Have You Fallen for These Crypto Myths?

Believing any of these 13 myths could cost you money

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, September 15th. Coming up on today's show, generating income from, of all places, crypto. And are you stacking SATs? I'll explain that term today. But first, crypto is getting a lot of attention these days because of the major lawsuit the SEC just lost against grayscale. And that means crypto ETFs are expected to be soon available. The most popular investment vehicle that offers the lowest cost and greatest convenience, giving you access like never before to this new asset class of crypto. But there are still a lot of crypto myths out there and I want to take this opportunity to dispel them. 13 myths, in fact.

Number one, the myth that crypto is only used by criminals. According to Chainanalysis, illicit activity is involved in less than 1% of all crypto transactions. Cash, by contrast, according to the World Bank, is used in up to 5% of all transactions. In other words, cash is used five times more illegally than crypto.

Another myth is that crypto is unregulated. That's nonsense. Global standards were issued way back in 2019 by the Intergovernmental group, the Financial Action Task Force. These rules require crypto businesses in both the US and overseas to follow anti-money laundering requirements and maintain transaction information under what's known as the travel rule. Singapore regulates digital payment service providers. So does South Korea and Australia. The United Arab Emirates has a virtual asset regulatory authority, and this past April, the European Union passed MiCA, the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation Law, the first comprehensive legislation in Europe for regulating digital assets. Here in the US, crypto businesses that act as money services businesses are required to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act. More than a year ago, President Biden signed an Executive Order on ensuring responsible development of digital assets to ensure financial stability, prevent illicit activity, and to protect national security. To say that crypto is unregulated is just plain wrong.

Or how about this myth that all crypto is Bitcoin? Well, Bitcoin is the oldest and still biggest. It's about 50% of the total market share of the entire crypto world. But there are now 24,000 different digital coins and tokens. The total market cap for crypto is over $1 trillion. It is not all about bitcoin.

Another myth is that crypto is anonymous and therefore untraceable. Wrong. Far from being anonymous, blockchain technology is the most transparent, democratized financial system the world has ever seen. All the transactions are recorded in a public ledger anybody can see.

Or how about this myth that crypto has no real world uses? In fact, there are lots of real world uses already in place, especially in emerging markets. One of the most important is remittances. This is moving money from one person to another, making payments, International payments for individuals and small business owners are increasingly being done in crypto because it's faster and cheaper than traditional banking methods. Remittances are also enabling charitable giving. For example, when Russia first invaded Ukraine, $56 million in donations were made to Ukraine via crypto. 6 million was sent to victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

Crypto is also useful in countries with runaway inflation. Just look at Venezuela, where they have hyperinflation of 250% a year. Venezuelans received over $37 billion worth of crypto last year, and they're only the sixth highest users of crypto in Latin America.

Or how about this? A central bank digital currency supposedly will make existing crypto like bitcoin obsolete. That is a myth. A CBCD, a central bank digital currency, that's basically a digital dollar. We already have dollars. There are paper dollars. We already have stocks. Think about it. Cash and stocks peacefully coexist. They are totally separate. So a digital dollar will have nothing to do with digital money like bitcoin. CBDCs won't destroy bitcoin. In fact, just the opposite. It'll legitimize and justify bitcoin. Don't worry about CBDCs rendering your bitcoin worthless.

Myth number seven that all digital coins and tokens are alike. Really, 24,000 of them, and they're all the same. When's the last time you walked into a restaurant with a very diverse menu, but every item on the menu being identical? Of course, they're not all alike. Each of these digital assets was created to solve a different problem. Maybe the thing you're trying to solve is speed. You want to make transactions go faster. Maybe it's security. You want transactions to be safer. Maybe you want transactions to be cheaper. Whatever it is you're trying to solve, there are tens of thousands of different coins, each trying to solve a particular problem, just like we have lots of different pairs of shoes in your closet, each solving a different problem whether you're playing tennis or going dancing. Same thing with crypto.

