 Welcome to digital asset news to get top stories and crypto currency digital assets and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. So it's everything a little bit something different, not too much about the news. I've got Alex Becker here. He is the CEO of Hyroos, the data analytics firm. And what I wanna talk to him about is probably one of the more important things that you're gonna hear, which is what do you do when you suddenly become a millionaire? Because we're all talking about how great the crypto currency digital asset space is, how things are gonna just propel us. But what happens when overnight you become a millionaire and what do you do? Do you make smart decisions and save types of things? Or do you make some really crazy purchases and do some dumb things? So I brought Alex on because he's done some dumb things just like me. And this is a cautionary tale of what may be to do and what not to do. First of all, Alex, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Tell us about the story. I mean, there's all sorts of stories and stuff like that. And there's nothing too dramatic. Like there's not gonna be, you know, where people go, they made their first millions of dollars and they lost all but doing something nuts. For example, like one of the first things I did when my business took off is I went and got a Lamborghini and I remember the down payment on it was like 60,000 and there was like, I think like $130,000 in loans and stuff like that. If I'd put that in Bitcoin at the time, I'd be richer than God right now. But yeah, pretty much. I think this was like 2014 or something like that. But I'd really say that the main place where most people get caught up when they make a lot of money where I get caught up is you become somewhat of a sucker because the people that are selling the Lamborghinis, the people that are selling the Rolex is the people that are selling the bottle service and all the lifestyle stuff and everything like that. That's really smart people who are getting you to pay an excessive amount of money for something that really doesn't have any value except in the perspective of other people that you want to think that you have value pretty much. And so then you basically will just consistently get suckered in the purchasing things that, what's the word for it? That you're gonna have to sell back for less in the future or you can't sell back at all. And then you end up taking, you won't really understand money very much. And so like for example, if my first house, I didn't understand how loans and everything really worked. And so I bought a big multimillion dollar home. And the reason why I got out of it, like to this day right here, I actually do better than I've ever done before but I have no furniture. I don't own anything. I have three pairs of clothes. And the reason for that is when I looked it back over all the years of all the things that have accrued and all the bank interest and all the money from buying the appreciating assets. And then all the money that could have just been invested and for example, something that crypto, I could have invested in the peak of the 2017 bull run and still be way up right now. And that's just basically the thing I really learned is that as you make your money, you don't want to be concerned with what other people think because that's how you get suckered in by smart people into buying stupid things. And then they take your money and then they go and invest it in something, you know? This is all true. So take us back, Alex. How old were you when this first windfall came about? Cause you were in the military before you were Air Force, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I was military Air Force and I'd say about 22, it's hard to remember about 23, 22 somewhere around that age range. I got out of the military and I started an SEO business where we would basically do anything, SEO search engine optimization wise. And that business, I think it's peak, got to around like about $400,000 per month but we do everything where it was just just ranking people's websites for them, ranking it or basically agencies would outsource all their information to us. I do information marketing, literally anything you could possibly imagine SEO that we sold. And honestly, just during those times just probably just a lot of money spent on bottle service partying and buying, you know, cars and stuff like that. And the one thing I will stress about all this is I had a really good 20s. It was a good time. I don't really, I don't so much regret all of it. I just wish I had been a little bit more financially literate when it comes to putting money away. Cause at this time I had all this money laying around the craziest thing is I had all this money laying around in cash just not doing anything. That could have easily been invested in all sorts of stuff. And so I mean, just again, I mean there's all sorts of stories like for example when I'm like my 28th birthday or something you rented Dan Blazerian's jet for like 40 grand or something. And it went the biggest. 