クリプトニュースのリチャード・レビン氏がビットコインについて語る

Cryptonews Podcastのこのエピソードでは、ホストのMatt ZahabがCryptonewsのグローバルセールス担当副社長のRichard Levinにインタビューしています。ニューヨークでの暗号、暗号での支払い、クリーンなビットコインとダーティーなビットコインなどについて話しています。

Episode timestamps:

0:00 Intro 
2:00 Crypto in NYC 
4:06 BTC Conference in Miami 
6:54 Getting paid in crypto 
11:43 Journey into Bitcoin 
12:59 Bitcoin adoptio 
18:47 Clean vs dirty Bitcoin 
24:00 Dogecoin 
27:16 Seedsecure 
34:32 Where to learn about Bitcoin 
35:56 Rapid fire questions 
39:34 Outro

The episode premiered on May 28, 2021.

You can listen to it on other platforms here or explore the latest episodes of Cryptonews Podcast.

Episode transcript: 

Matt Zahab: 0:00

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Richard Levin:

 1:48

Thank you, Matt. Happy to be here as always.

Matt Zahab:

 1:51

Love to have you on. I know we've done a couple smaller videos ourselves, but this is your first time on the pod. How's it feel?

Richard Levin:

 2:00

Good. Again, I'm happy to be here. You know, life is good, work is good. The city's getting back to life. So lots of things to talk about.

Matt Zahab:

 2:09

I love that. Couple episodes ago I recorded with Aubrey Strobel, had a great time recording with her learned a lot amazing girl. And she talked about the NYC Bitcoin scene. I know you were at a party last week. Bitcoin NYC party again. Sounds incredible. Me, myself, I'm so fired up for the Bitcoin conference in Miami in the beginning of June. But I'd love if we could kick off by you telling our audience a little bit more about the Bitcoin scene in NYC that is buzzing right now.

Richard Levin:

 2:39

Absolutely. So, you know, prior to COVID obviously, there was a lot more going on. And you know, there's certain groups in the city here of people who are into crypto, which is amazing and, we love always getting together. But right now it's starting to get back to life. So the other day, well, I'll preface this with this. Last year in the middle of COVID. I was walking through my neighborhood on the Upper West Side, and I saw a Bitcoin sign pop up in a window, like there was like a step and repeat in the window of a shop that had closed and a new tenant was coming in. And I was like what is this? That's amazing. So I kept my eye on it. And then a week later, I saw like the door was open and there was a little bit of construction going on. So of course I ran down there and I walked in the door and I just like invited myself in I said you know what's going on here and it was the Bitcoin center New York, opening their new their Upper West Side location. And it was literally like four blocks from my apartment. I was like, this is amazing. I can't wait for this to open and have a place to come hang out with other crypto people. You know, COVID then kind of took another swing at us. So it kind of shut down for a little bit. But the other night, they had an event, you know, a couple blocks from my apartment, which was amazing. You know, I got down there hung out with a bunch of people in the space. So it was great. It was really good to see everybody. I think everybody's absolutely itching to get out of their apartments and get back to life.

Matt Zahab:

 4:06

What do you think Miami is going to be like, I know you're going to be there. I think you sniped the media pass not a big deal. Pretty sweet. What's that going to be like?

Richard Levin:

 4:15

I think it's going to be amazing. And this is the reasoning, right? So all of us in the crypto space, especially the Bitcoin space, you know, no one's seeing each other for like 15 months now, right? We've all been stuck at home because of the pandemic. In the meantime, we've been on an epic Bull Run. So I think everybody's really anxious to see each other. Now everybody's, you know, kind of crypto rich, so to speak, and we're all getting together in Miami of all places for a whole weekend. So I think it's going to be absolutely wild. There's probably going to be debauchery left and right. But, you know, the long and short of it is it's going to be amazing to see everybody you know, even you and I man we'll be able to get together and hang out. So I'm really looking forward to Miami. I'm literally counting down the days now.

Matt Zahab:

 5:00

Miami 2021 it's going to be crazy, cannot wait for that. And I know a lot of our listeners will be in attendance as well. The bread and butter of this episode is going to be Bitcoin which we will get into a little later on in the show. I know you got into bitcoin couple years ago well ahead of the curve, and you've really dove headfirst into it and you've taught me a lot. And I'm very grateful for that and I know our listeners can learn a lot from you as well. Before we get into that. I want to jump right into cryptonews. Obviously, this is the podcast, the cryptonews podcast, you are the VP of global sales at cryptonews. Tell me what you do on the day to day basis of your job.

