#254: Ben Askren on the Evolution of MMA and Wrestling

Ben Askren is a retired professional mixed martial artist and former Olympic wrestler. In this conversation, Ben and Anthony discuss his views on Bitcoin, involvement in the NCAA and Olympic wrestling communities, challenges facing small businesses due to the COVID-19 outbreak, transitioning from wrestling to MMA, Jon Jones' arrest, and his take on rising stars in the UFC. =============================== CRYPTO. COM-----The only all-in-one platform that allows you to BUY / SELL / STORE / EARN / LOAN / INVEST crypto all from one place. Join over 1 million users currently using the Crypto.com app. Download and earn $50 USD using my code ‘pomp2020’, or use the link http://platinum.crypto.com/r/pomp2020 when you sign up for one of their metal cards today. TAXBIT-----Refund-maximizing, cryptocurrency tax software you can depend on. Visit taxbit.com/invite/pomp and receive 10% off your tax plan today by signing up for a free trial. LEDGER----- Ledger hardware wallets empower you to optimally secure, own and control your crypto. Visit ledger.com and give yourself peace of mind by knowing that your cryptocurrencies are safe.

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

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Ben Askren is a retired MMA fighter and former Olympic wrestler. He's also the co-founder of Askren Wrestling Academy and a cryptocurrency enthusiast. I really enjoyed this conversation with Ben, just like every other one I've had, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Today's sponsors include Crypto.com, the all-in-one platform that allows you to buy, sell, store, earn, loan, and invest crypto all from one place. You can join over 1 million users on their mobile app for Crypto.com. If you download it today, you can earn $50 US dollars with my code POMP2020. They've also got a Visa card in the United States where you can pay in a fast, easy, and secure way with Apple, Google, or Samsung Pay.

• 0:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Head on over to Crypto.com and check them out. Remember, use the code POMP2020 and you can earn $50 US dollars. Our second sponsor is TaxBit. They help you pay your crypto taxes easily. TaxBit automates your cryptocurrency taxes, enabling you to effortlessly track, calculate, and report your transactions. You can easily connect your exchanges to securely sync your transactions and run them through TaxBit's tax engine. You can generate a completed tax form with a single click. It's stupid simple. The company was founded by tax attorneys and CPAs. TaxBit is the most trusted cryptocurrency tax solution. Get 10% off your tax plan today with a free trial by going to TaxBit.com/invite/pomp. Again, TaxBit.com/invite/pomp.

• 1:37Anthony Pompliano?

  TaxBit.com/invite/pomp. Go check them out and get your damn taxes paid. All right, our third sponsor is Ledger. They're awesome. They've got tons of custody solutions for your crypto, and I'm going to play an ad that they pre-recorded now, and then we'll get into the episode with Ben.

• 1:53Speaker 01

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• 2:35Speaker 01

  Control, scalability, agility, because security is not enough.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 3:09Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up, guys? Bang, bang. I've got Ben here. What's going on, man?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  I'm doing pretty well, obviously. I've been quarantined. I quarantined myself two Fridays ago. I've been to my mom's house and I got 11 acres. So I go outside and I use my chainsaw to cut my disc golf course in quite a bit. I've actually been listening to quite a few of your podcasts. That keeps me busy, trying to read books, trying to get smarter. It is hard with three young kids at home, but doing my best.

• 3:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. What, uh, why'd you quarantine yourself two Fridays ago? Did you feel sick?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  No, not at all. I just felt it coming. You know, all the schools here in Wisconsin said this is our last day. That was, it was Friday. What is the day for? Yeah. Friday, March 13th. All the schools in Wisconsin said, you know, we're done for a while. The colleges did. So my brother and I decided, hey, we should probably just close our academies and follow suit with the schools. There's no reason to try to stick out, you know, especially when, you know, I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't know how this is going to turn out. So I don't want to stick my neck out there and say, no, everything's fine. We're good. Like, I don't effing know. Um, so, yeah, I said, hey, listen, I'm not going to run my businesses. I might as well just stay at home and be, be extra safe. And then, you know, but by, by early the next week,

• 4:28Speaker 03

  man, everyone else was kind of doing the same. I was getting, actually getting really annoyed that weekend. That was March 14, 15, because everyone was going out and partying and stuff. And even though their, their offices were closed and school was closed, like you idiots. Like, this is the last thing you need to do. Just sit at home and read an effing book or something.

• 4:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I love the kids that went to spring break. They're like, hey, man, this is, spring break comes once a year. We're going.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Seriously, they really were. I mean, for what it's worth, at spring break, it's all college age kids. So, you know, the, that, that group is very low risk for, uh, the COVID. So I guess as long as they always see their grandparents, they're all good.

• 5:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What, um, what's it like running the businesses, right? So you guys have the wrestling academies and stuff. What's it like then, uh, that you got to shut down? And how are you handling that?

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Well, um, lucky that Friday, we looked at our bank account and it looked really nice. So we said, you know, hey, we can afford a couple of months of shutdown and, and still pay our rent and pay our employees. But we've already had, so unfortunately, last month, we bought a new, we bought an existing wrestling academy to add, to make it our fifth wrestling academy. And we also bought a building for another academy that we were starting. So those are kind of not ideal timed purchases, um, seeing as we shut down like two weeks later. But Bank of the West, they already reached out and they said they're gonna do a 90-month deferment on our mortgages, so that, you know, obviously makes things easier. So we're lucky we're in a really good spot where, you know, we're not cash strapped,

• 6:01Speaker 03

  where I mean, you know, those unemployment numbers are crazy and you got to imagine that, you know, if this lasts, we were, I'd say we're kind of like two weeks-ish into the nationwide quarantine, maybe a little less than that. Dude, I feel like if this lasts another month from now, man, there's gonna be a lot of people going bankrupt. And so I, you know, I don't feel like our government's done a lot for the small businesses. A $1,200 check ain't gonna keep people out of bankruptcy. So there, I think there has to be some type of nationwide deferment on rent payments. And then I also feel, I told my wife this one, I feel like, so 16 days from now, so two, two Sundays past this one, I feel like if their businesses aren't reopening or in some way, shape or form, and maybe there are safety measures, that people are starting getting really, really, really antsy.

