#515: Justin Rhedrick on Bitcoin’s Power to Lift People Up

Justin Rhedrick is best known as Bitcoin Vegan. Justin was tired of running the rat race, the seemingly never-ending paycheck to paycheck cycle working in retail merchandising and that’s when he decided to learn about Bitcoin back in 2016. In 2016, Justin also started his very own business “Vegan On The Go”, where he cooked and delivered vegan food. In this conversation, we discuss the power of bitcoin, the black community, being early to markets, no excuses, his new book, and why Justin’s story is so powerful. ======================= OKCoin.com is the leading crypto exchange for both beginners and experienced users. You can fund your account in under 2 minutes, and get access to the most advanced trading engine, all while paying the lowest trading fees in the industry (0.1%). Visit www.okcoin.com/pomp and open your account today. ======================= With 10M+ users, Crypto.com is the easiest place to buy, and sell 100+ cryptocurrencies. The Crypto.com Visa Card gives you up to 8% back instantly, and 100% back on Spotify and Netflix. Also, Crypto.com lets you earn up to 8.5% p.a. on BTC, and 14% p.a. on stablecoins. Get $25 when you download the Crypto.com App with code "pomp". Download the App now: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/pomppodcast2021 ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 140,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Justin Riddick is best known as Bitcoin Vegan. Justin was tired of running the rat race, the seemingly never-ending paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, working in retail merchandising. And that's when he decided to learn about Bitcoin back in 2016. In 2016, Justin also started his very own business, Vegan on the Go, where he cooked and delivered vegan food. In this conversation, we discuss the power of Bitcoin, the black community, being early to markets, no excuses, his new book, and why Justin's story is so powerful. I really enjoyed this conversation with Justin, and I hope you do as well. But before we get

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

  into this episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is OKX. Crypto moves fast, and many crypto-focused companies can't keep up. Crypto exchanges that cut through the noise, the ones that give you access, wherever you are in the world, to the cutting-edge projects emerging in this new asset class. If you're looking for an industry leader that gives you access to a huge variety of crypto assets, tools, and services, I'd recommend OKX. Whether that's access to a wide variety of new crypto asset listings that follow industry trends, like NFTs or DeFi these days, or access to sophisticated trading instruments like Bitcoin futures or other crypto derivatives, or if you're not into trading, a suite of crypto earning tools where you can securely deposit your crypto and earn interest, or a learning and insights hub to help you understand and

• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

  stay on top of crypto trends, OKX is your one-stop-shop. Even though OKX is primarily a crypto-to-crypto platform, meaning you trade one cryptocurrency for another, I like that they offer an easy entry point for the many people who are new to the asset class. On OKX, you can easily use your credit or debit card to buy top cryptocurrencies with almost 40 different fiat currencies, including Euro, CAD, GBP, TRY, and Rubles, to name just a few. That was an alphabet soup of different currencies, but they've got almost 40 of them that you can use. So, go open an account at OKEX.com/pomp. Again, OKEX.com/pomp. Go

• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  give them a try, a crypto-to-crypto exchange. OKEX.com/pomp.

• 2:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Next up is Crypto.com. With over 10 million users, Crypto.com is the easiest way to buy and sell over 100 cryptocurrencies. You can download the app at Crypto.com and get $25 with my code POMP. For the holders among us, you can earn on Bitcoin and stablecoins, and that's incredible. But you can also use their Visa card, which pays you up to 8% back instantly and comes with amazing perks at Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, and airport lounge access for you and a guest at hundreds of airports around the world. And of course, the Crypto.com Visa card gives you all this with no annual or monthly fees to worry about. So get $25 when you download the Crypto.com

• 2:57Anthony Pompliano?

  app today and use the code POMP. The link is in the description, Crypto.com app, use code POMP, you get 25 bucks, you can go use that Visa debit card. Lastly, do not forget that I write a daily letter to over 140,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand languages while sharing my personal opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. Alright, let's get into this episode with Justin. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by POMP or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by POMP as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 4:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, bang, bang. Got a special treat for you today. Justin is here. Thank you so much for doing this, sir.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Hey, hey, how you doing, man? Thanks for having me on, man.