Richard Levin:

 5:40

Absolutely. So many things. Now, when I first came on, I just came on board really to kind of streamline the revenue as far as our paid sponsored posts. You know, now we have the podcast, so ad reads for the podcast, display their ads, all kinds of different revenue streams. However, since I've come on board, we've grown tremendously and now there's all kinds of things going on. I know you're here hosting the podcast, which is amazing. We've hired a bunch of new copywriters and journalists. So cryptonews is growing like crazy. We are global, we're in 10 different languages, which is huge. There's not a lot of cryptonews companies that are doing that in multiple languages. So you know, we have a ton of readers in Russia in Europe, you know, the French websites, massive right now, South America, Arabic. So I mean, we're truly global, which is amazing and obviously, the bull run has helped us as far as traffic goes. But you know, we're putting out really good content right now. You know, our social medias are taking off as well, you can always find me on our Tik Tok page or tweeting with, you know, photos of the dog, whatever it is. But there's a lot of growth here. I'm happy to be on board. And I think there's lots of things to come for cryptonews.

Matt Zahab:

 6:54

One of the really cool aspects of working for a crypto company and when I was doing an ad read for the team the other day, and helping out a sponsor. I was like, so are they paid what's going on? What's the deal? And you gave me a quick spiel 95% of payments that come to the company and they get paid out of the company are via crypto, most of them via Bitcoin, that's craziness. Like what does it feel like to one get paid in crypto, and two, how seamless is it to pay and receive money in crypto over traditional Fiat?

Richard Levin:

 7:28

It's actually amazing. I mean, obviously, I've believed in crypto and Bitcoin for years before even doing this with cryptonews. However, really seeing how streamlined it is, has opened my eyes to a lot of things. So for example, you know, when I worked in print media, or even digital media before, if you sold a campaign, a lot of times it was either people would prepay, but a lot of people wanted to do net 30, which is kind of a pain in the ass, because then somebody really has to chase these people down, you know, ask for remittance, and it can really be a pain in the butt. However, things over here at cryptonews are extremely streamlined. Essentially, you know, if I bring on a new client, I literally create a new Bitcoin address, we send it over and they pay, I know in you know, a couple of minutes that it's been paid and we can immediately begin, which is very good, especially for time sensitive stuff. You know, if somebody wants something to go up right away, you know, there's no waiting for visa or the banks to deal with each other. I mean, this is exactly why crypto exists, right for these super easy transactions without a bank. And that's exactly what we're doing. And it's really, really easy that, you know, I think there is a huge market here, especially for you know, publishing, you want to just get paid quick and be able to do stuff without having to deal with the banks. This is the way to do it. And again, you know, 95% of what we do, as far as payments come in through either, you know, Bitcoin ether tether, but you know, those few that are like, oh, you know, I need to pay via ACH or a bank wire, I literally groan I'm like, ugh, you know, and then you got to send them everything, it takes five days, you know, there's fees on top of it, the bank said this, the bank said that, swift codes. I mean, it's unbelievable. And then you know, somebody else says, I'll pay in Bitcoin, and literally in a few minutes, boom, we're done. So on that aspect, it's super easy. There are a couple parts of that, though, that are a little bit weird. Like, every day, I'm putting out multiple Bitcoin addresses to multiple different clients all over the world. And, you know, I really still have to hold my breath. You know, this is the one thing I always talk about, as far as mass adoption and things like that, where, you know, I'm sending Bitcoin addresses, I have to double triple check them and you know, even afterwards, sometimes I go back and look and see, did I send the right address? So, you know, that's the one thing that I hate about crypto is the addresses, but, you know, it's something that we deal with. Other part of your question, getting paid in crypto personally, it's amazing, actually. I mean, I've always felt like that was one of the coolest parts about being in this industry was actually you know, when you cross that bridge and you get paid in crypto and you know, I always demand I get paid in Bitcoin, you know if there's ever any questions about, you know, what kind of crypto we're sending, I want to be paid in Bitcoin but I love it. It's amazing you know, it's certainly new. There's some hurdles you have to cross as far as you know, taxes and all that. But at the end of the day, I'm absolutely happy to be paid in Bitcoin.

