May 5, 2022 • 18 mins
Elan Halpern is back to talk about what cryptocurrency is exactly and its history. She breaks down the utility and investing value of crypto, the safety of it and how to buy it.
Guest IG: @halpernesta
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and
their application to Web three are a new technological frontier,
(00:23):
and we want to make sure the Money Moves audience
is in the no So welcome to Crypto School. To
keep you up to date in this fast moving and
growing sector, we decided to bring back one of the
future leaders in the Web three space, Money Movers. It's
time for another crypto school with Alan help run Hiln. Hey, Daniel,
how's it going. I'm good, I'm good, So glad to
(00:44):
have you back. I get really excited for these crypto
school segments, so let's dive right in it. So today
I want to talk about you know, we've sort of
talked about Web three, We've talked a little bit about
blockchain in past episodes, but today I want to dive
into like crypto one o one, you know, to really
get an understanding of what is cryptocurrency and how important
(01:05):
it will be. So where do we start in this big,
massive world called crypto. Yeah, this is a great question.
I think oftentimes people get confused with crypto, blockchain web
through there's all these terminologies that get thrown around, so
like what really even is crypto? And so crypto is
often times referred to the cryptocurrencies, these digital currencies that
(01:28):
we can now use to exchange value. So some examples
of cryptocurrencies include bitcoin, Ethereum, doage coin, Salona, Polka dot,
some of these other ones. Um. There's lots and thousands
and thousands of different types of cryptocurrencies. So this is
so crazy, Like you just listed off all these different currencies,
and you know, I think it feels daunting to people
(01:48):
because they're like, am I supposed to buy all of them?
One of them? Like? Are they you know? Can I
use them at the grocery store? It's it is really daunting.
But I want people to get a great understanding and
not to be afraid to sort of dive into this
crypto world because I think there's a lot of talk,
a lot of talk, there's a lot of fear, there's
a lot of fomo um. So let's back out, Like
(02:10):
where do we start? Yeah, So I have kind of
my own framework for thinking about cryptocurrencies, and I'll share
that here for people feel free to take it or
leave it. But this is sort of how I think
about it. So I split cryptocurrencies into two segments, and
these are I'm talking about tokens here, So one is
utility and the other is sort of investing equity. I'm
(02:34):
trying to figure out the right the right term. So
what do I mean by a utility token. An example
of utility token would be ethereum. These are tokens that
have an inherent value because they allow you to do something.
So in the case of ethereum, you actually can use
Ethereum to build smart contracts, to write code, to build applications.
(02:56):
It has a utility that's baked into the sane and
it's more than just a representation of value for that ecosystem.
Then you jump into these like equity tokens, and these
are more that just represent the value of that company
or or of that project. So these are like traditional stock.
So if I go and buy Apple stock, I can't
(03:16):
really do anything with that stock. I can't like go
build Apple products and like trade you know, different kinds
of things there. But I can buy and sell that stock,
and that stock represents the value of Apple. So an
example of an of an equity token would be like
doage coin, right, doage coin doesn't really have a utility
baked into it, but it's just kind of this like
(03:37):
speculative fun like you know, ecosystem representation coin um that
that people like, right, And so those are so that
sort of the framework I I use to determine how
to how to segment different types of tokens, how to
evaluate them. I think that was a great example because
it's sort of it gave us an idea of like
different types of coins, and I'm starting to sort of
(03:57):
understand the bigger picture here. So where does bitcoin fit
into this? That's a great question, and I think in
my framework some people might argue against this, right, So
remember this is just like kind of what I think.
I would consider bitcoin more of an equity than a
utility token UM. And the reason being is because it's
more of a transactional exchange of value token that it's
(04:18):
like you can buy and sell things with it. But
as opposed to ethereum, where it's like there's this concept
of gas and these these other use cases for ethereum
other than buying and selling and trading it UM. So
I would classify Bitcoin is more of an equity token
doesn't mean it's not valuable, right. This is just two
ways of classifying different types of tokens. Okay, So now
that we're talked about bitcoin, I'm super fascinated by it
(04:41):
because it has a long history. Right, So Bitcoin, let's
go back into the beginning, because I have a lot
of friends who have been, you know, very deep into bitcoin.
