Carl Runefelt - Why The Bear Market Is The Perfect Time To Invest

Full transcript: Carl “The Moon” Runefelt on London Real

2:42 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Karl Ruhnfeld, aka The Moon, a former supermarket cashier turned YouTube influencer, cryptocurrency analyst, investor and entrepreneur. You are the founder and host of The Moon, your YouTube channel with over half a million subscribers and almost 100 million views. As one of the leading advocates of Bitcoin, you’ve been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30, Fox News and Business Insider. You’re also one of the most influential figures on crypto Twitter with over 1.2 million followers where you post the latest Bitcoin updates and your thoughts on the market. You’ve invested in over 400 startups and your latest venture, the blockchain game, Midiville Empires, is set to launch soon. You believe that crypto gaming is the future with unimaginable potential. Karl, welcome back to London Real.

3:41 Thank you so much for being here. That’s a very nice intro. And I will tell you this right now, Brian, my favorite interview I’ve ever done so far is the last interview you and I did. That was the best one I’ve done so far. Oh, man, that was incredible, man. We were really, we were vibing there. And I think people saw a whole new side of Karl as you were talking about, you know, this way of tapping into the energy that’s out there and this this concept of, of kind of visualizing your future and then becoming your future. And, you know, when I watch you, Karl, and I watch you on Instagram, on Twitter, a lot of people do. I mean, you’ve manifested this life you built. And I just want to say, people, I was there in Dubai. I was at Karl’s offices. I was at the conferences with him. And like, I could see everything you built, including medieval empires was kicking off left and right. And I was just thinking, man, you know, this kid four years ago was in the supermarket. And now you’ve manifested this stuff with your mind and a lot of great work and a lot of great energy. And so it was very real to me. And you were a great host to me there. And the crypto community that you hang with there are like some super positive energy folks, man. So yeah, I had an amazing time out there. So yeah, thanks for that.

4:55 Yeah, thank you for the, the office party we had here was really cool. You came and I mean, I guess you saw yourself like we had so many incredibly interesting people, we had some of the most influential influencers in the Middle East region, we had some of the very influential people from the Abu Dhabi and Dubai government, we had just wealthy individuals in general, because there are plenty of them here in Dubai. So that’s the cool thing about Dubai. It’s so easy to connect interesting people together. I say it’s easy, but maybe it’s not easy. But for me, it has been easy, because I built my network. But it’s for sure easier here than in Sweden, where I grew up. And I’m so happy to be based.

5:39 Here. And yeah, it was great hosting you, man. And when I come to London, we should hang out. Yeah, we’re definitely gonna do that. And yeah, just to finish on Dubai, like I just felt the vibe there. And there’s just such a positive energy. Everyone’s focused on the future. Everyone’s there to build. There’s no like dead weight in Dubai. I don’t see a bunch of people just phoning in their day there. You know, I don’t see a bunch of people just like zombies going to work like everybody in Dubai is like, we’re here to build the future. And it’s a great energy to be around, especially if you’re already kind of on the wavelength, you’re like, there’s all my friends. And so it’s like, it’s a great place to be man. So yeah, look, I can’t wait to jump in and talk to you today. Look, there’s so much happening. And we should just dive in to what’s happening. Because you’ve been in this market for a while, Carl, you’ve seen the ups and downs of crypto. But I’m curious, have you ever seen a period like the last 30 days, I guess, specifically, we’ll talk about the elephant in the room, which is probably FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, the fallout, the stories, what’s your take on it? From call the moon’s perspective, the whole FTX disaster or scandal is it is a massive, massive thing, like, we cannot take it too lightly, it is definitely going to hurt the reputation of crypto in the coming years, it is already it already damaged the reputation of crypto.

7:02 It is definitely comparable with the Mt. Gox scandal that happened many, many years ago. That was one of the big, big, like first setbacks for crypto. I was not even in crypto back then, by the way, Mt. Gox was the biggest exchange in crypto. And we’re talking, I think we’re talking 2013-14 here. And when Mt. Gox collapsed, Mt. Gox actually controlled like 80% of the exchange market and like many of the Bitcoin transactions were actually done with Mt. Gox. So, that was a disaster. And after Mt. Gox collapsed, the Bitcoin price corrected like, I think 80% or something, it was a incredibly severe bear market for a couple of years or three years there. So, this what happened to FTX is definitely comparable. The market is bigger today and FTX didn’t control 80% of the market, but it is or was the second biggest crypto exchange and has built up a lot of reputation as a big exchange. And if you asked me three months ago if I think FTX is going to collapse, I would have said, oh, wait, it’s not going to happen. It’s the second biggest exchange. Like, no way that’s going to happen. Just like, that’s what I would say about Binance. And I would say that about Coinbase. But what happened with FTX clearly showed me that we cannot take things for granted and we cannot assume that a big player is solid simply because it’s big and has a big reputation. FTX has the FTX Arena in Miami, I believe. They have had the FTX logo on the Mercedes Formula 1 car here in the Middle East gumball. You had FTX logos on every single car here on the supercars. And, you know, FTX had built such a strong brand, almost equal to the one of Binance, to be honest.

