#600 Q&A

In this episode, Anthony Pompliano answers questions from the audience about topics across business, life, bitcoin, and investing. ======================= Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com ======================= Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code Exodus.com/pomp. This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today. ======================= Public Rec is on a mission to make comfort look good. Their fan-favorite Flex Short is the ultimate crossover short you’ll need all summer long. From the beach to the gym, this quick-drying short has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. Free shipping. Free returns. Visit www.publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP at checkout for 10% off!

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. Now let's kick this thing off. In this episode, I, Anthony Pompliano, answer questions from the audience about topics across business, life, Bitcoin, and investing. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Public Rec. They simply make the most comfortable clothes in the world. Public Rec is on a mission to make comfort look good, too. Their fan favorite, Flex Short, is the ultimate crossover short you'll need all summer long. From the beach to the gym, this quick drying short has you covered. Comfort starts with a better fit. You can do free shipping and free returns

• 0:43Anthony Pompliano?

  if you visit publicrec.com/pomp and use code POMP at checkout for 10% off. When I moved to Miami, I knew that I needed a short that looked good and felt good. And that's what I found in the Flex Short from Public Rec. Go check them out at publicrec.com/pomp and use code POMP at checkout for 10% off. Next up is Circle, a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchain for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin, USDC, which is the fastest growing, regulated, fully reserved dollar stablecoin in the world, now standing at more than $15 billion market cap, and is adding nearly $300 million of net new

• 1:27Anthony Pompliano?

  digital dollars in circulation every single week. The free Circle account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading DeFi and NFT marketplaces. You can learn more at circle.com. Again, circle.com. I've had the CEO Jeremy on the podcast before. They're built an amazing business, and that stablecoin, USDC, is growing like an absolute weed. Make sure you go check out circle.com to learn more. Last but not least are my friends over at Revolut. Let's go back to the basics for a second. That's exactly why I've partnered with Revolut, a finance app that was big in the UK and now has come to the United States. They say that they're the simplest way to access crypto.

• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  And customers seem to agree. The crypto assets on the platform have doubled in the last year or so. So now they're putting their money where their mouth is. You can sign up and make three card transactions and you'll get $15 for free. That's right, 15 bucks if you sign up and make those three card transactions. And what can you do with the $15? Well, you can exchange it for Bitcoin or any of the other tokens that Revolut supports. Yes, they are crypto-enabled. These guys have made it easier to get some skin in the game. I got skin in the game. Do you? As usual, when you move your money from fiat to crypto, your capital's at risk. So make sure that you're educated and you know exactly what you're doing. Go check out Revolut today by heading on over to revolut.com/pomp and you'll get that $15 reward and you can put them to the test.

• 2:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, revolut.com/pomp, big in Europe, but now they're here in the United States and they're not playing around. Revolut.com/pomp, go check it out and let me know what you think. All right, let's get into this episode. That is a Q and A. I hope you guys enjoy this and I will see you on the next episode.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:37Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys, let's get into today's episode. It's a Q and A, which just means that my wife is going to read me questions that you asked me on Twitter. What's the first one you got, Plana?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  DC asks, what's happening on July 12th?

• 3:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, on July 12th, you'll find out. Duh. No, listen, we're going to launch something new on July 12th. I'm really excited about it. My team and I have been working very hard on it for the last few months. I think it's something that will be a pretty big inflection point, hopefully, in a lot of people's lives. But it's not going to be easy. It's going to require a lot of work. We're committed to doing the work, but we're going to need everyone else to help us as well. And so there should be more information about that coming out Thursday this week, so tomorrow, if you're listening to this, the day that we release this episode. And we'll see what people think, but we're super excited about it and I've been spending a lot of time on it. So hopefully everyone else likes it as well.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  This is a question from your wife, Paulina. What's happening on July 11th?

• 4:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Wait, really?

• 4:36Anthony Pompliano?

  July 11th is my wedding anniversary. I can't believe that I just walked into that, but uh, you know, sometimes you get got and I just got got.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Just wanted to make sure you didn't forget. Okay. Um, question from Brent KT. How will you prepare for the next time Mercury is in retrograde?

• 4:53Anthony Pompliano?