• 6:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, look, part of this whole thing is, if you're a small business, you know, you've got maybe, I don't know, two, three, maybe four weeks of cash. Those unemployment numbers were people who saw the writing on the wall immediately and fired employees. But how many businesses have held on to employees and said, hey, you know, it's gonna be a week, two weeks, three weeks? But as they start to run out of cash, they're gonna get rid of employees as well, right? And so you're gonna see those unemployment numbers stay pretty high, I think, if, if this thing doesn't turn around. But it's the balance between the health crisis and the economic crisis. I don't know if there's a right solution.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree. It's between, it's between a rock and a hard place. And I've been following this pretty close since it was in China, and I don't think their numbers are accurate. I think that's probably highly, highly unlikely at this point, although I don't know for sure. And it just feels like it's not nearly as deadly as was initially thought because they weren't testing everyone and stuff like that. It also feels, it feels like there's a possible medication kind of on the horizon here. You know, there's that cloriking shit, looks like it's kind of having some positive results in some places of testing. So hopefully we are getting a handle on this. You know, when you put the brain power of the world behind it, problems can tend to be solved.

• 8:09Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. What um, what's the general census, do you think in uh, in kind of um, the non-coastal elite areas, right? So you're in where, Wisconsin? What are most people thinking? Are they quarantining themselves? Yeah, they taking it seriously, or are they just like, this is full of shit?

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Uh, that's how they were initially. And now, you know, I said, everyone, you know, that weekend where they said all the schools are closed and everything else. Everyone went out and partied. I'm like, golly, what are you people doing? And um, now, now I think there's been a shutdown, non-essential businesses. And so I think people are taking it seriously. People are worried, but uh, I could go check, but I believe the stats uh, that world, have you checked out that world meters website?

• 8:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I saw it once. I haven't looked at it recently, though.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fantastic. It gives a breakdown by by state by state, which, you know, New York and New Jersey are significantly over half of the total coronavirus cases. So Wisconsin's still at 700 total cases in the whole state and 10 deaths. So you know, when you're seeing those numbers, obviously there might be an uptick in the future, but that's still like a really, really tiny amount.

• 9:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, my uh, my father is uh, in his early 60s and I called him and I basically was like, hey, man, you know, without freaking you out, can you just, you know, make sure you're washing your hands, stay inside, you know, maybe take some vitamin C, boost your immune system, like all the kind of normal stuff. And he literally said to me, because I take a multivitamin, I'll be fine.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Oh, man, that's, yeah, that, that, well, that's that generation. I feel like, you know, people were trying to shit on the millennials. I feel like that boomer generation is like, ah, whatever, I'm gonna go out and eat. I'm gonna go out and do whatever I want. F this thing.

• 10:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, I think it's pretty interesting. And also, the other piece of it is the gun sales. Like, that's the thing that surprised me the most. When you layer in the health and the economic crisis, gun sales have exploded across the country. And I don't know how much of that is like, people actually are fearful versus just that's their natural response. But that's usually not a good sign when it comes to kind of social unrest and things like that, right?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I think I think it's a fear response. You put that article out on the liquidity crisis, which I thought was really good. But I think it's definitely a fear response. I don't own a gun. I didn't go buy didn't go buy a gun. Someone probably should have taken John Jones' gun away. And so I don't see it getting that bad. I mean, you never know. I guess we'll find out. Obviously, the conspiracy theorists out there are saying, you know, they're going to roll up the National Guard and do martial law and take all of our civil liberties away.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  I don't foresee that happening. But yeah, I guess you never know.

• 11:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, let's talk about John Jones. He just got a DUI with a gun charge, all this stuff. But my understanding is that he was actually sitting in the car asleep, right? He wasn't actually driving?

• 11:17Speaker 03

  I don't think he was driving at the time, but it's not like he was sitting. I don't think he was sleeping, because they said they said, the reason that the officers responded was because there was a gunshot, which is apparently his gun, because there was like, I apparently an empty casing or something found. So I don't know if he just shot it in the air. But the part that was the most crazy to me is, he said something like, he was intending to drive again later. Like, why would you tell them that? Like, just make up just some kind of lie. He said, I was driving, and I'm intending on driving more later. And it's like, oh, for God's sakes, just tell them like, you know, you came in here just to listen to the radio, or I don't know, make up some type of lie, where, you know, your vehicle's not actually moving. So

• 11:59Speaker 03

  you probably, if you weren't idiot, you could probably argue that one away in court somehow, I'm guessing. I don't know.

• 12:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, the I think it was you that just said, hey, why don't you just hire your buddy, right? And just be your driver for you for like, 50k a year, and then just stay out of trouble?

