196. How To Approach Crypto At Christmas This Year

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift alongside Ms. Berg, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market as well as behind the scenes view of us Scanlani, the leading crypto research company here in Australia. And if you like the podcast, we'd love for you to leave us a subscribe if you're on YouTube or check us out on your favorite podcasting app and leave us a follow. We come to you each and every week, twice a week, with the best in crypto and behind the scenes. And today we are leading up into Christmas. It is Christmas time and it's probably the first Christmas little Wahlbergs that we have a smile on our face because usually I go to the Christmas lunch and I am a sad sack because you've shield crypto over the last three years and it is just down only. But this year we are right now finally.

I would be a sad sack too if I had your life, but I don't. So I'm a happy chappie, mate.

No, I, I know the feels, mate. Like crypto's down. Business was down, had to rebuild it, rebuild all the people, rebuild the brand. Working your absolute ass off and no one cares about crypto. And this is the one in every four years where you go to Christmas and you are the man. You're going to light that little candle that sells says, smells like I was right about bitcoin. That's sweet. The amount of smugness that is going to be in the air. I can taste it already.

Ben, like no need for ham this year, Nan. We are talking bitcoin at the Christmas table because we're going to loathe in it because we know this time next year we're going to be poor again and it's going to mate.

We have to soak it up. And the reason we are doing this episode is first of all to celebrate and be like well done champions for buying crypto, having some gains and enjoy your smugness over crypto, drink a few too many beers, talk everyone's ear off and we're doing this episode. We're going to look back on previous Christmases and what we said to people and what it was like, but also how to because everyone's going to ask you, you're going to be that crypto guy. Everyone knows who you are, how to talk to people about crypto.

At Christmas 100% so let's go back a year Burgs. Let's, let's look back December.

24Th. Is that Christmas? When's Christmas? 25th.

25Th. May 25th. When's Christmas? What day is it? Where are we?

December 25th Bergs 2023 Bitcoin's at $43,000 now this is after to be fair we actually had a decent run up. Decent. We were at you know throughout that year, throughout 2023 like we got as low as.

For 2023, 24. Look to be honest it actually did nothing. We went from 20 to, to like four. Oh it doubled but still it was like after a retracement down from 65 we went to 23 consolidated and then we ended up around yeah around 40ish in December.

So there's a dual, a dual context here where I remember around November we had oz crypto con bitcoin went to 30k and then it was around 40 or so at Christmas So we're going up but if you go back at Christmas bitcoin was like you know I'm pretty sure we're still pumping. It was. Oh was it on the way down?

Yeah so no, no it was 22 was bleak man. 22. Oh December 22nd we're at 17,000 so before then and then the Christmas before that in 2021 we're at 50,000 but we just, we just come off a peak in November at 63.

So everyone's going to remember you talking multiple Christmases ago about the all time high of bitcoin.

Yeah.

And it's been down only since then from like 70 down to 20 and now you're back at 40 last year and you're like yeah it's happening. It's really happened. They're like bro, you're down from 70 to 40. What are you talking about? So Michael Saylor's crazy. You're crazy. Bitcoin uses too much energy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 100% yeah. You're bad for the planet Earth. So you've, you've essentially you were down 25% and then you were down 75% and now you're back up and you nearly doubled where you were from three years ago.

Smells like success mate.

Smells like, smells like we were right. That's what it smells like.

As of today we're what around 100-6-000 us. So yeah blasted through the all time highs of the 70k. We're almost, we're 50 above that which is everyone that's ever bought a spot price is in profit. We're at all time highs. It's amazing.

So I'm walking into my Christmas with smugness, mate. Let's be honest.

I'm gonna be smug, but then we're smug bugs and then people get jealous. People are getting fomo. What are we saying to them?

Oh, bro, okay, let's read that. Jealousy. Have you got those mates? Because they know you work in crypto. They know you got like a little bit of crypto and they just like, I don't know. But I've got some mates that just hate on me. Hate on me. Where they come in, they're just like, oh, crypto's no good. It does nothing. You're getting money for doing nothing and you can't even defend it. And most of the time it's just salty because I've been telling to buy and they never bought.

No. So you have corporate mates. That sounds so corporate. You know where they get it?

I have savage mates. Like, you think I'm savage? God damn. You got to meet these guys, average corporate mates.

They just get money arriving their account every week and they don't really do much. And then they hate the world because they. They had their job. That's. That's what that sounds like.

