The One Step Beginners Need Before Buying Any Crypto | CoinPicks Live Class

One. What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the live stream. It's 3 to 4 PM Eastern Standard Time. Like always, you guys know the deal. Every single day, Monday through Friday, we are doing a live stream from 3 to 4 PM Eastern Standard Time. I want you guys to join consistently. I'm gonna be breaking down the entire financial system from the beginning all the way to the end. all the way up to your actual Coin Picks strategy where you learn about finance. Share this with friends, as many friends as you possibly can. And again, this has never been done before. I mean, maybe it has, I don't know. It hasn't been done before from my perspective, right? And so again, everything. So we're talking about microeconomics, macroeconomics. We're talking about the money itself, the financial system, the corruption behind the financial system. We're talking about the Federal Reserve. We're talking about how asset prices work. inflation, I mean pretty much everything we possibly can all the way up into the point of crypto. We're also even going into the internet, how the internet works itself, and all the details behind that because a lot of people use the internet, they spend like 5 hours a day on the internet, even more than that, and they don't even know how it actually operates on the backend. So we're going to understand the backend of that, the centralization of it, how the internet operates, how money operates, and how they're both coming together in this one place that we call blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, which is the future dimension of the world. Crypto is not a niche. It is a dimension. What I mean by that is everything that you're currently using will have blockchain or cryptographic technology behind it. And essentially, the world is evolving into a new dimension of understanding on the internet. The differences between, you know, the old internet from the new internet that's currently happening is the difference between, for example, I always explain it like this. The internet right now is text, video, and image. That is the entire internet. Since it started, everything is just different text, video, and image, just organized in different ways. For the first time ever, we have value in the internet. So the leap is like your friend says he's going to go to the concert. He tells you 10 times but never goes, versus him buying the ticket. Him buying a ticket kind of confirms that it's really happening. That internet is making that leap. It's that big— they say talk is cheap, right? Actions prove more than words. Like that big leap that's happening in that one little conversation is happening on the entirety data, all the data structure of the entire internet itself. And so it is really, really big. It is like the biggest jump in human technology. I mean, there's so many words that encapsulate, every word encapsulates this jump. I don't know how else to explain it. It's another dimension. That's what dimension means, right? So again, we're doing 3 to 4 PM every single day. Monday through Friday, Eastern Standard Time. Specifically right now is when we're starting, so you know for tomorrow. And then just a couple announcements before we get started. We have the free auto trader that you guys get access to on coinpix.app. We are live streaming on all platforms. If you're not on coinpix.app, we have a free autonomous trader that buys, sells, and does the research. It's not perfect, but we give you our full version. You can connect it to the API. All you have to do is click that blue button. Again, you cannot upgrade this autonomous trader. There is no better one that you have to buy. We teach you how to do it and we have different services on that. But this is the full version of our auto trader. Go ahead and click that button on the website. Also, if you want to follow along in the actual course, we created a free course. It's on the Learn tab on coinpicks.app. All you have to do is go through with your email like a normal email process. And you will get the course as well. The section that we are in right now specifically is your balance versus your buying power. We're on this section here, and it's been really, really cool. We've been going kind of a little bit off tangent with the Federal Reserve, but it kind of—it's kind of nice because you're going to like the foundation, and then you're seeing how it affects like today's world. So all of the old live streams will be uploaded within 28 to 48 hours on the website, so you can see the old live streams. And you can see how they all stack in the trainings and the teachings. And essentially the point is I'm trying to help as many people as possible. So go ahead and share with your friends. If you guys wanted to get rich together, you want to learn crypto, you guys been talking about crypto, but you're not taking it serious. This is an opportunity for you guys to take it serious for free. Like I'm not joking when I say free. It is actually no, the full course, everything is 100% free. Now, before we get started, Last announcement. I do have somebody with me today as an assistant to help me through this process because there's a lot of facts and data that I can't just recall off my memory perfectly. His or her name is Dot. Dot, say hi.

One sec. Hey everybody, I'm Dot. I'm here to help Alexander check facts and make the numbers easy to follow.