• 12:17Speaker 03

  I said that the last two times. I mean, this is, this is his third DUI. This is not, this is not time number one. This is time number three. It's like, and you know, he obviously has other people with the best interest in him, whether it's his coach, his manager, people who sponsor him, Dana White, the UFC president, you know, if you can roll John Jones out three times a year, it's gonna be a lot better than if you can't for a year and a half, which dude, I mean, three DUIs, I think that I'm pretty sure it's mandatory jail time in most states. Plus you add on the fact that he had a loaded weapon and it was fired and he had weed and if the man do a drug test, he probably had more than that, I'm guessing. So, yeah, I mean, how, how they have it found it. I actually just did a live stream on this

• 13:02Speaker 03

  the other day. I have this theory. You want to hear my theory, Pomp? Definitely want to hear it. Okay, I have this theory and I, I'm in the process of putting it all together. Actually, you know who kind of inspired me? I started, I talked to a couple of times with, I listened to him on your show and I somehow connected with him on Twitter with Sam Parr.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. You had him on. The Hustle. Maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe two or three weeks ago, you had him on and, and then I listened to that and then somehow we connected through Twitter and yeah, we got on a call. He kind of like, I've had this idea bounce around in my head for a while and it kind of pushed, pushed me a little further into it. But the idea is that success is a skill and you have all these mental characteristics that are necessary to be, to be successful in something. That being said, different things take different sets, right? And the more of these, I have like five different categories, the more these sets you can put together, the better off you're being. So for example, being an athlete, especially being a cage fighter or something where there's a high level of risk, you need to be really low

• 14:09Speaker 03

  anxiety. For example, this is what I was one trait of the many traits, right? But if you're all worried, oh my God, this guy could kick me or he could punch me, he could choke me. Oh my God, there's 20,000 people watching me. Oh my God, I could get knocked out, right? There's all these things you worry. If you're high anxiety, you're probably not going to have a high Level of success. So John Jones is really arrogant, low anxiety. Those type of things are great attributes to have in mixed martial arts. And you know that I can't get in trouble. No one can hurt me type of mentality. Great. It's great. That's great. You want to there. And so then I, you know, the argument I'm making is like, well, number one, you should, you should work on your weakness. But number two, especially if you're John Jones, and you know, you have these weaknesses. And I use a simple one for myself. Listen, bro, if there's ice cream and cake and cookies on,

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I'm gonna eat it. So when I'm dieting for a fight, my wife is not allowed to buy it. We don't, we do not have it in the household. I will eat it. I know I'm weak like that. So it's like, John Jones, you know, you like to drink, and you know, you like to drive, put some roadblocks in your way before, because when it's 3am in the club, and you're drunk, and the car's out there, you got to keep, you're gonna go drive. You're, you know, yourself, you know, you're gonna do that. You know, hire yourself a driver, have a couple of friends around that are really responsible, and put roadblocks in your way. So you can't make these dumb ass decisions over and over and over again, which are in fact ruining your life.

• 15:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's pretty crazy, because I think everyone knows kind of what their weaknesses are. Some people want to admit it. Some people don't. But if you are willing to admit it to yourself, then you can put those roadblocks in place and kind of prevent the issues from resurfacing over and over again.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a huge one. So yeah, my, my, I need to put this into, I have a couple of different like psychology theories that I don't believe have been written about too much. And this is one of them. And so, you know, like another example would be, well, you're gonna be a husband soon, right? You got, you got engaged, didn't you?

• 16:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, I did.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  No, not married, right? Okay, so like as a husband, and then eventually if you're gonna be a father, you know, for example, empathy is like a gigantic quality to be able to have. But as an athlete, dude, the more empathetic you are, the it's gonna be, it's gonna negatively affect your career. So there's these certain qualities that are like, okay, if you're gonna be a good husband and father, this set of qualities is really, really, really, really important. If you're gonna be an athlete, this is really important. If you're a businessman, this is important. If you're an entrepreneur, right? Because entrepreneurs are different than employees. So employees are gonna need a different skill set than an entrepreneur is. And so the idea is that, you know, you got to mix and match your, your mental qualities. And then, you know, eventually,

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I think most people would probably like to be diverse enough to have success in multiple areas. Like, you know, I got to assume even the guys making billions of dollars but have just terrible personal lives. I can't say this for sure, but man, part of them, part of them, part of them has to be like miserable because they can't keep a good relationship. They they're distant from their kids, right? Or whatever, because they have, they probably have these really great qualities that that allowed them to make a billion dollars. And those also probably sabotaged them in their personal life. So, understanding when to use what quality where.

• 17:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I think it's super, super important. I actually just saw it resurfaced a while ago. Somebody asked on Quora, what separated, you know, the Elon Musks, the Jeff Bezos, etc., from other business leaders. And Elon Musk's ex-wife went on and answered, and she basically was like, it's obsession. Like, you literally have to be obsessed with being great at what you're doing and solving the problem and thinking about it 24/7. That also makes you horrible at other aspects of your life.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And that's where it's like, for me, I mean, I guess that would probably be my, my number one issue. And I try to do a good job of it. But, but being aware that it is your personality type. And then that can be a problem. And I always joke with my wife. Well, not always joking, because sometimes she gets annoyed with me. But like, when I was a high school kid or college kid, I was obsessed with being good at wrestling. And the fact that I didn't want to really go out and party, and I was just worried about being good, like, everyone saw this, that's freaking awesome. Like, and, you know, you get a pat on the back for it. Then, if you're 35, and, you know, you just want to be obsessive about your work, and your wife wants to go socialize with whoever, or, you

• 18:35Speaker 03

  know, people see you as being like weird, like, why can't that guy go socialize? Well, mother effer, I just want to be good at what I want to do. But, at some point, that becomes unacceptable. Do you see what I'm saying? Right? It's weird.