They're happy that they got like 20 in equities. They're just like over the moon. And I show my Portfolios up over 100% and they're just like, oh. And I'm quite conservative in crypto with the stuff I invest in.

So where are we going? So, you know Uncle Uncle Gavin or cousin Jerry, who's been on you for two years now, all of a sudden he's probably got a crypto portfolio now because he's, he's been seeing you on socials, he follows you on LinkedIn. He's like, this guy is a wit. I need to start actually following him.

Or he bought a little bit and got burnt because he bought like bum crack coin and then lost 20k.

He bought. He bought shib at the peak and.

Oh, bro. And the be. Everyone's got that story like that that kind of got in. All right, so we're at the big family gathering. You're sitting there, you're in your Kiss My Assets bitcoin T shirt.

Yeah.

You're wearing your thongs because you're a lad. You. 600 beers in. You just smug as you're just about to get stuck into the hand.

And then the, the question comes. It comes across the table, Ben. So you Must be pretty happy with crypto.

And what do you, what do you say, mate?

What do I say to that? I'm stoked. I'm stoked. How's your. How was that advice? Did you follow my advice the last two years, Uncle Gavin.

Uncle Gavin, Auntie Stacy, as I pull out my.

Swedish cigar and scotch and light the cigar over the Christmas ham from your personal.

Butler that follows you around.

And then I reply, you can talk to me after you book an appointment, Uncle Gavin.

Oh, through my ea. Amazing. Amazing.

Nah. So look, yes, I was right and you should have believed me, but I understand you didn't believe me. And here we are. And I think it goes back to coming back to bitcoin and explaining why bitcoin's pumping and why it's at all time highs. And you can talk about, Uncle Gavin, how's your mortgage going? How. How is cost of living going? How's your wage going? It's all going the wrong direction, isn't it? That's because this is the way the world works. Supply increases, a fiat, cost of living increases, your wage doesn't keep up. And now life is becoming really hard. That's what bitcoin's trying to solve.

And now, yeah, now Donald Trump's elected, the US government owns 1% and they're wanting to buy more because they also know it's their way out of debt.

I've had this conversation with a lot of my friends that have studied economics, finance, everything with me, and.

It'S all too much for them, that argument. So what I've started saying to them is two simple things. And there's lots of reports that say this, where your portfolio is now more risky by not having bitcoin in it. And I just want them to get off zero. So I want everyone to own bitcoin, I want everyone to get ahead like we have. And I just tell them, like every pay cycle, put 50 bucks in, 100 bucks, whatever that amount is to you, do it on an exchange with direct debit, or get paid in bitcoin. And that's a very simple way to do it and just start accumulating. When I start to, I find, when I start to explain, because bitcoin is different things to different people and for them to connect the dots, like you and I, we're adhd, af, we connect the dots very, very fast and we get it and we go deep and we have conviction for them. I just explain it simply. Where it's digital gold, it's scarce, a lot of people and companies are Going after it because it's better than gold and that's where they live. And I heard an amazing argument about why, when you're starting out, do you need to understand Bitcoin? And generally people have this advice where if you don't understand investment, you shouldn't invest in it. Sometimes you need to break that rule where you don't need to fully understand Bitcoin. And there's parallels like, Ben, you use the Internet every day. Do you understand how hypertext transfer protocol works?

Doesn't matter.

Or FTP, do you understand how your car works or how electricity gets to your house? You don't. And you don't care because it just works. And I've had so much success with just explaining, you don't need to understand. Get off zero with a small amount of money and we'll talk in three months. It's digital gold. Let's go.

Yeah, spot on.

That is a conversation I'm going to be having with a lot of people and a lot of my family that start to ask me about crypto and they start to say, what about Ethereum? What about Solana? What about Shitcoin xyz? I'm like, don't worry about it. You've got plenty of time. And I tell them people are going to brag in a couple of years that they bought Bitcoin under 100k. That's how far this thing is going to send. Just get off zero and we'll start having little touch points and conversations along the way.