You're always hearing about these bitcoin millionaires. So can you
tell us a little bit about the history of bitcoin,
Like how did this come about? Absolutely? Yeah, And I
think bitcoin has a really cool origin story. So for
(05:02):
those of guys who don't know, bitcoin is really what
made crypto mainstream. It was like the first, which I
think is why everyone's like why is bitcoins? And everything
else is whatever? It's because when you're the first of anything,
you're the first revolutionist something, oftentimes you get the most
attention and the most love, which is kind of what
happened with bitcoin. Here. So the story of bitcoin. Back
in two after that financial crisis, someone by the name
(05:26):
by the pseudo name of Satoshi Nakamoto release what's called
the Bitcoin White Paper. And this is an individual or
a group, I think it's still unknown who that who
that person was. That's a whole another segment, because it's
a big deal in this world, like who is this person?
They're completely anonymous, nobody. They've never like raised their hand
and said me. I mean people have tried, but nobody knows.
(05:47):
Nobody knows. Yeah, absolutely, it's it's super interesting origin story.
I think people are still hunting for for who the
real associate is. So they released this white paper that
basically explained what bitcoin is, how it's going to work,
how it's kind of a response to the financial crisis
that the world was seeing at that time, and bitcoin
(06:08):
has not changed since then. Whatever was outlined in the
white paper is still true today, which I think is
really really cool. That's the nature of how bitcoin works, right,
it's immutability, you can't go and change it. But also
just the sheer foresight that this group or individual had
about the challenges that they would face and overcome, which
I think is really really cool. So it really stemmed
(06:31):
from like this financial crisis, need and and the troubles
that we were seeing in the world at that time,
and it was a kind of a proposed solution to
those issues. So I'm going to piggyback on that too,
because of what I think was really interesting is what
we saw at that time was all these markets crashed
and you threw in like people like the Lehman brothers,
this the gatekeepers to our federal financial systems, and it
(06:53):
was a lot of that was because of some bad
what do you call them? Bad characters. So Satoshi in
his group decided to create a decentralized finance system. Right.
It was on the blockchain, and it was we were
all now gatekeepers of all these transactions. And I think
that's what is like super fascinating about it. And fast forward,
(07:14):
we are all working on this blockchain system to create
a decentralized world. Yeah. Absolutely, And really what bitcoin is
it just opens those doors, right, we uncover the hood
all of a sudden, all the ins and outs of
how finance works and all all these kind of gatekeepers
is now completely open source, completely visible to the public,
(07:34):
and you can just jump in and look at it.
So it was sort of flipping the model of like
these middlemen controlling everything with the banks and the government
to like, let's just make it decentralized and anyone can
jump in. Okay, I'm just gonna put a little fun
fact in here for you guys. Part of the reason
why I think there's a lot of misnomers around bitcoin
is yes, okay, back in the day, a lot of
(07:55):
these a lot of really bad transactions were happening on
the blockchain and bitcoin, so like there was a lot
of illicit behavior. There was like what was the what
was it called the um guys, Yes, yes, okay, like
the Silk Road where there was a lot of like
anonymous drug sales, like people trafficking. So a lot of
(08:15):
bad stuff happened in the early days of the blockchain
and using the bitcoin because people were doing anonymous transactions
on it. And I think like that now has sort
of dissolved a little bit and we've seen the use
case of it grow and how it's been legitimized. But
a lot of that translates into why people are very
sketchy on using blockchain and bitcoin to sort of um
(08:37):
move forward for legitimate transactions. So I just want to
put that in there because I also can't figure out
why people are really afraid of this, but I think
that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, definitely,
And I would say it's sort of a double edged sword,
right because transactions in the bitcoin ecosystem are anonymous. They're
covered by these random strings of numbers and letters and
(08:57):
it's all anonymous. But it's also completely traceable everywhere that
bitcoin when you can track exactly where it came from
and who it went to. So there's a sort of
double edged sort of like it's anonymous, but we can
see everywhere it went. This is very different from something
like cash, right, And it's funny because a lot of
my friend's parents are like, oh my gosh, crypto is
used for for bad things and it's a pock market,
(09:20):
and I'm like, so cash, like hello, Like cash is
worse because when I have this twenty dollars and I
use it to go buy something that's illegal, it's not
traceable exactly, there's no way to trace it. But if
I have like twenty dollars worth the bitcoin and I
used to go buy something, all those transactions are stored
on a public ledger that everyone can see. And that's
(09:41):
really how they were. The government was able to uncover
the origin of Silk Road and able to shut it
down was because they could trace all of the transactions
that happened from the people running it back from heard
out who it came from because those transactions were public
and available exactly. So I love this and I love um.