Matt Zahab:

 10:23

I love that. Any stories of you absolutely tripping balls, where there was a massive transaction from a client, and you're just like, oh, got did I put in the wrong Bitcoin address. Must have been like, I'd be sweating.

Richard Levin:

 10:33

I mean, there was one time where I did sweat that I was like, did I copy the right address, or, you know, something like that. And, you know, we use different Bitcoin addresses for each client. And they all go to the same ledger wallet. But you know, since the blockchain is so transparent, which is the whole point, you know, you don't want other clients being able to see all the payments from other different clients and knowing what other people paid and whatnot. But now, there's been a few times where I accidentally sent two people the same Bitcoin address, which is fine, it's not a big deal, you know, it's all going to the same wallet. But yeah, that certainly happened. There was another time though, about a year ago, where I was like, in a rush to do something, and I was actually sending, it was almost a half a Bitcoin to another wallet of mine. And I almost almost sent it to the wrong address. And I was like, I literally had to, like, pull myself together and be like, whoa, that can never happen again. Now, luckily, you know, Bitcoin back then was, you know, less than $10,000. So it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But now, you know, you're talking real money. So these Bitcoin addresses, that can be a little bit daunting. But you know, it's just something you really have to pay attention to.

Matt Zahab:

 11:43

Speaking of Bitcoin let's get right into it. Tell me about your story. How did you get into bitcoin? When did you go head over heels? And how'd you fall in love so easily?

Richard Levin:

 11:53

You know, it's so funny, I actually bought my first fraction of Bitcoin years and years ago, on eBay, you could actually literally buy fractions of Bitcoin on eBay, I was actually going to use it for the Silk Road for something they never actually ended up using it. So it just sat there and then I ended up losing it, like completely, I actually just lost the whole thing. It was so long ago, then years later, you know, it started to come back onto my radar, you know, I had heard people talking about it. I have a cousin who is really deep in the space, works for an amazing crypto company in the city here. And, you know, for a while I kept pinging off the hymm, you know, this is something I'm interested in, and I kind of went down the rabbit hole really deep a couple years ago, you know, just reading, learning, you know, it's so interesting. And finally, when it all clicks in your brain, it makes a lot of sense. So that's kind of how I got into it. And ever since then, you know, I've just been kind of neck deep in it, so to speak, and trying to help other people learn about it as well.

Matt Zahab:

 12:59

Bitcoins hovering at around what 55-56 today. We are recording on the sixth of May. We're due for a breakout, obviously, one of the biggest reasons why we had the bull run of last year and earlier this year was because of the Fed printing out money like it's going out of style. Of course, our grand children are going to be the ones paying for this, he k could be us and our childre , for that matter. But that s another story for another da , we could do a whole pod n inflation, but this pod is abo t Bitcoin. That is obviously o e of the biggest reasons. Wh t other reasons are behind th s mass adoption of Bitcoin and w y the price has just gone throu h the roof over the last 6 month

Richard Levin:

 13:39

Good question. And I get this one all the time, there was almost a perfect storm, in this case, for bitcoins, price action. You know, those of us who have been in the space for a long time, you know, have noticed the cycles, of course, you know, and then we have the halving where the reward size gets smaller for the mining community. But all of these things kind of happened together, then you had the pandemic, which all of a sudden led to massive money printing, right? All of the sudden, we just started printing money like crazy. I mean, we're talking trillions of dollars here. And it really opened up a lot of people's eyes, you know, the more money you continue to print, right, the less valuable that money is. So the US dollar right now, it's not great. And if you have a ton of those dollars, it's even worse for you. Big companies, for example, have a ton of money they're sitting on a lot of times, and their their Treasury or their cash reserves. And with the bond market the way it is and you know rates this low at zero or sometimes negative. You know that money is literally, you hav to protect it. And it' difficult to do that. So a lo of companies have started t realize that, you know, Bitcoi is deflationary. There' something here. Michael Saylo was a great example. I mean Michael Saylor's kind of a her in the Bitcoin community now Last year, during the pandemic he really went down the rabbi hole, and he put his money wher his mouth is. I mean, he learne this very quickly, he understoo it immediately. And he took hi entire cash reserves essentially, and put it int bitcoin. And since then he' helped a lot of companies d that as well. Obviously, we'v seen Tesla come into the space You know, I have some friend who are kind of tied in here, N Digg is a huge company in Ne York that does OTC Bitcoin buy for large institutions, and th amount of institutions that ar buying Bitcoin right now, th number is massive. So I thin we're going to see more and mor of that. So we have this perfec storm, right, we have printin of money, like crazy, which i leading to, and will lead to nflation, we all know that the price of a two by four has gone from $2 to $10. Recently you know, a gallon of milk in ew York, the price is going up everything like that. So we ha e inflation, the money printing you know, we have the the bond market and the interest rates al ost zero. So we have big comp nies now that are realizin that Bitcoin is a great wa to protect their assets, ou know, and kind of we had the alving happen. So there's there's really this perfect storm of action happeni g around Bitcoin that has led to, you know, this real price i crease as fast as it did. Al o, you have this crazy world n w of internet and memes, and Dog coin and, you know, stocks nd all of this and people re really just kind of wising p to the fact that we don't l ve Wall Street, you know, w can't really trust these b nks. Constantly, you're hearing about these banks being fined f r money laundering or some ot er crazy thing that they're doing and I think people are rea ly losing faith in the banks, nd the system and the Fed and Bitcoin really just checks ff all of the boxes to fix thi . So long story short, we're i a perfect storm right now. An it's very bullish for Bitcoin.