  I still don't really know what Mercury in retrograde means. For those that listened to the Amanda Goats, uh, episode, uh, she was telling me all this stuff about astrology. I kind of think astrology, technical analysis, uh, religion, it's like all basically the same thing. Um, but I'm sure that it's very interesting. I'm sure that there is tons of information that you could glean from things like Mercury in retrograde. Not for me, but it's a cool thing. I might start just dropping it in random conversation with, uh, people to see what they think and also be able to signal out or kind of, uh, identify who the weirdos are. So if I just naturally walking down the street, somebody walks up to me and go, "Hey, Mercury in retrograde." And they're like, "Oh yeah." And they start talking about it. I'm like, "Okay, let me move on."

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I think it's when like, uh, you have technological problems, like things go wrong. Anyway, okay. So Jason asks, "How can Bitcoin advance without an upheaval of the US government in a broad sense? The burn it all down narrative is not helpful to widespread adoption. So how do you walk this fine line?"

• 5:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, look, I think that Bitcoin is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's becoming a global store of value. Um, and so that's going to take decades, right? We're already 12, uh, years in. I think it's going to continue for a while. Uh, I don't necessarily think that, uh, we're going to see fiat currencies disappear. Um, if you think about it, you know, there's over a hundred currencies today in the world. Some of them are really good and really strong and some of them are really, really bad, right? If you think about it, uh, the boliviar still exists. It's a horrible currency, right? As a store of value, but it still exists. They recently decided they're going to take six zeros off of the end of the numbers of the currency, uh, in order to make it kind of more realistic and more usable by people. But that currency still exists. And so killing a currency is very, very difficult. Um, and so what's more

• 6:36Anthony Pompliano?

  likely to happen is there's going to be coexistence of many, many currencies around the world. Uh, all of them will be digital, whether it's a digital dollar, digital euro, digital one. Private currencies, things like Facebook's D M, or things like Bitcoin that are kind of decentralized. Now, I personally believe that once all of those currencies are digitized, the competition will move to the monetary policy layer. And that's where Bitcoin is superior, in my opinion. The central bank is independent and it's predictable, two key qualities of a central bank. And also, not only does it have this kind of digital sound money principle where it's outside of the system and nobody can create more of it. But also, it has kind of cracked into the zeitgeist of an entire generation, right?

• 7:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Everybody who is below the age of 35 has heard of Bitcoin before. It's this global brand with billions of people now aware of it. And so, what you naturally get is the longer something sticks around, the Lindy effect, the longer it sticks around, the more people trust it, the more likely it is that it won't go away. So I think Bitcoin has kind of entered into that phase. And so, over time, more and more people will trust it, more younger people will come into more assets, they'll put it into Bitcoin. And what you'll see is this global store of value will end up kind of increasing in total market cap. And eventually, what you'll find is that the decentralized digital currency of Bitcoin, in my opinion, is going to be bigger than all of the fiat money combined. Now, it's going to take a long time, we're decades away from that happening.

• 8:01Anthony Pompliano?

  But what you're just simply seeing is, strong currencies will become weaker and new currencies like Bitcoin will end up becoming stronger and grow over time. And that's kind of how cyclically these currencies have worked over time. So it's just a natural evolution of money as we've known it.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Nogen Beck asks, considering America's history of manufacturing consent for action that serves the elite, and since power has historically never peacefully conceded power, how do you view the risk of the powerful tanking Bitcoin by any means necessary to protect their control and defend the dollar?

• 8:32Anthony Pompliano?

  The great thing about wealthy people is that they're adversarial to something until they learn how they can make money from it. And so, that's what we're ultimately seeing with Bitcoin, is for years and years and years, Wall Street and regulators and countries and all these other organizations were very anti-Bitcoin. They took a very adversarial stance. The second they figured out how they- They could make money, or they thought it was big enough for them to make money, or that it wasn't going away and therefore they could make money from it. They all jumped in. And so now pretty much every Wall Street bank has a Bitcoin strategy. There's tons and tons of corporations. There's regulatory frameworks that are being used to regulate these businesses. And even there's a country in the world that has now made it legal tender. And so that's ultimately how this works is people are adversarial towards something

• 9:17Anthony Pompliano?

  until they can figure out how to make money from it. Now folks have figured out across various entities in our society that they can make money from Bitcoin. And so now they're one by one capitulating and becoming fans of Bitcoin. And I think that trend's only going to continue over time. And so this whole kind of like a boogeyman on the horizon of, oh, one day there's going to be this clash. I actually think it's kind of an anticlimactic type thing. We can always think about that. We should always be prepared for that. But instead, what's more likely to happen is already you're seeing politicians in the United States become sympathetic to Bitcoin. You're going to eventually see people rise to power in the Treasury or the Federal Reserve or other types of regulatory bodies are going to be sympathetic to these assets. And therefore you're going to get kind of this slow evolution or adoption.