In previous episodes, you talked about how, you know, using
(10:03):
cryptocurrencies have really changed the way people in foreign countries
can operate having bank accounts, and have really broken down
some really old, um and quite limiting, you know, beliefs
people have had. So let's talk about it now we're
in the United States. You're tuning in from all over. Like,
where do I go to buy a cryptocurrency like blockchain,
(10:26):
like Ethereum, like doge coin, like Salana. The list is endless,
we know, but like, where do I start by buying it?
That's such a good question. I think this is like
the first step for every one's like, all right, I'm convinced,
let me go buy it now. That's a really good question.
So there's this concept of centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges.
So the easiest way to on ramp into crypto and
(10:46):
to go actually buy some is by going to one
of these centralized exchanges that can take your credit card
or your debit card and you can actually purchase crypto
with it. So some examples of these coin base by Finance,
f t X, crack in. These are just a couple
of companies that that help you do this where you
can kind of insert your your card and your bank
(11:08):
account and then buy crypto with them. That's perfect. Then
there's this concept of you know, so that's kind of
centralized exchange, that's the easiest way. Then there's this concept
of decentralized exchanges where once you have crypto, and once
you have a crypto wallet, you can now use these
exchanges that aren't run by centralized companies. They're run by
smart contract code, which I know we talked about previously,
(11:31):
But there are these exchanges that are able to provide
you with crypto and trade crypto all through code instead
of through like a single party. So an example of
a decentralized exchange would be something like uniswap. Uniswaft was
one of the first major decentralized exchanges. Uh. There's another
one called sushi swap. Uh. There are a bunch of
other decentralized exchanges where you basically connect your wallet and
(11:52):
you can buy and trade crypto with with using this
smart contract instead of using an actual company. Okay, so
I love that. So here we are are you've got
some money, it's in your bank account. You're gonna download
and app basically um Coin bas is one of them
you mentioned, finance some others, and you're going to transfer
your good, hard earned US dollars and decide on which
(12:13):
cryptocurrency to buy. And this is the thing, This is
where I tell you, guys, you have to do your
own research. This is this is not financial advice right now,
you guys, We are just telling you and educating you
on what we're excited about in this Web three world.
So then it becomes up to you to go and say, hey,
let me look at this array of cryptocurrencies and let
me decide about what I'm interested and why I want
(12:35):
to get into this market. And Ellen, you touched on
this before. There's some that are about utility, um, and
there's some that are about investing. So Bitcoin, I feel
like it is a good example. Um. It's a something
like dollars right now. And the beauty of it is
you don't have to buy a whole bitcoin. You can
buy a fraction of a bitcoin. So if you have
a hundred bucks, you can dip your toe in this
(12:56):
water and transfer a hundred dollars into a wallet and
then purchase some bitcoin and you can hold it hope
it'll go up, just like a stock. But you've got
sort of your first toe in the water. And I
think I mentioned there's tons of tokens and coins that
you can buy, tons, tons tons. Yeah. Absolutely, and I
would highly encourage you. I mean, I think everyone will
say this is in the space. Do your own research,
(13:19):
evaluate on your own sense. Right, if someone tells you, hey,
by this token, don't just go buy it. Actually do
a little bit of research, read about it, Understand what
problem is this token solving, What problem is this project solving?
And if you feel like they have the potential to
do a good job, then it's a great investment. Yeah
that's a great point. Okay. So again, um, and we'll
get into this on other other episodes a little bit deeper.