• 18:51Anthony Pompliano?

  It's all priorities, right? I always tell people that some of my favorite advice is like, you hear these somewhat dumb, simple statements like, you know, the five people you hang out with the most is who you become. Show me your circle and I'll show you kind of how successful you will be, all these things. But it's true, right? It really is true. And I think that the other thing is you're getting judged by people who don't understand that, right? The people who think it's a negative thing, they don't understand kind of the benefits of it. The people who do understand it, they're like, oh, well, duh, of course, you're going to want to focus on what you're doing and be obsessive about it, etc.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, so yeah, I mean, but so I do, I see, I definitely see my wife's point. And I think there's a balance to it. So it's like, you know, especially with, especially my kids, you know, I can't imagine not giving them attention. So they're like, you know, I set aside points in time to give my kids lots of attention. And then, you know, other people maybe, maybe not nearly as much as I should or whatever. But I try to do my best.

• 19:51Anthony Pompliano?

  What's going on with Olympic wrestling? I know that you obviously have a storied career there. And it looks like the Olympics recently got postponed. What are you hearing?

• 20:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, postponed by a year. I was really annoyed when they first said it because it was like,

• 20:08Speaker 03

  uh, it was what, a week? I think it was last Sunday. Last Sunday, they said, hey, give us a month to see how this shakes out. And I thought, hey, that sounds reasonable. And then on Monday, Canada and Australia say we're out. And then they said they canceled it by that night. So it was like, within 24 hours, all of that happened. And it's, it's almost so wild how everything is going to happen. Actually, I recorded my funky crypto podcast on Tuesday. And, you know, we actually put it in, put out till Thursday, and we actually had usually been waiting Tuesday and then putting it out the following Monday. That's six days. And I'm like, I don't really like that because so much can happen over the course of six days. And then, sure, Tuesday afternoon, we record, Tuesday night, they dropped $6 trillion. And it's like, well, that would have been relevant to talk about.

• 20:56Anthony Pompliano?

  The thing to me that's so interesting about what's happening right now is exactly what you're talking about on the Olympics. People are saying the prudent thing to do and the non-emotional thing is let's wait a month and then we'll make a decision. But then all of a sudden there starts to get this pressure and it's like social pressure and then everyone gets really emotional and next thing you know, a band is canceled. You're like, wait a minute, 24 hours ago, you guys were singing a different tune. But that's not just happening with the Olympics. It's happening in finance, in the economy, with businesses, with the health response, etc. And I think people just gotta kind of calm down and breathe a little bit before they make dumb decisions.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree. I mean, just be patient. And it's like, it's crazy because stuff changes so fast. It's like every single week, you're gonna know so much more about what's happening. I mean, if you think about where we were at last Sunday or Friday, I mean, and where we are at today, and then think about where we're gonna be next Friday, I believe it's, they're way different places. And I think it's that, it's a little bit of that kind of woke culture where everyone's trying to be more woke than the next person. I feel like that's kind of the way that this is played out.

• 22:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And here's the sad part, right? It's like you almost have, I take the coronavirus stuff, take like all the epidemiologists and the data analysis, you get people who say, hey, we think 500,000 people are gonna die in Europe and 2.2 million in America and like basically the world's ending. And then all of a sudden, they come back and they retract it all and they're like, well, we actually think it's like 10% or less of what we originally thought. So you get like that where people then get pissed off and they're like, dude, what the hell happened to your analysis? But then you see a picture of a nurse with like a trash bag on or, you know, inside the hospital and you're like, this is real, right? It's super dangerous. But also, what the hell's going on with this data analysis?

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree too. And I think the thing to remember about that is, man, you know what? I have all these, I know these theories, I just forget the names of them. Do you remember the name of the theory that if you say you're an expert, well, you're an expert in Bitcoin, right? Say on the front page of the newspaper, you read an article on Bitcoin, you're like, okay, that's bullshit. But then you flip the page and by the next page, you forgot that these people writing these articles aren't actually really experts. And you trust whatever they're saying on page two. Do you know what the name of the theory is?

• 23:18Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't, but it's definitely a valid theory because that's exactly what happens in the mainstream media.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  Okay, well, so that that is valid, like that happens. And so it's like, um, with with something like this, it is something that's never ever happened before. And so it's like, okay, you would say I'm an expert at mixed martial arts. And then to you would say, well, I trust you to tell me how Tony Ferguson versus Khabib's gonna play out. And you know what? I'm gonna probably be able to give you a better guess than most people because I'm a pretty, I'm an expert. But you know what? It's also never happened before. And if I'm totally wrong, that could happen. That's a possibility. So I think I think the same way about these experts. It's like, they're going in there, shooting in the dark. They've never been through this before. They can guess, but they don't really know.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  And so that's again, when people take for sure action on stuff that is not proven, not known, you know, people making their best guess that it can be dangerous.

• 24:21Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. I um, I keep going back to, uh, all of these people have opinions and they have their kind of expert analysis, but whether they're right or wrong, there's very little skin in the game, right? There's very little kind of negative impact if they're wrong. But you and I are sitting at home, quarantined, and so we're being negatively impacted whether they're right or wrong. And so the incentives are just really off.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, the one I like to think about on that one, that people on TV have those skin in the game, um, is I've watched this really, really interesting interview. I can't remember who it was, but they said, you know, insurance companies are some of the richest companies in the world. Do you really think, do you really think they would insure all of these beachfront condos and apartments and properties if they thought they were going to be underwater in 20 years? No, they wouldn't. So the people who actually have skin in the game aren't really worried about the sea level rising five feet or whatever. It's all the other people. If the insurance companies really thought that was a possibility, they wouldn't insure any place. I'm like, oh, yeah, because they have billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars invested in this.