• 10:01Anthony Pompliano?

  And then eventually we're going to wake up one day and be like, oh, my God, it was adopted by everybody. And so it just kind of naturally happens over time. And that whole idea of like slowly, then suddenly, I think is pretty accurate.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Ben Faircloth asks, how do you quickly and efficiently answer the question from someone who has no idea what Bitcoin capital or Bitcoin lowercase is? Answer the question in two minutes or less and then send people to the best place to get more context. I find it very challenging.

• 10:29Anthony Pompliano?

  The first thing I always tell people is that marketers did not create Bitcoin, or they wouldn't have named the two assets the same name. The capital B Bitcoin is the payment rail, similar to a Visa, a MasterCard, or some other type of infrastructure. The lowercase b is the asset itself, more similar to the dollar or the euro. And so what you do is you need lowercase b Bitcoin to be sent between two parties. You have to use uppercase or capitalized B payment rails, right? So Bitcoin is spent on the Bitcoin system. And that's exactly how we get kind of two different assets with the same name. Now, where I send people always is the Bitcoin white paper. It's a couple of pages. It's very easy to read through. You can sit down and have it done in 20, 30 minutes.

• 11:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And there's some parts that are super technical, but there's also some parts that are very, very illuminating in terms of this is what this was created to be. And so I think that if you understand there's a payment system, capital B Bitcoin, there's an asset lowercase b Bitcoin, and then there's the white paper, which has kind of an overview of both. That's the best way to get somebody educated in a very short period of time.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Crypto Mipto asks, how do you multitask and manage your time? You're into everything at once and killing it.

• 11:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I definitely think time is our most valuable asset. I talk about that quite often. And so what I essentially do is I aspire to be ultra efficient. Now, if you ask me or you ask my wife, I probably spend too much time wasting on stupid things. I spend a bunch of time on Twitter or other things that aren't necessarily measurable in terms of the positive impact. But there is a lot of ancillary benefits from doing those types of things that might not seem so obvious in the short term. Now, in the things that do seem very obvious, I compartmentalize my time. So I know that, let's say, for example, Monday, from time A to time B, there's a block of time where I have 30-minute meetings back to back to back to back with every single person on my team. And what I'm doing is I'm basically level-setting for the week. Here's what we did last week.

• 12:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's what our challenges are. Here's what's going well. And here's what we're going to do for this week. And we go through that in that block of time, that compartment of time. I then have content days, for example. So on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, from about 1 o'clock to 5 o'clock, I sit down and all I do is I focus on output of content, usually for the podcast. And so when I do that, I'm compartmentalizing it. I know going into Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, that's all I'm focused on. And so by compartmentalizing your time, you can become hyper-efficient, but you also can plan out exactly when you're going to get everything done. And so when you start to think about how much time we actually have, what you find is, one, people are super inefficient, but also, two, people don't have a plan and therefore don't get done what they need to because they simply weren't prepared.

• 13:13Anthony Pompliano?

  But I'm a huge believer that if you plan correctly, you'll end up actually accomplishing what you want. And that's the strategy that I use and has worked out so far. So I just kind of keep doubling and tripling down on it and improving that process. But that's basically it. Just compartmentalize your time and then stick to a disciplined schedule.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Hassan asks, what is the next country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender?

• 13:33Anthony Pompliano?

  I have no clue what the next one will be. You know, there's a bunch of theories. You could argue that somebody in, let's say, the eastern part of the world. You could argue that it'd be a nefarious country. You could argue that it could be a South or Central American country based on kind of El Salvador's action. Or you could even argue that the United States will be the next one. They'll kind of surprise us all and capitulate and go in and embrace this. I have no clue. But I think that what you learn if you study kind of the great investors over time is that predicting the future is very, very difficult. And so rather than spend time, or as I would think, waste time trying to predict the future, instead you're much, much better off just making sure that you're prepared for a whole different set of outcomes. So are you prepared if no country's adopted? Are you prepared if one country?