And that's why my next myth is one of my favorites to dispel, that crypto is a fad. It's been around for 15 years. That's pretty long for a fad. The market cap is over $1 trillion. 400 million people around the world own bitcoin. Governments around the globe are implementing or investigating CBDCs. The Atlantic Council studied 45 of these countries and found that three quarters of them are making substantial regulatory changes to accommodate crypto. For example, they're rewriting their tax laws to acknowledge crypto. Our own IRS is doing that here in the US.

Or how about this myth that investing in crypto is gambling? Quite frankly, in my view, not investing is a big gamble.

Or number ten. It's too complicated for consumers to understand crypto. Well, I will admit that the technology can be complicated, but I would also say that there's no need for you to understand a lot of this. Let me put it to you this way. Do you understand the principles of internal combustion? Does that have anything to do with your ability to drive a car? You don't have to know how the engine works. You just need to know the steering wheel, the brake and the gas pedal. Same thing with crypto. You don't have to understand the underlying technological foundations of this. There are more important, more practical elements of crypto that are important for you to understand. The fact that it's complicated is a myth.

Or how about this myth that crypto is bad for the environment? In fact, more than half of all the bitcoin mining, that's the process that we use to create Bitcoin in computer technology. More than half of all the computers being used in crypto is renewable energy, wind, solar, water, even geothermal. So the claim that crypto is bad for the environment is simply not true.

Two more myths. Number 12 is that crypto will replace fiat currency. The allegation that bitcoin will replace dollars. I think that's been proven to be nonsense. That might have been the original goal or intent way back in 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto was writing the white paper describing bitcoin. But I don't think anybody anywhere is expecting bitcoin or any other digital asset to replace government currencies.

And that takes us to the most important myth of all our final myth number 13, that blockchain technology solves all problems. That too is nonsense. Anytime you see anyone anywhere making the claim that blockchain technology solves everything, that is a red flag, that is somebody trying to sell you something with a deceptive marketing pitch. Bitcoin is pretty cool. Blockchain technology is pretty awesome. But no, it is not the end all to everything.

Hey, since we're speaking about all this, you know, one way that you can invest in Bitcoin is via bitcoin futures ETFs. These ETFs don't buy bitcoin. They invest in futures contracts, which are bets about the future price of bitcoin. And because these are ETFs, they're the easiest way to invest in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin futures contracts let you have exposure to bitcoin without actually having to buy bitcoin itself. And one of the ETFs that you can consider in this category is the Global X Blockchain and Bitcoin Strategy ETF. The symbol is BITS. This buys bitcoin futures and it also invests in companies that are positioned to benefit from the increased adoption of blockchain technology. You can learn more about the blockchain and Bitcoin Strategy ETF BITS by visiting Global X ETFs.com or talk to your financial advisor.

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Exclusive Interview: Lee Bratcher, founder of the Texas Blockchain Council

Ric Edelman: Welcome back to The Truth About Your Future. Back in June, I hosted the fifth annual Vision Conference in Austin. It was presented by my company, the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. DACFP VISION is the longest running Digital assets Investment conference that is specifically for financial advisors and accredited investors. This year's conference was our biggest ever. It was attended by advisors and investment professionals from all over the country, and Vision 24 is in the planning stages. I'll keep you posted here so you can block your calendar. One of the sessions we did in June featured Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council. They are now known as the North American Blockchain Council. Our conversation included staking and securing digital property rights. Here's the entire conversation for you right now on abridged and uncensored.

Ric Edelman: So even though you're with the Texas Blockchain Council, you just flew into town from Dallas. 

Lee Bratcher: Oh, a great city in the state of Texas. 

Ric Edelman: So you weren't here for our conversation with Josh Brown? I was not. So Josh raved about how much he likes staking. Josh, Josh is not a fan of staking, and he is. He questions its legality and fears that it would bring rain down upon an individual regulatory scrutiny. So let's start there. Before we get into that that particular question, tell everybody about the Texas Blockchain Council and the work that you do, because this is a there are 50 states, but there are not 50 blockchain councils. And even among the states that do have some engagement and involvement, Texas is pretty much at the forefront thanks to your leadership. So talk about the Texas Blockchain Council. Sure. 

