 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Guys, and we're back live here in Think Tech Studios. I'm your host, The Prince of Investing. Coming to you guys live all the way from Denver. I know it's kind of crazy, right? Yes, I'm in Denver, Colorado, but we're shooting live in Hollywood, Hawaii. So, guys, don't forget to hit the like, subscribe, comment, and share button. All that great stuff. Follow us on Think Tech Hawaii. Or you can follow us right here on The Prince of Investing slash The Investor Show. There's all those guys. I'm going to have a lot of time. And I definitely know you guys are going to have a lot of time. So, we're going to jump straight into it. Now, one of the things I want to mention today, which you guys have seen in the description box, we're going to be talking about, should I buy Bitcoin? Because we all know Bitcoin has been going crazy, especially last week when I thought of this topic. It was at its all-time high. It is all-time high. I'm on about $19,000, $20,000 or something like that per coin. Then, six days later, it is not an all-time low, but it had like a 40%, 50% drop, where it flashed down to $10,000. It went up to $14,000. And the last time I looked at it today, it was around about $16,000, $14,000, $15,000, $16,000. So, very volatile. And when I say volatile, I mean by it goes up and down. Now, the thing to think about that is when you are looking at a stock like that, not a stock, but a commodity or an asset class like that, that is very volatile. Now, some people say, when you look at it, that's very volatile. It may bring them a lot of opportunities. True. But another thing you may think about is Bitcoin is up 1,900% so far this year. That's why you sit all over the press. That's why you have been getting in the news and all that stuff like that. But on this topic, what I'm going to do, I'm going to discuss the question of should I buy Bitcoin? Where would I buy Bitcoin? And I'm going to talk about the pros and the cons. That's my personal opinion. Now, let me throw a disclaimer here. I'm not some Bitcoin mining expert from around the globe and things like that to where I know exactly what I want. It's kind of out of running. The people that are crazy about Bitcoin and crypto occurrences now, they were the same people that was crazy about marijuana stocks about six months ago. They don't talk about marijuana stocks anymore, but now it seems to be the new Gold Rush. Now, six, seven months ago, marijuana was a Gold Rush. So when you invest in, you have to keep a level head and not jump off into the new hot scene and stay steady. Now, one of the things I want to speak on is I'm going to talk about what would have to happen before I would buy Bitcoin, any cryptocurrency, because as of right now, I hold no direct assets into a direct cryptocurrency. And I will discuss why. Now, the first thing is, should I buy it? I look at it and I say, hey, people, hey, should I buy this? Should I invest into these things like that? Using it as a long-term investment? No. I will say, if you're someone who's high-risk, short-term, and you prefer it to be your throwaway money or your lottery ticket money, nothing less than, no, nothing more than 10% of what your asset class is. If you got $100, no more than $10, thrown away into a high-risk, short-term, very high-risk, because theoretically, Bitcoin today is 16,000, it could easily be 40,000 by next week or by the summer. Easy, right? Or it could be zero. Same thing. Think about it. You lose 50% that back up 30% just that fast in a week's timeframe. Very volatile. So something that is very high-risk. If you're very high-risk, money that you throwaway that you can lose, I would say, yes, I would probably look into Bitcoin. Here's why. One is, we always know new things come along with society. What I do like about cryptocurrency is in Bitcoin. The reason why I say Bitcoin, because it was the first currency in 2009. Now, when I look at myself, when I look at society, how we spend money, it has changed over time. So for prime example, the way we buy things, it could soon things have changed. First thing being is when, look at the way we use money. I could send you money right now just with your email address. You can put away your cash. You can put away your credit card. Go out. Well, not necessarily your credit card, but you can put away your cash. Take your dollars. Leave them at home. You can go out and buy gas, and you can go out and buy gas. You can go shopping, have a nice dinner. You can pretty much essentially live without cash these days. Whereas you're talking about the years ago that would probably been impossible. I'm 33 years old now. When I was younger, my parents mostly use checks. Handwritten checks. Now you guys probably don't know what it is. But a lot of people used to use checks. Now you don't see people use checks that much anymore. Now you see people use plastic. So with people using plastic, credit cards, what I mean by that, times have changed. People use credit cards. I mean, people use checks. Anyone with credit cards. Now it's to