Matt Zahab:

 17:02

What's it going to take to get us past this 55 we'll call it 55 k resistance level? We've been here for a while, shot up to what 63 a couple weeks ago, went back down the whole hash rate, drop the blackout in China, the whole nine yards, it all happened agai , no one's complaining about bei g at 55 it's still probably high r than we all thought it would b . But it seems like we're a litt e stagnant at the moment, whi e Ethereum and you know, eve y shit coin on the block s picking up steam is going 1 0 miles a minute, What's going o be the catalyst to push us ov r the edge in a good way, the go

Richard Levin:

 17:39

You know, it's really difficult to pinpoint all d edg of these things, that again, everything's cyclical, you know, the alts are pumping right now, which is great, you know, if alts are your thing, and you're making a ton of money, great, you know. We tend to see a lot of times money gets sucked out of Bitcoin and into the alts when when certain ones are pumping like that. And while there's no rhyme or reason, a lot of times, you know, there's a lot of people who are playing in this market, and you know, some whales that can be pushing things around. But the long and the short of it is, is that, you know, nothing has really changed, all of the institutions are still buying, you know, all of the hodlers are still hoddling. I'm not selling my Bitcoin, you're not selling your Bitcoin, none of my friends are selling. So I think that, you know, we're certainly going to see a leg up here. Hopefully, it'll be, you know, a nice, healthy summer for all of us. But, you know, a rhyme or reason as far as timing can be really hard to do. And I hate trying to predict the markets like that, but I'm still mega bullish on Bitcoin right now. And I think that, you know, we'll let these alts play their little game, you know, Elon will do SNL who knows what will happen with all that, but I think that that money will absolutely flow back into bitcoin soon.

Matt Zahab:

 18:47

Another topic that you and I have spoken about off the record is clean versus dirty Bitcoin. I think this is such a cool topic. And I really think it's really going to be something prominent in the years to come. People care about things that are true, things that are clean, real and that are done the right way. Mind you, there's no such thing as a right way or wrong way when it comes to this. It's all hypothetical, but tell our audience about the difference between clean and dirty Bitcoin and what exactly those terms mean.

Richard Levin:

