Bitcoin 101 for Sports Bettors

 

All right, Tommy D back with an online sports bet. We’re going to be doing something a little different here, we have Evan stone, which has 30 years of experience trading the financial markets, and most recently, an expert in the crypto market, Bitcoin, and so on.

So what we’re going to be talking about here is basics, the one on one of cryptocurrency, how Bitcoin works, we get a lot of questions every day people saying, Tommy, I’d like to buy bitcoin, but I’m not sure how to do it?

So Evan is going to be here. He’s going to break it down on a pretty simple term, how to get started. Evan welcome to online sports bet how are you?

Good. Thanks for having me, Tommy.

Great. Now, I know you’ve been trading the financial markets for a number of years. Why don’t you give a little background about what you’ve done? What are you doing presently?

Sure. Tommy, I started, as you know, as an investment banker on wall street for nearly 30 years. I was a professional trader on multiple exchange floors. I was at the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago, in 1991. And I first learned about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in about 2015 when it was trading at about four or $500 a coin.

I do remember that unfortunately, I didn’t even know what Bitcoin was I heard of it though.

Bitcoins Growth

 

I couldn’t tell you what it was back then most people did not. Fortunately for us, we saw a little bit, you know, ahead of the curve, and we set up a transaction-oriented fund, by the name of betrayed, we’ve had a lot of success, we do a lot of long terms, transaction-oriented business three to five years.

We are very strong believers in alternative investments of every kind, but cryptocurrencies in particular, Bitcoin in particular. We also have a shorter-term, trading-oriented type of portfolio for those that want to be a little bit more aggressive. And we have both opportunities for all of our investors.

Alright, fantastic. Let’s get started with the basics. Like I said, a lot of people have heard of crypto, they’ve heard of Bitcoin, but they probably don’t really understand it. So let me ask you, Evan, what, what is cryptocurrency?

Well, cryptocurrency is basically just a blockchain algorithm that allows anyone really to track and follow all Bitcoin transactions not only their own, but through the blockchain, you chain you can follow any transaction, Bitcoin cryptocurrency-related, and at this point, it’s considered an alternative investment opportunity.

It’s very inflationary against the current environment, which is heavy and heavy inflation And

it’s something that is not currently monitored by the US government. There are a lot of loopholes within the cryptocurrency and blockchain environment.

Question that I get asked often is, is it legal to own crypto? Is it legal to buy bitcoin? First of all? Absolutely, it is legal to own and buy bitcoin. Unlike in the 1930s, when the government outlawed gold coins, there were a handful of entrepreneurial investors at that time that were taking coins and redistributing them into places in the world that it wasn’t considered illegal. As you know, the United States outlawed it.

Lo and behold, all these years later, it’s on they’re talking about trying to regulate cryptocurrencies. But at this point, it’s so far along, they don’t really know how to, you know, get a handle on things. This is when the biggest opportunities are presented when there’s a lot of uncertainty about it, and the genie is out of the bottle sort to speak, they’re not going to be able to squash this and kind of make it go away. too big to fail basically. A lot of these coins are being circulated throughout the world.

And it would just be too difficult for any regulatory authority to kind of wrangle in all the outstanding calls, You know, when I first heard about Bitcoin cryptocurrencies, I actually thought it was a physical coin as well, most people.

Explain Exactly What Bitcoin Is?

Though Bitcoin is a simple algorithm that is able to be transferred electronically from peer-to-peer person to person, there is no central organization, there is no central location where Bitcoin is monitored, it’s all peer-to-peer service. And once a Bitcoin is transacted and both parties agree on that transaction, it’s a finished transaction.

Bitcoin is based on US dollars, is that correct? Bitcoin is based on any dollars or any Fiat denomination that you want, you could physically BUY IT WITH US dollars and then convert it into another Fiat or to another, you know, Fiat type of currency.

If you just heard and I don’t know, if the people out there heard, but it was just indoctrinated as the legal tender in El Salvador, I believe, correct?

