policy works, like that's keynesian economics. That's that's what what they're doing. They they're pushing you to take that and spend your money because that's how they get the economy economy going. Like it's completely bullshit, like it's a stupid system, but that's how, how mainstream economics works.
Speaker 2:Um, and the problem now is that, instead of using fiat as people's savings, uh, people are buying cars and watches, and and real estate, and and and art, uh, to basically store wealth and and. Um. The problem with that is the moment we see a financial collapse and especially with real estate is a good example, because people will start selling their real estate, and I'll tell you why Because many people now they have like 10 apartments Like I'm saying many, but like, yeah, people that are rich People in Dubai.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, but like there's a lot of people today that take real estate just as a pure investment, right, like they have 10 apartments or they have maybe they have two villas or three villas, whatever and I'm not saying everyone. Yeah, I'm like I am a little bit humble still, but the problem here is that these people are buying real estate to invest, not to live there. And actually the true intended purpose of buying a villa since thousands of years or like hundreds of years, is you buy a home to live in there, to shelter your family, right, that's the point of a home. So real estate has now become a better money than money itself. So when you have a financial collapse, a lot of people to uh, they will sell these villas because they don't live there, they're just gonna sell them. So I think that there's gonna be stock like a real estate crash initially. Uh, when you see a fiat collapse, because people are just gonna start selling everything they have to to basically save their wealth and they will only keep the the they actually live in. So I think real estate is massively overvalued compared to where it should be right now, because people are using real estate as money, not as a home, and the same goes for classic cars and all these things.
Speaker 2:Um, gold is deeply undervalued right now. Silver deeply undervalued. Uh, bitcoin extremely undervalued. Um, those are the only assets I would accumulate heavily right now. Uh, when I buy watches and cars and stuff, it's just for fun, like I also want to take profits and like enjoy life, but I don't expect them to necessarily like make me more money in the future. I buy them not as an investment, I buy them just for for enjoying life, but you don't expect them to tank either.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you were buying a $250,000 watch, as much as you could maybe afford to lose it, you probably wouldn't be buying that watch if you thought it was going to go to zero.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's going to go to zero. But I also think that when you see a stock market crash like a proper one and I think we're going to see one of that very soon I think we're going to see, like you know, a 1929 kind of depression, stock market crash at some point Maybe not in the next five years, but in the next like 10, 15 years. We're going to see it and at that moment I think watches will become almost worthless, because who's going to buy watches when people are struggling to survive? And it will happen like people live in their dream world now, with like keynesian economics where they just print money out of nowhere to save you. But it's like kicking the can down the road and eventually you can't keep printing because it's an. You can't print money into infinity because when you do, the value devalues and eventually you're debasing the whole currency base and it's gone. So eventually you're you're going to see a stock market crash that's completely destroys the financial world and that means 90% of people in the world will lose basically all they have, and that's extremely unfortunate. But it is programmed, it's an inevitable fact and the only thing people can do now is to accumulate Bitcoin, gold and silver to save themselves from that disaster.
Speaker 2:Like I said earlier, I view Bitcoin as a Noah's Ark. You know, the disaster is coming, the collapse is coming, the flood is coming. So get on a boat, buy Bitcoin. That's your boat. Did you buy gold as well? I did. Before Bitcoin, I was buying gold. Right now, I still only buy Bitcoin because the price is so low. Bitcoin is still like 100K. I'm expecting Bitcoin to go to millions of dollars, but next year, in 2025, when bitcoin goes like two, three hundred k, I am going to be liquidating some bitcoin into gold because gold is, in my opinion, like you know, such an obvious, obvious investment when you say bitcoin right now is so cheap, I mean what are you benchmarking that against?
Speaker 1:so cheap, against what you cheap, against what you think it will be worth in the future? So that would be like someone saying I'm buying whatever I'm. I'm buying marx and spencer shares now because they're cheap, because what they believe, that they believe that the, the cash flow, the future cash flow, etc. Dictates that that share must be at a higher price well, it's cheap against the gold, for example.
Speaker 2:Gold is worth, I think, 15 trillion. Uh, bitcoin is less than 2 trillion. So I think bitcoin easily should go up six, seven, eight, x to par gold. I think that could happen already next year if we're very lucky. Um, but in the next five years I am extremely confident that will happen. So that means Bitcoin could go to like 700, even, yeah, let's say, a million dollars within five years. I think that's very, very likely to happen.