where I can send money across the globe just via an email address. Or you can send me money just with my email address. So this pay-performing money, I don't see it being around too much longer in the future. Because it's just technology. We evolve. We're humans. That's what we do. And I can see us evolve into a digital currency. That's what half of us are right now. How often do you go to the bank? Anything you can drive and go into the drive-through, you pretty much can do with the machine or at home. So most people will only go to the bank for very few rare occasions. So that's one thing. I do see us moving into a digital currency. How does that form into something being good? As we know, cryptocurrency is a digital currency. So when I look at that being a digital currency, I start to realize and say, hey, well, the world is kind of evolving into a form of digital currency. And I'm not saying that it's Bitcoin. I'm not saying it's Litecoin, Uthean or whatever, but I can see us using a digital currency. I don't see us in the future walking into some big book refrigerator, big blocky ATM drawing out cash. That's not why I see us going in the future. So that's one thing. I do see us moving into a digital currency. So hey, that is a good thing for me. Another good thing is the technology that is behind cryptocurrency. Something I hear people get confused sometimes. The difference between blockchain and Bitcoin. There is a difference. Bitcoin is the currency that utilizes blockchain. Blockchain is the technology. Now, not Bitcoin, but blockchain, I'm very convinced into blockchain that is revolutionary, that it's going to eliminate a lot of jobs. It is a world of future. What is blockchain? I give you a very elementary way of thinking of blockchain. Blockchain is like an automatic ledger. It's an automatic ledger of buying, sale, things like that. You used to have to have a group of people or entity to say, hey, this person bought this, this person sold this, and make sure that it was the right thing or whatnot. The blockchain pretty much replaces all of that. It's a good buying, sale that goes back and forth. So with that being said, I'm a firm believer in things like accounting, things like finance, things like government, small business or large business could utilize blockchain and eliminate a lot of people to document things. So I'm a big believer into blockchain. If I knew how to invest into blockchain directly, I would do it. I believe into that concept because here in a many high level companies, CEOs and executives, think about how much money they spend on having a group of people or entity that's on the same track of what we find and sell. For a prime example, when you go swipe your card, your Visa Mastercard at Starbucks, and it goes to your bank account and it takes out the money and it leaves a transaction, it takes out the money, puts the money in Starbucks, takes out your Bank of America account. Who's doing all that back and forth information? Who's doing all that back and forth information? That is not the bank. I was like, I don't want to bank hymns all that. No. Usually the bank hires out a third-party entity that takes care of that for them. So with that being said, I can see blockchain, that's a billion-dollar industry that those third-party companies, they're a billion-dollar industry that handles places, all these financial institutions backdoor work. I can see blockchain technology replacing those particular people. Those are the good things. Now, going off into Bitcoin, the reason why Bitcoin became the big thing about Bitcoin was that it removes the middleman. With our current currency, we have better reserves. The better reserves can print money. The better reserves can draw back home money. Right? They're the ones that control the interest rates of money and things like that or whatnot. Whatever the case may be, the better reserves. With blockchain, there is no middleman. I'm not with blockchain, but with cryptocurrency, there is no middleman. There's just Bitcoin. So when I go to think about that, that's one of the things that I like about it. Now, what they're positive is a negative, right? I told you guys a good thing. I'm going to tell you things I don't like about Bitcoin. And I'm going to get into what's going to need to happen for me to invest or to buy any Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, whatever. The first thing, what if Bitcoin gets hacked? What if it gets hacked? What if somebody right now, they say, oh, it's unhackable? But come on. Everybody knows that if you don't know, it is kitchen and let you know. Anything that a man creates are human. Because we're not going to create awesome stuff too. Anything that a human creates, another human can uncreate or hack it. That's just a point blank system. Now, granted, it's great technology, whatever the case may be. You know, it's using part of the bedroom and all the other big fancy terms out there. It's so far advanced, so whatever the case may be. It was the same thing that we said about computers. Computers used to be this