9:02 FTX is just or was just as publicly respected in a way as Binance. And I wouldn’t be able to tell because I’ve been in this space, I think five years now, if you count the first year when I was still in the grocery store. And I’ve seen FTX and Binance grow along each other. And I’m very surprised. I’m very, very surprised. And it will be very easy for people coming outside of crypto and saying that, oh, this should have been obvious. And, oh, you’re going to call a bunch of scammers in crypto. But it was not obvious. It was very few people who were in the know of FTX. And it came as a shock and surprise to the vast majority in crypto. But it is definitely a massive setback. And I think it’s going to take a couple of years for crypto to recover from their reputational damage, unfortunately. And I didn’t lose money specifically in FTX, maybe a little bit. But we’re talking a very small amount.

10:02 Of like old tokens that I just didn’t claim for a while. Very, very minor stuff. I didn’t hold any big holdings there. But I have lost a lot of money on other exchanges and protocols where I took risk and I lost money. So I know how it feels to lose money, other than just losing the value of the Bitcoin dropping, but actually like literally losing your hard assets. That it really sucks. And it’s really, it feels really bad. And I think we’re all in the same spot here. Many people lost money. I mean, BlockFi literally two days ago came out and said they also bankrupt now. So that’s all the money gone. And we also already had to deal with Luna Celsius. Yeah. Right now, the crypto space has definitely seen better days. And it is, it’s very sad, but it is also a natural part of a growing industry. There will be ups, there will be downs, there will be players that mismanage users funds, and there will be scammers, there will be all of these things. And the same was with the internet.com era. I mean, everyone looks back now and thinks that it was very obvious that you had to invest in Google and Amazon. But those people that invested in Google and Amazon, they also invested in a bunch of businesses that went to zero, probably because the founders ran away with the money or because the business model was stupid or, you know, all the reasons why crypto companies are going down right now. But there are many companies in crypto that are going to go on and become the multi billion dollar companies in the future. And it’s just our job to try to figure out which ones. And obviously, I’m also building companies and I’m not going to stop building just because we have a bear market. I’m here building every single day. And I have many employees supporting my vision. And of course, it’s bear market. I’m going to cut down on certain spending. So I’m going to be more cautious. Of course,

12:02 Everyone is. But but now is the time to build. And now is the time to to separate yourself from the bad actors and the people that are just complete, you know, cowboys in the wild west, you know. Yeah, this is a great opportunity. I always tell my students to like show the world that you’re here on the front lines. I mean, I had yatsu from Anamoka Brands here in the studio in London a couple weeks ago. And it was just important for me to show the world that we’re not running and hiding like we’re here. We’re in the we’re in this business for the next 10 years. Like we’re massive fans of the blockchain industry, crypto, DeFi, all that stuff. So I agree. This is the time where you want to stand up and show the world you’re building. You’re still involved. You still care. While the fair weather friends run away. And again, the crypto small market and everyone remembers, right? So they’ll they’ll see who like stayed and built. And I know you’re building over there. You know, I was at token 2049 in London when all that news hit. And I think the general feeling, Carl, was it was just like, it felt a little embarrassing because we were right across from Canary Wharf where all my clients used to be at Credit Suisse and Barclays and Citibank. The buildings are towering over us. And I know those guys are looking down thinking, look at you crypto goofballs. Like you can’t even handle an exchange. And I’m like, I want to say no, there’s so much more to this industry. There’s look at DeFi. DeFi is actually it functioned correctly. You just had some cowboys that weren’t doing good risk management that nobody did do dill on.

13:32 That, you know, got over levered just like long term capital management did in 1998, you know, not dissimilar from maybe mortgage crisis in 08. I mean, I’ve been in the industry for a while, but it’s still, like you said, was a setback and it makes the industry look bad. And again, we had big investors in FTX, you know, Sequoia, you know, you had, you know, VCs that should know better. And now when we go and dissect it, I guess it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarter.