Speaker 2:And it's also cheap against the dollar. The dollar is I think it's maybe I don't remember the exact number but tens of trillions. That's the value of the dollar. So it's very cheap against the dollar. It's cheap against the currency, the fiat currency system, which is worth like $100 trillion. So, yeah, it's cheap against those bigger currencies.
Speaker 2:And I think that Bitcoin will become the currency of the world in the future. And against that future it's very cheap because when bitcoin goes to that future, it has to be at six, seven, eight million dollars per coin, because that would mean now bitcoin is the money of the world. And it can go even higher than that, because I think not only will bitcoin take over the, the fiat currency of the world, which is like 100 trillion, but a lot of that real estate money that I talked about earlier will also go to Bitcoin. I think the real estate market is valued at like hundreds of trillions of dollars, and maybe only 20-30% of that is people that live in their own homes. Most of it is people using real estate as money. So when they sell, what are they going to sell into the dollar? Definitely not, because it's going to be devalued. Gold, yeah, probably Bitcoin, most definitely.
Speaker 2:So you have hundreds of trillions. So first you have the 100 trillion of fiat money and then maybe, let's say, another 100 trillion or more from real estate, and then you have probably tens of trillions of dollars worth of other financial instruments from stock markets, because people use stock market as money as well. Um, you probably have like maybe three, four, five hundred trillion dollars worth of money, um, or economic energy that could go to bitcoin and gold, and if half of that goes to bitcoin, then, yeah, bitcoin could go to maybe 15 million dollars per coin, and then you could you could buy a private jet with the, with the bitcoin in the future and you're going to be talking about yeah, how much is the jet in bitcoin because the dollar will be like worthless. So, yeah, I would say, yeah, 15 million dollars per per bitcoin is possible, maybe even 20, you know, in today's money. So without inflation, so with inflation, yeah, like it's going to be worth. Bitcoin will be worth probably a trillion dollars or $15 trillion, because the dollar itself will be completely worthless.
Speaker 1:You mentioned Michael Saylor a minute ago. Just what does he actually do? Because, you know, I always see his name popping up, you know, online or in in newspaper articles saying you know, saylor's just bought another x million bitcoins, and to me it just seems like all he does is borrow fiat money to go and buy bitcoin. I mean, he doesn't seem to do any business. He literally he just buys bitcoin and sits there and everyone says how amazing he is because he's made all this money. But I mean, I guess he has to service his fiat debt in some way as well. Does he actually have a trading business as well, or is he literally just stockpiling Bitcoin?
Speaker 2:He's literally just stockpiling Bitcoin. That's all he does.
Speaker 1:So when he has to pay fiat returns to these investors on the bonds and things that he raises, he just liquidates a bit of Bitcoin to pay them.
Speaker 2:Which he can easily do because his profits are now, as we're recording this, I think, $20 billion in profits Really. So, yeah, he's completely killing it. I think, yeah, people say, yeah, you don't have any business model, but look on average, I think he's making like probably a billion per month in in in profits on bitcoin. That's more than most big companies in the world like I don't even know if, like I don't know what apple is making per month, but like it's probably on that level you know, like so I think he's, um, he's absolutely killing it and if I had access to making that much debt to buy Bitcoin, I would do the same 100%. But I don't have access to that because I don't have, like a big publicly traded company that can do that. But, yeah, I would say he's killing it like crazy. And basically his company is like it's almost like an ETF on Bitcoin, but with leverage. There's like a 2x leveraged Bitcoin ETF and yeah, people are buying it.
Speaker 2:In the bear market, most likely, the stock will tank like crazy, but as long as there's a bull market, it's going to go up. But I also don't think the stock should go lower than the value of the Bitcoin they hold. That wouldn't really make sense. If it does, then it's a great buy to buy MicroStrategy, because then you're basically getting a discount on Bitcoin. But I just don't think that's going to happen, because it would be strange if it goes down below the value of the Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:What's your view on centralized exchanges versus decentralized exchanges? I?
Speaker 2:think I would love to see decentralized exchanges become the norm, but they're still not perfect enough for that. So centralized exchanges are still the way to go. And, yeah, like people want to have a customer service they can call, and that's why centralized exchanges are the best.