Yeah, so Dot is, um, Somebody that's helping me with the process. I don't know, a teacher's assistant that's super intelligent. And so yeah, they're going to help with the process. So if you hear that and they make mistakes, just know that that's Dot. And she's— let's call her a she. It sounds like a she, right? She sometimes makes mistakes. All right. So let's go through the course. Your balance versus your buying power. The number in your account tells you only half the story. What matters is that actual money that can actually purchase. So what does that mean? Let's ask Dot. Dot, what is a simple definition of buying power?

Checking that now. Buying power is how much your money can actually buy. If the same $100 buys fewer groceries than before, its buying power has gone down, even though it's still $100.

Yeah, so basically, it doesn't matter how much cash you have, What matters is the cash in relation to the things that you buy, right? So you could have 2 scenarios. You have one scenario where you know you increasing the amount of cash you have, but the actual cost of goods stays the same. In that case, you have a great situation because you have more cash, cost of goods stay the same. And the other scenario, you can stay the same in the amount of cash you have, but the cost of it increases. That's a bad scenario because. now your dollar goes— it doesn't go as far, right? There's other scenarios where your dollars can stay the same, but the cost of goods drop. That would also be a good scenario because your dollar goes further. So it's not really how much money you have in an account. What it is is the amount of money you have in an account in relation to the cost of things. Does that make sense? Straightforward. So that's a very important concept because the cost of things actually go up and down. And then also what goes up and down is the value of your money goes up and down. So if you could understand the dynamic between that, you can actually get really rich by not making more money. People don't know this. There's a lot of ways to get rich by not making more money. One way you can get rich by not making more money is you make the same exact amount of money you have, and then you move to a country to where your dollar goes further, right? Mm-hmm. So if I'm making $100K a year, that's not necessarily rich. It's kind of, it's really good. It's like crossing the border of well-off, right? If I'm making 100K a year and I'm working a remote job and I go to a place where it's 1/10 the cost of everything, then I now make a million a year. Does that make sense? Because my money goes 10 times farther in that country than it does in America. So there's a lot of different ways to get rich. It's not necessarily making more money. But I think the definition of rich now, let's ask Dot. Dot, what is the official definition of rich?

Checking. There's no universal official dollar threshold for rich. It's context-dependent. Generally, it means having substantial wealth or resources. Income is what you earn, wealth is what you own minus what you owe, and buying power is what your money can purchase. In your example, you'd still earn $100,000, but it could support a much higher standard of living.

There you go. So that's kind of like the official definition. I would say that the richness comes from Christ, but hey, that's another topic of conversation. All right, your paycheck is the same as last month, but when you buy the same groceries, they cost more. You have the same dollars and less to bring home. What your money can buy is buying power. It's also called purchasing power. It's like the same thing. Let's start off with your groceries, and then let's look at how the US measures changes in prices. How much can your paycheck buy? Suppose you receive $500 a week. One basket of groceries costs $100. Divide your pay by the basket and you can buy 5 baskets. Super simple. Later, that same groceries cost $125. Your pay stays at $500. Now $500 divided by $125 is only 4 baskets. You can buy less things. Simple, straightforward, right? The price rose by $25. Compare that with the starting of $100. $25 divided by $100 equals 0.25, or 25% price increase. Very simple, straightforward. Now really quick before, so you guys understand the importance of this. Dot, how much has the purchasing power of the US dollar dropped in the past 50 years?

Let me check that for you.

It's researching hard. It's probably looking.

About 83%, measured by consumer prices. Comparing 1976 with September 2026, a dollar today buys roughly what 17 cents bought in 1976.

All right, Dot, now give me a simple example I could write on my board to show them how devastating that is.

One moment. Write $10,000 saved in 1976, zero interest, untouched until today. Balance, still $10,000. Buying power, about $1,690 in 1976 dollars. That shows the hit in one stark line.

So what he's basically saying is, um, or she's basically saying— I'm sorry, Dot— she's basically saying, okay, just forget this. She's basically saying that $10K was worth $1,690. So let's say— let me ask Dot, let me ask you a question. If you kept $2,000 since that period of time and you did nothing, what would it be currently worth today?