 19:18

Got it. Okay. So there's really kind of two different ways that this comes up and there's almost like two different kinds of quote unquote dirty Bitcoin. The first is clean energy side of things right. So there's a couple people right now who are who are playing this whole you know, Bitcoin uses too much energy and we only want Bitcoin, Virgin Bitcoin. So that's from the miners, right? It hasn't been transacted yet. It's just been created by the miners, but created with clean, renewable energy. So let's say you have a Bitcoin mining operation that is 100% powered by wind or hydro electric from a waterfall or something like that, and you're mining Bitcoin. And a big institution wants to buy that from you. I guess you could call that green Bitcoin or clean Bitcoin or renewable Bitcoin. It's kind of a wonky thing, and it's something that's come up recently with this whole, you know, is Bitcoin bad for the environment debate. So that's one aspect of it, I'm not really sure how that will play out, you know, at some point, those Bitcoins are going to get transacted, and you know, they're going to be mixed in the hash with or on a block with other Bitcoin that aren't clean. So I don't know about all that. The other side of this is dirty Bitcoin, in the sense that they have been mixed. So a good example of this, let's say, is a huge hack, right? If there was a big hack on an exchange, and someone took a ton of Bitcoin, and then they tried to mix it or wash it in smaller transactions, or let's say, swap it for privacy coin, and then try to swap back to Bitcoin. It has kind of a dirty past to it, so to speak. So what happens with those dirty Bitcoin is sometimes exchanges will not let them onto their platform, or will not let you cash them out, or they've been red flagged, so to speak. So that's a whole nother side of things that has been a little bit weird, and can be a bit confusing. I mean, an example could be, you know, if you're using something like local bitcoins, and you know, you live in a third world country, and you went and you paid cash, and somebody gave you some Bitcoin, and that so happens to be dirty, and you had no idea you're new to this, you're buying Bitcoin with cash and wherever country and now you have quote, unquote, dirty Bitcoin and you can't put it on an exchange. So there's a lot to this, and I think only time will tell how we solve this problem. If it really is a problem. Or maybe, you know, it's just something that we've created. But I think only time will tell with this. It's really kind of a wonky situation and I'm not even sure that anybody has a clear picture on it to be completely honest at this point.

Matt Zahab:

 22:02

Well said. Folks are going to take a quick break, just want to shout out one of our sponsors, coin poker.com. Coinpoker, you guys have heard me talk about these guys. I absolutely love it. They are a revolutionary blockchain technology based platform that was developed by an ambitious team of poker lovers that use USDT stable coin as the main in game currency and $CHP, as in game fuel, tons of benefits. And this is truly meant for people who love to do a bit of gambling and who love crypto instant secure transactions using USDT, $ETH, Bitcoin, $CHP, you name it my favorite part no KYC literally takes five minutes you're up and buzzing, you can jump on the platform, huge promotions, 1000s and giveaways every single week, They even gave away a Tesla. And there are exclusive benefits and future developments which go right to the community every single day. It is an absolute treat. They also have a mobile app and a sports book whenever I'm on the go and I'm like, oh man got a game coming up soon. Throw a bit of $CHP on it maybe a bit of $BTC or $ETH. However, I rarely do that mostly $CHP. It's a great time highly recommend it that is coinpoker.com check them out. And you will not regret that folks. Let's head back to the show. Richard, you know what coinpoker you ever tried it out? Do you gamble at all?

Richard Levin:

 23:29

I'm not a huge gambler. I have played around with the platform simply because you know, we work with them here at crypto news but I'm yet to really kind of dive into it. However there there are a couple people I want to play so you know maybe you and I love to hop on there and dabble in this.

Matt Zahab:

 23:45

Nice. It's been a while. I miss actually playing poker games on the felt but the sports betting aspect is so cool. That's another industry that the crypto community is just bound to take over sooner rather than later. Couple quick, not quick, per se but some rapid fire things that I'd love to get into. We're recording on Thursday, the sixth in two days. We have the goat man himself, Elon musk. He's jumping on SNL, and he's obviously going to pump the shit out of $DOGE. I've seen him on Twitter recently saying that he's gonna have some skit about the $DOGE father that guys are absolute madman. What's gonna happen to $DOGE? Is it going to go to the moon? Like, is it going to actually pass $1? What's up with that?

Richard Levin:

 24:27

You know, Matt, if you had asked me this months ago, I would have said no way. There is no way that that's happening. And asking me today. I mean, it could absolutely happen. It's the most bizarre thing. This whole $DOGE I don't know what you call it, run, but it's very weird. I mean, this is a token that a lot of us who've been in crypto used to just mess around with I mean, you could buy millions of it for nothing. And we used to just play with it and trade it and do all kinds of stuff and now, you know, I mean, you see kids on tik tok, who are becoming millionaires in the course of a few weeks over it. You know, is it sustainable though? I don't know. I mean, with Bitcoin, you know, we mined under 200 Bitcoin a day, there's not a lot of them. But with $DOGE, I think it's something like 10 million a day we mined. So it's really hard for that number to sustain itself. At the same time, if you look at the on chain analytics, there are a few owners of $DOGE that own a ton. I mean, I was just looking at one wallet the other day, I think it's the largest one that has $23 billion worth of $DOGE. I can guarantee you that at some point, some of these whales are absolutely going to exit the market. And when they do, there is going to be violence, it is going to be really bad. So you know, the thing here with $DOGE is it's kind of a lottery ticket at this point, you know, if you want to have some fun and throw some money at it, sure. But, you know, really be careful with $DOGE you know, if you're day trading $DOGE I, you know, take profit off it get in, get out. But we'll see how things play out. You know, maybe Elon pumps it up for SNL, and then you know, it drops or you know, maybe, it goes to $1.50. It's so hard to tell with this, but it's certainly fun to watch. That's for sure.