14:02 Back, as they say, but there were a lot of red flags. But like you said, it was a huge brand, branded everywhere. SBF was just a guy that you were like, throw money at him and don’t question him. You know, I guess Sam Sam gave all the bad people the blueprint, just put your logo on like a bunch of cool stuff and then people will respect you. And I fell for it as well. Like if I see the FTX logo on the Formula One car or on the FTX Arena, you know, it somehow gives you the confidence.

14:32 Because why would Mercedes allow them to do that if they were like, you know, Bitconnect or some other like Ponzi scheme, right? Why would they allow that? And I guess at the end of the day, like people just like money, you know, if FTX comes and slams $100 million, like who’s going to say no? Like they will deal, they will do some due diligence because, you know, but they will only do so much because they don’t want to come to the conclusion that we can’t take the money.

14:59 So they will only do so much so they cover their own back. But in this case, it came back to bite everyone who endorsed FTX. And I want to actually say live to everyone that I’m very proud. I never mentioned FTX to any of my audience. I never promoted FTX, whether it’s FTX US or any FTX, because I just never had an incredible feeling about them.

15:27 I respected them like I respect other exchanges, but I just chose never to promote them. But maybe for other reasons than them being a scam. But but I just didn’t if someone did promote them, I can’t I can’t hold it against them because there is a fine line where maybe I also would have done it. But but but I actually I actually didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t either, actually.

15:47 So we never talked about it, pushed it, didn’t have him on the show either. But again, you know, that’s just kind of the history. Do you think people are saying it was a scam and it was a fraud? You know, what do you think happened there? I mean, obviously, probably didn’t start off to be that.

16:03 But at some point where you can print your own FTT tokens, you’ve got your separate group, Alameda Research. How much of it was lax risk management of not knowing what’s going on and how much of it just became fraudulent when the markets went bare? Or do we just not know yet? You know what, I think there’s a lot of information out there that suggests different things. And my very good friend BitBoy Crypto, he is one of the people who is really doing a lot of research on this.

16:33 And I had him on my YouTube channel, actually, people can go and watch it on my YouTube channel. It’s a collaboration, me and BitBoy Crypto. And in that video, which is live on my channel, he is talking about some very, very, you know, backdoor stuff, like, you know, some shady things in the background that has been going on, starting from the very beginning of the the inception of FTX. So BitBoy is of the perception that FTX was a scam from the very, very beginning with very, very shady people, basically starting the exchange for the reason of, you know, doing doing bad things.

17:12 Now, I wouldn’t say that I am the guy who has all the information about this. And I don’t think I want to like publicly come out and say things because I don’t want to, you know, I want to have the facts straight. But I’ll be happy to connect you with BitBoy Crypto. I think you guys should make a collaboration as well here because he has some very interesting opinions about this whole thing. Yeah. And and I do agree with him on many, many things so far.

17:37 It really does seem like this was not a mistake, like what happened with FTX was a deliberate event. And it also seems like FTX was one of the big reasons why Luda collapsed, why Celsius collapsed and maybe other big disasters as well that happened or are yet to happen. So I think it’s way bigger than we think. And that’s also scary. And I really hope that this contagion doesn’t continue further.

18:09 Like, I don’t want Binance to collapse. Like, if Binance collapses, then I’m telling you right now, it’s like it’s over for the next five years. We’re done for the next five years. Obviously, you cannot kill Bitcoin. So it’s not going to it doesn’t hurt Bitcoin, but the industry itself would be severely damaged by that.

18:28 And another massive, massive threat to crypto right now is a US dollar tether. If Tether were to collapse for some reason, whether it’s a contagion from the FTX collapse or from the simple reason that it’s not fully reserved because there is so much information suggesting that Tether is not 100% backed up by actual assets, which means that it’s just a fractional reserve. If it collapses, then that pulls the rug on the whole crypto industry. And that’s the only scenario which would let me entertain Bitcoin going down to something like, you know, 5K or 3K.

19:08 I really don’t think this is going to happen, but, you know, you never know. And unfortunately, this industry is so small today that there are certain things like fundamental things that could happen that could destroy the price. I mean, it’s a short term that we don’t have any, you know, we cannot do anything about it. It’s just what it is. Like it’s up to the universe or I don’t know, the God or whoever, you know, we just have to hope that we survive in this bad market now.

19:39 Yeah, those are two great things to look out for. Obviously, Binance now with a ton of market share. And I do want to come and ask you about CZ later, Tether, you know, the highest volume US stablecoin coin, but also never completely proven on the fractional reserve. But it’s used so much in the industry that if either one of those collapse, I agree crypto would be dead for maybe not five years, but a good three years plus. So so, yeah, you know, with with with Sam, first of all, BitBoy was here on my show about four weeks before I came to Dubai.