• 4:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. You've got this incredible story just in life and then also kind of with your relationship with Bitcoin. Let's start with kind of your background. Tell us where'd you grow up and then kind of walk us through your life until about 25 years old.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, well, I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, uh, home of the Charlotte Hornets. Not my favorite team, though. I'm a Lakers fan, by the way, my with mythology. Um, and growing up, I was, I was always a bit of a different child. Um, I've been through different situations in my life. Um, one particular that really stood out, those life changes. Well, let me fast, uh, backtrack. I grew up a basketball player, loved to play basketball. Um, got into a lot of, uh, different, didn't really get into too many different sports outside of that. Probably ran a little track, but, um, I always had a, I always had that inkling to want to be great. That's something I just didn't know what the hell it was, right?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  So it was always something there that I wanted to tap into, just didn't know how. And I didn't really understand it then, but that process officially started my senior year in high school. And I was doing two thousand and six, um, me and my mother, our house was foreclosed on in two thousand and six, my senior year. And I was wanting to go play, uh, college ball, try to compete for a state championship. Uh, the summer before that, I was waking up at like five AM every day to train. That was really something I wanted to go show myself on. And when that situation didn't happen, you know, we lost the home, had to transfer to a school. When I transferred there, I got there to play basketball. I was still able to hang around the team, you know, the coach respected me, you know, I could play. So he said, hey, you know, you'll still be good camaraderie.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Um, but then we know, we were just hanging out, um, had a few friends in West Charlotte. And we would go out and party every weekend. And it was crazy that they allowed it, that we actually did some of the stuff we did at seventeen. So, um, but one weekend in particular, one of my friends was killed. His name was Travis Moore, it was on February eighteenth. And, um, that was a very life-changing moment. And so when that happened to me, I was like, okay, um. You know, I, there was really no coping, you know, there wasn't too much coping in there because a lot of times people say, hey, that's part of life you're gonna have to get over. It's like, how the hell do you get over that at seventeen? So, uh, luckily, I was still able to graduate high school with the North Carolina A and T.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Um, and I had gone there for two years and college was fun. Cause I had a lot of fun in college. I wasn't the guy who did all the schoolwork. I was partying, chasing the girl. Again, I, I went to class sometimes, though I did go to class. Um, I actually made the dean's list of one year, one semester in school. But then immediately after I dropped out of school. Uh, reason being, finances was making me make crazy decisions while in college. It was hard to cope with. Um, more importantly, there was one time I was in a class and I was a business major. And this, my professor, he was throwing up his graph showing like everybody's potential jobs or whatnot.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  And he said, oh, well, you know, there won't be any jobs for you all available to like four years after graduation.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And I sat there for a minute like, wait, did I just hear this comment? And everybody in us in the classroom was just going along like, yeah, that's cool. Okay, that's great. And I said, yo, what the hell are we doing here? I said, uh, I remember blatantly in orientation, you saying that. Well, not you, but it's being said that six months after graduation, Charlie May or someone's gonna want their money from these student loans we acquired here. So why would we wanna wait that long to start paying them? It didn't really make sense to me then. And I, I started noticing the world in a different lens. Um, so that was, that was that semester I decided like, you know what, I'm just gonna drop out of school. Cause I felt like I was being taken advantage of a little bit.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  You know, I didn't, I, I don't like that at all. And when I ever, whenever I cinch that into someone or a situation, I wanna really regain that control over the situation. But I did that in a stupid way by dropping out of school. So then when I dropped out of school, I went back home to Charlotte. I had really no plan. Uh, but I was just thinking about how I was gonna make it. I thought I was just gonna roll into a lucky situation with money. Um, that did not happen and I ended up making a decision that led me to go to prison for three years. So in two thousand and eleven, I got, I got locked, I got arrested at twenty years old. I was sent off to prison at twenty one.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  And when I was going to prison, and when I got there, I was just thinking to myself like, damn, you really messed up. All right, um, but however, I wasn't really down to myself too much. I felt that I could, I could make a comeback on whatever it was. I always had self-confidence, no matter what it was. Um, you know, I would look up to athletes like Tom Brady, Floyd Mayweather, Kobe, like I mentioned. And it wasn't just because of the fact that they were always winning, but it was about what they battled through to get. You know, what did you battle to get? And, um, sitting in prison, you know, I had to do a lot of learning about myself. I did a lot of reading. I tackled a lot of situations. Uh, I did, I ran, I ran a few hustles on the yard as well, just kept my mind going.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  I was always working out. I was always trying to stay, um, stay ahead as much as I could. And so when the time came for me, you know, to start getting closer to my home, people asked me, Justin, what are you gonna do when you got out of prison? I don't know, but I plan on making a billion dollars doing it. Man, you crazy. You know, you don't know, what the hell was, you know, about this? I'm like, man, I don't really care what you think. I'm gonna do it because I said it. Because if I felt, I feel like this, if I say I'm gonna do it, then it can't get done. This is how we gonna get it done. And so, um, you know, a lot of people, uh, asked me what I have planned. I said, I don't have anything planned because I don't know what's out there. So when I came home from prison in twenty fourteen, it was, um, it was very, it was a very rough situation.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Um, I would try to apply for jobs all around Charlotte. I got denied everywhere because of my record. I even got denied from working for two men in a truck. I asked the guy, I said, so I can't work for a moving company? He said, no, we can't hire you. Damn, this is gonna get kinda rough, dude. So, um, eventually I started doing some other type of work, like retail merchandising. I would, um, like work twelve dollars an hour, twelve hours a day. And I just started noticing how me being in this position made me, put me in a position to be taken advantage of by people. You know, who think, well, you don't have this credibility, you don't have a degree, you have this record, well, you are, you can do this work right here. And in my mind, I always felt like, yo, I'm better than this type of work.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  I don't feel comfortable with calling you a supervisor because I feel more intelligent. So I always look for ways that I could branch out into entrepreneur entrepreneurship I did not know. So it didn't, it didn't start taking serious until I, I was about to, I found out my girlfriend at the time was pregnant with my first daughter. And I was like, alright, cool. But something clicked in me. It was like, you know, you have to start being different than, than the situation you're currently in. I started noticing everything surround, around me like, I started noticing my network of people. I started noticing everybody around me had same problem. Nobody was really getting out of that problem. And I wanted to fix that. So, um, so eventually, one day,