big, bulky, expensive thing that only the government could buy. Now, computers have been reduced to this. A phone, a cell phone that can be cared around, compact, that even my 6-year-old son can use. That's just called evolution. You evolve. We figure things out. That's what humans do. So right now, yes, it is far fetched technology, but I guarantee somebody right now is trying to figure out a way to hack it. Why would someone try to figure out a way to hack it? Because wherever there's money, there's motive. Why would somebody break into the bank? Why would somebody hack into all these different websites? Because there's money. Money there. We get the market capitalization, which is $277 billion, a million in the case we be. We don't quote me on that, but it's a large market capitalization. I think it's a billion. But we have a large market capitalization. I'm always positive that it's a billion. We have a large market capitalization like that. That's enough motive right there. So what if it is hacked? What if someone hacks into the system and figure out something, does something funky with it? What's going to happen to the value of my cryptocurrency? I'm going to lead you to the next question. That leads me to the next question. Regulation. Who's regulating this market? It's the reason why we had an SEC that regulates our U.S. stock market. Before a stock is listed, it has to go through the SEC. In order to stay listed, it has to go through the SEC stream of its process to make sure you're not taking people's money, all that great stuff like that. What happens? Will the SEC regulate it? And my belief system? I think eventually they will. Because right now, if you go into corn base, buy a bunch of big corn, make a bunch of money and transaction into the IRS. How can the IRS track it? They can't track it. They don't know what's going to happen, right? So is it regulated? It's an unregulated black market, right? So we have an unregulated black market that the SEC gets its hands involved. The federal government gets its hands involved. What's going to happen to the value of my cryptocurrency? Because wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having a cryptocurrency if the government has its hands on it? Right? If the SEC gets in, hey, you don't can do this, you can do that, and probably its regulations on it. What's going to happen to the value? That's my second concern. Another concern, looking at the competition, there's over, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies. You hear Bitcoin, you hear Litecoin, you hear Ethereum, you hear Razzle, Dazzle. And I'm not even speaking that part of the hundred that was created today. I know people that are buying Bitcoin right now. So when I look at this, I want to look at people that are buying, not buying, I mean creating, creating their own cryptocurrencies. If someone can go out and mimic what I'm doing and create what I'm doing, what's the real value of what I have? Right? So there's thousands of them out there. How can I possibly pick the right one right now? It's like picking a needle out of a haystack. The only one I would trust, like the Jordan Buffett or the Whiffle Wall Street said when he came on to the show about a month or so ago, he was like, the only cryptocurrency I would trust right now is Bitcoin because it was the first. And since that is the first, it's probably the most reliable. But there are literally like thousands of cryptocurrencies out there. How can I pick the right cryptocurrency at this point? It was in between Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Razzle, Dazzle, whatever the case would be. I can't even name them all. There's so many out there. So right now when you're picking out Bitcoin, you're saying that you are smart enough and you have the edge of everybody else that's in the marketplace. Do I feel like I have the edge to pick Bitcoin over other currencies? No. That's another thing. Go versus Bitcoin. When I look at gold, people say, hey, well, you know, the dollar is a fiat currency. It's correct. The dollar is not backed by anything. That's correct. The only thing that backs the dollar is the U.S. government. The U.S. government says, hey, I will arm this promissory now. And since the U.S. government has a pretty good high credit rating, people trust the U.S. government. They use the dollar. If I saw a dollar in the road today, I know I can go buy a particular thing, right? So I can go buy goods and services, essentially. But right now with Bitcoin, some people say it's supposed to be a currency. And by being a currency, you see ATMs pop up all over the globe. ATMs, we got different places that are accepting Bitcoin. But the thing is, just because what makes it trade for $16,000 a day is not because that's the raw value of it. It's just that that's the price someone is willing to pay. Just because something is going up doesn't mean that it's the raw value, right? And the other piece I want to backtrack and go into the SEC, since you're an unregulated market, you can have insider trading. Market manipulation. What is insider