(13:41):
But you talked about this wallet. So I think of
my wallet. You know, I put it my purse and
put in my back pocket. Um, you know, my wallets
now transferred a little bit to my phone because I
have Apple pay or Google pay, so I can just
sort of tap and go. What is a crypto wallet? Yeah,
that's a great question. So in on blockchains and a
coint Then specifically, there's this concept of an account, and
(14:04):
an account is really this public address and this kind
of private private address, right, and that's kind of what
a wallet is. It's sort of this representation of your
identity where you can hold different assets. Um and there
are different applications and products that allow you to kind
of create walt easily. So Meta mass is an example
of a wallet. Or if you use coin base, your
(14:25):
wallet is kind of kept track of by coin base,
and they can give you your actual public address associated
with your coin based wallet if you go and ask
for it um and then we can we can leave
videos or something on how to do that. But every
account is sort of like a wallet here where you
can hold your assets. The cool part about it is
that you can access this wallet anytime, anywhere, as long
(14:48):
as you have access to the internet. Oh and now
this is what I really love because you know, when
we talk about how we're sort of creating this decentralized world,
like think about the bank. I can remember going to
the bank with our parents when we'd have to act
write a physical check. You would take this check, you
would put it in the bank, and maybe ten days
later you would get that money. Now it's a little
bit different, you know, and with Greenwood. One of the
(15:09):
things I love about it. There's a lot of these
um like financial digital asset, financial backed banks where banks
are open twenty four hours. This is a new development.
But the beauty of having some cryptocurrency is you don't
need a banker or a middleman in between. Okay, we'll
we'll stay under the weeds of gas and different things
like that, but you hold the power of your money,
(15:31):
your assets in your wallet twenty four hours a day. Yeah.
One of the popular phrases in crypto is crypto don't sleep.
But not only because there are a bunch of like
d gens you know, trading crypto seven, but also because
this whole system is run by code, so you don't
need this nine to five physical location or human behind it.
It's completely run by code and you can interact with seven.
(15:53):
I don't know how many people have tried to do
like a money transfer before or a wire but that
can take weeks and now if you is crypto for it,
it can be in seconds. Again, this is another one
of the strong points when you talk about like I
have a lot of family that's in West Africa and
it was hard to send money. I mean it would
be like, oh my gosh, my aunt is going back
to Ghana, can you go and send her cash? Like
(16:14):
how much could you send? Or is there a Western Union?
So now this is sort of really changed the way
that we can send money all throughout the world and globally. Okay,
so the last couple of questions, we've gone over here
because there's just so much to cover. We keep talking
about a wallet. Um, there are two types of wallet
in this world. There's a hot wallet and there's a
cold wallet. Can you tell us the difference in what
(16:35):
that means? Yeah, for sure. So a hot wallet is
basically a wallet that's connected to the internet, So it's
a wallet that you can access digitally online. Meta Mass
is a good example of a hot wallet. There are
lots of other hot wallets as well. A cold wallet
is a physical wallets. This is like a physical thing
(16:56):
that you can keep, probably keep it in a safe
box in your house, and this is something that's like
on you right. Um, And so there are different trade
offs when using a hot wallet and a cold wallet.
People have different preferences. If you tend to lose things
in the physical world easily. Maybe don't get one of those, right,
Maybe maybe sick with the hot wallet. Um so that's
(17:17):
kind of the main difference between hot and cold balts.
I love it alright, Ellen, I think we're running out
of time, but guess what, we will have her back
again for more of crypto School, where we are going
to dive deep into other conversations in the web three world.