Speaker 1:But even if they use it, whether they're using centralized or decentralized, I mean, are you, are you advocating that people should still be keeping the Bitcoin on cold storage or keeping the crypto? I think, I mean, do you have anything on on exchanges, just to give you a bit of quick liquidity?
Speaker 2:I do I hold? Like in my Bybit account now I have like $30 million Like. Cause that? Like in my Bybit account now I have like $30 million Like because that's what I'm using for like buying, going in and out of like altcoins and some leverage trading and like some yield things, but no, most of my money I hold on cold storage like very secure places where not even I have direct access, you know. So it's like very secure. What do you?
Speaker 1:mean you don't have direct access.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't want, like most money, it has to be like triple signatures and stuff. So basically, like I don't want someone to just like be able to come up to me like put a gun to me and say, send your Bitcoin. Like it doesn't work like that. Like for me it's a process Like you can fine, you know. But same like Michael Saylor, like he holds what like $50 billion worth of Bitcoin I don't think he has it on like one little ledger and just put it in one safe, you know, because then it's like quite easy for someone to go steal it. So I don't know how he does the security, because that's a lot of money, but he solved it somehow.
Speaker 1:I guess I mean we talk about stealing. I mean, I know it's yesterday's news to a degree, but you kind of can't have a crypto conversation without talking about FTX. I mean, do things like that scare big industry players like you? I mean, I know, to the man on the street who probably didn't even understand the crypto they were investing in the first place, you know, scares like that, you know, probably put them off an industry that they didn't even know much about and were scared about in the beginning. But I mean, where does that make someone like yourself think you know that? I mean it could happen. It could happen on any major exchange.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's why I only promote and talk about exchanges that I personally trust.
Speaker 1:Sorry, but my question is less about you say promoting someone bad. But why do you trust? Why do you trust the ones you trust? You know, did you trust him at the time?
Speaker 2:So, for example, ftx, they asked me to promote them and I told them no because I just didn't trust their business model and I just I didn't get the right feeling with them. Um, and when I promote anything, my legal team always has full due diligence done on exchanges and projects and everything. So most of them don't pass our due diligence. Um, and those companies I promote now, like by Coinflare and a couple of other exchanges they I met the founder myself, like I know the CEO myself very important and my legal team has made due diligence. We see the company set up, like the business license, like all these things that we know that is a legit setup and if something happens we know who to blame. You know, um and um, basically, yeah, so I, I take that very seriously.
Speaker 2:There's so many random like chinese exchanges reaching out, but I don't trust them so I don't promote them. Um, but yeah, bybit, I trust. I've been with bybit since six years. I was, I've been their biggest kol. You know, like, I gave them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trading volume over the years and, um, and yeah, I, I trust them, so that's why I trade with them let's have a, a complete change of direction and change of pace.
Speaker 1:Uh, let's talk about. Talk about, uh, the man behind the money, the man behind the crypto. You're a massive music fan. I see you online playing your guitar and doing a bit of singing. Very impressive. Where did that come from? Have you always been a musical buff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ever since I was probably like 11 or 12, I was playing a little bit of guitar and trying to create my own songs. So ever since then, I've been writing songs and I love making music. I love writing songs, I love creating things, Like I'm very creative, but, yeah, my biggest passion in life is actually making music. So right now, I've been focused on money for the past few years, which is good. Now I have money. But now I want to focus on things I I really love doing and that's why I I, I want to um, you know, release some of those songs I'm I'm writing, and I'm not doing that to make money because, frankly, I don't have to make any more money now. It's all about just creative, freedom and having fun, and that's what I'm gonna do. I. I write all and having fun, and that's what I'm going to do. I write all the songs myself and that's my biggest passion.
Speaker 1:I also see you a lot online with your brother. Your brother was born with Down syndrome right, and when I was doing a bit of research for this earlier, I saw you say that he'd also suffered cancer twice as well. Is he your only sibling? I have him also suffered cancer twice as well. Is he your only sibling? I have him, and then my sister as well. What's that been like, I guess, to grow up with when you were at home, and how do you find that relationship now? I mean, looking at it as a layman, just following you online, you obviously seem like the, the very proud big brother that gets to uh, that gets to spend your, spend your success and and make him super happy I mean I I guess how, how much he understands about what's going on.