Yeah, I like that. I start, I start with them. I always start with the money conversation because that's how I learned, like, you know, when you understand what money is, this is what my TEDX talk was like. Once you Understand that the $5 note in your pocket is worth what it is because we all believe in it, there's nothing that really, truly backs it anymore. Like, it's just a belief system. And you start to understand truly what money is. That's why for me, bitcoin became so, so obvious. And then I think, like, you've got to start to look at, like, you know, why things are going up. US government now, you know, wanting crypto to be home in the US You've got, not that these, not that Uncle Gavin will know what BlackRock is, but you've got the biggest, you know, money managers in the world now, literally, like BlackRock recommending a 2% allocation to Bitcoin. You know, it's something that cannot be understated anymore. And I think in terms of Investing and getting ahead and doing something with your money like bitcoin. We are still early in terms of where this thing could go. And also there's not enough, I always say this as well. There's not enough bitcoin to go around. To every millionaire in the world, it's the only truly scarce asset on the planet. Like they're still mining gold right now. Like bitcoin is the new digital gold.

It's.

And you need to get on it or you're going to be left behind.

Even like El Salvador found what like one point something trillion worth of gold in the ground and they're going to mine it and sell it to buy bitcoin because they get it, love it. Yeah, yeah. That's the exact same argument that I would give. And like the majority of people don't even understand money. And so I make it even simpler where I say, okay, of your investable assets, like money that you invest in shares and stuff, take 2% of it put into Bitcoin. If you lose that 2%, it's not going to change your life. But if that, if I'm right and a lot of people are right and that balloons, that is going to change your life. And they're comfortable with that because they do want some exposure, but they don't really understand risk or they've automated their investments. They're not heavy investors. But you still want to be able to help them.

Yep, yep. And then also like they're going to want to know about the other stuff. And I agree, it's like worry about that later. But just make sure you have a good chunk of bitcoin in your portfolio. Then you can add some other stuff around there, like, yeah, maybe add some Ethereum, add some Solana. But like, you know, they're completely different things and you just never want to invest more than you're willing to lose. But always start with bitcoin and then work your way down from there. And I think you've got to go on some sort of personal learning journey. Like you have to get your head around it some way otherwise you're going to be shaken out, the market will dip, you'll panic, sell and you know, we'll repeat the cycle. So getting them across, getting them on, watching a video of mine on Instagram, like what social media do you watch? Like where do you watch content? I'm on YouTube. Great. Go to my YouTube channel, watch, just watch a couple of videos and start to get their head around. Like that's how people learn these days. Social media that's how people are educated. Where do you like to. Do you like to read a newsletter? Do you like to read articles? Great. Let me send you something so you can start to get your head around this stuff.

Yeah. And you kind of just drip feed them like I, I'm very proud of the collectorship website now and going to our free resources section. If you got friends, send them there. We don't want your email address or anything like that. It's literally just good articles of learning about crypto and not, not the like basics of what is crypto? What is this? We've got all that crap. We're not talking about that. We're talking about how does it fit into your portfolio, how to construct a portfolio, how to think about investing in crypto. We've got all that stuff about what is bitcoin, how does it work, all those videos. But that bores people. It's more personal when you think about how it fits into your life.

Yeah. And show them how to do it. Get them set up with a SwiftX account, a coin spot, a coinbase, doesn't matter, Binance, whatever the hell, get them set up. Show how, show them how easy it is. Show them you just put your money in. It's not like you're not buying fairy dust. Like it's real stuff. And show them how it works. Like just sit there and you know, just get them across it.

This is exactly it. So the, the thing with getting someone set up, you can get them set up at the table while you're having Christmas lunch or dinner and it takes maybe 5 minutes to KYC into an exchange. It is that quick. You need your license and Aussie exchange, coin spot, swift dates are all very quick. Coin jar, everything. Get them set up and then use their credit card or whatever. They've got to buy ten dollars worth of bitcoin and you can even send them ten bucks worth of bitcoin so they understand how it works. One thing with this, do not even entertain the idea of doing self custody. No, that is way too hard. They're going to stuff it up, they're going to lose their crypto that is down the track. Have an exchange, have a small amount on there and we can talk about self custody later.

Yep, yep. Get them on two factor authentication, get them a good password and that's fine for now, we can figure out the rest later.

Exactly. And you've literally got them off zero. It's cost you $5 or cost them $5 and now they're actually going to look at that portfolio, they can set up some kind of automation and they will be able to enjoy those crypto gains with you. And hopefully next Christmas they'll be on your side talking to everyone else about how good crypto is.

Agree. And I think the other thing is like, also looking at bitcoin as like a, you know, as a savings account and explaining them, like the last 10 years, how it compounds at 45% annually, like where it's being used, how it's being used in different countries, like why people are buying it. Like, I think bitcoin is just a great place where people can dollar cost average and just continue to accumulate over time.