• 25:31Anthony Pompliano?

  It's so true. What have you been doing while on quarantine? Just playing with your kids and reading and stuff, or you've been doing other stuff?

• 25:39Speaker 03

  Uh, podcasting. So I do the Flow Radio one. I do one for Rudus. I do the Funky Crypto Podcast. And I do Funky and FRB with Brian, which is our MMA podcast. So I've been doing those, done a few of the interviews, reading, I said, building my disc golf course and playing with my kids. And yeah, that's about it. Unfortunately, even with our businesses, there's like not any work to do because it's literally nothing's going on. We don't know when things are going to start back up. So it's not like we can plan for it. It's not like, okay, April 13th, we're going again. We don't, we don't know. So it's not like we can plan for things in the future. So yeah, that's, that's about the extent of it.

• 26:17Anthony Pompliano?

  It feels kind of like Groundhog Day a little bit where you just keep waking up and doing some of the same stuff over and over again. You know, you gotta do. So I got two guys who've been helping me with all the audio stuff, Ryan and Joe. Ryan's birthday was like five days ago. And so every day I, when we get on the phone, I tell them happy birthday because it's basically Groundhog Day.

• 26:42Anthony Pompliano?

  So you gotta tell them happy birthday at some point.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  That is funny. Yeah, it does feel like Groundhog Day a lot. I mean, it is like the same thing over and over and over. At least I have my podcasts to keep me on schedule because you know, the Flow ones every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So I got to get up and get going for that one. At least, at least get my day started. Hey, let's talk about Bitcoin because you're smarter than I am.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  And I was, you know, Etor did this group chat yesterday type thing. I can't remember exactly what they called it. But it was really cool because I got to get on there and there's a few people on there who I like. I always search Bitcoin Twitter, you know, and just, I don't, may not follow them, but I pay attention to them. And I got to, you know, kind of chat with some of the people who I follow on Twitter. So that was really cool. And I got to hear a lot of good opinions. So obviously I'd like to hear your opinion. Cause everyone has one on why the price is not rapidly rising at this point.

• 27:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I mean, look, it's a liquidity crisis, right? Meaning that everyone wants dollars. And so every asset is going to get sold off, whether it's stocks, commodities, Bitcoin, whatever it is. And people want dollars. But as soon as that liquidity crisis ends, either because there's a flood of dollars that enter the market through intervention from the government, or people realize, wait a minute, I don't need as many dollars as I previously thought. I can now go buy other assets. You'll see those prices stabilize and ultimately recover. And so the beauty of all of this is if you understand how money works, you don't get shaken out when the liquidity crisis happens, right? If you can kind of weather the storm and hold your assets. But also, if you've got cash, kind of cash

• 28:25Anthony Pompliano?

  is king, right? And he who has the cash makes the rules in the liquidity crisis.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I bought a couple more Bitcoin at 5,000 when it dropped down there. I thought that was a good idea. I thought that was a really, really nice price. And I never thought I could get some at that price. That being said, you know what, as I search Bitcoin Twitter, I feel maybe more nervousness than I've ever felt from that crowd. And obviously, when you when you search that, you're going to get all kinds of responses all over the board. You know, you're gonna have 27 people saying the price is going to 30,000 tomorrow. You have 27 people say price is going to 9,000 tomorrow. You know, it's like people are all over the board. But there is, you know, not everybody, but there's a certain amount of people who are nervous. And I believe you said this also. But it's like, this is the

• 29:14Speaker 03

  perfect storm for Bitcoin. So either it's gonna make it or it's not. You know, either it's gonna prove that it is the safe haven asset, and it's better than than the USD, or it's not. And we're gonna probably find that out within the next three to six months.

• 29:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so I kind of believe some of that, but some of it I disagree with. And so the way I look at it is, it's definitely the perfect storm, right? You've got a quantitative easing, you get the Bitcoin halving, all this stuff. With that said, I don't think it'll happen in three to six months. I think it's more of like 18 to 24 month timeframe. And I don't necessarily think that if Bitcoin doesn't materially increase in US dollar value in that timeframe that Bitcoin's done, right? Like, I don't think that it'll go away. I don't think that it will be, you know, kind of not secure, etc. What I think is people will have to go back and revisit what the thesis for the asset is, right? Because that wouldn't serve kind of this idea that the having an inflation hedge asset, etc.,

• 30:15Anthony Pompliano?

  prove to be true. I'm still in the camp where I believe that pretty strongly, voting with my dollars that way and kind of converting them to Bitcoin, etc. But, you know, we'll see what happens over the next two years, give or take.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, the other thing that I find interesting that people aren't really, that they don't ever bring up on Bitcoin Twitter. A lot of people bring up that the US is going to print $6 trillion. But no one brings up the fact that Bitcoin is a worldwide asset. And the number that all of the central banks across the world is going to print is way, way, way, way more than $6 trillion. I mean, I don't want to say every central bank is going to start printing money, but a lot of them are. And so the number is going to be, I don't know, double that, triple that. So there's going to be all this extra money floating around that that could find its way into Bitcoin.

• 31:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, there's this guy, Brent Johnson, that I recently brought on the podcast. He runs something called Santiago Capital, and he's got this theory that he calls the Dollar Milkshake Theory. And it's this whole idea of everyone around the world, the central banks are making a milkshake. What they're doing is they're injecting liquidity into the market. They're printing money, right? And they're injecting it into the market, but only one country gets to have the straw to drink the milkshake. And he says that's the United States with the US dollar, because everyone wants dollars. So everyone's injecting liquidity in, and the US is sucking that liquidity out by bringing it all into the dollar. And so the reason why he believes that is he thinks the dollar will get much stronger, etc.