One moment. You'd still have $2,000 today, but it would buy roughly what $338 bought in 1976. To preserve the buying power of $2,000 back then, You'd need about $11,843 today.

Okay, so basically the gist is it's pretty devastating, right? So if you don't make more money, again, you just lose consistently. That's the whole gist of what's happening. The economy is essentially expanding. It's like purely expanding, and people have to understand that, right? Now suppose your pay raises from $6.25 Divided by the 125, you have the same 5 baskets. Have more dollars, but they buy the same amount as before. These made-up numbers to show the steps. Okay. The dollar amount is your nominal income. What it can buy is your real income. Did you guys understand that? Let me say it again. The dollar amount that you get is your nominal income, but what it could buy is your real income. A raise improves your buying power only if your pay grows up faster than the prices you face. If both raise at the same time, you keep up. Dot, what I want you to do is explain to me a real-life situation of somebody's nominal income and how they can actually calculate it versus their real income.

Let me check that. Imagine someone earned $50,000 last year and gets a raise to $52,000 this year. That's nominal. A 4% raise. If prices rose 5%, divide $52,000 by 1.05. That's about $49,524 in last year's dollars. So their buying power fell about 1%.

Okay, you guys get that? So basically what it was saying from— she spoke really fast, but what it was saying is that if they have a 4% pay raise, but then— say it, Dot, explain that to me one more time. But a little bit slower.

One sec.

So much easier. So much easier.

Last year, you earned $50,000. This year, you get a 4% raise, so now you earn $52,000. But suppose prices went up 5%. You'd need $52,500 just to buy the same things as last year. So, you got a raise, but your money buys a little less.

Dot, from that example, what's the nominal income, and then what's the real income?

Checking.

The dollar amount is your nominal income.

Your nominal income is $52,000, the amount you earn this year. Your real income is about $49,524 measured in last year's buying power.

There it is, so right there. So that's the real income. So when you, when you get offered a salary, it's in relation to the inflation of the economy. Does that make sense? So it's irrelevant otherwise. If you're not taking inflation into the factor of your salary, then it's not like a real salary. It's not a real— that's not your real income. Does that make sense? You guys have any questions on that? That's super important. It's extremely— do you understand that? He just came in. Jonathan just came in. I'm trying. It's okay. So basically, and we're not gonna go through this 'cause we kinda like really hit it, but we really need to like make sure that we keep up with the economy, right? So up until this job, you probably never kept up with the economy. Now it's time to do it, right? So let me ask Dot. This is actually good. It's called the CPI. I think the CPI comes out monthly, or does it come out quarterly? I forgot. Dot, does the CPI come out monthly or quarterly? That kind of helps us keep up with the buying power, correct?

Checking that. Monthly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases CPI each month, showing how consumer prices changed over the previous month and year. And yes, it helps track buying power, but it's an average basket, so personal costs can move differently.

Dot, I have a really quick Question, over the trend of the past 2 years, how much does my salary have to increase for me to break even in the next year or 2? Write this number down.

Let me check that for—

Write this number

down.

Checking. This is crazy. Write this number down, chat. Write this number down. If your employer is not offering this—

Write down about 3.4% per year or 6.9% total over 2 years. That's what you'd need If the past 2 years' inflation pace repeats. It's not a prediction, just a scenario. On $50,000, that's roughly $53,400 after 2 years to maintain buying power. I've put the numbers and sources in your chat.

This is so crazy. Like a raise you need? So basically what I'm getting here, you're telling me, chat, over the trend of the past 2 years, for me to just break even on my salary in comparison to the growth of the economy, I need to get a raise year over year of 3.4%. Is that correct, Dot?

Let me check that for you. You need

to be quicker, man.

Yes. If inflation repeats that pace, about 3.4% annually would maintain your buying power. One correction, it's keeping up with consumer prices, not economic growth.

All right. Last question, Dot, because this is super interesting to me. This is really interesting to me. If I was a smart employee, how much percentage increase should I be asking my employer year over year for me to outpace the inflation cost? And then from that, what should my employer expect from that raise? Look at Jesse's face.