Check out our soon and upcoming what are n F
T s um and much much more. So, Elon, can
you please share with our audience where to find you
(17:37):
on social media? Absolutely? You can find me on Twitter
at zero x Alan and you can find me on
Instagram as help Ernesta, and I'll be sharing lots of
crypto education and web through education stuff on both of
those platforms. And make sure to tune in Monday through
Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood,
so that you two can have the keys to financial
(17:57):
freedom that you so rightly deserve. Yeah, thank you so
much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want
more or a recap of this episode, please go to
the bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money
Moves podcast blog Money Moves is an I heart Radio
(18:18):
podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on i heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and
their application to Web three are a new technological frontier,
(00:23):
and we want to make sure the Money Moves audience
is in the no So welcome to Crypto School. To
keep you up to date in this fast moving and
growing sector, we decided to bring back one of the
future leaders in the Web three space, Money Movers. It's
time for another crypto school with Alan help run Hiln. Hey, Daniel,
how's it going. I'm good, I'm good, So glad to
(00:44):
have you back. I get really excited for these crypto
school segments, so let's dive right in it. So today
I want to talk about you know, we've sort of
talked about Web three, We've talked a little bit about
blockchain in past episodes, but today I want to dive
into like crypto one o one, you know, to really
get an understanding of what is cryptocurrency and how important
(01:05):
it will be. So where do we start in this big,
massive world called crypto. Yeah, this is a great question.
I think oftentimes people get confused with crypto, blockchain web
through there's all these terminologies that get thrown around, so
like what really even is crypto? And so crypto is
often times referred to the cryptocurrencies, these digital currencies that
(01:28):
we can now use to exchange value. So some examples
of cryptocurrencies include bitcoin, Ethereum, doage coin, Salona, Polka dot,
some of these other ones. Um. There's lots and thousands
and thousands of different types of cryptocurrencies. So this is
so crazy, Like you just listed off all these different currencies,
and you know, I think it feels daunting to people
(01:48):
because they're like, am I supposed to buy all of them?
One of them? Like? Are they you know? Can I
use them at the grocery store? It's it is really daunting.
But I want people to get a great understanding and
not to be afraid to sort of dive into this
crypto world because I think there's a lot of talk,
a lot of talk, there's a lot of fear, there's
a lot of fomo um. So let's back out, Like
(02:10):
where do we start? Yeah, So I have kind of
my own framework for thinking about cryptocurrencies, and I'll share
that here for people feel free to take it or
leave it. But this is sort of how I think
about it. So I split cryptocurrencies into two segments, and
these are I'm talking about tokens here, So one is
utility and the other is sort of investing equity. I'm
(02:34):
trying to figure out the right the right term. So
what do I mean by a utility token. An example
of utility token would be ethereum. These are tokens that
have an inherent value because they allow you to do something.
So in the case of ethereum, you actually can use
Ethereum to build smart contracts, to write code, to build applications.
(02:56):
It has a utility that's baked into the sane and
it's more than just a representation of value for that ecosystem.
Then you jump into these like equity tokens, and these
are more that just represent the value of that company
or or of that project. So these are like traditional stock.
So if I go and buy Apple stock, I can't
(03:16):
really do anything with that stock. I can't like go
build Apple products and like trade you know, different kinds
of things there. But I can buy and sell that stock,
and that stock represents the value of Apple. So an
example of an of an equity token would be like
doage coin, right, doage coin doesn't really have a utility
baked into it, but it's just kind of this like
(03:37):
speculative fun like you know, ecosystem representation coin um that
that people like, right, And so those are so that
sort of the framework I I use to determine how
to how to segment different types of tokens, how to
evaluate them. I think that was a great example because
it's sort of it gave us an idea of like
different types of coins, and I'm starting to sort of
(03:57):
understand the bigger picture here. So where does bitcoin fit
into this? That's a great question, and I think in
my framework some people might argue against this, right, So
remember this is just like kind of what I think.
I would consider bitcoin more of an equity than a
utility token UM. And the reason being is because it's
more of a transactional exchange of value token that it's
(04:18):
like you can buy and sell things with it. But
as opposed to ethereum, where it's like there's this concept
of gas and these these other use cases for ethereum
other than buying and selling and trading it UM. So
I would classify Bitcoin is more of an equity token
doesn't mean it's not valuable, right. This is just two
ways of classifying different types of tokens. Okay, So now
that we're talked about bitcoin, I'm super fascinated by it
(04:41):
because it has a long history. Right, So Bitcoin, let's
go back into the beginning, because I have a lot
of friends who have been, you know, very deep into bitcoin.