• 31:51Anthony Pompliano?

  But if you kind of take that example a little bit further, you get this idea of, you know, look at the Australian dollar. The Australian dollar has fallen like 30, 40, 50% in the last couple of weeks against the US dollar. So all of a sudden, if you're in Australia, it's not so much that you want to just get out of the Australian dollar. You either want to get US dollars or get Bitcoin. Well, a lot of times Bitcoin is going to be more accessible than getting US dollars. And so I think that you're right in that like on a global basis, there will be more demand for the asset as you see those currencies being devalued.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's it's serious. I I've been saying a bunch lately that I wish I had a I thought I was going to be the college wrestling coach at Missouri and then I started doing MMA. And, you know, my path, my path to my life is probably not the way I love it, but it's not the way I envisioned it. Now, I always wish I would have taken some economics classes and I'm, you know, I'm doing my best to read up and, you know, listen to a good podcast. But it's like, there's so many opinions on what the $6 trillion is going to do. Some people are like, oh, my God, they're idiots. The Fed's going to end. Some people are saying, oh, they have to do it, you know, and it's it's interesting because which one of these opinions is the right opinion? And there's probably not one true or correct answer based on what your perspective is. But I wish I had a better grasp on that one.

• 33:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I also think that, you know, there's a big difference between what else should the Fed do? Like, kind of, they have no choice but to do this to solve the short term problem versus is this a good long term decision? So I think a lot of people yell and scream about, you know, hey, I like what they're doing. I don't like what they're doing. And it's a very binary conversation. But instead, if you look at it as the money printing solves the short term problems, but it also that same thing that's good today may not be good in the long run. Both of those things can be true, right? And that's my personal view is kind of where we're headed. Short term, they have to do this. But long term, it's going to be detrimental.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, how do they, you know, it's like, how do they rein it back in? Is it? Because, you know, this is like, when you go back to the success thing.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  If you want to be successful at something and you get off track and you're kind of not doing that well, there is always a period of pain to bring yourself back to, you know, whether it's like you're a wrestler and you gotta make weight class and you get extra heavy. Well, there's gonna be a period of pain where you're getting back into it, right? Or you, you're an athlete and you get out of shape and then to get back in shape is gonna be extra painful than if you would have just stayed in shape. So the, a period of pain is gonna come in some way, shape or form. What that looks like, I'm not really sure, but I know that has to happen.

• 34:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so there's a really good example here, which is a crack addict, right? And what ends up happening with the crack addict is at one point they're sober, then they try crack for the first time, they get high, they like it, they try it again, they get high again. Next time they go to get high, they gotta take a little bit more crack, right? And over time, it spirals into them taking more and more of the drug to get the same high. And eventually they're a crack addict, right? And if they take too much of it, they can actually overdose. Well, the economy is no different, right? There was a period of time where there was no stimulus. Then we introduced stimulus once, it worked, we liked it. Then there was another, another chance to do it. We did it again, we liked it. And you keep kind of doing it over and over again, but the numbers get bigger and bigger in order to get the same impact. So during the 2008 crisis, we were talking

• 35:22Anthony Pompliano?

  in hundreds of billions. Now we're talking in trillions, right? If it happens again, we'll be talking in tens of trillions, you know, then hundreds of trillions, et cetera. And so I think that once you get started, you can't get off of it. The only thing you can really do is try to control it or be somewhat prudent about when do you use stimulus and how much of it do you use? But once an economy is addicted to stimulus, there's no going back.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  But doesn't, but then how do you, so obviously like you've seen, let's say Germany, they had the hyperinflation in, what, the 1920s? And they got back on track somehow, right? And I'm not, I don't know the history of the German Republic. Obviously, I know there was World War II in there, so I don't know if that was part of it. Not sure. Don't wanna comment. But they, they obviously got back on track to where, say in the 1990s, their dollar, their, their form of currency was pretty strong. So there was the hyperinflation at some point in their history. And I know that's also happened in other countries. So there isn't, there, there has to be, you know, you say there's no way to get back, but there has to be a way to get back to sound money principles in some way, shape or form.

• 36:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, so what usually ends up happening is there's a currency failure and a reset of the economy. And if you really think about it without going into too much detail, there's a lot of things around defaulting around debt, you know, having like a reset of everything. You can even create a new currency. I guess what Venezuela is trying to do right where they're actually trying to create like this digital currency. That's a new form of currency. So there's things that people can try to do, but it's just in the form that you started, that will eventually fail. And look, it's not just economies, right? Like take like the UBI thing. So in the current stimulus package, they're talking about a one time $1,200 check, you know, or less to adults. If they had instead said, we're going to

• 37:13Anthony Pompliano?

  give $1,000 a month to people for 12 months, let's say, right? I don't think that we could go back to not doing that. But people would just get addicted to receiving $1,000 a month from the government, right? And so then all of a sudden, next thing you know, we have UBI and they kind of like backdoored it in through this emergency time period. So I think people just kind of, it's always great to say we're going to do something temporarily, but normally we don't go back. And this is how we got off the gold standard, right? Is in 1971, we were going to temporarily get off the gold standard and we just never went back.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Well, isn't that personal income taxes also wasn't initially the, what was the victory tax with World War One or World War Two? There was no personal income tax and then, hey, that was nice. Let's keep doing that. And then they just kept it.