Matt Zahab:

 26:20

I think Elon, it's got to be Elon or Mark Cuban, who own that massive $DOGE bag. But like you said, as soon as they get out, like, that's game over. I'm pretty sure Elon has his kids in it so it'd be a little hypocritical if he got out unless his kids are also exiting. And then pretty sure Mark has allowed Dallas Mavericks fans to you know, buy tickets, and suites with Dogecoin. So again, like maybe they are in it for a long run. I forget who it was, someone, one of the big dogs also said that once $DOGE hit the dollar, it's going to become a stable coin.

Richard Levin:

 26:52

I don't know how that's possible. You know, typically with stable coins, you know, you put $1 in, you get $1 of stable coin, right. You know, if you're printing or minting, you know, millions of them a day. I don't understand how that works. But then again, I don't understand how the Fed works, and they print trillions of dollars. So who knows what's gonna happen with this, but it's certainly fun to watch.

Matt Zahab:

 27:16

Let's jump back to more. I guess $DOGE has an application for this too. You started a company called seedsecure, I know it's still in the infancy stages, still a startup, you've sold hundreds, if not 1000s of them. Really cool. You bless me on one appreciate you doing that. I use it for my cold wallet, can you please tell our fans a little bit about seedsecure, and I love the name, tell me the name makes sense. But start from the name and then go to the whole product. And in the next steps.

Richard Levin:

 27:46

Absolutely. And I'll preface this with it's not some crazy tech company. It's pretty simple stuff. But you know, it was born out of necessity. So obviously, if you use a cold wallet, or even now a hot wallet, meta mask anything, you have a private key. And that private key is turned into words. It's either, you know, usually 12 words or 24 words. And you have to keep it safe, right? It's really, really important that you never lose your seed phrase. So you want to keep it secure, hence the name seed secure. But I'll tell you exactly what this is. So a while back when I first got my first cold wallet, and I was writing down my 24 words, I said to myself, like this is my backup, if I ever lose this or it disintegrates, and I my hard wallet disappears, gets stolen, broken burns up. All I have is this piece of paper and I did not feel comfortable, just with a piece of paper. So I started looking into other options. And you know, I've seen people have metal plates that they were, you know, etching or tapping their seed phrases into and I loved it and I bought one actually. And I paid I think I paid like 50 or $60 for this little piece of metal. And I thought to myself, that's crazy. But you know, it was a necessity. So I did it. Flash forward you know, a couple years I had multiple wallets on multiple different platforms. I have multiple cold wallets as well and paying like $60 for each one of these metal plates that was literally just a piece of metal seemed ridiculous to me. And then even worse, the where I was buying them from I think it was Amazon at the time, they were completely sold out for months. So I said to myself, This is ridiculous. How much could these be to make? So I actually went down the rabbit hole there I found a company that you know, presses steel, everything like that. I got a quote and I just made my own. And so I decided since the price point was pretty cheap to make and you know, it's pretty inexpensive to ship these things that they shouldn't be 50 or $60 a piece. I feel like there should be 20 bucks shipping included. So that's exactly what I did. I created seedssecure.io we essentially will ship The metal plate that has 24 slots on it, then you can etch or tap your seed phrase into it. It comes with a secure envelope and a tamper resistant seal. So that once you etch it and put it in there, you know that no one's read it. So even if somebody in your house finds it, you'll know if they opened it and read your seed phrase. All of this comes mailed to your home for 20 bucks. So it's super easy. I sent a bunch to some influencers and some friends and stuff like that, and people plug it sometimes on different clubhouse channels, things like that. But I get quite a few orders. I mean, I'm shipping these things out all the time, which I'm happy to do, because at the end of the day, really what we're doing is helping people secure their crypto and not lose their hard earned funds.