• 11:48Speaker 02

  I decided, I was watching, I was online on Instagram and I would see a lot of algorithms sending me stuff about Dr. Davia being vegan. And it was interesting to me, but it was, it was strange, but it was interesting. It was interesting enough because now a lot of people knew how to do it. It was outside the box. And it made me, it made me want to be healthier. And at this time, I was still boxing at the Human Charlotte.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  So, um, um, I can tell I'm about to lose my job. All the little ten ninety nine self-employed workers about to go away. They had a different change in, change in scenery or change in business. And I felt like I wasn't a culture of fitness. So I said, okay, um, what I'm gonna do next? What's my next move gonna be? And I said to myself, well, if I'm gonna go through this much hell, then I might as well go through hell creating what I want. You know what I'm saying? Because I would hear about folks say things about, you know, creating a business is hard, it's this, that and the third. I'm like, well, if I'm gonna go through hell, let me create my own situation. At least if it could be hard, it's gonna be hard because I chose it to be, not because it had to be because of a situation.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  So, um, the very first thing I did, I started cooking vegan food out of my house and delivering. I had a little food service called Vegan on the Go. I would cook the food, deliver it, try to make money. Um, and I could tell I didn't like working for, I didn't like cooking for people. I did not like the, the idea that I didn't even know what the hell I was doing as far as like inventory wise, was I really making money? Or was I just shuffling money around and sending people food? But it was a learning experience. But during that learning experience, I remember one day walking outside with my daughter. And I said, something in the world is going on right here, right now. Said, if I'm there early enough, I could take advantage of it.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Because every type of, type of work I wanted to do, I was always not able to do either no degree or the record. But I would look, I'm like, all right, so how did these people make all this money or make all this gains? Like I would look at folks like Zuckerberg, like Tom, like, uh, Andrew Horowitz. It's like, yo, what did, what did they do, right? And I looked at the internet, I looked at technology. I'm thinking like, damn, all these guys are really making good money, but why? You know, but why? Because I know there's gonna come a time where this gets a little saturated, but why? And I realized that, because they were early, they were there early on something that was changing the world.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And I was like, I need to be early on something that would be so, the barrier of entry would be so low, as long as I'm there early, I could take advantage of it. I could make it work for me. I said it out loud one time and I was with my daughter, like I said, I was in the car, I said. And then I remember going to a gas station in Charlotte. Um, I see a black Dodge Charger. Someone said, Justin, what's up?

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Who the hell is this? I said, hey, what's up, man? It's me, Isaiah. I said, oh, it was Isaiah Jackson. And he said, yeah, man, how you doing? What's going on, bro? Like this, that, that. So I've been knowing him since I was eleven years old. And I tell this story all the time, but it's a very important part of the story. Um, so I see, he says, you know, we catch up. He says, follow me on Instagram. It's on which Instagram says Bitcoin Z. I look at it. I don't know what the hell Bitcoin is. I said, all right, I got you. No, I'll see you later on. Stay in touch. I see the movie Dope. I don't really think too much of Bitcoin yet. It wasn't until my mom said, hey, there's, um. No, I'll tell you why I dissed you before that.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  My granddaddy, who was eighty seven years old at the time, had a miner at his house, a Bitcoin miner.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  And what was funny was, I said, what is this, granddaddy? He said, well, it's a miner. It's gonna make me some Bitcoin. Just gonna print me off some money. And everybody's thinking he's joking, but I'm really looking at him like, what are you talking about? Because my mom told me that my granddaddy was good at finding invest. He could have invested in, I think he had opportunity to invest in like Enterprise and Microsoft very early on. Not sure what happened. He probably sold. Who knows? Who cares? But I said, all right, if he has that type of insight, that's insight I want to have. So I started looking at Bitcoin a little bit. And my mom said, well, here, there's this lending platform you could use that'll help you make some money. Want to give it a shot?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  I said, yeah. On there, it says some good, high, high quality jargon that if you invest into this platform, in sixty days, we'll give you a payout of compounding interest. I'm like, yo, this sounds good. All right, let's go. I throw it in there. I see the little Bitcoin sign. I'm like, all right, it's gonna work. I showed it to Zay. Isaiah says, Justin, you're about to get scammed. I said, nah, this is gonna be legit. He said, nah, man, try to take the money out. I took the money. I tried to see if they're gonna give him the money. They didn't. And so then I was like, damn. But what happened, I didn't lose faith in Bitcoin. That actually made me intrigued. It also made me intrigued me about it because Isaiah knew it was a scam just by looking at it.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  I said, all right. So I hit him up one day. I said, so I need you to tell me like, no, what's Bitcoin, man? Like, what's going on? What is? He said, well, it's a storage of value. So it's like gold appreciates over time. He said, you can use it like money, spend it like money. And it's decentralized, so it's outside of government control. Now, everything he named, I kind of understood, but what stood out first was decentralization. Because I could, I could compare that to how we use stamps on the prison yard. You know, if you have like a debit, if you have like an ID card with a little mag strip on it so you can swipe when your family sends you money, or you get paid for working, you can buy things from the canteen. But if you don't have any money on your card, then you have to use postage stamps as currency.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  And the value of the postage stamps was determined by the price of stamps in the real world. So at that time, stamps were like, well, when I was in prison, stamps were like forty-four cents, as high as forty-five. But we always kept it at thirty or thirty-five cents on the yard, so you could always have stuff in the circulation. Um, which is kind of ingenious. So when he told me about that, you know, I looked at it. I looked at some videos, um, and I said, can I change my life with this? He said, Justin, you do whatever the hell you want, as long as you have patience, you've got knowledge. Stay here and you stay active and you do whatever you want. But I said, I got you. So after that conversation, I had gone home. I did a lot of YouTube research, a lot of YouTube research.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  See who's talking about Bitcoin, see what this is. I'm digging into things I never knew about. Uh, I never knew about, uh, like gold or just overall other stocks. Like I'm hearing all this money talk and it deals with Bitcoin. Then I started looking at Bitcoin. I started seeing no holes, no holes in it from what I could see. Um, and then I asked some people I went to school with. A lot of my friends I went to school with, you know, some of them got into finance and some of them were decent entrepreneurs. But they, when I asked them about Bitcoin, they said, nah, man, we ain't, we never heard of Bitcoin. You know, we don't really deal with it. It's not doing much. We heard about it, but it's nothing. And that let me know I need to be here because I had finally found that, that, that thing