Speaker 1:I I don't know, but you talk to me a bit about that relationship yeah, so he um, yeah, he's disabled.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, he's mentally disabled with the down syndrome, and he had cancer twice. He was born also with a heart condition, um, and he was also born with a lymph angioma on his leg, which is like a huge cyst that was extremely aggressive and he had 11 surgeries there and and had a big impact on his life for many years. So all these things are are like, if you take these diseases and spread them out on like 100 people, it's still like statistically a lot of like, it's still like an anomaly. So having all of that in one person, like that, is extremely unlikely and extremely unfortunate. And he never did anything to anyone, so he doesn't deserve it and it's it's just horrible.
Speaker 2:Um, and, of course, the family also got affected, because, you know, when you have a child that is born with these kind of diseases, it affects the child, obviously, but also the family, because you know, my parents, they had to live in the hospital for years, uh, with him, um, and me and my sister. We were, you know, also affected, of course, but my parents, they they didn't tell us always, like how bad it was. You know, like when he was like close to not surviving, they never told us like really the full picture, because they thought what's the point of, like, putting stress on us. But, um, my parents have been through a lot, you know, and my brother, they've been through, they've been fighting, you know, like a complete war against, against these diseases. So that's horrible. Uh, he's alive and well today, like he's completely healthy.
Speaker 2:Now, obviously you can't cure Down syndrome but, um, cancer is gone, his leg is now okay, like it's it's it's okay, even though it looks like the chainsaw massacre here, like it's horrible. His leg is completely destroyed. Uh, but he can walk, um, so that's good. And um, yeah, I mean, I guess that's the background that led me into, uh, charities for children with Down syndrome and any disability. So I made a few donations to charities where they help children with any disabilities. That's very important for me. So it's because I have first-hand experience from that.
Speaker 1:Do you find it fuels you in any way, either to be more successful, to give back to, to your brother or to your parents, who've everything they've they've suffered you is it. Is it a motivating factor in in any way in your life, or it's just something you've always just learned to live with?
Speaker 2:um, I just think it's like a, an obligation, like I think it has to be done. You know, like when I have money and I know how people are struggling, children are struggling, I need to do something. You know, like it's. It's like um, it's just a um, it's an obligation, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's how I see it, uh, and that's why I do it so you said to to me this morning that when I retire I'm going to release an album. I know you said a minute ago you'd like to release an album, but you never mentioned the words when I retire. Was that a comment in jest or is there a retired Carl and a winding down Moon Group in the future?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm going gonna retire from crypto, maybe already like 2025, 2026, like, and not what?
Speaker 1:not touch it, not make a trade again.
Speaker 2:Just sit on the bitcoin and I will just sit on all my bitcoin, my, my, my crypto holdings and just let it run. Yeah, um, I will still have my businesses, of course, um, but I will have people that are running them for me and taking care of business, and I want to focus on racing cars around the world, being with my family, being with my little brother, making music and just enjoying life, as I think my life should be, because I think money. I don't want money to be the point of my life, because I think money it's a means to an end. You know, I think money, um, is good because it allows you to live your life. You should be living, but you shouldn't be living your life for the money, you know.
Speaker 2:So for the past few years, I have frankly been living my life for the money a bit, because I'm like I have to make all the money.
Speaker 2:I have to be rich and wealthy, which I think is a good, motivating thing, because you need to make that money. It's very good to have a lot of money and it gives you freedom. Uh, like I said earlier, money is energy and that's all it is actually, and having an abundance of energy around you creates that freedom freedom of location, freedom of choice, freedom of, like you know, getting out of trouble. Like money solves a lot of problems, so I think that's very good to have. But now that I have money, like even if I double my net worth now or 10 exit, it is not going to change my life. Like I'm already rich. You know, I'm sure you're also at this point where, like you're already rich, at the point like, even if you 10x your life, or like your, your, your net worth, you're still going to live approximately the same life, maybe a nicer car, maybe you're going to buy a jet, but like it's not going to dramatically change your living quality.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the magic word freedom. You know, I think when people are on that quest to make money, you look at it in terms of tangible things and then when you have the tangible things, you realize they aren't the things that matter. And you know my, my year, this last year, has been a bit of a different story. It's been a, let's say, a personal bear year as opposed to a personal bull year. You know, I've I've had a lot of headaches, a lot of problems and a lot of my attention and cash taken away from from where I want it to be. But it's it's made me very much realize as well the things that matter to me, that you know I've spent all my years chasing money, chasing businesses, saying yes to all these opportunities which have pulled me away from focus, and when I've been sat down, you know, divesting myself from certain businesses, thinking what the fuck was I doing that business for in the first place? Anyway, you know it was.