Lee Bratcher: Thanks, Ric. Well, it's an honor to be here, guys. I founded and now run the Texas Blockchain Council. We're a nonprofit industry association working to make Texas a leader in digital assets. We work with policymakers, elected officials, regulators, both here in Austin and also in DC. And as you all know, over the last year, the regulatory climate has worsened and become an ever increasing challenge for the digital asset industry. So we do that for our member companies. We work on regulatory and policy work with registered lobbyists. We also do a lot of business development work for our corporate member companies, introducing them to potential clients, employees, investors, etcetera. 

Ric Edelman: And let's jump into Josh's comment. Everybody here is pretty well familiar with crypto. Everyone I think here is familiar with how staking works. So talk about the world of staking. And the big news last year was Ethereum shift over to POS. So talk about staking as an investment strategy from a regulatory perspective. What are your overall thoughts about staking?

Lee Bratcher: It may come as a surprise to many of you that I probably agree with Josh in some ways about staking. I think there is, from the perspective of a consensus mechanism, proof of work is the lowest risk from a regulatory perspective. So mining, bitcoin, mining and proof of work, mining as a consensus mechanism is pretty well de-risked by from a regulatory perspective. I think staking does have does carry with it some amount of regulatory risk. Now if you're staking on Ethereum, probably much less risk there than say on one of the altcoins named in the SEC suit against Binance or Coinbase. So in this environment, knowing that you guys have licenses and clients that require you to operate at a certain level, that you may not necessarily operate as an individual investor, but as you're advising your clients, I would say that being cautious around staking is wise, not necessarily taking it off the table altogether, but sticking with tried and true chains like Ethereum or other EVM chains that that haven't been put into the limelight by the SEC. 

Ric Edelman: So a couple of thoughts there. First, staking isn't as sexy as it was a year ago. I mean, today you're getting yields of 3 or 4%. Why bother when you can get a Treasury at a higher rate than that compared to a year ago when stakers were getting 20%. So that's one just logistic element from an investment perspective. But from a philosophical or strategic perspective, I find it interesting and frankly, a little bit refreshing and sobering that someone who just from the name of the organization, the Blockchain Council, would seem to suggest that you're a massive proponent of all things crypto, but you're providing a rather measured approach to this, a rather mature attitude, as opposed to the crypto bro mentality that you typically find. Does that attitude go beyond just crypto? Talk about the role that you've played in helping Texas form its policy and regulation and legislation in this state. Are you viewed  as a mainstream player or are you viewed as one of the extreme? They clearly represent the industry kind of approach.

Lee Bratcher: That’s a good question. We have had a very intentional focus of being a very professional actor in the space in Texas, particularly because over the last ten years there has been a lot of friction, as you guys know, between the crypto bro and elected officials and political elites. And so we are very conservative in our approach to the legislation and such a way that oftentimes exchanges or those in the DeFI industry look at us as almost the enemy because we are so interested in transparency, regulatory scrutiny, because there is no path forward in the United States without at least a properly and lightly regulated framework. And we think that the states are able to produce that at a more rapid pace than the federal government.

I'll give you an example. We just passed a few weeks ago a bill in Texas House Bill 1666 that is requiring all digital asset service providers that operate in the state of Texas to provide proof of reserve audits to the Texas Department of Banking in order to retain their money transmission license. Now, any exchange that operates in Texas is pretty much every exchange except for Binance US. So Texas is such a large market and a higher proportion of Texans than the national average engage in digital asset trading. So all of these exchanges are here. Therefore a law in Texas that requires this is going to require them to comply nationally because they can't afford to lose the Texas market. So that's a quarterly proof of reserve. It's an attestation, not an audit. So a distinction there. Quarterly proof of reserve attestation that goes into effect September first. That will add a little bit of compliance cost for exchanges. But I think the benefit of increased transparency and the risk that that transparency or that trust in these exchanges never comes back after FTX is going too far exceed the 5 or 6 figure compliance costs that exchanges are going to have to pay to comply with these. 