• 19:09Speaker 02

  that was going to be groundbreaking in the world, but I was early enough to be there. And those were, that was what I was looking for, something that were, something that I could invest my time and money in. But I don't have to try to worry about being in a saturated market in three to five years. I can already be ahead of the curve. And what I did not know then, what I was looking for was, um, what I was doing was trying to be an early adopter. So when I learned what Bitcoin was, you know, I still had my business. I would, I would go do other jobs. I would buy Bitcoin as much as I could. Uh, so Bitcoin at this time was like six hundred and twenty-six dollars. I bought my first, I bought my first piece of Bitcoin around, uh, July ninth.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Twenty sixteen, July ninth, twenty sixteen. And then I would work, you know, still do my, my food business or I would still try to find jobs here and there. But I would always buy Bitcoin because in my mind, I was like, I've never seen my money move. I've never seen my money work for myself. So it was like, yo, this is working for me. All right. So I need to, I need to go acquire as much as possible. But then on the flip side, I started noticing like, why am I always pulling this out or why am I always having to use it?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  But I wanted to grow from it. So that was like a battle for a while. Um, but when Bitcoin hit twenty thousand dollars, that was the most money I've had in my life. You know, and it had grown for me and I had stayed that whole course. Um, so when it had gone down, you know, I was still going through things as like, you know, trying to figure out, damn, how do I keep this working? How do I not, how do I not take it out? Um, it wasn't until, it wasn't until that bear market where I did a lot of personal development work. Um, one thing in particular I did was I signed up for Jim Quick's, um, super brain assessment, I mean, course, so I could read books faster. And then I started reading up on personal finance and reading up on how I could actually

• 21:04Speaker 02

  have Bitcoin as an asset, but also buy or dollar cost average in a way that works as possible. Cause when you start with no money, you don't have enough money to trade, you don't have enough money to play with. But you have to have enough, um, I feel like I had to have enough, uh, reserve enough to buy into the future. So by doing that over and over, you know, having the stumbles and falls, that's what brought me here today to meet Mr. Pump.

• 21:32Anthony Pompliano?

  You, you have this incredible story, uh, everything from kind of growing up and the hardship that you faced to then, you know, literally going to prison, um, and, and actually getting somewhat of a crash course in alternative currencies, right? Most people don't think of it with kind of the stamps on the yard, um, and then eventually finding Bitcoin. And I, I guess really just as you started to save in Bitcoin, right? Cause that's really what you were doing is you, you basically had your couple of businesses, they were driving some cash flow and you were taking that and converting it into Bitcoin. Were you doing it because you thought that it would appreciate value? Did you think it because, hey, the banks can't take this from me? Like, like what was the kind of thought process in terms of why you wanted to take the dollars and convert it to Bitcoin?

• 22:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, even before really, you know, in two thousand and sixteen, there, there wasn't as much attention on it, um, given what, uh, what, what it is today.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  So back then, I was like, okay, I I'm cool with it. The the one, the okay, the first thing that really got my attention pumped was the fact of how easy it was to buy. Right? The lo- the bear entry was incredibly low. Um, I didn't have to, like, I remember one time someone bought up and say, hey, you wanna invest some marijuana stocks with E-Trade? Or I try to go to these, I would try to go to these platforms. I'm like, man, this shit is just tiring. Like, I gotta have this or I have to have this amount of money. I'm like, but I don't have extra thousand dollars like this. You know what I mean? Like, damn, to invest on the platform now. I might have some misinformation now, but then that was my thing. And then I got tired of dealing with the stigma of, well, what question they gonna ask me?

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Do I have to, you know, is it gonna, they gonna ask me about having my record? They gonna ask me about this and that and the other. So when they showed me how to buy Bitcoin, it was so simple. Like, damn, this is what decentralization feels like. This is what freedom feels like. Just buying it because you can. Um, so that was the first thing. The second part was also the, uh, the fact that it could make money. I had never purchased an asset that could do that. So me just seeing it on the screen go up and down, um, I looked at the graphs, some of the graphs they had on Instagram at that time. And what stood out the most was the dip. You know, it was the dip. It was that, that, that, that bear market time they had from Silk Road when it was just going sideways for years.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  That's what gave me validity because in my mind, I said that breed it real fear in people for them to know, okay, either I can stay or I can go. But that told me this is legit, because if it just kept going, going, going, going, going up with no dips at all, like a linear line, I would have thought it was some bullshit. But I saw dips and I'm like, all right, well, that give, that gives me, that gives me the reality to know, like, okay, this is worth doing. Because you, you just don't all, nothing is linear. You just don't always go up. You have to have tons of peril. So that, that's what let me know that Bitcoin was legit. Yeah.

• 24:24Anthony Pompliano?

  It's kind of like life, right? You got ups and downs and you end up making it where you want to go. What was so fascinating to me, and you and I have talked about this before, but I think that Bitcoin has this very special kind of place in the black community, right? In terms of, a lot of people have become aware of things like predatory lending discrimination, right? And some of the more complex things, but I think your story is so powerful because, you know, as somebody who had gone to prison, a lot of society basically boxes you out, right? If you have a record. And so whether it was trying to get a job at the moving company, or trying to open up certain accounts, or participate in certain aspects of the financial industry,

• 25:07Anthony Pompliano?

  maybe it's not impossible, but it's harder, right? And there's more friction there. And so something like Bitcoin that is decentralized, that's built on this open protocol, nobody cares, right? Nobody cares the color of your skin. Nobody cares what you've done in the past. They just want to know, do you have the money to buy it? Or do you have the collateral? And I think that maybe, you know, you can shed some light just on like, as you've gone down this path and now, you know, really, really educated yourself, like, how do you see that and the importance for the black community, or those who've been in prison, and kind of some of these groups of folks who, who people might not be as aware how important Bitcoin is?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Well, the fact that there is friction to traditional finances, but there's traction towards Bitcoin does prove a lot. And I believe when people actually, because there are a lot of barriers when we talk about black people. And the one way that they can really benefit, or actually benefit from a decentralized money in that way,

• 26:10Speaker 02

  is the fact that no one, the initial, the initial point of them even buying it, there will be a breath of fresh air. Because if I go through this friction, I know a lot of other people are going through this friction as well.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  And, you know, as we do in our groups, clubhouse, we, we are teaching you the basics of knowing like, your money is going backward, you know, and...