40 grand out the window. It was quite an experience though, wasn't it? Oh, it was, it was all very, very cool. It was all exceptionally cool. And I have so many good memories of my friends and everything like that. But at the same time, you know, if I was gonna give anybody any advice because I wouldn't say don't like not live it up and have a good time but there's, there's difference. There's, what's the word for this? I don't personally regret any of the times I've had with my friends and all the fun things we've done. Just there's ways to live it up at the same time while also making yourself financially literate. So you're comprehending what you're doing and you're comprehending how to actually, you know put money aside to invest in things do it. Because I mean just one of the reasons why I got really into this bull run and I wasn't in the last one and I wasn't before this. I got into Bitcoin about $5,000 in the March crash. Excellent timing. It was, I mean, it was, it was, I was just like I watched the 2017 bull run and I watched the 2000. I don't know when the first one was originally I think it was like 2015, 15 but I watched so many of my internet marketing friends instead of going and partying and doing all sorts of goofy stuff. And I really just being what I think my downfall was was I was arrogant and thought there wasn't anything else that I could know, you know. I thought, you know, I'm really smart in doing this. And while I wasn't going blowing all the money I had I also wasn't looking on how to learn about money and how to invest it properly. And so I watched multiple people go in the first bull run, the second bull run, make a killing. And so when it crashed this, this 5,000 what I did specifically is I sold my house I sold my cars, I sold all the things I own. One of the reasons was because I knew it was going to come back around and I want to be in the position where I could go and be reckless. And so I think the bigger thing of this is like there's the crazy party stories or stuff like that but more so the biggest thing I learned all this when you have a big house, you have all these cars you have, you have loans for things that you're paying for and then you have all these expensive items you don't have money to strike when the time is right. You have to be, you have to think about guarding this lifestyle and how you appear to other people more so than like for example when this big crash happened in March I have no appreciating assets. I have nothing but money laying around to just go in on it. And so I was able to take all the money I made from selling my multimillion dollar home just stick that in the Bitcoin at $5,000 and just go there's no way this thing is, this thing's not this is pretty bad where it's at right now and this is just due to COVID. It's not cause the fundamentals of Bitcoin or I wish I'd put in an Ethereum then but this was like the fundamentals haven't changed at all since then. So I'd say that's probably the biggest lesson from all that cause if while I was out buying all these things and doing the jet when I go and make a lot of money I'd be like okay cool so I can buy this car, get this house with this thing or do that. And so I'd be saving up my money and keeping this money on hand that's also depreciating instead of thinking oh how can I deploy this to then make myself a lot more money and then I couldn't strike the first bull run I couldn't strike the second bull run cause of this lifestyle and I finally learned that lesson to have money on hand when blood's running in the streets I think overall it was a good decision. I think so too, so a lot of unpack there but let's just take it back. How far ahead are you right now from where you were in 2013, 2014 because you sold all those assets and you could have this dry powder on the side to actually get into the price points that you wanted to get into because if you would have kept doing the same things you were doing those jets were nice, the bottle service is nice the Lambos are beautiful and everything is great but if you kept going down that road could you be right here where you wanted to be? Absolutely not, from just two points at two I'm not cause I know you're a business owner as well and just two aspects of that. First off it allowed me to get into cryptocurrency at the right time because I literally don't have anything else to spend money on there's nothing that I'm not gonna go on to some monk like speech or something like that I just don't have, there's nothing else that I can really buy with money right now that I value very much and so first off gave me a good way to get in at the right point for crypto but also within business it allowed me also to build a product purely for my customers, my staff, my team and really focus on the brand and the company and not really worry about making profits right away and now the company is just doing really well and I'll leave it at that but both of those things right now by getting away from the vanity and the arrogance my net worth is significantly higher now than when I was sitting next to Lamborghini and acting like a really rich guy, you know? So... Isn't the very, the toughest thing is to get away from that mindset of I know it, I know it all or I know enough to where you don't have to tell me a thing to be able to get out of that ego mindset. How long did that take to get to where you're at right now because I know there's a lot of hiccups and bumps along the way. I would say literally a decade and I think I had a little bit of a bigger problem than some people do basically because I think a lot of people get in the entrepreneurship and maybe it was the same for you but I think you've been probably an entrepreneur for a really long time and I was kind of new to it but I think when a lot of people get in the entrepreneurship you do it from almost an underdog mentality at least I do so I definitely had something to prove and then you kind of read your own news clippings a little bit more than you should and then it's just like this... It's just like when this bull market was first going up and then we had that first step and I think really early January or something like that like I can almost