Correct. Excellent point. So El Salvador has given the head nod to it. And as most people know that fiat currency, which is the currency of that country, is a very weak currency and those currencies that are very weak and very volatile, is the kind of currency bitcoin is taking because people have actually more confidence rather than a fiat currency being local to that indigenous area, Bitcoin is a throughout the world.

All right, good stuff. So let me ask you this, if someone wanted to get started with Bitcoin, what is the easiest way for them actually to purchase Bitcoin? How would they do it? What is the simplest way to get started? Well, there are multiple ways to do it. There’s not just one way to skin the cat so to speak, people can obviously do it themselves, and set up a wallet and set up a transaction-oriented philosophy with it, whether they’re gonna be long term or short term, or there are funds, such as our fund, which is called betrayed, which is an alternative investment fund.

Based basically, we’re not buying stocks and bonds, we’re not buying blue-chip names. We’re buying only Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency as an alternative investment. It’s a turnkey way to take advantage of this, our fund currently has roughly $250 million worth of individual investors’ assets. Well, we also deal with some institutional money. And over the last seven or eight months, when this really started to become on the tip of everyone’s tongue, we added probably about $150 million of new asset money, just in the first, you know, half of this current year.

We’ve had a lot of growth. Wow, that’s impressive. So if someone wanted to buy bitcoin, they needed to set up a bitcoin wallet, and they could link it to their bank account and just buy it on the open market. Is that the way it works? Basically, that’s one way to do it. The other way is what we offer which is a turnkey opportunity to own Bitcoin through our fund. You don’t have to have the headache of, you know, there’s certain keys and certain key numbers that if you’ve heard in the past people have misplaced those key numbers, lost those key numbers for whatever the reason is, and then the coins or for whatever reason lost forever through our fund. That can never happen. So you get a monthly statement, you get a quarterly statement. And we monitor and hold all the investors Bitcoin.

Alright, but let me ask you if someone wanted to start on a smaller level and just purchase like $1,000 in Bitcoin, what do you recommend for a wallet? Like what I know there’s many out there but this is for people that have never done this before. What is the simplest way to sell one to just get started if they didn’t want to go into a fund at that point? Well, I would basically at that point, just open up a Coinbase account.

And everything will be turnkey, at the Coinbase website. So you transfer money into Coinbase you can buy the Bitcoin, and then at that point, you can transfer the Bitcoin to really anyone that accepts Bitcoin.

Coinbase is a holding company, they will transfer the Bitcoin, they will convert the Bitcoin into cash. In order for someone to spend Bitcoin, they would have to have their own wallet, which is not what I condone or recommend, it’s very difficult, and it has a lot of imperfections in it.

And Is There With You If You’re Using

 

Coinbase As An Example, On Their

 

Transaction Fees, How Does That Work?

 

When you buy or sell Bitcoin, there’s usually about a one to 2% transaction fee on the buy-side and the sell side. There are annual fees that are very, very small. And we also charge about one to 2% roundtrip. So that seems to be the industry standard. Now, if someone has Bitcoin, and they wanted to sell it, for fiat currency, they could do that through an exchange or your company.

And what is the process? How long does it take to actually sell your Bitcoin if you’re holding Bitcoin?

Well, through our company I don’t know how Coinbase necessarily does it but through our fund, it’s instantaneous, you put in a trade, you put in a transaction, and it’s immediately purchased, you know, while you’re on the phone or while you’re on the internet.

When we sell it through our fund, you can return your funds back to you in the currency of your choice. So you can send us Bitcoin and we can put it into the fund in US dollars, we can sell the Bitcoin, hopefully at a much higher price, and then return the money back to you in whatever currency that you prefer.

Very interesting, very interesting. A lot of people are afraid of the wild swings with Bitcoin. I mean, I’ve seen Bitcoin go up and down $3,000 – $4,000 in a day. So what is the safest way to protect yourself from these wild swings? if you actually have it in a fund or if you just own it individually?

Well, just like any other investment, dollar cost averaging is probably the best mathematical way to even out your portfolio over time.