• 26:36Speaker 02

  And the way to really that I that I really noticed it back then in twenty sixteen was like this and I do a lot of my I answer a lot of questions and stories and what I experienced. So one thing I'd always noticed uh very early on was that every venture I started. I either had to put up the money and had to put up more money than initially, so I would always be going down. Everything was a build yourself out of debt situation.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And it didn't matter what it was, you know, you would have to put up initial money, it's like even uh flipping a house or trying to really or invest in real estate. You have to put up the collateral, you still have to continuously invest, continuously invest, whether it's uh maintenance, whether it's um you have to hire people, no matter whether there's bills, taxes, whatever, you always have to do that even before you turn profit on that house or even create some type of revenue. But you still have to go work for that other money. Bitcoin is a situation where you can really set it and forget it. You can buy it and you give it time, it'll show appreciation. And when I speak of it from that level, I'm really trying to speak about the freedom of of energy or the financial freedom it gives for you to really live your life.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  And you know, a lot of times when it comes to Bitcoin, what we don't really experience in the black community is our own control over anything. Like we've we've never necessarily had control over our assets, we don't really have control over our own words, hell, we came to this country as an asset and we still have to pay capital gains taxes for being here. If you really look at it, so that freedom portion and it's it's just it's just how the story is told to people who who who aren't necessarily open to that way of living yet. You know, you when you when we were coming up or you would hear people say, hey, it's too risky to invest, you know, saving money.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  That's what they would tell our community, but then they'll put a lottery, they'll put a lottery in our community that has a very infinite chance of winning. I mean, a very small chance of winning, but people play it all the time, they just put their money in there, watch it die, watch it die, watch it die. Nobody ever take, nobody ever took that time to actually see where that was going. But then again, like I was telling one of my friends, we would say the government put dope in the hood, but they kept finances and stocks and investments on their side. But you would tell black people, hey, you know, it's too risky. You don't want to do that, save your money. But you don't have no problem with us wasting our time and wasting our lives selling dope or playing in these streets for bullshit. So it's those type of comparisons that people that that have to open up both eyes, because I could talk to them about Bitcoin all day.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, the price appreciates, it's this, that and the third, but for people who never even experienced that type of life, that means nothing to them. So it's a it's a slow introduction, but one of the greatest introductions I saw was that I could even be in a a a bad place financially.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Because it might go through times I don't have a job, especially back then, or it might be times things were slow. Or even until, you know, just twenty nineteen. Brother, I used to make a hundred, like, nineteen, twenty nineteen, but when I started out, I used to make a hundred and fifty dollars a month sometimes. And I would still go buy Bitcoin, even if it was ten dollars, because I knew this was appreciating, this was going up. And it was better for me to do that than wasting on something else. There was a lot of different um different areas that has to be touched. But one that I like to bring up most of the time to people is everything you touch, everything you've been buying for Bitcoin has been depreciating in value, or it appreciates so slowly that you cannot keep up.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Everything, or even even the the iPhone twelve Pro Max you'll buy, you could buy today. You'll take it to the pawn shop, I'll tell you that I promise you they're gonna try to get you half off of what you bought. So everything depreciates. Why the hell are you buying? Everything pretty much depreciates. Why are you buying?

• 30:30Anthony Pompliano?

  What what you're really highlighting here, and I think is is one of the most underrated aspects of Bitcoin, is uh when you start to go down the rabbit hole of Bitcoin, you get a education on monetary policy, on economics, on uh currencies, on, you know, really the economy. And uh you start to realize that uh the system is working exactly as it is designed, right? But really, to me, it's a um a gap between the educated and the uneducated. And and not in a a negative way, it's just that's what it is, right? There's people who understand exactly what you just said, that the assets uh around you that are consumptive, they're gonna go down in value, the investment assets are gonna go up in value, right? And it's all because the dollar's being devalued against those investment assets.

• 31:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And so when you learn that, your eyes get opened and you start changing your behavior, right?

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, that's what it was.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Just noticing what appreciation was, you know, just everything, um. Cause you got a lot of times people buy dumb shit, man. They buy, they waste money on expensive shoes. They waste money on weed, liquor. And I mean waste like way too much. Uh, you waste a lot of time. Or even right now in Bitcoin, right? Just think about it. And I said this before, and it's not to hurt no feelings, but if you're thinking about going to your business. If your business necessarily is too legacy, you'll probably bet off just buying Bitcoin and seeing what can happen. You know, saying seeing what you can grow from there. I mean, because we're at a point in time now where. Like we talked about before, Michael Sales just bought another billion dollars. And would billionaires make these moves? What type of moves do, do I feel we have to make? You know, I mean.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Especially as the black community, there's some, there's some numbers I looked at myself, like when Elon made that big buy. Of one point five billion dollars Bitcoin. I'm thinking like, damn, okay. Yeah, we, I individually might not have one point five billion dollars right now to buy Bitcoin. Not saying I won't though, not saying I won't, because I always feel it. No matter what the price of Bitcoin is, it's a great buy. I tell that to people all the time. I'm like, hey, should I buy here? Should I buy here? Listen, you're gonna buy Bitcoin at a hundred thousand dollars anyway. So if it hit an all time high of fifty eight thousand dollars, but you feel it can go to a hundred, does it really matter? The price of Bitcoin has been proven not to matter to me. You know, because what matters is actual satosh. That has already been proven to be valuable than a dollar. But, um.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when, so once you have that reality. Everything just starts becoming a little bit more simpler to do. You still want to figure out how you want to live your life? And I think that's what's something that trips up a lot of, uh, black, a lot of black people in general. You know, like, simple things like budgeting. Um, one of the best books I ever read that I recommend to people. Um, is Profit First by Mike McCullough. Cause he helped, that book helped me put money in buckets. And buy percentages and buy, you know, what's important. How it matters and how you can still live your life by using, you know, still having your business money here or what you pay yourself like. Those types of things is what helped open my mind. So like you said before, Bitcoin helps you study economics. It helps you study, you know, um.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Global policy, uh, monetary policy, all that stuff. Then you start taking it to another level like, all right. How can I really make this work for me? And that was the thing for me. You know, I realized that. If I apply the attitude to Bitcoin like how rappers do when they rap about selling dope or being in the streets, then I know I can win. Like, I already have ten X to do it. I just need something better to go at. I didn't want to keep going at the things that weren't gonna give me freedom. And when people actually see that, then they can really notice like, yo, alright, I do have the money to do something, no matter how small it is, but I've been buying shit that doesn't go nowhere.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Like Elon and the, Elon and the Cybertruck. I would not be giving him seventy thousand dollars in Bitcoin for that damn truck. And if he ever hear this podcast, hit me up. I will not be doing that. Only reason because that truck cannot ten X in a year. So I've given you seventy thousand dollars and you're gonna sit on some of that Bitcoin and now you have, what? A seven hundred thousand dollar truck because I didn't really understand what was going on out here with Bitcoin, so. But what I was gonna say was, I looked at Elon Musk Bitcoin and I said, alright, so how could black people as a people compete with this buy? Well, if we have one point two trillion spending power in America,