• 14:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you prepared for different regions of the world to adopt it? Or are you prepared for everyone to adopt it? And if you can put yourself in positions to be prepared kind of for the upside opportunities, but also protected from any sort of downside pressure or risk, then you're usually going to end up being pretty set from an investment standpoint or exposure standpoint. Doesn't always happen that way, but that's kind of probabilistically the way that it works. And so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about who the next one's going to be. I just wait for it to happen and then once it happens, I dive in really quickly and try to understand as much as I can about the nuance and detail of who it is, why are they doing this? Is it good or bad reasons? And then what the impact's going to be. And so with El Salvador, that was a great example. I think people very quickly wrapped their heads around why this country was doing it,

• 15:01Anthony Pompliano?

  what advantages the country had around being dollarized versus having their own currency, and then what that impact would be. And I think that'll happen at the same time that countries two, three, four, and five come out and announce the same thing.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Matthew Rollman asks, what was your, what was the biggest thing you learned from your service in the military?

• 15:18Anthony Pompliano?

  We all die. It's kind of morbid to talk about it that way, but I think that was the biggest lesson that I took away from it was I was a young kid. I frankly was too naive probably to understand the risks and the dangers of being in the military or being deployed. But what you get is you get the constant reminder of death and you get it through a whole bunch of different ways. But as soon as that kind of level sets with you or you internalize it, what you realize Again, is that your most valuable asset is time. And so if, let's say, the average kind of life expectancy in today's society is 78, 79, 80 years old, somewhere in there, if I'm 33 years old, I pretty much know what the average amount of time I have left is. And so while it may seem like a lot, basically, I've already lived a third of my life, right?

• 16:03Anthony Pompliano?

  More than a third of my life. And so that really puts things in perspective in terms of trying to wrap your head around, what are you doing? What are you trying to accomplish? And then how do you spend your time? And if you are able to optimize the way that you spend your time, I think that you actually live a much more fulfilling life. And so that's how I spend time, or kind of my focus, is making sure that I'm spending my time in a quality way. But it all stems back to when I was 20, 21 years old, deployed to Iraq, and some of the lessons that I learned there.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Andrew Wertheim asks, with so much inbound, how do you handle turning down requests, saying no to offers, startup pitch calls, partnerships, sponsorships, investment opportunities, et cetera, those of which don't fit your personal mission?

• 16:44Anthony Pompliano?

  I've gotten way better at this over time, but I'm still not great at it. I'm an ambitious person, and therefore, when I'm presented with opportunities, my mind usually jumps to what could happen if this worked? And I've got to really kind of struggle and remind myself, no, that's not the right way to look at it. Instead, it's what am I trying to accomplish? And does this fit into what my goals are or what my mission is? And so when you're able to kind of reframe it from that perspective, it becomes much easier to say no to things that don't fit along with what you're trying to accomplish. But with that said, I'm also not great in terms of kind of handling all of the inbound. So one day I sat down and I thought, and looked at my phone, and I said, what are all the ways that somebody can communicate or does communicate with me?

• 17:27Anthony Pompliano?

  There's about 17 different mobile apps on my phone. And so when I think through that, that's just a lot to handle, right? And it's not all necessarily just net inbound. It's also kind of going back and forth in conversation. And so what I've essentially done is I've had to get very comfortable with the idea, I'm not going to be able to answer everybody. I'm not going to be able to handle every single situation. While I wish that I could, and you know, I'm kind of apologetic for the fact that I can't. Also, I have to remain focused on what am I trying to accomplish? And again, the quality of the time that I spend. What am I spending my time on? If I'm just sitting there for hours and hours a day answering emails, that's probably not the best use of my time. And so you just have to get very, very comfortable with the idea that you may be disappointing people or you may be offending people,

• 18:12Anthony Pompliano?

  even though you don't mean to. It's just simply at some point, there's a trade off between accomplishing what you want versus always serving everybody else. And you've just got to find that balance wherever you're comfortable.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Crypto Chris wants to know, when will you run for office?