You're always hearing about these bitcoin millionaires. So can you
tell us a little bit about the history of bitcoin,
Like how did this come about? Absolutely? Yeah, And I
think bitcoin has a really cool origin story. So for
(05:02):
those of guys who don't know, bitcoin is really what
made crypto mainstream. It was like the first, which I
think is why everyone's like why is bitcoins? And everything
else is whatever? It's because when you're the first of anything,
you're the first revolutionist something, oftentimes you get the most
attention and the most love, which is kind of what
happened with bitcoin. Here. So the story of bitcoin. Back
in two after that financial crisis, someone by the name
(05:26):
by the pseudo name of Satoshi Nakamoto release what's called
the Bitcoin White Paper. And this is an individual or
a group, I think it's still unknown who that who
that person was. That's a whole another segment, because it's
a big deal in this world, like who is this person?
They're completely anonymous, nobody. They've never like raised their hand
and said me. I mean people have tried, but nobody knows.
(05:47):
Nobody knows. Yeah, absolutely, it's it's super interesting origin story.
I think people are still hunting for for who the
real associate is. So they released this white paper that
basically explained what bitcoin is, how it's going to work,
how it's kind of a response to the financial crisis
that the world was seeing at that time, and bitcoin
(06:08):
has not changed since then. Whatever was outlined in the
white paper is still true today, which I think is
really really cool. That's the nature of how bitcoin works, right,
it's immutability, you can't go and change it. But also
just the sheer foresight that this group or individual had
about the challenges that they would face and overcome, which
I think is really really cool. So it really stemmed
(06:31):
from like this financial crisis, need and and the troubles
that we were seeing in the world at that time,
and it was a kind of a proposed solution to
those issues. So I'm going to piggyback on that too,
because of what I think was really interesting is what
we saw at that time was all these markets crashed
and you threw in like people like the Lehman brothers,
this the gatekeepers to our federal financial systems, and it
(06:53):
was a lot of that was because of some bad
what do you call them? Bad characters. So Satoshi in
his group decided to create a decentralized finance system. Right.
It was on the blockchain, and it was we were
all now gatekeepers of all these transactions. And I think
that's what is like super fascinating about it. And fast forward,
(07:14):
we are all working on this blockchain system to create
a decentralized world. Yeah. Absolutely, And really what bitcoin is
it just opens those doors, right, we uncover the hood
all of a sudden, all the ins and outs of
how finance works and all all these kind of gatekeepers
is now completely open source, completely visible to the public,
(07:34):
and you can just jump in and look at it.
So it was sort of flipping the model of like
these middlemen controlling everything with the banks and the government
to like, let's just make it decentralized and anyone can
jump in. Okay, I'm just gonna put a little fun
fact in here for you guys. Part of the reason
why I think there's a lot of misnomers around bitcoin
is yes, okay, back in the day, a lot of
(07:55):
these a lot of really bad transactions were happening on
the blockchain and bitcoin, so like there was a lot
of illicit behavior. There was like what was the what
was it called the um guys, Yes, yes, okay, like
the Silk Road where there was a lot of like
anonymous drug sales, like people trafficking. So a lot of
(08:15):
bad stuff happened in the early days of the blockchain
and using the bitcoin because people were doing anonymous transactions
on it. And I think like that now has sort
of dissolved a little bit and we've seen the use
case of it grow and how it's been legitimized. But
a lot of that translates into why people are very
sketchy on using blockchain and bitcoin to sort of um
(08:37):
move forward for legitimate transactions. So I just want to
put that in there because I also can't figure out
why people are really afraid of this, but I think
that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, definitely,
And I would say it's sort of a double edged sword,
right because transactions in the bitcoin ecosystem are anonymous. They're
covered by these random strings of numbers and letters and
(08:57):
it's all anonymous. But it's also completely traceable everywhere that
bitcoin when you can track exactly where it came from
and who it went to. So there's a sort of
double edged sort of like it's anonymous, but we can
see everywhere it went. This is very different from something
like cash, right, And it's funny because a lot of
my friend's parents are like, oh my gosh, crypto is
used for for bad things and it's a pock market,
(09:20):
and I'm like, so cash, like hello, Like cash is
worse because when I have this twenty dollars and I
use it to go buy something that's illegal, it's not
traceable exactly, there's no way to trace it. But if
I have like twenty dollars worth the bitcoin and I
used to go buy something, all those transactions are stored
on a public ledger that everyone can see. And that's
(09:41):
really how they were. The government was able to uncover
the origin of Silk Road and able to shut it
down was because they could trace all of the transactions
that happened from the people running it back from heard
out who it came from because those transactions were public
and available exactly. So I love this and I love um.