• 34:57Speaker 02

  then ten percent of that, if ten percent of that wants to go to Bitcoin, what would ten percent of that be? That'll be a hundred and twenty billion dollars. So will we be able to get everybody on board? I hope so. However, in the very, in the very good stages, while I like the stages, you know, you put ten percent of whatever you get first, based upon how I rate a profit first, because you gotta pay yourself in the beginning. Too many times, we pay our, we, what we give ourselves in the future is debt. Bullshit. Like, you, you re, you receive money, like, oh yeah, I'm good, but you remember you got to pay off a debt from six months ago. It's eighty percent of your money. I started looking at money in percentages.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  And so if we take that approach as a people, ten percent of our spending power from what we do in USD to Bitcoin, then as a, as a collection, will be worth a hundred and twenty billion dollars in BTC. Now you allow that ten X, what would that be? But I just had to start looking at Bitcoin. I know like that's very far out. But however, it's a mission that I love to be a part of, uh, with everything we do at Clubhouse. Bitcoin, black, uh, black Bitcoin millionaires and BSA and Lamar Wilson, but that's just how I started looking at Bitcoin as is that freedom people. But it does start at a very ground level of being people understand what the hell Bitcoin and why it's beneficial for them to use.

• 36:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. No, it, it, it is, uh, Bitcoin is beautiful. And I think the way you describe it is, is perfect. Um, I know you recently wrote a, a book, uh, it's, uh, when the ocean or in the ocean, uh, that is filled with sharks, be the orca. Talk a little bit about the book and, uh, explain the title and kind of what the, uh, the goal with the book is.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  So the reason, how I got to the title, man, I used to always like watching National Geographic shit. Even though I'm a vegan, I'm gonna tell you people like this, even though I'm a vegan, I like watching animals eat other animals. I don't know why, I mean shit, they used to, some of them would tell me, well, that's not nature, like, no, that's nature, that's what they're supposed to do. You know, I might not eat meat, but I love watching the lion eat some shit up. So, um, so what really got to me one day, man, I was online and, um, you know, you hear the word apex predator, right? Hell is that? One day they were talking about a Komodo dragon being the apex predator of his land and he's realized like, you know, he can't be hunted. He can't be hunted.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Like when he's on that island, he can't be hunted, everything. Matter of fact, I'm so much of an apex predator, I, I control population, I'm population. That's what a Komodo dragon is. So then, you know, I heard that word, I didn't really buy into it so much, but I was watching something online and there was, you know, they were in the water. And they were talking about how the orca is the apex predator of the sea, the wolves of the sea. And usually you would think it's the shark. Most people think, well, the shark is the baddest motherfucker in the water. Until you start looking at the characteristics of it.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  And I remember one time I was, uh, I was, I was at a function by this guy, by this coach by the name of J T Fox. And we always talk about being the top one percent, one percent and striving to be that. And I was like, all right, that makes sense. So I'm, I'm studying this orca. I'm looking at like, why is this, why is he the apex predator? Not just because of size, it's more intelligent than a shark. They communicate, they work together. And they have high, they have highly advanced hunting technique. So I took that and I just looked at like how I've been living my life to approach becoming the top, the top of whatever I'm in. And so there's a, the reason I wrote that book is number one, so you can see

• 38:38Speaker 02

  how, how I approached my life to get to where I am. The relentless pursuit behind it, but also where I strive to be. And I didn't just strive to be, I don't strive to be, uh, in the know. I don't strive to be, you know, one of the best. I strive to be the authority. I strive for greatness because when you throw out a big goal, whatever you hit in the middle, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a good result, but you want more. Only because of where I started, only because of where it was, only because of the legacy I wanted for my family. So the point of the book is to highlight everywhere I've gone in my life, um, I liked the, the the effort and mentality it took and some, and some of the things I saw, how I just applied what I saw in life.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  That's how I had to really learn a lot of things off of the mistakes I made, how I'm gonna write these mistakes, who I'm going to listen to, who I'm gonna surround myself by. You know what I mean? Orcas work in pods, they work in groups. So I learned like lean on your network, use your network, value being a part of a big network or a, a quality of network. And that's how I look at Bitcoin. You know, if we have eight billion people in the world and a hundred million people use Bitcoin now or less than that, that means you have at least what, one, one, two percent of the global population already here. I started valuing those types of numbers because there's a different caliber, that's a different caliber of network, those are different caliber of people.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  That are there. So, once you strive and that's what I talk about a lot, just striving to be the best of the best. No matter who it is, your friend could make quote unquote competition with you, make a healthy competition, do whatever. But that's the only way I saw to get out of my situation. Because every athlete, you know, every athlete I named Floyd, he fought his way out of a dang bedroom the size of this office with seven other kids there. Tyler Perry slept on a bitch. Created what he created. Tom Brady got picked 199. I mean, yo, none of these people who were great thought it was gonna be an easy road. They just accepted what it was and went through it. That's why I wrote about the book and that's how I approach everything I do, you know.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  If I, if I have to start at this level, alright, cool. As long as I have the tools I need to get there, then I'm gonna get there, but just do it. Because what it looks like, what it looks like right now doesn't mean it's always look like this. So, I gave that book to talk about every experience I went, every experience I went and to show people like there really is no excuse not to get what the hell you want to do. You just have to be committed to whatever it takes, whatever is in the process to get there, you get there. And if you die along the way, guess what? That was what it was meant to be. But dedicate to it. You have to dedicate to something. That's what, that's where the purpose, that's where the title of that book come from, came from. That's the purpose of me writing this book.