20:09 And then he was on stage at Future Blockchain Summit. And I’m telling you, Carl, you know, but you know what Ben’s like. He was going off on stage on various people like Gensler. We talked about Daquan and then he did a whole tirade on Bankman Fried. Literally, the FTX booth was like earshot away and it hadn’t happened yet.

20:28 And like what I always do what I do on London Real. Again, we’ve been proponents for free speech since the beginning. We had to fight for it in 2020 when YouTube was shutting this down. But I just sat there and I listened to him because I think you got to let let the person speak. So he put it out there and made a lot of people uncomfortable.

20:44 But I’m I’m glad people were listening because then literally two weeks later, it’s going off. And now, you know, BitBoy is down there in the Bahamas and going, you know, going hardcore. And we could talk about that, too. But, you know, it’s been interesting to see what he’s uncovered. And I know he saw a lot of things happening behind the scenes.

21:01 I got to ask you a question. We’re seeing all these weird things in the mainstream media, Carl, like, you know, Sam is still set to speak at a New York Times event featuring some of the biggest players in the world in government and corporations and Wall Street Journal front page articles that seem to be saying really good things about him. And like in a weird way, defending him and talking about how it’s a shame that his philanthropy has gone down. And we’ve all in crypto been shocked that he seems to be getting support maybe from politicians from mainstream media.

21:35 I don’t know. Do you have a read on this? Did you notice that as well? And do you have any thoughts of why? Well, I think if you just look at it from a big perspective, if you look into crypto from another perspective, you see this new industry and then you see you see a small industry and there’s so much opportunity in there.

21:55 That’s why I’m building business in crypto because the chance of success is just massive because there’s a new industry with, you know. That said, if you look then at governments and like very wealthy individuals that have that control trillions of dollars, it wouldn’t it be wouldn’t it make sense that they also see this opportunity and that they go into crypto maybe not publicly, but undercover and they put someone in place like Sam or whoever else. I mean, CZ, like I’m not saying anything.

22:30 I’m just saying that wouldn’t it make sense that you you then control these companies from from like you control the equity, you control the decisions, but you have someone in the front who makes the branding and the networking and publicly controls the company. So that would make sense in my mind because if I had trillions, that’s what I would do. And then, of course, it would be this easy to make these companies successful because you already have the money so you can immediately take over market share.

23:04 And I have actually some inside information about about FTX and their their their spending zone on the online ads because I’ve been speaking to people that know some of their numbers. And they’ve been spending hundreds of millions of dollars in just online ads, like literally just like digital marketing online ads on top of the 400 million they put in the FTX arena and all these things. Like where does all this money come from? And what I think is that let’s say you have trillions of dollars or billions, whatever, and you’re either in government or you just have a lot of like shady money, like black money that comes from really shady things.

23:45 Then the best way to launder this money or to put it in something would be in crypto because no one would bat an eye. Everyone’s like, oh, it’s just a crypto company, FTX. Of course, they make money. It’s crypto like it’s derivatives trading. Of course, they will make bank like no one no one will question that, but they would question it if it’s like maybe like a random new maybe car company or like a textile company because it just maybe doesn’t really make sense because maybe the like if a new car comes out with very, very like mediocre technology and then becomes like the biggest car that would maybe be more strange.

24:23 But in crypto, it just it’s just fine. Everyone thinks it’s it’s just crypto. So, yeah, the question or the answer is that it’s very likely that some of these companies in crypto that are controlling the market are controlled by big forces out there, whether it’s the banks, mafia, like really like shady, strange money could also be like, you know, the elites of the world. Like we could literally be talking about like the Bilderberg meeting people that the skull and bones like these kind of people as well.

24:56 Like who knows? Like they are smart individuals. Like if I can see that crypto is the next big thing they know, of course, I mean, maybe they created this whole crypto industry like who knows. So so I think that it’s very naive to think that all of these people like Sam and other CEOs of exchanges are just like random computer nerds who just random people. You know, raised a lot of money from nothing and just boom became the biggest exchange.

25:24 Like it doesn’t work like that. It’s possible, but I just don’t think it’s very reasonable. And now I think with FTX, we seem to have the proof that at least FTX was a good example of that. Yeah. And there’s all sorts of weird ties with funds being given to the Democrat Party and maybe some to the Republican Party.

25:41 And then he’s in Washington, D.C. all the time. And and then this weird media coverage, which we would expect the mainstream media just to sell crypto down the river. Like it usually does. And now it’s not.

25:52 It’s like you said, a lot of smart people out there, a lot of pools of money. I just had Andrew Bustamante on my show last week and he was a CIA guy for seven years. And he was just talking to me how they place assets here and there. And yeah, I’m starting to think about this more and more. Just to finish up with Sam, three potential scenarios.