relate the feeling was like when Bitcoin just kept going up and up and up and so I'm buying at like 38 I'm like, ah, it's gonna be at 50 next week it's just gonna keep going up and up there's no such thing as dips and I think that's almost how you'll start to think and you think you can just go in and do anything without learning anything more and so yeah I'd say it nearly took me almost seven to eight years and I think there's a point where I was in my house back in Dallas and I just looked around I was spending all my day instead of working on my business or researching anything dealing with AC guys and then dealing with the damn bank and they're confusing loans and all the weird things they were doing and then having to deal with like homeless people coming in like throwing stuff at my house and stuff there's just all these and then having to deal with like car weirdness with the Lamborghini and stuff like that and so I just had to sit down at one point I'm like, why do I have all this stuff? Who did I buy this for? Why do I'm single living in this four storey home with all this furniture that I don't use and what did I do all this for? And then I'm have this business why am I running? And then at the business I was in at the time I absolutely love the business I'm in right now the business I was in at the time was good but I wasn't madly in love with it and when I didn't wake up every single morning super happy to do I'm like, why am I doing all these things and the only reason I was doing all these things was to fulfill ego and by saying, well, what if I just did things that only made me happy and then worry about how I appear to other people and what they think that I am well, what would that look like? And then it's really just made everything a lot better mentally, you know, I'm a lot happier but that also being said if we're focusing on wealth and investing it changed my life, you know and that ego and that want to be where you saw Mr. Troubled's gun and Dan Blizzard and recently or something with all the money you lost and that it's just like it's just this spiral and in it you don't really I don't think a lot of people can catch it it's very sneaky, it almost really caught me I fortunately kind of wised up and timing with everything paid off with how the markets and everything went because I got out of my house I think November before the crash in March and so yeah Yeah, you got lucky Yeah, you know what, so here's the problem just like we talked about you either have to and for you listening at home right now either have to go through these experiences or you have to learn from mess ups like me and Alex and it's the same thing you don't have to, you have to learn from mistakes they want to be your mistakes so these things that we talk about like my story was similar to Alex's you know, made a bunch of money and of course had a big shift separated from my wife moved to Las Vegas and where could you have the most amount of entertainment we have a lot of money and no responsibilities Las Vegas but you will go through all these things and you will think to yourself okay well I can be a rock star for a while and just go through the next pleasure point pleasure point, pleasure point and you go is that all there is to life that's pretty bad Yeah, exactly then you go to a next level and you're like okay I'm trying to I want to do more things for this then there's another level and I always talk about delivering happiness from Tony Shea Yeah, great book Yeah, and he talks about you know these three different levels so as you are sitting there and you're like you know what I don't think I'm going to be a millionaire anytime soon this is cryptocurrency assets you don't know what could happen so the big thing is is to try to make these plans now be aware of what could potentially happen and set up some type of system or some type of mentality to go okay I don't want to be a screw up like Rob and you know waste all my money or be like Alex and make all those stupid mistakes and buying landbills and popping bottles and like that you can do those those are great but as time goes on you have to think about what is the bigger thing what is the bigger picture and of course this is funny because as we were saying this Alex is in this in his nice office there in Austin it looks beautiful I'm here in my indoor pool and I was like well easy for you guys to say but remember I'll remember this Alex has probably been in an office for quite a long time still a minimalist this house I've had I've had for 17 years these are the things that we've built over time so just be aware of what's going on Yep, that's um that's absolutely huge with yourself chasing the highs because I just I clearly remember too like what is my point of living is it just to chase the next big thing the next thing to buy the next car like alright so I have this like a $400,000 Lamborghini I'm like okay so is the only thing I have to look forward in life is moving to like the Highland Park which is like I think have you been in Dallas right? Yeah Yeah you know Highland Park it's like the Beverly Hills I'm like is the only thing I have to look forward to and the only thing I have to work for is moving into a bigger box that I can live in Highland Park and getting a $500,000 or $600,000 is that like is this what life is is this everything I'm going to do and I'm like no Yeah Hey right now all these people sitting home that are probably thinking hey I can do that I can do that right now and of course these are guys but it's a weird thing because as you go through it and you make and you make all this money and crypto you will start to