• 41:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Where can people go find the book right now if they want to find it?

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Um, well, they could find, I have it on my website, Bitcoin Vegan dot com. There's a pre-sale going on. Uh, first hundred people to buy, I will send them an autographed copy of Bitcoin Vegan dot com. And you can type, press the little shop page and you'll see the book at the top. Or if you're on Instagram, you can, you know, click the link in the bio and you'll see it there too as well. But it's on my website, Bitcoin Vegan dot com.

• 41:53Anthony Pompliano?

  You got it. You got wired up there. Um, before we get into the rapid fire questions, I want to talk about this idea of no excuses. Um, and I know that you and, uh, and Zay have talked a bunch about it, but just this idea that, you know, look, you, you basically, uh, have the, the perfect story, which is, uh, you had hardship in your life, you went to prison and you got out. And you made a better life for yourself, right? And if you can do it, anyone can do it, right? Because basically, it would be really easy for you to sit there and say, ah, you know, I had this bad situation happen and therefore I kind of have a disadvantage in life now. And so, you know, I'm just going to take the lumps and it is what it is. But instead, you said, no, I'm not going to allow that to be the narrative.

• 42:36Anthony Pompliano?

  And so, talk a little bit about this idea of like no excuses and why you think anyone in the world can do this?

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Well, I like how you said a narrative because I hate, I hate false narratives. I hate narratives that I didn't agree to. Like, no one said I was going to fall. Like, for instance, me going home, going to prison, coming home, everybody said it's going to be hard, or this, that, and the third. I said, no, no word that I agree, or did I tell you that I was going to reach that bullshit narrative? I didn't tell you none of that. So, you know, I love to rewrite a narrative if I can. And when it comes to excuses, man, you know, what helped me realize I was making excuses was when I looked at the people who I was surrounded by. What were they allowing me to make true? Oh, I can't do this. Yeah, you're right, man, you know, just fall back, just relax. You know, I started listening, I started studying what excuses were.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  From high level mediocre excuses, from very, very bottom excuses, excuses in general. You know, what am I telling myself that I cannot do? And when I looked at, when I just looked at my life, I really felt like, I felt like even in prison, I was going to come out and still be a success. But I think it was, um, I'll tell you, well, I read a book by Grant Cardone, who said, don't nobody care what you think you cannot do. Like, if you want to be a success, don't nobody care what you think you cannot do. What can you do? You have to be able to do something. What the hell can you do? In prison, we had to use everything around this to still make it better. No pump I use.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I used what batteries and headphones and tape to uh to charge the cellphone in prison. You know, and I seen a guy with several life sentences hustled his way to hire a lawyer to get a to get a release date. You know, I've seen people who fight for their fight for what they want. I I when I came out of prison, I spent a lot of time at Don Boxing Gym here in Charlotte. I was always around fighters. They never gave up. They never gave up. It was always about fighting for your life, what no matter what it is. So nobody care about what you cannot do. And that's when I realized like excuses really don't live here. Even when it comes to Bitcoin, well, I can't afford fifty thousand dollars. Well, can you buy once a toast? Yeah, well, it's better than buying dough. It doesn't matter.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Like, it was all about being, it was all about being present, noticing myself. What am I telling myself I can't do and why? You know, what where where did I where did I agree to this in my past? Who did I put myself around who I thought was, you know, on a level of success, but now I'm listening to their excuses? Now, I always study. I like to study people. I like to study business. I like to study people. And see what they say when obstacles come up. Because no matter where you are, there's going to be an obstacle. You know, it's like a video game. When we play video games growing up, you go to level one, you beat that level. You beat the level of level two, there's another boss there. There's another boss there. There's always someone or something you have to overcome at any level.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  So I had to get over the fact that this shit was going to be a linear, straight process and be okay with whatever confronted me to go to the next level. I stopped looking at, I stopped looking at quote unquote excuses or reasons not to do something as a reason to do it. Because wherever whenever I overcome this excuse here, I'll be ready to ascend to whatever the next level has for me. And whatever comes at that level. So it was about me really looking at the journey and realizing that all journeys come with obstacles. And you have to be prepared to step towards that obstacle. Every single moment, if you look at, look at how Tom looks in the last two minutes of the first six Super Bowls, he was always ready for. Like how Floyd looks like when he steps into the ring, he's always ready for it. They are always ready for whatever takes place.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  And no matter what took place between there, you have to, you have to be willing to accept. Accept the fact that you could lose, it could turn out bad, but you still did it and take what you learn and keep going. At the end of the day, if you have time on your side, you'll always make it. You always make it.