Let me check that for you. Using our 3.4% inflation scenario, a 6% raise would give you about 2.5% more buying power. That's an example, not a universal rule. Your results, responsibilities, and market pay should support the request. For the employer, they should expect clear value. Better results, greater responsibility, or valuable skills. Agree on specific outcomes like more sales, fewer errors, or faster delivery. A 6% raise doesn't automatically mean 6% more hours.

Dot, this is like a multidimensional answer. It's for the chat, but also for everybody here. Quick thing, if I am giving a 2.5% increase in buying power to my employees, how much should they make the company if the company hypothetically makes $1 million a year?

Let me check that.

This is like a turning point.

There isn't a direct percentage match. The raise applies to payroll, not revenue. For example, on $300,000 in payroll, a 6% raise adds $18,000 a year. At a 30% margin, that's $60,000 more in sales to break even. The target should reflect each role's contribution, and raises can also help retain people already producing strong results.

Dot, just give me a number on how much percentage— just give me a number on how much percentage a person should save the company or make the company to make it fair.

Checking that.

This is like the—

100% of the added employment cost and extra profit or savings covers the raise. That's a break-even benchmark, not a universal rule for fairness.

100% means double. So what they're saying is— Dot, correct me if I'm wrong— are you saying that the company should make 100% of what? The buying power or the full 6%? So for example, if somebody's making $100K a year, 6% increase would be $6,000. Are you saying the company should be making or saving roughly $12,000? Is that what you're saying?

Checking that.

Is that correct? No, I think it's $6,000. 100% is $6,000. 200% would be $12,000. Yep, this is really great.

$6,000.

All right, so just kind of break down what just happened, guys. This is really cool because we're talking about purchasing power. And so if the economy right now, inflation's at 3.4%, then— and your employer, and if they're not, I'm sorry, if they're, if they're not, go to coinpicks.app and apply to careers. Yes. We're gonna try to get them up 6%. year over year, and what that would do is it'll increase their life stuff by 2.5%. So they could buy 2.5% more things. Now, the reason why I did that is because as an employer, we can reasonably expect if we're giving you an extra, what is it, $6,000, then we're asking for $6,000 back. Is that the— Yeah, that's pretty much the answer. So the company should gain a net 12%? so we can give you the 6 and then get the other 6 goes to us. That's accurate, right? And that's fair. That's business, right? Because the employer covers like a whole bunch of stuff. But you get the point. So that's what you guys should be doing. If you're watching this video, you should go to your employer and you should ask them why your income is not going up 3.4%. That's the lesson here. It's buying power in relation to the economy. So what happens is people have all these jobs. And again, I always say the same thing. They spend 1/3 of their life, 8 hours a day working at this thing. And they're doing it for a paycheck, which is a dollar amount, but they don't even understand the relation of the dollar amount in comparison to the economy. So if somebody is not getting a raise over 10 years, they have officially lost 34% of their lifetime within that 10-year period. No, it's 34% divided by 3. What is that? It's like 10, what, 1, whatever. Dot, what is 34% divided by 3? 11.

Let me check.

Improving the modern-day slavery.

34% divided by 3 is 11 1/3%, but that doesn't measure lost lifetime. At that hypothetical inflation rate, an unchanged salary would lose about 28% of buying power over 10 years because it compounds.

Dot, if it was 28% And hypothetically, they did spend 1/3 of their life, roughly how much of their time did they lose?

Let me check that for you. 28% of 1/3 is about 9.3%. You could use that to illustrate reduced purchasing value from work, but not literal time lost. And that 28% loss is reached at year 10. It doesn't apply equally to all 10 years.

Just give me the number, Dot. Just give me the number. Time lost. I want to know.

One sec.

Pipe down.

9.3% under your hypothetical calculation.

So it would be like what? It would be years, hours times 9.3% over 10 years, right? Dot.

Let me check that for you.

ChatGPT, they're censored. I'm just kidding.

If you multiply 9.3% by 10 years, that's about 11 months. But I need to be clear, that framing isn't right. It's not 11 months lost. We applied the final year's purchasing power loss to the whole decade, which overstates the effect.