Matt Zahab:

 30:48

Folks, I highly recommend getting a seedsecure, I have one as well, I absolutely love it. We're not plugging this here, no free ads on the show. However, when the guest comes on, they can plug what ever they want. And I truly do have one and they are awesome. Cold wallets versus hot wallets. You were one of the people I went to ask a bunch of my friends, my crypto gurus who know a lot more about the space than I do. I asked them at what number, financial number do you switch your funds from the hot wallet to cold wallet? I know it's a contextual question too hard one to answer it. But is there a rule of thumb? Or is there any light you can shed on that? What's the best practice there?

Richard Levin:

 31:27

You know, it's interesting, I've kind of changed my answer on this recently. And essentially, my answer now is whatever you're comfortable losing, leave that on the exchange, and whatever you're comfortable keeping forever, put that on your cold wallet, whether that's $500, for you, $10,000, for you, whatever, just know that if it's on the web, or if it's on a hot wallet, or if it's on an exchange, that's the only place you're susceptible to hacking, you know, once you get that onto your cold wallet, if you're you know, doing it correctly, and following the right protocols, you're safe. So everything on that cold wallet is safe. And for me, I you know, every month or so I transfer onto my cold wallet, you know, or sometimes even sooner, but really, for you out there in the world, whatever, you're comfortable losing, leave on the web. It could happen, it probably won't. But it could, you know, we've certainly seen mount Gox or some of these other, you know, cuadra in Canada, all kinds of things happen. So I think it's best practice if you can, if you're able to put it on a cold wallet, and just have that peace of mind.

Matt Zahab:

 32:38

Totally agree. But I beg to differ in regards to yield farming, getting IP. What about if you put on a cold wallet, you're most likely losing the ability to garner a pretty sizable yield on a platform like Celsius, or block phi is that worth it in the long run?

Richard Levin:

 32:59

You know, this really, it comes down to personal preference. So you know, full transparency here, I keep a lot of my funds on my cold wallet. But I also do use block phi. I do use some of these other things. You know, I'm you know, I talk about Bitcoin all the time, and I love it, but I'm not a true Maxi, I have alt coins and I absolutely I'm staking stuff, I'm certainly, you know, collecting yield on some stuff. And that's fine. You know, if you're at that level of crypto now where you know, you're staking and yield farming or you're in liquidity pools, you know, you've probably got a good grasp on that. And for that, of course, you do need hot wallets, you know, I use meta mask all the time, you know, I'm in it, you know, 50 times a day. But essentially, you know, the way I look at it is my cold wallet is like my savings account. And my hot wallets kind of like my checking account, you know, for those coins that I know I'm not touching for a long time, if ever, you know, they stay cold, you know, for the stuff I'm flipping around or you know, tossing here tossing there, they stay hot. And you know, that's kind of the way I've just rolled with it.

Matt Zahab:

 34:10

That's a great line. My hot wallet is like my checking account and my cold wallet is like my savings account. That is great. You're gonna see someone patent that sooner rather than later. This has been awesome couple more rapid fire questions, and we will wrap it up. Even though you are a huge Bitcoin lover, you're not a Bitcoin maxi but you have definitely learned a lot about Bitcoin. Very quickly. What is the best place to learn about Bitcoin besides reading articles on cryptonews, where's the second best place?

Richard Levin:

 34:38

So you have to you absolutely have to read the Bitcoin standard. That's like the first book I give people when they want to go down the rabbit hole. It really starts getting your mind thinking in a whole different type of currency. Right? It teaches you about fiat currency which you kind of really need to understand before you learn about cryptocurrency and why it's so important decentralization, all of this. So I highly recommend the Bitcoin standard. That's number one. Jason Williams wrote a great book called hard money you can't fuck with. I love that. So going parabolic is his Twitter handle. That's a great book. And then really as crazy as it sounds, Twitter has been a great place to learn. If you can get through all the shit posts and all the you know, antics on Twitter or crypto Twitter for that matter. There's a lot of really good stuff kind of buried in there so you know, you have to navigate at your own risk so to speak but you know, you can really dig some important and solid info out of there. You know, Michael Saylor's on there all the time, he did this Saylor series with guy swan. That's amazing. I found that on, you know, Twitter, that's a podcast as well now. So there's a lot of Intel out there. But you can always also check out cryptonews.com. If you're, you know, looking for up to date,

Matt Zahab:

 35:56

Love that. I often ask our guests, what will happen first Bitcoin at 100k or Ethereum at five? Now that question is almost nullified. Seems priced in that Ethereum has that in the bag, I think $ETH is at what 3.3 or point four today? It's on a tear. So I'm gonna switch the question, what will come first $BTC at 100 or $ETH at 10?