Ric Edelman: But since it is an attestation as opposed to an audit, how confident are reliable is it? I mean. If I'm a crook and you ask me if I'm a crook and I say no, I attest, I'm not a crook. I mean, how that's different from a third party auditor saying, No, I can tell you the guy's not a crook. So how confident can we be in that? 

Lee Bratcher: It's a good point, and I should have clarified it is a third party attestation by an auditor, so it's just not a full audit. Okay. It is a it is a third party attestation that they'll use actually on chain wallet addresses to match liabilities and assets. 

Ric Edelman: Well, that’s a horse of a different color. So does raise the bar a bit. I'm a little surprised because if the Texas Blockchain Council is behaving in this manner and acting in a way that is clearly investor consumer focused with an eye toward the needs and obligations of the advisory community. That's not what you typically see in the crypto community. I spent a lot of time with a lot of these organizations and that's a different perspective. So talk a little bit about your background, Lee. What was your journey down the crypto rabbit hole and what led you to forming and leading the Texas Blockchain Council and the developing the perspective that you have, because it is a little different. 

Lee Bratcher: Yeah, intentionally different. I think we won't see success in this industry. We won't see the United States become a leading player in this industry if we don't take that perspective. So we push hard against crypto Twitter when they erupt with irreverent thoughts or, you know, just unprofessional all thoughts. So my background is... I was a...

Ric Edelman: He's not wearing a hoodie, you know, for example.

Lee Bratcher: Exactly. I was a political science professor here at a University in Texas for several years, an Army officer. I still am a reserve Army officer for the 75th Innovation Command, which is based here in Austin. So I come at this from sort of a national security mindset in that we need to see this innovation flourish, but we need to see it flourish in the right through the right channels. And so my path down the rabbit hole to finding Bitcoin seven, eight, nine years ago was actually researching property rights. And as a political science professor, understanding how property rights decrease the potential for conflict both in the developed world, but most specifically in the developing world. When you're secure in your property rights, you're less likely to join any sort of roving bandit or warlord. And so that's how I came to the industry. I discovered Bitcoin and I discovered the whitepaper and I thought, this is the most secure form of property rights that have ever existed in the digital ecosystem. It is a little bit harder for us to understand as Americans because we are blessed with a century plus multiple centuries of secure property rights that has gotten better throughout the history of our country. But we've almost forgotten in our collective consciousness how we got here. So secure property rights means a lot more to someone in Peru or Venezuela or Africa or Latin America, wherever, than it might to a US citizen who's been secure in their property rights for their entire life. So that's how I came to the industry. 

Ric Edelman: Talk about the interaction with other states. Is there any do you collaborate with the other 49 plus DC, and how influential is Texas in that effort? 

Lee Bratcher: Yeah, Texas leads that effort through an entity called the US Blockchain Coalition. It's just a loose federation of state associations. There are 40 state associations, so we haven't gotten to all 50 states yet. I'd say the vast majority of those are just hobby shops with like a one man operation, very little budget or influence. There's about 4 or 5 that command some influence in their states, strong ones in Florida, California. North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. So there are some strong associations there that actually have enough revenue to employ lobbyists, make political contributions and actually affect policy. Texas is the largest by a long shot. We have a staff of 5 or 6 with multiple lobbyists on staff, which at the state level is much larger than any of the other associations. But we do share best practices with the other states. And we're seeing policy and legislation pass almost on a weekly basis in various states. And we've not seen really any progress other than bills being filed at the federal level, although we are quite supportive of the McHenry bill and the Joint AG and Financial Services Bill that Representative McHenry has put forward at the federal level. We are just not optimistic that the Senate is going to pass that in the next 12 to 18 months. 

Ric Edelman: Or is that because of the Lummis Gillibrand bill or because (Senators Elizabeth) Warren and Bernie (Sanders) are working to kill it? 

Lee Bratcher: I just don't think the political capital is there in the Senate to pass it. 

Ric Edelman: Which is a different viewpoint than you get when you listen to the Republicans in the House. They are more optimistic. 

Lee Bratcher: I think they're optimistic publicly because they  want to be seen as the innovators. I think privately you would ask them and they know that this is going to run into some problems in the Senate. 