Okay, so never— not 11 months. Let's just call it 5. So there you go. That's 5 months, right? So let's say hypothetically it was 5 months. And so like, do you guys think it's cool to like spend 5 months learning finance? Would it, would it be reasonable to say that it might be wise to spend 5 months just learning why your time is going to muck? Could we ever have a person that ever wouldn't have the desire to learn finance? Would that just be ignorance? That'd just be ignorance because you're already spending the time at the employer workplace anyways, right? Yeah. So that's why we do it. Okay, purchasing power is important. Now you're understanding the direct impact of purchasing power and how the economy works on your physical life. You can actually lose time. They say it's not like that, but there's some dimension of truth to it, right? You're actually losing time to just straight-up, like, ignorance of not knowing how much your salary should be. be increasing, right? So why wouldn't your salary increase? In my opinion, your salary increases 'cause your skill set doesn't increase, right? If your skill set doesn't increase, the value produced for the company is not gonna increase. And if that's the case, then that means that you can't really break even on the economy. So that's a really good lesson. I think this is amazing, honestly. Did you guys write the numbers down? No. Dot, make sure to take some notes for my employees so that they learn finance, okay?

Let me check that.

All right, let's keep going. One price does not tell the whole story. A poor harvest may leave fewer oranges for sale, pushing their price up. That tells about— tells us about oranges. It does not tell us what happened to bread, rent, or bus fares. A broad rise in prices over time is called inflation. Some prices can fall while the average rises. Prices may raise when shoppers want more than businesses can supply, or when a shortage leaves less to buy. It's talking about supply and demand, right? Changes in money and borrowing can also give people more to spend. Expectations matter too. A shopping— a shop expecting higher costs may raise prices, prices while workers expect higher bills. may ask for more pay. So it's basically talking about the dynamics between the different scenarios that could potentially happen with supply and demand, right? So it's not like a clean, like, one thing. It is a multitude of factors, but the general, like, overall theory applies for purchasing power, if that makes sense. The shopping trip cannot tell us which forces cause the price rise, nor does every household face the same bills. A family paying for childcare may see different increase from a parent Family without cost. The Consumer Price Index, or the CPI, tracks prices across a broad mix of goods and services. Think of a large shopping basket that includes things like rent, haircuts. It represents common spending, not every family's exact shopping list. So basically what this— like, I don't know the exact things that are used in a CPI specifically, I'm sure, Dot, you can give us an exact list. Don't name the whole list, but maybe the main big percentages of what the CPI actually calculates.

Let me check that for you.

This is crazy.

4 big ones: shelter, about 35%; food, roughly 13.5%; medical care, around 8%; And energy about 7%. Those are weights, not price jumps.

Can you say— Dot, can you say it one more time again?

Let me check that. Shelter, 35%. Food, 13.5%. Medical care, about 8%. Energy, 7.4%. Those are shares of the CPI basket, Not inflation rates.

I have a question about shelter. So shelter, does that include like specifically like the housing market? What type of shelter are you talking about? Give us a little bit of specifics on that.

Well, let me check that.

The reason I asked that—

Shelter mainly measures the cost of having a place to live. For renters, it tracks rent. For homeowners, it estimates what a similar home would rent for. It does not directly track home sale prices or mortgage payments. It also includes hotels.

So basically the reason why I want to know that is because it's 35%, right? So if rent prices raise, that means inflation is going higher. But if your rent price stays the same— you guys catching it? Who can explain what I just said? I'm gonna say it again. So if shelter is the biggest percentage Your rent price stays the same, but the inflation goes up, let's say 1%. How much does it affect you? What's the percentage of how much it affects you? Jesse, go ahead.

It would be 75 basis points of 1%, so 0.75%.

Explain how you got that math.

I'm sorry, 0.65%.

Yeah, 0.65 basis points.

Because if all of those percentages make up one overall percentage of inflation and your shelter stayed the same, then that didn't apply to your 1% inflation.

Who doesn't understand that category? Raise your hand if you don't understand it. Okay, I'll explain it now. John, explain it simple, more simple. He doesn't explain it. Okay, so what he's saying is this whole thing right here