In previous episodes, you talked about how, you know, using
(10:03):
cryptocurrencies have really changed the way people in foreign countries
can operate having bank accounts, and have really broken down
some really old, um and quite limiting, you know, beliefs
people have had. So let's talk about it now we're
in the United States. You're tuning in from all over. Like,
where do I go to buy a cryptocurrency like blockchain,
(10:26):
like Ethereum, like doge coin, like Salana. The list is endless,
we know, but like, where do I start by buying it?
That's such a good question. I think this is like
the first step for every one's like, all right, I'm convinced,
let me go buy it now. That's a really good question.
So there's this concept of centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges.
So the easiest way to on ramp into crypto and
(10:46):
to go actually buy some is by going to one
of these centralized exchanges that can take your credit card
or your debit card and you can actually purchase crypto
with it. So some examples of these coin base by Finance,
f t X, crack in. These are just a couple
of companies that that help you do this where you
can kind of insert your your card and your bank
(11:08):
account and then buy crypto with them. That's perfect. Then
there's this concept of you know, so that's kind of
centralized exchange, that's the easiest way. Then there's this concept
of decentralized exchanges where once you have crypto, and once
you have a crypto wallet, you can now use these
exchanges that aren't run by centralized companies. They're run by
smart contract code, which I know we talked about previously,
(11:31):
But there are these exchanges that are able to provide
you with crypto and trade crypto all through code instead
of through like a single party. So an example of
a decentralized exchange would be something like uniswap. Uniswaft was
one of the first major decentralized exchanges. Uh. There's another
one called sushi swap. Uh. There are a bunch of
other decentralized exchanges where you basically connect your wallet and
(11:52):
you can buy and trade crypto with with using this
smart contract instead of using an actual company. Okay, so
I love that. So here we are are you've got
some money, it's in your bank account. You're gonna download
and app basically um Coin bas is one of them
you mentioned, finance some others, and you're going to transfer
your good, hard earned US dollars and decide on which
(12:13):
cryptocurrency to buy. And this is the thing, This is
where I tell you, guys, you have to do your
own research. This is this is not financial advice right now,
you guys, We are just telling you and educating you
on what we're excited about in this Web three world.
So then it becomes up to you to go and say, hey,
let me look at this array of cryptocurrencies and let
me decide about what I'm interested and why I want
(12:35):
to get into this market. And Ellen, you touched on
this before. There's some that are about utility, um, and
there's some that are about investing. So Bitcoin, I feel
like it is a good example. Um. It's a something
like dollars right now. And the beauty of it is
you don't have to buy a whole bitcoin. You can
buy a fraction of a bitcoin. So if you have
a hundred bucks, you can dip your toe in this
(12:56):
water and transfer a hundred dollars into a wallet and
then purchase some bitcoin and you can hold it hope
it'll go up, just like a stock. But you've got
sort of your first toe in the water. And I
think I mentioned there's tons of tokens and coins that
you can buy, tons, tons tons. Yeah. Absolutely, and I
would highly encourage you. I mean, I think everyone will
say this is in the space. Do your own research,
(13:19):
evaluate on your own sense. Right, if someone tells you, hey,
by this token, don't just go buy it. Actually do
a little bit of research, read about it, Understand what
problem is this token solving, What problem is this project solving?
And if you feel like they have the potential to
do a good job, then it's a great investment. Yeah
that's a great point. Okay. So again, um, and we'll
get into this on other other episodes a little bit deeper.