Ric Edelman: So where do you get your funding? Who are your members? 

Lee Bratcher: So we get funding from traditional companies like Deloitte, law firms here in Texas like Hunton and Kurth. Goodness, 'm forgetting some of the law firm's names, but 3 or 4 law firms. Predominantly, though, we get funding from companies in the digital asset industry. So Bitcoin miners, publicly traded miners like Riot, Marathon, Rhodium. Et cetera. Different exchanges like Coinbase, Abra, BinanceUS, companies like that. 

Ric Edelman: Okay, that's great background. Let's shift to some of the policy issues. The biggest one that everybody is focusing on is custody. It's one thing to buy crypto. Where do you store it? Talk about what you're working on in the area of custody. 

Lee Bratcher: Well, it is important, especially for you guys, to find qualified custodians. I think that's as a consumers, we don't really think that way, right? We can self-custody, but that doesn't work in the registered investment advisor world. So qualified and custodians are important. And so we try to elevate those that have achieved that status. And so one piece of legislation that we worked on last session in the 87th session in Texas, which would have been 2021, is a bill that updated business law in Texas. It updated the Texas Uniform Commercial Code around custody and perfecting security interests in digital assets.

So in Texas, you can now perfect your security interest in this digital asset, not by having to file a UCC one claim, but by actually possessing the cryptographic key. So making it a true bearer instrument where a custodian can cause all other claims to be null and void and perfect their security interest through possession of the cryptographic key or two of the three keys if it's like a multi-sig. So that is a key innovation in business law that makes qualified custodians more capable in their activity on behalf of a registered investment advisor. 

Ric Edelman: Are there any qualified custodians that are adopting this? 

Lee Bratcher: Absolutely.  

Ric Edelman: And are they therefore doing it on their full operations, not just in their Texas operations? 

Lee Bratcher: I'm not a lawyer, so I'll qualify it with that. But if you have it written into the contract that that is what qualifies as a perfection of security interests and your state of doing of arbitration, where that law would come into play in Texas, then yes, that is easily done. You can also just write it into a contract in any state and it supersedes the uniform commercial code as long as the contract states that. 

Ric Edelman: So is there a position that you have regarding whether you should custody coins with a custodian such as Coinbase or Gemini or Kraken as opposed to self-custody through a cold wallet? 

Lee Bratcher: So we tell individuals to self-custody through Trezor or Ledger and we provide education. We don't really have a dog in this fight as a nonprofit, so we just provide education for them on how to do that. But for this room, I think all of you guys are well down the path of studying this for years. You're probably using qualified custodians, and I think that's the only option for those that are managing capital at any scale. 

Ric Edelman: And that creates an inherent conundrum, doesn't it, that if your first preference is self-custody, but the advisory community really is in a situation not to be able to do that, that there's just an inherent conflict there. 

Lee Bratcher: I do think there is. And I'm curious as to how you advise on that topic. 

Ric Edelman: Well, there are some new players in the game that are beginning to go back. The problem is that crypto began as a self-contained world. That was, if nothing else, trying to eliminate the financial services industry and make it archaic and unnecessary. So crypto was never all built on a DeFI platform and the notion of self-custody through your own cold wallets. Et cetera. So that was the microcosm, of course, where it began in 2009. We now recognize that the majority are being dealt with within the financial services community. And so custody through custodians and exchanges has become more of a thing. But the crypto products and services generally have not been facilitative of that. That's beginning to change.

Companies like L1 Advisors who are in our exhibit hall, in fact, you'll meet them here at the conference. We'll have a session talking about this are introducing finally really innovative solutions that allow financial advisors to interact with their clients and the clients crypto holdings without taking custody. The client can hold their cold wallet, but the financial advisor can interface with it via a platform like L1. So it's helping to solve that problem because otherwise it is a conundrum and it's a big reason why advisors are often struggling. The intermediary step is to use a custodian that is incredibly reliable, such as Fidelity Digital Assets, because their reputation and their financial strength are both so strong. You can have a pretty high degree of confidence they're not going to let anything go awry from a custody perspective, as opposed to the news this week of Prime Trust, which is getting acquired by another company because they couldn't operate independently any longer. So it it's, I think, further evidence of the continuing evolution of this space. The other low hanging fruit - and we're going to take your questions as well in a minute, so get ready for those - the other low hanging fruit are Stablecoins and CBDCs. Let's start with a CBDC. What's the sentiment here in Texas about that? 