• 38:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, now what people are saying is why do we pay taxes if they can just print as much money as they need, right? Why do they need your money?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Seriously, right? Keep on printing that shit.

• 38:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. So what, in terms of like the folks that you talk to on a daily basis, I feel like a lot of folks are in, you know, sports, wrestling, MMA, etc. Like what are they talking about when it comes to the economy? Are they worried? You know, do they understand what's going on? Or is it kind of just, hey, I'm focused on myself individually and just going to get through this?

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Um, well, I'm not talking to very many people because I'm stuck in my freaking house. Uh, but that being said, I thought that, you know, Peter, Peter Schiff brought up, I can't remember how he said it, but he said essentially there's no more interest in Bitcoin. There's no one new to come in, which obviously I think is wrong. Um, and so two, two points that number one, I thought it would be very interesting. It would be very easy to go, um, ask exchanges, well, are you seeing more people sign up or more people Google you or some, something like that, right?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  And so I actually asked that question with Etoro yesterday, some of the, you know, some of the top people on there were, and they said, yeah, we are absolutely seeing it. We're not necessarily seeing a surge in buying from new people, but we're doing searches and signups. There's a lot of people doing that type of thing. And then I don't remember who the guy was, but he said on that day where Bitcoin crap, where the whole economy crashed and Bitcoin crashed, he said, the amount of Bitcoin mentions was 4X the highest day in history on Bitcoin mentions on Twitter. And then what I'm seeing personally is that I've had more people ask me about Bitcoin in the last two weeks than ever, ever, ever, ever since I, you know, since I started talking about it in 2017.

• 39:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, I think people are starting to realize, right? Cause here's the playbook, and this is the part that gets really scary for folks is, um, when they do this quantitative easing, the people who get hurt the most are the bottom 50% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck and don't have any real assets, right? Cause their, their dollars get devalued.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 40:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, and so I think it's going to be an education opportunity for a lot of people as to how they can protect their wealth from inflation and quantitative easing. So it shouldn't surprise us, um, to see people already asking. And I bet you that those inquiries go up more over time.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would guess that's I think if there's a especially if there's some type of breakout in price over the next say two weeks because I know let me just check I think the Dow is down again today but yeah obviously it had been up and I don't know why these idiots get so excited about oh my God it's the largest three day gaining history well yeah dumb dumbs because it went down the large the largest two week loss in the history right I mean obviously that's why it's up a little bit but I think there's gonna be a huge amount more volatility especially when you consider what the volatility of the Dow is usually like and I don't think we're done going down and so at that point when it when it stabilizes that's why I think people are gonna

• 41:12Speaker 03

  feel more comfortable moving their money elsewhere.

• 41:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, did you see the chart there's this guy Tavi Costa who he shared a chart from the Great Depression and in the chart in October of 1929 the S and P 500 plunged 34% in a month and then over two days it had this relief rally of 18% and then it plunged another 26% over the next two weeks and so it's kind of very similar it's like eerie how similar it is to what's happening right now where you go down a bunch over a month get two or three days up and then all of a sudden it's likely you're gonna go back down pretty substantially and it just shakes people out right you just get people shaking out of their positions who were buying in over the last two or three days thinking that this thing was over.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I mean that's yeah, I and obviously there's been a whole bunch of ups and downs over the last weekend I get I'm not economist so I can't can't say for sure but you know with unemployment's numbers going out when my wife and I went and walked our dog yesterday with our kids and it was like there's no stores open this is this is effing creepy it's like they're probably not gonna open for a while the the numbers on the money they're making the numbers on employment dude it's it's gonna get worse it absolutely is and so the fact that you're seeing that you're seeing literally the entire economy shut down as I drive around but yet the stocks are going up like how the F does this work out like this this doesn't feel

• 42:41Speaker 03

  it doesn't feel right in any way shape or form.

• 42:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's like the fundamentals are getting worse, but there's price recovery, which means that there's even more dislocation. And when you get the dislocation between price and fundamentals, it means there's farther to fall, right? Because basically that, you know, 13% or 10% or whatever has been up the last couple of days is just going to get taken back away. What do your kids think right now? Like with the quarantine? Do they understand what's going on?

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, we've told them, people are sick and that's why we can't go around other people. And so they get that part of it. But I don't think they understand the scale or the scope. And, um, you know, they're kids, they don't really get it. So they're enjoying themselves for the most part.

• 43:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, they probably just enjoy not having to go to school.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  My daughter, my first grader, she's only, she loves school, actually. She's like really sad she can't go. She loves it. It's funny.

• 43:40Anthony Pompliano?

  She is one of the few, I guess, right?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's for sure.

• 43:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So what, um, what are you excited about? Once we get out of the quarantine stuff, anything that you guys have on the horizon? It sounds like you've got some more of the academies coming online. Uh, but anything else going on?

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, we were, so we in Heartland here, our first academy, we're in our ninth year. Uh, Max and Mequon is in his seventh year. And it's like, we're still seeing this crazy amount of growth. So we got, after the high school season was over, we got that one week of our kids before the quarantine thing hit. And it was like, dude, we see so many new faces. People are getting excited about it. So our businesses, uh, and you know, wrestling is what I love. We're going to new levels and we're really excited about that. And so the fact that we had to shut it down was like, was really, really depressing. So I'm excited for that. Obviously, I'm excited for some type or form of stability to happen. I'm excited to see when all of these things are going to get rescheduled because we, you

• 44:42Speaker 03

  know, we had so many things that have been canceled. Um, and so it's like there's, it's just, we're in this crazy time right now where we don't know when this is going to end. We don't have any answers. We don't know when anything is going to get rescheduled or anything like that. So it's just, uh, I think I, like other people are excited for some stability to come back into our lives.