(13:41):
But you talked about this wallet. So I think of
my wallet. You know, I put it my purse and
put in my back pocket. Um, you know, my wallets
now transferred a little bit to my phone because I
have Apple pay or Google pay, so I can just
sort of tap and go. What is a crypto wallet? Yeah,
that's a great question. So in on blockchains and a
coint Then specifically, there's this concept of an account, and
(14:04):
an account is really this public address and this kind
of private private address, right, and that's kind of what
a wallet is. It's sort of this representation of your
identity where you can hold different assets. Um and there
are different applications and products that allow you to kind
of create walt easily. So Meta mass is an example
of a wallet. Or if you use coin base, your
(14:25):
wallet is kind of kept track of by coin base,
and they can give you your actual public address associated
with your coin based wallet if you go and ask
for it um and then we can we can leave
videos or something on how to do that. But every
account is sort of like a wallet here where you
can hold your assets. The cool part about it is
that you can access this wallet anytime, anywhere, as long
(14:48):
as you have access to the internet. Oh and now
this is what I really love because you know, when
we talk about how we're sort of creating this decentralized world,
like think about the bank. I can remember going to
the bank with our parents when we'd have to act
write a physical check. You would take this check, you
would put it in the bank, and maybe ten days
later you would get that money. Now it's a little
bit different, you know, and with Greenwood. One of the
(15:09):
things I love about it. There's a lot of these
um like financial digital asset, financial backed banks where banks
are open twenty four hours. This is a new development.
But the beauty of having some cryptocurrency is you don't
need a banker or a middleman in between. Okay, we'll
we'll stay under the weeds of gas and different things
like that, but you hold the power of your money,
(15:31):
your assets in your wallet twenty four hours a day. Yeah.
One of the popular phrases in crypto is crypto don't sleep.
But not only because there are a bunch of like
d gens you know, trading crypto seven, but also because
this whole system is run by code, so you don't
need this nine to five physical location or human behind it.
It's completely run by code and you can interact with seven.
(15:53):
I don't know how many people have tried to do
like a money transfer before or a wire but that
can take weeks and now if you is crypto for it,
it can be in seconds. Again, this is another one
of the strong points when you talk about like I
have a lot of family that's in West Africa and
it was hard to send money. I mean it would
be like, oh my gosh, my aunt is going back
to Ghana, can you go and send her cash? Like
(16:14):
how much could you send? Or is there a Western Union?
So now this is sort of really changed the way
that we can send money all throughout the world and globally. Okay,
so the last couple of questions, we've gone over here
because there's just so much to cover. We keep talking
about a wallet. Um, there are two types of wallet
in this world. There's a hot wallet and there's a
cold wallet. Can you tell us the difference in what
(16:35):
that means? Yeah, for sure. So a hot wallet is
basically a wallet that's connected to the internet, So it's
a wallet that you can access digitally online. Meta Mass
is a good example of a hot wallet. There are
lots of other hot wallets as well. A cold wallet
is a physical wallets. This is like a physical thing
(16:56):
that you can keep, probably keep it in a safe
box in your house, and this is something that's like
on you right. Um, And so there are different trade
offs when using a hot wallet and a cold wallet.
People have different preferences. If you tend to lose things
in the physical world easily. Maybe don't get one of those, right,
Maybe maybe sick with the hot wallet. Um so that's
(17:17):
kind of the main difference between hot and cold balts.
I love it alright, Ellen, I think we're running out
of time, but guess what, we will have her back
again for more of crypto School, where we are going
to dive deep into other conversations in the web three world.
Check out our soon and upcoming what are n F
T s um and much much more. So, Elon, can
you please share with our audience where to find you
(17:37):
on social media? Absolutely? You can find me on Twitter
at zero x Alan and you can find me on
Instagram as help Ernesta, and I'll be sharing lots of
crypto education and web through education stuff on both of
those platforms. And make sure to tune in Monday through
Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood,
so that you two can have the keys to financial
(17:57):
freedom that you so rightly deserve. Yeah, thank you so
much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want
more or a recap of this episode, please go to
the bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money
Moves podcast blog Money Moves is an I heart Radio
(18:18):
podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on i heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.