26:10 I want to get your thoughts on this, Carl. One is Sam goes to jail for 10 years. Two is Sam does no time. Three is Sam starts another 10 billion dollar company. And next year he’s riding high.

26:21 Which one do you think is possible? Because let’s be honest, they’re all possible.

26:27 They’re all possible. That’s true. I don’t think he’s going to make another company because whoever controlled the X, they will just use another puppet next time. Right. Why use a burnt car like he’s burnt already.

26:39 That’s at least how I would do if I was this Illuminati mafia person. The first option, him going to jail. I mean, I think that’s probably a more likely scenario because again, I don’t think that Sam was the owner of this exchange. He was not the main controller and the people that control the X, I don’t think they actually care about Sam. Like they would just put him in jail and then be done with it.

27:09 That’s again, what I maybe would have done if I was this crazy mafia people behind FTX. But somehow I feel like maybe the more likely scenario is that he gets away with it somehow because he’s just too connected to these people. And like you said, the media coverage has been surprisingly kind to FTX and Sam, which is really, really surprising because like you said, usually if something happens in crypto, even the smallest minor thing, the media just completely destroys crypto, whether it’s crypto is destroying the environment or it’s this or that.

27:44 Like it’s always so much stuff. So so yeah, it’s very, very, very weird. But honestly, I don’t know. But I would love to see him in jail because that would make the most sense. Yeah. Now we saw BitBoy go down to the Bahamas and like basically storm his building.

28:01 First of all, what do you think of that? Did Ben go too far? Another thing I that’s curious. The other thing I noticed was he basically Ben said he was the first one to go down there and try to get an interview with him, which it didn’t feel like that, which is it’s that’s weird in itself of all the coverage, the size of this. He’s one of the most googled people in the last couple of weeks.

28:22 And yet Ben, you know, a week after this happened or two weeks after is the first one to go down there. So, yeah, what did you think of that? Did he go too far? And, yeah, your thoughts. Yeah, I don’t think it’s strange that like normal people didn’t go there, but I guess it is strange that we didn’t have a lot of like news media going down there just like Ben.

28:48 Yeah, like Ben was there doing some coverage and actually, you know, trying to get an answer from Sam. And somehow it would seem like an opportunity for like CNN and the likes to go down there and take advantage of the situation. And to be fair, of course, that’s what Ben is doing. He’s taking advantage of a situation. It’s a great PR move as well.

29:11 You know, I think it’s genius of him to do it because everyone is now talking about Ben, which I give a huge shout out for him as well. Like he is very genius. This is very smart of him to do. And it’s for two reasons. First of all, he’s actually doing a good job because he’s demanding answers from Sam.

29:26 I think it’s a great thing. And he has the benefit of actually getting a lot of attention and clout for it. And whatever he does with that, I hope he does the best with that. But I’m sure he’s a great guy. Ben is a good friend of mine.

29:40 But, yeah, where CNN, you know, it would have been amazing to come down there and even interview Ben down there. But it seems like media just doesn’t really care too much. So it’s strange. But I don’t know, I think Ben is doing a good job. Yeah, I agree.

29:57 He’s Ben’s got him in his sights and he’s just really on a warpath right now. He’s he’s back on the show in a couple of weeks. So we’re going to talk to him more about it then. Ben’s also going after Kevin O’Leary because the FTX stuff. And again, when Ben goes after people, he goes after them with a vengeance.

30:11 What do you think of that? Actually, I didn’t I didn’t check yet what exactly he says about Kevin. I understand that he invested in FTX or something like this. But I just don’t know. I actually met Kevin myself in Abu Dhabi just like a few days ago.

30:30 But that was before BitBoy went really heavy on him. So I didn’t have the chance to ask him about it. In fact, Kevin was giving me some compliments about my watch. The new Jacob watch. Exactly.

30:43 So we were we were just focusing on the watches because that’s the only thing I know about him, really. I don’t know much about him, to be honest. I mean, I know he was in Shark Tank and stuff. But other than that, I don’t really have any opinions about Kevin O’Leary. I guess I’ll have to call Ben and see what he says.

30:59 Right. You mentioned CZ earlier and you mentioned Binance. Let’s talk about this because this is important. Binance’s market share was already big, but now it’s gotten even bigger. I saw some chart posted recently and it said that Binance had like eight or nine times the trading volume of its nearest rival, which is Coinbase.