• 46:38Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I could talk to you forever, man. Before I let you go, I got three rapid fire questions that you get asked me one to to finish up. What is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  So, Outside of Bitcoin and Black America by Isaiah Jackson. I will, I will say this, and I really hope these guys hear this because I would love to meet these two. The Future Is Faster Than You Think by Stephen Coller and Peter Dominate.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  That book was so impactful for me, especially in 2020 because I had told myself, I don't, I wanted, like, after I had taken that gym quick course and started reading off crazy books, I would read like 10 books a month. Just on things I knew I was not good at. And then get better at those things. If I can create revenue to hire somebody to do it, then do it. That's how I approach life. Again, everything is out here. Everything is out here. You gotta read books and do it, do it. But when I read that book, I wanted to start reading books that are really up to date, like that came out fresh. So when I read that book, the book came out January 28, 2020. I read that book in about two or three days. And it opened up to me everything that was possible to take place in this decade.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  It even made, I hate to say it, it made coronavirus make sense. Because how else would we start bringing this stuff in? It made Bitcoin make even better sense. But most importantly, that book opened my mind up to what the future is. Where the future is going. I've always been about where is the world headed, not where the hell it is. That's why I didn't want to hop into a lot of things that my friends are already doing. Because it's like, yo, it's gonna be saturated in five years. In five years, I might as well struggle with some shit that's disruptive. Or that's coming out, it's gonna be exponential. So in that five years, I could be, hey, Justin, we want you on pump show. Instead of being like, hey, Justin, come to work. Those are the differences I wanted, so.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Future is fascinating things possibly outside of Bitcoin of Black America and every other damn book I'm I name one of the most important books to read in this decade.

• 48:44Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a great suggestion. Second question is a little bit more personal, your sleep schedule. So I used to be like a six hour sleeper. And then Mateo and Alex over at Eight Sleep convinced me. So this question is brought to us by them. They got like a thermo regulated bed basically means it I was making it really cold. So I sleep it on an ice cube also and I sleep like a baby, get deep sleep, feel better and not try to sleep like eight, nine hours. What's your sleep schedule now and how has that evolved over the years?

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Well, now with a newborn baby, that's not hard.

• 49:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Baby changes everything, huh?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's almost not there. But before then, I would say this, so and I like what you said about sleeping in the cold because I read that with Jim Quick, he said like, you know, when you turn the temperature down, it tells your body like you're ready to sleep. Keep it pitch back dark. He brought up some amazing stuff because you want your photosynthesis to be down. So really, I will wake up, I used to, I used to always wake up at 5:00 AM. Like I said before, I have my baby and they was, you know, do things. But I feel like sleep is very important because you get to, this was some, some cool shit he said too. He said you get to solve the problems you had from the previous day. So my sleep schedule would usually consist of me trying to get,

• 50:07Speaker 02

  if not eight, if not eight hours or six, six to eight hours of good sleep. And if it's not going to be that long a sleep, then I want my quality of sleep to be very good. I want to be in the deep sleep so my brain can really relax and really, really be productive for the next day. So. A good, a good, I try to get a good six to eight hours. Um, and I just want, it's just the quality of sleep now. It's just the quality of sleep I can get. And you know, the older this, this baby boy gets, I know the better sleep will get. So, yeah.

• 50:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey, I, I, I, I love it. I love it. Uh, last question for you is aliens. Are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Listen, man, somewhere, now people, I get some flack about this from people, but sometimes I think it tells you that aliens, um, I do actually believe in. I don't, I can't sit here and believe we're the only people that have, um, it's kind of, it's kind of strange. Um, you know, I hope to go to Mars one day. Hopefully Bitcoin can get me there. I really feel like I can go, uh, but I do believe in aliens. I do believe in life outside of Earth. I believe they're so intelligent that they, that they can, that they can see us, but we can't see them. Or somebody knows about them, that they're not just going out selling that information. But I do believe in aliens. And I am interested in, uh, being on Mars when that time comes.

• 51:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey, I'll be there with you. Let's go.

• 51:37Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what they say? Bitcoin's going to the moon and, uh, and humans are going to Mars. I'm, I'm down for it. Uh, you could ask me one, you could ask me one question to finish up. What you got for me?

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Uh, one question for you. Oh, man.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  I've never had to ask the question on the first step.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Well, let's talk about something real life. I don't know if you like to do this or not, but we're gonna throw it out there. What's your price prediction for Bitcoin by the end of the year?

• 52:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, I, I, I keep the same thing. I've been saying for years, a hundred K by the end of 2021. I ain't changing it. Uh, I'm probably being too conservative. I'm, I'm trying to be, I'm probably being too conservative at this point. Uh, but I just, that's the number I picked. So like, whatever, I'm sticking with it.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  I mean, I feel you. I, I can hold hard. I can, I remember I read in 20 November, this last year, someone from sending bank saw three hundred thousand dollars. And the reason I see that happening.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Sometimes I read different articles and I read one in particular where it said the Wall Street Journal was talking about the cash crisis. And you couple that with um the endless amounts of printing of money that you love tweeting us about that. And man, you know, you do a better job tweeting the price than coin market. I just gotta give you that. Uh, man, I love it. I love it. Oh, and you were talking some jazz, somebody else the other day. Good job. I love that too. But uh, but everything with, you know, including the printing of money, uh, lost jobs. We're going to continuously get more stimulus checks. If they're talking about a cash crisis, well, they're down. How can there be one that's going to keep printing it?

• 53:19Speaker 02

  I just see and I in the couple that with Bitcoin just being the orange pill and opening folks' minds up to the reality that's in front of them. I mean, a hundred K at the end of the year is a bad. I can't see three hundred thousand. You know, a hundred K is only a two X now, so. Hey, just everything is possible, man.

• 53:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Anything is possible. So, so where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you on social media?

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Uh, find me on Instagram at Bitcoin Vegan. You can find me on Twitter at Bitcoin underscore vegan. Simply shoot me an email, Justin at Bitcoin Vegan dot com.

• 53:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Listen, just thank you so much for taking the time to do this. You've got a incredible story. You're doing a fantastic work and hopefully we'll do this again in the future.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Yes, sir.