Richard Levin:

 36:20

That's a tough one. So $BTC at 100 or $ETH at 10? That could probably be $BTC. At 100. I really think that, you know, once we find out who all these institutions that have been buying up all this Bitcoin are that, you know, number go up, you know. $ETH at 10k? that'll probably happen too. I don't know if it'll happen as fast as Bitcoin. But you know, if it's $ETH at 5k, I think that may happen relatively quick. But yeah, so I'm thinking, you know, if it's 100k or 10k, I'm thinking Bitcoin takes that one.

Matt Zahab:

 36:54

What company that does not have a coin? Or maybe they have a coin, but coin aside currencies aside? What crypto company are you the most bullish on right now?

Richard Levin:

 37:05

You know, I've really liked what blockfi is doing, I think blockfi is really revolutionary, you know. Being able to essentially use your crypto just like you would a checking account and or lend on it, you know, take loans on it. I think that that's really the future of this. You know, Bitcoin is amazing, Ethereum is amazing and all of these, you know, other cryptos that are coming out these tokens, a lot of them have amazing use cases, but being able to now borrow against them, lend against them, that type of thing. That's really taking it to the next level. You know, I always say, people ask me, well, when are you going to sell your Bitcoin? And I always say to them, hopefully, never, hopefully, I'll just be able to borrow against them later. When I need Fiat cash or US dollars, or whatever I need. Hopefully, I never have to sell my Bitcoin and companies like Blockfi are absolutely making that happen. So shout out to blockfi these guys really in the last few years. I'm very impressed with what they're doing.

Matt Zahab:

 38:03

I want to steal a question from one of the podcasts I love, Invest like the best from Patrick O'Shaughnessy. And that question is, what is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you? I know that's a tough one, but I love that question.

Richard Levin:

 38:17

Well, the nicest thing that someone's ever done for me, you know, I have a really good family friend who gave me an opportunity in the sales and advertising world, and really helped mentor me and really took me kind of to the next level in life. And I think it's really important when you have somebody who does that for you kind of a boss or a mentor, somebody who really, really cares and helps carry you and teaches you and is really like that, and I had that happen for me. And I'm very grateful for this family friend. I think it really kind of leveled me up in life, so to speak. So that was probably the best thing anyone's ever done for me.

Matt Zahab:

 38:58

Awesome. I might start incorporating that into the eppy. He is such a good one. But again, it's not original. I snagged it directly from him. He ends that episode, every single time and I cannot end it the same as him. So I have one last question for you. I guess second last question. There are so many terms in the crypto glossary. This is a crazy question, but what is your favorite term?

Richard Levin:

 39:18

Oh, this one's easy for me. It's BTFD buy the fucking dip. I say it to people all the time. You know, people will text me and they're like bitcoins dropping. What do I do? Like dude, buy the fucking dip. So that's it easy.

Matt Zahab:

 39:34

You heard it here, buy the dip. Richard, this has been awesome loved having you on. Where can our guests find you before you take off today? Where can they find you on socials?

Richard Levin:

 39:43

So you can find me on Instagram at New York or Paris? Love those cities so and you can find me on Twitter at Bonjour Bitcoin.

Matt Zahab:

 39:53

New York or Paris on Insta and bonjour Bitcoin on crypto Twitter. You heard it here. Richard, thank you so much for jumping on. This has been awesome and I am 100% positive that you will be on again whether that is a guest, as a guest host or a guest in general. Thanks again for coming on. Appreciate you.

Richard Levin:

 40:14

My pleasure. Thanks,

Matt Zahab:

 40:15

Folks, that was it for today's episode. I hope you had a blast listening to Richard Levin VP of global sales at our very own cryptonews.com. This is a lovely one and we hope you have a incredible weekend weekday whenever this airs hope you have just incredible day all together. Thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this one, it would mean the world if you could subscribe to our podcast. We started out not too long ago. It's been about six weeks we're buzzing we're really picking up steam. And we've received a lot of good feedback and we'd love you for that. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, anything you'd like to see change, hit us up on Twitter you can find me at Matt Zahab two T's called Catholic parents got real original with the name Matt, and that is about it. Folks love y'all and have a wonderful rest of the day. Have a good one. Bye.