trading? What is market manipulation? How can you do something like that? It's like this, right? I take me and my buddy, John, let's say for example, my buddy John. I sell him my cryptocurrency for $10. He buys it for $10. Now, the last price that's going across the wire is $10 sold to John. So now my currency is worth $10. I buy it back from him for $15. Now, the person who's on the outside, they look at it. They're like, wow, no, this new thing that Prince Dice created has a lot of value. Because look, he was at $10 and I was going back to $5. Now John buys it back for me for $30. Now people are like, whoa, it's going from $10 to $30. That's a 300% jump. That is crazy, right? But really, it could be two people manipulating the market. You don't think that happens. You're crazy. Everybody has regulators involved inside a US stock market and people still get away with it and do it. So in an unregulated market, what do you think they're doing? Everywhere you have money, you have some type of manipulation. Or you have some type of corruption. That's just the case. There's nothing to say of Bitcoin. That's just everywhere you go. You find money, you find some form of corruption. That's just the second thing. But I don't want to get back off. I don't want to lose track of what I was saying. I want to speak about the current state of gold, which is a commodity, that made a good point. So what's the difference between gold and what's the difference between Bitcoin? And the difference is when you say gold is a commodity, Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency. I don't see anybody buying to, you know, hey, I want to get these coins so I can go buy dinner tonight. Most people treat it like a commodity. And you want to say it's a commodity? Great. People are just getting it and then hurting it in a way. So when you look at that, if it is a commodity, the thing that makes gold a commodity is a precious metal. The word precious, the word precious gives it, hey, you know, I just can't go outside in my room and manufacture a piece of gold, right, that I know of, you know. So gold is a rare commodity. It's a point of gold, a metal, or whatever the case may be, that has some type of value. People use gold for a lot of things. You know, somebody just didn't pick this random stone. It was used for a lot of things back in the day before it became a currency. You have gold chips and you can melt it down and turn it into the Federal Reserve. You have a little value with it. You know, Dennis was using it for tea. The science people was using it for all type of things. But it was a rare commodity. It was a stone that we decided we could do something with. Bitcoin, what is it backed by? What is giving Bitcoin its value besides someone right now that is buying it for $15,000 a coin? Now it's going to lead me into my second part. The regulators come in while I was speaking about what the SEC, that the regulators come in, the government comes in. And the government says, hey, about this Bitcoin, man, this is what we're going to do now. We're not going to create our own Bitcoin. We're going to create our currency. At the SEC, the Fed stepped in and they regulated it. Now they regulated it. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a blockchain or if the federal government came out with a dollar coin and said, hey, this is the accepted currency of our XYZ. Let's stop by the federal government for doing that. And if they do that, what's going to happen to the value of my Bitcoin or my cryptocurrency? Those are questions I have that a lot of people can't ask. Let's stop in the SEC from creating its own cryptocurrency. Let's stop in the SEC from regulating the cryptocurrency market here in the US. If it does market here in the US, what does that mean? If the SEC markets, wouldn't it completely devalue my cryptocurrency? Right? Wouldn't it devalue my cryptocurrency? If I went ahead and just threw my money right into, you know, now that it's not needed or the government created their own, or what happened to the other thousands out there. Those are questions. Now I'm going to get into the next one. What's going to happen? What needs to happen to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies before I will buy? Right now, I look at cryptocurrencies as a haystack. Do I believe in digital currency? Yes. Do I believe in blockchain technology? Yes. But out of a thousand cryptocurrencies out right now, how can I, or you, legitimately pick the right one, two, three, wherever it keeps me? I don't know. But for me to do this, I heard it's coming around the corner. I heard it's about to come out. If there was an ETF, if there was a mutual fund, or whatever you want to call it, that went back and said, hey, you know what we're going to do? We're going to create an ETF that's going to, we're going to borrow all these currencies together, just like ETFs do. And you can purchase all the cryptocurrencies up on the one stop. Now, I've noticed one something out there like that, JVTC, there's some other cryptocurrencies out there, but they're not