think about what is the bigger purpose and that's the whole point of this video today just to bring to you some information about what could potentially happen here Alright So Alex I want to take too much of your time just a couple more questions first of all you said you went in all in March right Yes So you pulled a Diddy as I call it I pulled I went very very much all in and so yeah I did pull a little bit of a Diddy in March a little bit So why did so did you just go to Bitcoin or did you do anything else No I had so at that time I really didn't know too much about cryptocurrency and I wish I'd really known a lot more because I wouldn't have gone all in Bitcoin I would have I would have totally bought Ethereum at $100 I totally crap can you $100 Ethereum Yeah But anyways I can't complain I can't complain at all and so it crashed in March and what actually happened is right before that I bought my first I bought about $30,000 worth of Bitcoin and then I started seeing it go up and then I was like wait a sec and you know I've seen this before I know that the fundamentals of Bitcoin I know Bitcoin's fundamentals didn't change it dropped from like I'm not exactly sure but about $10,000 to $5,000 like the fundamentals didn't change at all it's because of COVID but the tech and everything is all there and I've been waiting for the moment to get in and so I took all the money from selling my house and just stuff that all in there and I mean of course I had savings I didn't pull a Diddy I don't have that that much brass balls in my body that guy is another level especially with all the dips and everything but anyways and so yeah then I went into that and from March onward I mean you saw it would just go up and up and up and up and I was it was actually a great time because I wasn't addicted to crypto at the time so I could just put it in there and forget about it you know I was like okay it goes up like this and that's now it's a little bit of a different story a different level yeah and so what then happened is it just grew and grew and grew and it got to then I actually was getting very close to Diddy levels 40% of my net worth with how much it had grown and then I I reduced down and I de-risked a little bit during that first major dip and so now I have about 40% in right now it's pretty good it's pretty good so now that you've done that and you've learned from like oh if I just would have gone to Ethereum what do you see on the horizon for yourself what other cryptocurrency projects are out there that you're like you know what that's a good one I'm gonna take a look a hard look at that not to financial planners advisors so with anything that comes to cryptocurrency I sit around and probably research about four to five hours a day I'm really really heavy into it but I also like I've talked about I'm very aware that I'm ignorant and there's no way I can tell where this market is going you know everybody the reason why I really like your channel is you're the one person who just put Ethereum only going to 10K I'm like okay like at least we're looking at some reasonable I saw someone other channel $41,000 by October sure we'll see we'll see right now I carry my biggest investment is in Ethereum but the coins or tokens and I'm really have a lot of faith and I absolutely love ADA I think the CEO of Cardano is just incredible and their business sense and like what I try to do is I can't trade and I'm kind of like I've seen your channel where you're just all and I'm not going to try and be a trader here I'm just going to look at things that have good sound fundamentals and Ethereum the fundamentals of Ethereum really frustrate me with the gas fees and I'm not fixing it it's kind of like dating someone who put on a lot of weight and they've been telling you for years they're going to lose weight and they just won't like okay next week we're going to do it well you won't have to pay I've been buying a lot of NFTs and the gas fees are just really starting to work me you know I know but I absolutely love Cardano that's probably my third biggest or Ethereum's first Cardano second I really like VGX for anybody watching this you know one of the first alt sign vested in was based on digital asset news I was watching it and I got in at about 50 cents but I remember watching it pump from 19 cents to 50 so I'm like oh my god I got into 50 I'm like I'm too late I'm too late that's what everybody says Alex everybody says that yeah this is why you shouldn't listen to me I don't have any of my any of my crimped advice what else I got in here that I'm really into yeah so as Alex looking at that I will say this what Alex just said about him talking about I just don't know I'm the same way I just don't know I mean I have a good I have a solid understanding but do I know where things are going to go no I don't but I always want to invest in the people yeah and just like what Alex said about Charles Hoskinson I will invest in people I will invest in the Steve Berlich I will invest in Alex Machinsky you know teams that they build I will do that all day long no 100% with like VGX for example I remember you made a video you said well you messaged the CDL and they'll respond and so in my company I think one of the reasons why we're really successful is because I'm obsessed with the customer and I'm answering support tickets and doing all these things and so I tested that out and I sent a message real quick he responded to me like that helped me with the issue and so that got me enough to go really deep into it it's a basic fundamental right Alex you just you have a customer what does the customer want I give that to the