The one thing that I do know is that whenever someone has time trying to purchase or the sake of Bitcoin, because the swings are so wild, they usually find themselves on the wrong end of the trade. So what I like to tell my investors, and it’s all a lot based on your net worth and you know, they’re saying at this point that you should have between 1% to 3% of your total net worth tied up in in crypto currencies with Bitcoin, you know, being the blue chip on them.

But for someone that has no Bitcoin, or someone that has a very small amount of Bitcoin, dollar cost averaging is the way to do it over the course of six months, 12 months or two years, I have some people that buy it on a monthly basis, no matter where it’s trading. And I have some people that buy it, you know, annually, wherever it’s trading.

Let me ask you, do you see Bitcoin going mainstream? Well, one day you could walk into your supermarket and use Bitcoin or to buy a car? I mean, what’s his name? Elan Musk is saying, you know, he said a few weeks ago, you can buy his cars through Bitcoin and then backtracked but do you see Bitcoin anywhere in the near future, As actually being able to go into a Starbucks and buy a cup of coffee?

Well, first of all, that’s an excellent question. And in a roundabout kind of way, that’s already happening. They have credit cards right now that you can link to your Bitcoin, and it will convert the transaction for you at the point of sale. So you could technically walk into Starbucks today, with a credit card that’s in Bitcoin that’s already converted and do the transaction.

The problem is the fee structure is extremely high. As far as buying a car, like you were suggesting with Elan Musk, right now, today you can go into, in North America, I don’t know in Dubai, I don’t know anywhere else in the world. But right now you can walk into a Lamborghini of North America, you could walk into a Porsche of North America, and you could buy a car using Bitcoin.

That’s something that’s already out there. And it’s already happening as far as walking into a local convenience store. Sure, at some point, that’s going to be something where the chains, the grocery chain, let’s say is going to have their own way to accept Bitcoin.

That’s definitely on the horizon. pretty safe to say it’s here to stay. It’s probably only going to get bigger one couple last questions.

How Does Bitcoin Work With Taxes?

I know you are not going to say you’re a tax expert, but Bitcoin is taxable. Is that correct? As far as if you sell it for a profit or if you sell for a loss? How does it work with taxes?

Well, there’s a lot of loopholes that are currently there with regard to taxes, and we’re not going to get into it, I would just want to just touch upon it that a lot of people aren’t aware that if you put sell Bitcoin and you put it in your bank account, it is a taxable asset. Well, it is, but there is no record of the chain as far as when you buy a house, and you buy and you sell the house, the title and the deed and the sale price are part of that equation.

So the government contracts say that you can pay taxes, same thing with your business, everything is followed that way Bitcoin, you can declare what your what the value is that you purchase, that there’s no central brokerage firm, that’s going to say that you bought XYZ stock at 20. And then it’s going to show up somewhere that you paid 20. It’s not happening yet. But as it progresses and matures, that will probably start to happen.

Well, this has been really good stuff, Evan, I think this probably clears up a lot for people that really had no idea about Bitcoin. So you wanted to just take another minute and just talk about what your firm does, and how you can help people.

If you want more information on how Evan can help you and his company, just click the link below.

Evan take a minute and just say whatever you want to say as far as an overview of what we spoke about.

What I do want to say is there is an update, basically Bitcoin is the volatility is still there. And what we’re going through now is we’re going through a smoothing out phase, a lot of these other coins, alternative coins are starting to come into play and their names are becoming more and more familiar to people, all this is doing is spreading out and creating even more of a demand, there’s going to be only 21 million bitcoins In the world ever.

And as we know, the US dollar they’re printing, you know, at a record pace 24 seven, the deficits going up, this is definitely an inflationary investment opportunity. And with only 21 million coins being issued. It’s something that as other coins become more popular, the validity and the value, and the understanding of Bitcoin is growing.

Well, I appreciate you stopping by Evan. And like I said, if you want more information about Bitcoin, just go below on the link and click and just leave your register and we’ll be more than glad to help you.

This is Tommy D. Once again, I’ll be back tomorrow, and have a great day everyone.

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Thank you.