31:18 Now, I don’t know exactly the metrics they’re looking at, but now it looks like CZ has is the king. And he and I know you’ve met him in Dubai recently and I know you’ve hung out with him. And I saw him speak in Paris at the Blockchain Summit. And I think we’re all big fans of CZ. You know, I think we feel like he’s doing it for the right reasons.

31:39 But also he’s getting to be maybe too powerful. What do you think about that? Oh, it’s so crazy. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I wouldn’t necessarily call him a friend of mine. But we have been in contact a lot.

31:54 We’ve been following each other on Twitter for years now and we’ve met a couple of times. So I respect him on that level. You know, like I think he’s very like, you know, when you meet him, he’s a very good guy. Like we have great chats about whether it’s business or crypto. Like, you know, he’s one of us on that level, you know, but I can’t help but think that what if he is literally a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you know?

32:21 I don’t want to get too like conspiratorial, but like what if he and Binance, what if the final puzzle piece to become the biggest exchange to take over crypto was to just let FTX go? Maybe that was the plan from the beginning. I’m not saying it was. It’s possible. If I, again, was this like, you know, evil guy on top of the pyramid like this, like I would be doing these things, you know, like it’s a strategy.

32:53 It’s a marketing strategy and propaganda stuff. But I don’t want to go too speculative and cospertorial because I have nothing to back it up with. I’m just saying that, you know, Binance controls a massive amount of the crypto industry. Now, even even crazier, like the FTX thing that happened was very good for Binance. If you talk just strictly about getting market dominance, it was fantastic for Binance.

33:20 Binance is completely skyrocketing right now. Everyone is talking about CZ and Binance, how they’re saving the crypto industry. And I want to give a big, you know, also shout outs to CZ because I have no proof that he’s doing anything bad. So I just want to say good job, CZ, like he’s doing a very good job and going from nothing to where Binance is today is something that is just astronomical and it’s mind blowing. And, you know, you know, I think what it’s called, you’re innocent until proven guilty. So I mean, for now, I just have to say that it’s a very, very good job.

33:57 But I think we have to also understand that having a player that big is dangerous for the community because the point of crypto is to be decentralized. And if you have Binance controlling, I don’t know exactly what the percentage is now, but it’s getting closer and closer towards, you know, 80%, maybe two, you know, like that is not good because remember Mt. Gox, that was like the perfect example. Mt. Gox controlled the whole exchange industry and then they went down and that completely collapsed the whole industry for years.

34:28 So for the sake of decentralization and freedom and, you know, freedom of choice and, you know, competition, it’s very, very bad. No matter how much you love CZ, no matter much how I respect him, because I really like Binance and CZ, I have to say that, but I don’t like having a player dominating the space too much. Monopolies are never good for, you know, the free markets. Yeah, no, I agree. And even if it’s not something they’re doing, what if something happens to them, a hack, some problem, or what if they get regulated or what if they just start making decisions that they want to make and you won’t have much choice? Like, guess what?

35:11 We’re just going to decide to do three extra layers of KYC now from now on. And what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? So what do they say? Absolute power corrupts.

35:20 Absolutely. So there’s that danger. But yeah, again, look, let’s say let’s say you are the government and you are looking at the crypto industry like five years ago and you’re saying, well, this is the Wild West and this is an industry that’s going to dominate the world. We have to go in and regulate it. We have to go in and, you know, do something about it.

35:39 But there is just like dozens and dozens of exchanges and things and everything is just, you know, where to start. Well, maybe you’re thinking, OK, let’s just start our own exchange and we put all the money in there and all the regulation and then we take the guy, the puppet, let him meet every single world leader in the whole world, which CZ is doing, by the way, and then just, you know, make Binance the freshest, most beautiful, you know, cleanest, reputable exchange in the world. So everyone uses it.

36:12 And when you get everyone to use it, now you regulate Binance. Now you don’t have to regulate anything else because you already regulate the monopoly. So done. Easy job. And actually, from like for governments to do something like that, I don’t think that’s hard. I think that would be very, very easy.

36:33 And again, I’m just speculating because I have no proof of what I’m saying. It’s simply speculating, but I’m just, you know, playing with the idea. And I don’t want to give people any crazy ideas. But I mean, what do you think? Like, well, I’ve got David Ike here on Friday.

36:47 So, you know, the world renowned conspiracy theorists. So I’m going to I’m going to put you two guys together and you guys can figure this out. David would definitely think you’re right. And I’m sure George Soros is squirming in his chair right now as you’re revealing to the world all of his plans. But you’re right.

37:03 Wait, wait, wait. I would never kill myself, OK? I would never kill myself. And, you know, just everyone knows when they come and kill me. Me too, by the way.