Lee Bratcher: Yeah. As an industry association I would say having spoken with Texas elected officials from the governor down to state senator, state reps, we are very anti central bank digital currency in Texas. Doesn't mean we're anti stablecoins or innovation. We're just anti a direct fed-to-consumer CBDC for a lot of privacy reasons. And I think I won't go into all of those. But where we do see a path forward is a private sector implementation of a CBDC or of a Stablecoin. 

Ric Edelman: And so let's, let's break out the difference, because at the end of the day, a CBDC and a stablecoin are the same thing. The only difference is who created it, who runs it, manages it, controls it, and it is a privacy issue, therefore, isn't it? That's at the end of the day, that's really all you're worried about. 

Lee Bratcher: That's correct. Yeah. And so we would rather see, just like for the last several centuries where traditional financial institutions, including the banking industry, have served as that intermediary between the federal government and the citizenry. We'd want to see that replicated in the stablecoin industry, with companies like Circle, Stably and other US-based Stablecoins like Tether is another thing altogether. Us based stablecoins with clear reserves with cash and cash equivalent backing 1 to 1. There is a business model there.

For example, we're working with various banks and credit unions around how do we bring those stablecoin deposits here to Texas locally, even if because right now BNY Mellon holds the lion's share of US-based stablecoin in the multi billions of dollars of the reserve assets and it's mostly US dollars or treasuries. So that's a totally different world than Tether out here that is investing in bitcoin mining. Don't get me wrong, we're big fans of bitcoin mining, but I do think it becomes a security when you use your reserve assets for a stablecoin to invest in bitcoin mining. So we're pretty centric on or concentrated on keeping the stablecoin ecosystem conservative within the bounds of the United States and within the traditional financial institutions that can make sure that regulators aren't going to cry security every time you issue a stablecoin. 

Ric Edelman: So this has become an interesting political conversation that didn't exist, say, five years ago, several years ago. The Bank for International Settlements, which is the basically the trade organization for central banks around the world, has said that virtually every central bank was developing or at least investigating CBDC technology with the expectation that by the end of this decade, every central bank in the world, every government, would be offering a digital currency version of its fiat.

That sentiment is changing, as countries are saying a combination of we're not sure of the benefits to the consumer. We're not sure of the security and we're really not sure about the privacy and control issues. And here in the United States, as you mentioned, Texas is strongly opposed to a CBDC. Let's face it, Texas is a strong Republican state, both in the state capitol as well as in Congress. Ted Cruz, who is a huge supporter of crypto, is a huge opponent of a CBDC. Elizabeth Warren, who's the other side of his coin or he's the other side of her coin, hates crypto but loves a CBDC. So clearly this has become a left/right Republican/Democrat kind of a conversation. And is it all about privacy? Is that the only issue that you see dividing the parties on this issue? 

Lee Bratcher: You know, I think with Senator Warren, it's more so her opposition to the digital asset industry in general, because we see a lot of Democrats in Texas that are against CBDCs. We had an anti-CBDC resolution that would notify the Texas congressional delegation that the State House and the state government is adamantly opposed to the implementation of a Fed-to-consumer CBDC. And while it didn't pass the Senate, it passed the House unanimously with Democrats in full support. And the reason it didn't pass the Senate is because we just ran out of time. Those Texans in the room will know that the legislative session ended a few weeks ago and we just didn't have time to get it across. It would have certainly passed the Senate as the Senate is more conservative than the House than in Texas. 

Ric Edelman: That doesn't really matter, though, because this is a federal issue. Correct? So that was more of just making a statement. 