customer and everybody's happy I don't understand why people make this so difficult no it's the same exact reason why I'm just I'm slowly like being converted from Ethereum to Cardano because Hoskinson he's far more focused on building a great product and I'm not saying that Ethereum and their team over there is trying to do anything I'm a big fan of the founder of Ethereum too but he's trying to just build something that's going to last long term regardless of ups and downs in the market and building a good crypto currency and you just trying to build something good fundamentals wise and so my theory with my holdings really is like I don't if people that have been doing this two times and two bull runs aren't going to be able to catch the top I'm not 100% confident I am so even worse case scenario I missed the top I'm very comfortable holding Ethereum Bitcoin Cardano for 10 years the other ones I got a lot of reef because I like that I'd really like bridge mutual because I think it's just needed and then I reef and bridge mutual okay yeah I really I've seen reef in my comment section I thought it was honestly there was so many I thought it was one of those spam bots yeah you got invested in reef because it's going to help the ocean and other though yeah that's what I thought was to my friend told me my friend told me when it was it's probably like next to VGX it's probably one of my biggest ROIs but I just to generally just be straight up about reef I just bought it because my friend is very very good at crypto told me to buy it and I'm really coming around to it a lot more because it's kind of like I'll be on polka dot and I think polka dot products are going to be really big and then I mean there's yeah hey thanks for telling telling the truth because a lot of people like I did it because all the fundamentals and Alex don't like you know what my friend said it so I'm going to get it and I'll be honest with you some of the times that's the same thing he's got some he's got some good he's got a good head on him I got a few other ones but I really feel comfortable throwing them out I'm not like you know but yeah I would take it I want to take a look at reef it sounds good and then fabulous in home Ave I will have the founder on Stani hopefully in the next couple weeks I've already reached out to him and he just says let's put some together because if you're looking for the big play DeFi I think could be one of those big plays but I have to throw the one thing about I'm actually like crazy about NFTs these the I got some crypto pumps a little bit earlier on and I started looking at just like totally moly that is going to be the billionaire pissing contest of the future here's the thing you'll have to look all that stuff up and tell me about it because I look at NFTs and I'm like I don't get it I'm going to miss these opportunities I know I am and I think NFTs is going to pass me by the holding's in crypto right now I think you'll be OK even if you don't buy crypto punk but you see how much they're going for like an alien crypto punk just sold for like 1.2 million it's going to be the billionaire calling card I think yeah I saw Mike Novogratz company the one for the N�A whatever it was selling for a thousand dollars and it's yesterday that and those hash hash mask and crypto punks I think are going to be There I don't think they're good I don't think they're gonna have like the big explosive returns right I mean if you got a crypto punk in December if you got if you got an 8th crypto punk it was worth 70,000 now it's there's one selling for like 1.8 million. So that's definitely a gain right there But I think I think over like a 10-year period. It's just a good place to store money, but The yeah, you never know you never know right? We'll see we'll see I like them so much because All right, but like cryptocurrencies that's tied to like currencies the market's going up and down and whatnot But NFTs are really more tired to fiat value right now And there's very few of them and peep and you don't have there's only 10,000 Crypto punks and so you don't have like you see if Pokemon cards at Charizard's $55,000 but very few people would buy that but there's a small minority of people where it has that Value to them. So it doesn't have to be mass adoption like with Bitcoin like the entire world has to or at least 10% of the world Has to accept Bitcoin for it to go up this right here 20,000 millionaires and billionaires just have to agree on the value in these things Go nuts. That's already kind of happening. Yeah, I'm up right now. So so yeah We'll see and it's all about scarcity, right? Yeah, Jackson You don't have to have a million Jackson Pollock paintings. Just have a couple paintings and there you go There's only nine alien crypto punks They're all owned and so Elon Musk can literally go to the mark go to Mars But he can't buy an alien crypto punk right now. There you go. We'll see so everybody that's what's that? Let's look out for Alex. I don't want to keep your own too much. I appreciate your time Thanks for coming on and this is just again a good opportunity to talk about what could potentially the pitfalls and shortfalls and also get into What could potentially be the next big thing Alex? I want to say thanks I will put your the link to find Alex and what he's doing in the description below and that is it any parting wisdom. I Don't have any I don't have any for anybody. I'll be ready watching this is crypto watchers. I just have have a good day I think we've covered it. All right, so thanks for watching all the way and appreciate it the thumbs up and subscribe We'll see you on the next