37:14 Just me too. Yeah. But I mean, like you said, it’s it’s again, it would be beautifully crafted this narrative. And like you said, it is a marketing funnel. If you think about any good, you know, conspiracy.

37:28 And yeah, there’s a lot of things that point at it. There’s a lot of things to be worried about. And again, if we remember, Carl, four weeks ago, CZ basically he had a billion dollars worth of FTT tokens, didn’t he? About a billion dollars that he basically just dumped, which caused the crash of of FTX and got them market share. But he literally wrote that investment off by making a tweet saying, guess what? We’re going to liquidate this.

37:55 Now, I come from Wall Street. I worked out for 15 years. If I want to liquidate an asset and get the value of the asset, you know who I tell? I don’t tell my mother about that until it’s liquidated. I do it nice and quiet.

38:08 And so the fact that he did that, you know, he wrote that thing off and he’s a good businessman. So anyways, let the theories begin. It’s going to make a great movie one day, Carl. Maybe we’re going to maybe we’re going to be in it. Everything crypto, I feel like we are in a movie.

38:25 It’s really crazy. Like things are happening that just, you know, would make the best you know, episode of billions or end of these like American TV series. Yeah. No, the characters here are better. I mean, they’re actually better.

38:36 If you think about it, actually, I mean, I got students that have been with me for like a year and a half and I tell them like a year in crypto is like 10 years in any other industry. And it has been. I mean, we’ve seen it’s like the craziest. It’s like Star Wars. You know, seven different movies that we’ve seen with all the ups and the downs and the characters in the.

38:56 Yeah, it’s crazy, man. It’ll definitely give you gray hair or mature you fast. Talking about the markets, you’ve been putting a bunch of really great charts up there and a lot of people don’t know this about you, Carl, is that, you know, you’re you’re actually quite versed in technical trading and looking at a lot of technical analysis. You just posted a descending wedge pattern recently and you’re looking at what could be the bottom or close to the bottom.

39:19 And you’re talking about where Bitcoin could go from here. Tell me about the markets, the price of Bitcoin, which is, I think, just under 17000 right now. I think you think it’s time to buy. And correct me if I’m wrong, but did you just not say you’re going to give away your entire Twitter account of one point two million followers if Bitcoin doesn’t hit a hundred thousand like in the next month? Is that what you said?

39:42 Well, technically, that’s what I said. Yeah. So basically, I made a tweet like I think over a year ago where I said if Bitcoin doesn’t hit 100K before the end of 2022, then I will delete my Twitter. And, you know, I know how to create engagement. You know, I knew that if I tweet this, it’s going to get insane amount of likes and comments and retweets and articles and everything.

40:05 You know, and that happened. You know, I got insane amounts of attention for that. And it is an attention grabbing economy. And sometimes I have my little things that I do. But, you know, it is, of course, a joke.

40:19 And I think most people understand that it’s a joke. But yeah, let’s see. Like if someone thinks that I really should give away my Twitter, maybe I just donate it to someone who really needs it. Let’s see. I’ll take it. Yeah.

40:33 All right. And so do you think we’re at the bottom in crypto in Bitcoin? So the thing is that on my YouTube channel, I do technical analysis. I’ve been doing that now for actually five years. I started one year before I quit my grocery store to do technical analysis.

40:51 I guess I didn’t start with TA, but at least, yeah, let’s say four years ago, I started with technical analysis there and I had a lot of success. And also I did some some bad trades as well. The thing is right now. Like how can technical analysis predict if FTX would collapse? How can technical analysis predict if Tether is going to collapse?

41:14 It’s not possible. You know, there is a degree of truth to the statement that, you know, show me the charts and I’ll tell you the news. That’s usually what I say, because usually I think the charts are way more powerful than news on certain time frames, like on the daily time frame, on the hourly, you know, but when it comes to like these huge, fundamental black swan events, like there’s no TA in the world that can do anything about that. So, you know, I think we should go up from here because I think we’ve seen maximum pain, maximum fud, like how can it possibly be worse than this?

41:57 Like FTX collapses, the second biggest exchange and block five goes bankrupt and this goes bankrupt. Like I don’t think it can get much worse in terms of like fud that we have right now, like negativity, you know, fear, uncertainty and doubt. So I don’t see any reason why we have to go lower. And another point is that many people, actually, most people that I talk to right now, almost everyone, I would say, are saying that Bitcoin needs to go down to 13K, 10K, 5K.

42:28 And when everyone shifts bearish like that, when all the bulls lost hope, that’s usually the time to buy because that’s usually the reversal point. So I think there’s a pretty decent chance now that we already saw the bottom. It’s possible that this 15K that we touched there, that might have been the bottom. And we might just be going up from here unless something very huge happens. If Tether collapses, all bets are off.