That's a huge selling point where equities give you 10 to 15% per year. Bitcoin's 45% plus. And if you save in bitcoin, things become cheaper over time. If you save in fiat dollars, things become more expensive over time. And it's hard for people to understand that. But once they've started accumulating, you got them off zero. A year later, they'll start to understand that.

Yeah, totally agree. So get them on board. Start getting them to watch some, you know, some content. Let them know that, you know, they've just got to get their head around it a little bit. But, like, start with bitcoin and then work their way down. If they want to have a dabble on the other stuff, they can just keep it to a minimum. But get them consuming some content. Like, where do they just, where do that? Where do you spend time online and then show them school content on those platforms and then they'll get their head around it.

Another thing I've heard is generally people in the stock market, the general advice is you don't buy individual shares because you're saying you're smarter than the market. You only do that if you have some kind of knowledge someone else doesn't. You generally just buy an etf, which is a basket of shares, and away you go and you make significant gains because you've got all the top 500, 200 stocks. People want to do a similar thing in crypto. And I've been asked multiple times in the last week alone, do I go for this little basket of crypto? And most of them are like the top 10 or top 20. And I'm like, no, do not do that, because things pop in and out.

Yeah, and there's crap.

It's passively managed, it's not active, and a lot of trash can go in there and you can get massively wild swings yeah, just start with bitcoin and keep it simple.

Totally agree, totally agree. Accumulate users savings account, put a bit of money aside and happy days.

Yeah, small percentages and time horizon. Just let them know if you're not going to touch this for the next four years. Yeah. And you're accumulating over that period of time, you don't need the money go for.

That's a good one. Don't put in money that you're going to need in the next, you know, two years.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Because there might be significant drawdowns. You'll have to stomach that. But then you get that one, one and a half years of massive gains and that is the game we're playing.

That's great. And then show uncle Terry your pepe tray that you made when goes a collector shift member. And then happy days. And then they're going to get the fomo.

Do not talk to them about pump fun and all the crazy mean degenerate stuff you were doing. Just talk to them a little bit about bitcoin. Leave it there. No one wants to hear about like your insane,000x leverage trade where you retired your bloodline. Just keep it to yourself. It's okay.

You mentioned our mate Tom at Chris was talking about pub fund, you know.

Arnie Cameron bro, he needs to be talking about how he constantly makes the worst choices and nukes his portfolio.

You know what the funny story. So I bought my brother and sister some bitcoin for their birthday six years ago. And every year my, my brother's shocking. He's like, give me the bitcoin, I want to spend the money. And every year it just continues to go up and where it started to where it is now, it's like an actual like genuinely sizable investment. And I might mate, this is the lesson. You do not take this thing out and it will just continue going up. Like this is the lesson here. No matter what you think you need the money for, you don't need it. Put it aside and don't touch it.

Bitcoin is the marshmallow test. And for those that don't know, you know, someone puts a marshmallow in front of you and they say if you don't touch it for 10 minutes, you get another marshmallow. And if you don't touch that, then you get two marshmallows, you get four. It's essentially compounding. The more you can wait and not spend that bitcoin, the more it will compound, the more it will be worth and your wealth will just be exponential.

Totally agree. So enjoy your Christmas, fam. Make sure you wear your Ben and Berg's merch. For those absolutely epic listeners that came and listened to us at with our.

Ben's deep fried head. So good.

My head is shocking on that. I mean, my hair looks pretty good, but the head is just shocking.

Your head's shocking every day, mate. I don't blame it on the shirt.

You know what? What makes it better is that T shirt is that my head's shocking, but yours is so much worse that I actually look all right.

It's the other way around, mate. I just look normal. And they're like, what is wrong with his ears? And why is his head deep fried? That's the first question I get is like, what is wrong with Ben's head?

What? You know, that's. That's fair. Like, you actually look all right when you don't talk and then you start talking and then you're like, oh, my God, that's what's wrong with him, mate.

Have you heard yourself?

You're like, oh, I talk.

I'm the best talker that's ever talked. I'm the best. I'm the first. I'm amazing. Ben Simpson. I shared a bunk bread with my brother.

Right? We're wrapping this up. This guy.

Have an amazing Christmas out there, legends.

Yeah. Merry Christmas, fam. Great work on the. On the green candles. Let's keep pushing on. Let's. Let's get the family around bitcoin this year.

Merry Christmas, champions.

See you guys.