exactly what I'm looking for at this point. If you can borrow all the cryptocurrencies, then that's what's going to happen for me to want to buy. Because the thing about it is, when you have, why would I try to pick a needle out of a haystack when I can just pick up the whole haystack? Right? Why would I, why I'm going to do it in my portfolio is the S&P 500. The reason that it's the S&P 500 is because it gives me 500 companies. I'm not here trying to pick an individual stock that I've never heard of, that I hope that I read the news that a co-worker told me, or a friend told me, or something that I read on a media outlet that said, hey, you should go out and buy this particular company. No, I'm using companies that are, that I know is, what's it called, that I, the S&P 500, that's the top 500 companies in the U.S. I always use this analogy. 20 years ago, blockbuster didn't seem like a bad investment. Now, today, yeah, it doesn't look too hot, right? Why doesn't it look too hot? Because evolution, blockbuster didn't evolve with time. And when it tried to evolve with time, it was too late. But if I have the top 500 companies in America, I'll find anyway. So, I don't know, Ethereum might be the next big thing. Ethereum, Bitcoin cash could be the next big thing. Bitcoin, whatever currency that's out there and wants to be created, the next one that jumps in, or whatever. It could be the big thing. I don't know. But until that happens, I can't try to go out and pick one. So, when I go back and I look at the whole situation, I spoke about it. Should you buy, you're going to do a recap. Should you buy? Only if you're high risk, short term, no more than 10% of what you have in your assets. When you're high buy in particular, probably have an e-tail for mutual funds that gathers the whole industry as a whole, just like I can go by the real estate industry, or I can invest in the real estate industry, I can invest into the automobile industry, retail industry, all type of things, right? So, the next thing is, that's what I would buy. What are the good things? It's a digital currency. I believe the world is moving closer and closer to a digital currency, just so that we are evolving. While we carry back these paper dollars, and most people are accepting cars, some of them are accepting crypto currencies, so I can see it's moving to a digital currency. Another good thing, blockchain technology, the juggernaut that's going to change the way we live and a lot of aspects, it's going to kill a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs are going to have to move, right? So, blockchain technology, that's what I like about it. Now, the things I don't like about it, you have, can it be hacked? Government regulations, the thousands of coins that are out there, how do I know the government won't create its own coins? Then on top of that, another big one that I left off, and originally, looking at the stock market returns. Right now, the S&P 500 is up about 20% just in 2017 alone. And last year, I want to think it went up 16%. So, when you're getting 16%, 20%, that's not bad of an investment. Now, why would someone who's getting 16%, 15%, 20%, why would they jump off into the next hot thing just to get 1,000%? So, if your portfolio is up right now, and 15%, 16%, or something like that, why would I try to jump off into the next or the new hot thing? The reason why a lot of investors are not jumping into Bitcoin because the U.S. market is doing so well. Another thing is Bitcoin started in 2009. Bitcoin started in the bull market. How will Bitcoin act in the bear market? How would it act in the next market crash? Those are the questions that I have. We don't know. It means skyrocket in the market, yeah, crash. It may replace gold or skyrocket. Then a reverse end, it may collapse. You just never know. Those are the questions that I have with Bitcoin. So, with that, I give you guys, should you buy? When will I buy gold over Bitcoin, gold in Bitcoin? Hacking it, stock market returns, government regulations, and also the thousands of competitions out there, I give you the good things. Then there's a lot of people that are Bitcoin mining. I don't want to get too far from Bitcoin mining because I know a lot of people do that to make money. Something that's not my field, I'm out 100% on it. Maybe I'm going to get some in the future to speak more about that. But, you know, hey, that's my take on it. That's my take on it. Should I buy or when I buy the pros and the cons and what happens for me in order to buy? I hope that helps you guys out. I hope you guys take away something from that. I'm going to go ahead and close out here. Thank you guys for tuning on. This is the Prince of Investing. I'm your host, Prince Dykes. Coming to you guys each and every week here on Hawaii. Don't forget to hit the like, subscribe, comment, and share button. Check us out on YouTube, Facebook, podcast, all of the great stuff. Until you hear me do that again or say anything like that again, I kind of messed up my clothes now a little bit. But peace, be safe, I'm out and thank you.