Lee Bratcher: We're making a statement. Statements have been made. There are 38 Texas in the U.S. congressional delegation of the 435. So makes a decent push when these states notify their congressional delegation to be opposed.

Ric Edelman:  And stablecoins, since it does not carry that political burden, technologically let the private sector offer it, and it has all the same benefits of a fed-issued stablecoin; call it a day.

Lee Bratcher: Call it a day. So monetary policy is retained. The US government is not giving up their ability to influence. 

Ric Edelman: So this is a very different situation than a year ago where the sentiment was you could be quite confident that you would see CBDC here in the US within a couple of years and globally very broadly, by the end of the decade. That tide is turning, at least for the moment, and that's a new and different development. Any questions for Lee? One final one for you, Lee, and that is talk about the conference in November. You hold this event; I'm going to be appearing at it. Talk about the conference you have coming up. 

Lee Bratcher: Yeah, we're excited to partner with DACFP and yourself, Mr. Edelman on an RIA track at our summit. We have a summit every year in Texas. It's geared towards the industry at writ large, but we're having a pre-summit day with educational tracks continuing ed for attorneys, bankers, CPAs, RIAs and a few other verticals. And so Ric is going to be leading the RIA track at the summit. And so we'll invite all of you guys to join us there for a several hour intensive on the topic of digital assets with a specific regulatory flavor to it. And so anybody who is here is welcome to sign up for the summit with a discount code DACFP, all caps, on our website Texas Blockchain summit.com. And we'll provide you guys with a discount code to join us there in November. It's actually in DFW in November 16th and 17th. 

Ric Edelman: And the Texas Blockchain Council has a booth in the exhibit hall. You can chat with them to learn more about the organization and the conference and get that discount code as well. Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council. Thanks so much for joining us at this conference.

Lee Bratcher: Thanks for having me.

Ric Edelman: That's Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, now the North American Blockchain Council, with me at the fifth annual DACFP VISION Conference in Austin. Next week, here on the podcast, I'll share our conversation from VISION on the safe storage of crypto. Right now, though, you can check out the photos and other highlights of the conference. It's all on my Facebook and Instagram pages. The links are in the show notes.  

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Crypto Explainer: Stacking SATS

Ric Edelman: Every week I like to explain crypto terms that might be new to you. Today, stacking SATs. What on earth is that? It's a phrase you might come upon because it's a favorite among those in the crypto space and you might be stacking SATs without even knowing it. What am I talking about?

Well, you know what Bitcoin is, right? But maybe you're not aware that Bitcoin is over $25,000. Who's got that kind of money to put into an investment as new and emerging and uncertain as Bitcoin? What if you only want to invest 100 bucks or, frankly, ten bucks? You can't afford to buy a Bitcoin with just $1000 or $10. So you know what people do instead, even though they don't know they're doing it. When they buy Bitcoin with only $10, they're not actually buying a Bitcoin. They're buying a Satoshi. What do I mean by that? Well, think about dollars and pennies. Pennies that takes 100 pennies to make $1. So if you don't have enough money to buy dollars, you can accumulate pennies. Our dollars go down to two decimal points. Right? 0.01. That's a penny. And it takes 100 pennies to make $1.

Well, bitcoin does the same thing, but instead of going to two decimal points, it goes to eight decimal points. In other words, 100 million satoshis equals one bitcoin. So when people are buying bitcoin with $10 or $20 or $100, what they're really doing are buying satoshis fractions of bitcoins. You amass enough satoshis, you end up with a bitcoin, just like you amass enough pennies, you end up with dollars. So when people are buying satoshis, they're “stacking SATs”, shorthand, a short term jargon for saying they are accumulating satoshis in an effort to accumulate enough to own a single bitcoin. So if you want to invest in bitcoin, you're going to start out like most people with stacking SATs. Fun jargon. And if you want to hear about more fun jargon, read my book, The Truth About Crypto. 

Ric Edelman: That's it for today. A reminder that the latest episode of Jean’s podcast came out yesterday. Our topic this week is intuitive eating. It may just make a healthy difference in your life. You can listen to Jean’s show wherever you get your podcasts.

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