Exclusive Interview: Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, Host of The Pomp Podcast and Managing Partner of Pomp Investments
Discover Why This Podcast and Investment Guru Remains Bullish on Crypto
I’m really excited to bring onto the program a good friend of mine - Anthony Pompliano, most commonly known as Pomp. If you don't know Pomp, you are missing out. He not only manages a portfolio of about a half a billion dollars in the Bitcoin and crypto industry, but most importantly, the Pomp podcast, one of the most popular podcasts in the world, downloaded more than 50 million times. Pomp also writes a daily letter that is read by, well, more than 225,000 investors every morning, and his tweets have 700,000 followers. If you are trying to follow the world of Bitcoin and crypto, et cetera and you're not following Pomp, well, you're not really doing the job right. Pomp, welcome to the program. Good to see you, my friend.
Anthony Pompliano: Thank you so much for that warm introduction there.
Ric Edelman: So, you know, it's not the most fun of times that we're having this conversation. We're in the middle of yet another crypto winter. Talk about what your observations are about what's happening in the crypto world these days.
Anthony Pompliano: Yeah, look, the Bitcoin crypto industry is pretty unique in that it has had multiple boom and bust cycles, but it's been on an expedited timeline. If, you know, most people look at the technology industry and they go back and they think of the last kind of bad time and they all point to the tech bust of 2000, and yeah, there was the global financial crisis, but that was more kind of macro market, not just tech. I think with Bitcoin and crypto industry, we've seen this happen over and over and over again and a huge piece of it is - one, that's being built on top of the Internet. So there's been faster global adoption than we saw with the Internet or other technologies. But two, is that there's not a lot of the kind of intervention in the market that you may see elsewhere. And so a simple example would be hours of operation. Obviously, the stock market ends up being closed on weekends or certain hours during the day, whereas the Bitcoin crypto market trades 24/7/365. And so what that ultimately does is it allows it to operate as a more free market. I don't know if you would argue that it's a completely free market, but definitely more of a free market. And so naturally human psychology plays a huge piece. When prices start going up, people get excited. And then of course, as we get towards the bottom of markets, people get much more fearful probably than they need to be. So I think what we're watching is just these assets are tied very closely to human psychology. But over time, I do think volatility will go down and we'll get less of the boom-and-bust cycles.
Ric Edelman: Everybody loves to buy when the price is high, and everybody loves to sell when the price is low. And of course, buying high selling low is the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do to achieve long-term investment success. So where would you say we are in the midst of this? I mean, we saw Bitcoin hit almost $70,000 last November. Are you losing confidence in this? Do you regret your engagement in the crypto community?
Anthony Pompliano: I definitely don't regret it. Back in 2018, in the bear market, Bitcoin had fallen from $20,000 to about $3,000 and I went on national television and was getting yelled at by Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary. And he was saying, Hey, look, now, what are you doing? I am willing to change my mind if I see material differences in the underlying fundamentals. But when you look at Bitcoin, the strength of the network is near an all-time high, and I think that's what makes it so exciting right now.
Ric Edelman: There have been two ways for people to engage in crypto as an investment. One, traditionally simply buy Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever other crypto coin or token you choose as an alternative. I'll buy stocks of companies that are in the crypto space. Do you recommend that people buy the actual coin, buy bitcoin, or do you recommend that people buy companies that are in the crypto space instead?
Anthony Pompliano: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know if there's a single answer for everyone. There's a lot of people who just want to go buy gold and hold gold, but there's other people who say, Hey, I want productive assets that have exposure to that, and so they'll go buy the gold miners. I think that Bitcoin and kind of the surrounding industry and infrastructure is very similar.
Ric Edelman: We're talking with Anthony Pompliano, the head of the Pomp podcast, one of the most popular podcasts on the Internet, dealing with crypto and Bitcoin and such. Along those lines, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust trades under the symbol GBTC. There's also Bitwise's BITW. These trusts are popular with investors because you can trade them easily at Charles Schwab, for example, and a Schwab brokerage account. And that's simpler, easier, more familiar than buying Bitcoin in any other way. But these things are popular predominantly because there's no ETF in the marketplace. The SEC hasn't said yes to that. Even though Grayscale and Bitwise, among others, have both filed applications with the SEC to create an ETF, the SEC has repeatedly denied those applications. Talk about your views of this.
When Will the SEC Approve a Bitcoin ETF?
Anthony Pompliano: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know what the answer is. Where I think the situation got more complicated was when the SEC decided, Hey, we're not going to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF, but they approved the futures ETF and not just a long futures ETF, but a short futures ETF as well. And it begs the question, why is a spot Bitcoin ETF not approved in the United States?
Ric Edelman: What is it you're recommending that people allocate in their portfolios to crypto? How much should you place of your total portfolio?
Anthony Pompliano: The best thing to do is to always ensure that you don't blow yourself up, right? It's kind of like “be a risk mitigator”. And so when it comes to something like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, although the enthusiasts, myself included, are incredibly bullish on this stuff, and we spend all day and have dedicated a large portion of our lives to understanding it and talking about it and investing in it, the average person probably is better off somewhere between like 1% to 5%, right? If they lost 1% of their portfolio, they're mad. But, you know, it's not the end of the world. 1% to 5% set it. Forget it. That's really the way to think through it.
Ric Edelman: One final question for you, Pomp, and that is the job market in crypto. If you were counseling a kid who's entering college trying to figure out what should they do as in a career prospect, is the crypto community something to consider from a career perspective?
Anthony Pompliano: Yeah, we think this is probably one of the biggest opportunities, we've built an entire business in that sector. And what I think that we found is if you look at the crypto industry as a whole, it is one of, if not the fastest growing economic sector globally in terms of the amount of venture capital that's coming in, the amount of enterprise value that's been created, the amount of pay that individual employees are making, the amount of investment returns that are being captured. So from that standpoint, there's a ton of growth, but also it's still pretty early. You probably shouldn't go join a really, really large corporation where innovation and some of the exciting stuff isn't happening. There's so much opportunity, pays good, remote work is possible. It's an important mission, and I think that it's a great place for people to go look.
Ric Edelman: That's Anthony Pompliano of Pomp Investments and the Pomp Podcast. You can follow Pomp on Twitter at @APompliano. Pomp, great to be with you. Thanks for joining us on the show.
Anthony Pompliano: Absolutely. Thanks so much, Ric. I appreciate it.
Ric Edelman: We actually spoke to Pomp for over 20 minutes. You can hear and see the interview at TheTruthAYF.com.