• 18:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Short answer, never. That sounds horrendous. I really, really like my life. I'm going to keep my life the way that it is. The idea of being a politician is frankly nauseating to me. One of the things that I always kind of go back to is this framework of in the country today, are you more likely to have an impact as a private citizen in either business or investing? Or as a politician? My guess actually is that you can have more impact as a business person or as an investor than you can as a politician in the current environment. And so just from a pure impact standpoint, being in the private market is going to be much, much more advantageous

• 19:09Anthony Pompliano?

  for creating change or kind of making any sort of progress than actually sitting inside of a bureaucratic institution. And maybe that changes over time, but even if it did change, I still really am a big believer of kind of that public spotlight and scrutiny and the mudslinging that happens in politics, which is very antithetical to the way that I want to live my life and the way that I kind of think about engaging with those around me in terms of creating progress or any sort of innovation. And so the private market is something that I'm really interested in and is kind of where I'll stay forever. I really don't see that being an attractive path of going and wearing a suit and tie and being a politician.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Speak for yourself. I would make a wonderful first lady. Rand Milstein asks, when a Bitcoin movie is going to be made, who will play Satoshi?

• 19:58Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you have to have nobody play it, right? I mean, that's kind of the whole beauty of it is if you're gonna have Satoshi, you almost want it to be a mythical figure. You don't want it to be a man or a woman. You don't want it to be an individual or a group. You don't want it to be a white person, a black person, or a green person. You don't want it to be from a certain region of the world. You don't want it to be somebody that has a specific gender, or sex, or religion, or any of this. Like, we are all Satoshi, and that is the beauty of it. And when you start to understand the power of Bitcoin, and kind of the ethos behind it, and why this whole, as Marty Bent would call it, immaculate conception is so beautiful. What you start to realize is that if we did not have that kind of immaculate conception,

• 20:42Anthony Pompliano?

  we actually may be in a different position. And so I think that if you create some sort of media, whether it's a movie or something else, you almost want to play into that and really make sure that you don't put any sort of labels or descriptions on Satoshi. You want it to remain that mythical feature, that mythical kind of person or group. And so by having nobody play Satoshi, I think that you'd be able to accomplish that.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  All right, and the final question, which is my favorite, comes from Nifty Pickle.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  "Anthony, you always say you aren't out for fame or money. You just want to be quote-unquote happy. But what does that mean? Are you a hedonist trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain? Or would you say you're really optimizing for something deeper, like meaning? If so, what gives you meaning?"

• 21:25Anthony Pompliano?

  I wake up every single day, and I think to myself, "What do I want to do today?" And I'm very fortunate that I can do that. But I pretty much, for the most part, not every single day, but for most days, I then go do exactly what I want to do that day. And I'm able to do that because I have freedom in a whole bunch of different ways of my life. And so to me, that ultimately is what brings happiness, right? If you want to hang out with certain people, you can do that. It makes you happy. If you want to engage in certain acts, you can go do that. It makes you happy. If you want to go waste your time doing something, you can go do that. If you want to go help people, you can do that. If you want to just sit in bed all day, you can do that. When you have that kind of ultimate freedom, what it allows you to do is pursue...

• 22:07Anthony Pompliano?

  The things that will make you happy and happiness can be both a short term and a long term pursuit. Sometimes they align, sometimes they don't, right? Sometimes you wanna, let's say that you wanted to lose weight over a long period of time. But right now in the moment, if I eat this donut, I'm gonna be really happy. We gotta start to balance that stuff. But ultimately happiness to me is being able to do what you want, who with who you want, when you want to do it. And I'm very fortunate that I get to do that on a daily basis. Uh, and so if that ever changes, I'll change what I do. There will be a day where I just wake up one day and I say, I'm done with the internet. Uh, I'm never gonna tweet again. I'm never gonna write again. I'm never gonna create content again. And when that day happens, it just happens like it's because my, um, preferences changed or the things that I'm trying to accomplish change.

• 22:50Anthony Pompliano?

  But until that day happens, I'm gonna keep doing this because I enjoy doing it. Um, and there's really kind of no master plan behind it. Just go one day at a time. What do you want to do today? Go do it and you'll be happy.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Amazing. Thank you so much.

• 23:01Anthony Pompliano?

  I love how Plana selected many of the people's questions based on their usernames like nifty pickle. Uh, that was not lost on me, but listen, I really appreciate everyone listening today. We'll have to do these Q and A episodes more often. Uh, it would mean a ton to me. Make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel or go ahead and turn on notifications. And again, tomorrow, July, I think it'll be eighth, maybe whatever Thursday is. Uh, we will be announcing what is going to happen on July 12th. So make sure you're tuned in for that and I'll see everyone very, very soon.