Speaker 1:Maybe it made a bit of money you know not even a lot of money and probably even lost some money. It's taking away cash, it's taking away time, and when I'm a really happiest, when I'm playing paddle tennis with my friends, when I'm making breakfast for the baby. You know when I'm getting up early to you know getting up early to wake her up or putting her to bed and things. And, like you say, you know when I'm getting up early to you know getting up early to wake her up or putting her to bed and things. And, like you say, you know, yes, I want to do that in a nice house. Yes, I want to know that she's got her school fees covered and that I can. You know I can not go to work if I don't want to. But do I want to miss out on those opportunities to 2x, 10x, 50x my, my wealth?
Speaker 2:absolutely not at all yeah, exactly, I think it's good to make money and we should. Um, it's just, I think my focus will shift, you know, towards I will still make money, but it's not going to be like my life mission anymore, because I made money already. So, um, yeah, music, family and raising cars and, um, maybe more things. Maybe, if I find other things to do, I also will have more time to do the charity work that I want to focus more on. There's another charity that I want to go and check out in Africa A guy I met just a few weeks ago. He's building hospitals for children in Africa and already built like 20 of them, and I want to go check that out and see if I can help out and if I donate there, maybe you can build another dozen hospitals. Would be insane, right. So these kind of things I will have more time to to do.
Speaker 2:Um, and when I do charity, I also I'm very um specific. First of all, I it's only children with like disabilities, that's like my thing. Uh, that's what I care about and also I always want to. I, I do, do I do the diligence on on exchanges, right, but I do the same on charities. Like, I want to make sure that it's a great charity and like I want to know the founder, like who's behind everything and where does the money go? And like because sure I can, I can spend a million there, put a million there to charity, but it's better to do it where the roi is good and where the um not all right for me, but for the, the children, uh, and where the um, the money actually is spent for the intended purpose and not someone is taking the money. So so that's very important because in terms of roi, for example, I could put one million in this charity and another one million in this charity, but here that million leads to, let's say, 20 hospitals and here it's only 10. Then of course, I'll do it here because they have bigger impact. So every dollar I put into this charity has higher impact.
Speaker 2:So I do some checks like that because that's my, my business mindset coming into play. Like I want to make sure that the money is well spent and so that children get the maximum benefit of every dollar I I put in charity and um, and yeah, this african one, I want to go check it out and then I I will fly there, of course, and be their own location and check it out and and um, that's what I will have more time for as well. This I'll probably do next year already, but when I do actually retire, I mean, I could literally every month go and check out charities and really put a big effort into it. And I think the biggest charity is actually not really money, it's like your time, like if you actually devote your time to really go out there and check what's the best thing to do, what's the best charity, that's the biggest, um, best charity you can do, because giving your time is actually more valuable.
Speaker 2:Like sure, I can put like a billion there, like a billion there, like eventually, like if you're a billionaire, you can easily um, but like the money has to be well spent and you need to make sure that the children do actually get taken care of and the only way to really make sure is to be there yourself and and know what you're you're putting the money into. So, yeah, maybe I'll even create like a foundation or something where I have like a team that that really truly does that for me, like I have in my the moon group. So the moon foundation, something like this. Yeah, it's very possible. I do something like that right now, I just take my money and I I do it myself, you know, but I might do something like that well, listen, carl, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here.
Speaker 1:Buddy, I want to thank you for, uh, I guess, a really open, honest uh, you know, tactical, factual, uh. You know all the uh, all the good words, conversation and uh, hopefully we'll do, we'll do a round three, maybe in another couple of years or maybe we won't leave it that long. You'll be retired by then, but whatever you go on to do, I have no doubt it'll be done with the same success, vigour and smile on your face. I've come to know you've done all the other stuff.
Speaker 2:So thank you very much, mate, thank you for having me and yeah, next podcast maybe we focus more music, because hopefully that's um what I'm doing most of my time.
Speaker 1:You bring your guitar, I'll bring my tambourine, and it'll be. It'll be, it'll be a musical podcast, yeah, nice yeah, thank you so much, bro.
Speaker 2:That was amazing podcast. Thanks, buddy.
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