• 45:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Where's the interest of wrestling coming? Is it a lot of young kids who watch like UFC and they want to get into it? Or they actually see the wrestling and want to do wrestling, not so much UFC in the future?

• 45:17Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I don't see the UFC thing a lot. I, you know, I think that we are just doing a great job of marketing and we're giving kids great experiences. And that's why our academy specifically are growing. But if you look at like even say the numbers of Big 10 viewers, uh, BTN, it was up like 40% from the highest ever. And so I think that's for, uh, for, you know, directly attributing to Flo Wrestling and other businesses who are, you know, putting media around wrestling. Um, when I was a kid or even, even when I was in college a decade ago, uh, you couldn't really watch live wrestling anywhere. And now with all the live streaming solutions, you're able to watch pretty much anything that you want to watch. And so it enables people to actually be fans. You know, when you, you or I were kids, I think you're

• 46:01Speaker 03

  a couple of years younger than me. It's like, we couldn't watch something that was not football, basketball, or baseball. Like, we were fans of that because, because really, literally because we had to be. Because it was the only thing on TV. And now you can watch whatever the hell you want to watch streaming, pretty much anytime you want to watch it. And that's, uh, that really enables people to be fans. I think that's what's happening in wrestling.

• 46:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I remember the first couple of times ESPN showed like non-major four sports and people would be like, wait, what, what was that? Right? Where did that come from? And it was whether it was beach volleyball or any of this. But, uh, but they started to incorporate some of the other stuff. And then even like the Little League World Series, right? When, when they started to kind of same sport, but just get outside of the national and college levels. Now, I think people paid attention. And now, you know, what's crazy is, uh, I, I saw that, uh, I think this past year, uh, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade's sons, uh, they play at Sierra Canyon, uh, high school. They had more nationally televised games than Golden State Warriors.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  No, that can't be right, can it? Or was it national television, some smaller network or something? Wow.

• 47:11Anthony Pompliano?

  No, on ESPN. Well, but think about it, right? Everyone on the

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 47:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? They, they had a kind of a down year. Yeah. But you gotta remember, social media, right? I mean, those kids probably have more followers on social media than some of the NBA players.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you're right. Damn.

• 47:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Right. Again, I'm assuming a lot of the young kids in wrestling, right? And going into college, et cetera, they start to kind of build those social audiences and that drives the

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:41Anthony Pompliano?

  The attention for the sport, you know, as well.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, yeah, you're totally right on that. That's one of the arguments I made a while back with, with UFC is that

• 47:55Speaker 03

  the UFC is a brand. They, they have a baseline because people like fighting, but it's pretty damn low. And stars are what drive events. People love engaging with people. And if you don't have those stars, you're not going to drive numbers. And that's just, and I think that's been shown whether it was Tiger Woods in, in golf, right? He drove huge numbers or other people, you know, basketball, you know, you see it all the time. So stars, stars drive viewers. And yeah, I mean, that's a good point about those guys. And yes, yes, that is a hundred percent happening in wrestling. I can say that without a shadow of a doubt.

• 48:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Who do you think the big upcoming stars in UFC and wrestling are that you're excited about? Maybe somebody that like others don't even realize are going to be big stars.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Oh my goodness, that is a, that's a tough question. Well, there's a couple wrestlers that are going to make their transition to mixed martial arts this coming year. Bo Nickel and Anthony Kassar, they're the only ones who have publicly stated that that is their goal. I think, I think they're both going to be really, really good at what they do. And, you know, I think we'll see even more in the future where people in wrestling are, are going to go early and earlier towards giving their intentions to do mixed martial arts as they, as they get out of college and out of wrestling.

• 49:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. How hard is it as a, as an athlete to go from, you know, pure wrestling, kind of Olympic style and collegiate, et cetera, to the actual mixed martial arts where they're striking and kind of the stand-up game, et cetera? Is it really that hard?

• 49:28Speaker 03

  No, it's easy. It's freaking easy. Uh, most people who like wrestling are very combative. They don't mind, uh, you know, getting hit or getting struck. And sometimes when you shoot in wrestling and you hit either a knee or a hip when you're, uh, taking a penetration, uh, man, that's, that's, that's worse than anything. That is like you catch a hip right to that like eye right there. It was terrible. And so, you know, I, I think people, um, yeah, people go from wrestling to mixed martial arts. You, you very, very rarely see a guy who's a high level wrestler who does not have success in mixed martial arts. It's, it's almost unheard of.

• 50:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. All right. Well, I appreciate you jumping on now. What, um, where can people find you online so that they can, uh, they could, they could track you down and, uh, and get in touch with you if they want?

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just at Ben Ashkin on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Although I really like Twitter. I don't like Instagram so much. I use it a little bit. I don't use it a lot bit. Um, and yeah, I got a bunch of podcasts and so you'll, you'll see me posting those on my social media. So you can find me there and, uh, I appreciate you have me on. I'm excited to see, uh, you know, what happens with, with Bitcoin in the next month, two months, three months. I think it's gonna be fascinating to watch. Obviously we have the halving in 40, roughly 47 days. Uh, yeah. So it's gonna be fascinating to watch and see, uh, see the future unfold right in front of our eyes.

• 50:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Long Ben, long Bitcoin and long the academies, my friend. We'll, uh, we'll do it again soon. I appreciate it.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  You got it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 51:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey everyone, Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.