42:56 If something else, like I said, if Binance goes down, like I’m out for the next two years, I’ll start making a music or something for some time, I’ll stop this bullshit. Yeah, you’re pretty good on the guitar as well. So check out your videos. No, it’s well said. And yeah, barring those events, we again, we saw a similar version.

43:16 And the last year, everyone was saying Bitcoin is going to hit 100,000 before Christmas. And again, when the whole market goes bullish, that’s when you better watch out because it usually means it’s overbought, it’s overlevered. And then we saw the correction as well. So it’s a good rule of thumb. I want to take a complete break from the markets and ask about a fellow Bugatti owner that is good friends with you, I think, which is Andrew Tate.

43:38 And I know you guys went back and forth with him talking about guys owning Bugattis and you put a video back at him. Tell me about your relationship with Andrew, your fellow Bugatti owner. And are you guys buddies now? Well, actually, the first contact or communication we had was, I think, like a year ago when he bought his Bugatti, I already had my Bugatti and I just, I think someone even recommended me said like, Hey, look, this guy, he lives in Dubai.

44:03 He just bought a Bugatti as well. So I just messaged him and said, Hey, man, nice Bugatti. Like, let’s meet up sometime. And yeah, that’s just how that happened. And that was before he became like very, very, very well known.

44:17 Just a few months later, that’s when he just blew up and became the most googled person on the planet and all of these things, you know, it’s just mind blowing, actually, he’s a genius. I have to say, like, it’s really genius. If the objective is to reach massive fame, he’s a genius because he clearly did that. But, but yeah, then of course he also has the side of him where he speaks very controversially, some would say, obviously the word controversial is like very subjective.

44:46 Like someone thinks it’s controversial. Someone else thinks it’s just facts or whatever. But so he creates a lot of lovers and haters. So he has like extremes is really like hardcore fans and hardcore haters. And I guess it’s very good for, for engagement and fame.

45:04 And I think he’s making great money also from it. So he’s doing very well. And he lives in Dubai, just like me. And yeah, he’s, he’s doing well. All right.

45:13 And you made like a Bugatti video kind of back at him a few months ago, I think when he was like calling out Bugatti kids or something, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I made some funny videos and yeah, I’m just having fun about it. It’s, it’s, it’s fun.

45:28 I think it’s, you know, it’s important to be able to, to use humor in the world and yeah, it’s fun. Yeah. It’s a marketing masterclass. Like you said, I mean, he really did something special in, in a market that’s already crowded with people trying to get at people’s attention. And he did it.

45:44 And like you said, he’s polarizing, but I had someone on here recently talking about it and I said, look, it doesn’t just happen because you want it to happen and you want to put these polarizing views out there. There’s, there’s a huge part of the world that feels there’s truth in this message or is yearning for someone to say what no one is prepared to say. And honestly, he tells a truth and again, all our versions of the truth are very subjective, but it’s a, it’s a truth that is true to some people and they’re not able to hear it in most places because it’s not okay to say that.

46:18 And I think the world is yearning for, you know, different people that are a little more based in reality and aren’t and aren’t the ones that are constantly taken off of our tech platforms, which all had this one narrative, which brings me to my next point, which is our friend, Elon Musk, going into Twitter, slashing and burning people are running out of the building. He’s put Tate back on Twitter and it seems like he’s going to be putting a bunch of other people on Twitter. I actually expect him to replatform David Ike, who’s going to be on my show on Friday, back on Twitter.

46:52 He put Trump back on Twitter and he seems to be saying, guess what? All of these policies that our tech platforms had, the one that you and I use, some of them that I got banned and shadow banned from in 2020, he’s like, I’m not going to play that anymore. And we’re going to go for freedom of speech and we’re going to let people talk. And he said, freedom of speech, not freedom of reach is what Elon said. So, you know, if you’re saying stuff, it’s like, you know, really offensive.

47:15 I’m just going to dial your reach down, but you can say it. What do you think of Musk, Twitter, and this concept of freedom of speech in our digital platforms? Well, I think that, um, Andrew Tate is actually something we really, really need because sometimes it’s very good that we get reminded why we have freedom of speech. So some people, they say, well, freedom of speech is amazing. But as soon as someone comes to say something that they find offensive, then they say, well, it’s not okay if he says it, you know?

47:50 So people, they cherry pick, but that’s why someone like Andrew Tate is very important, someone who comes and says very, very quote unquote offensive things, of course, it’s just subjective, right? But it’s very important because that really reminds us how it feels when someone says things that you don’t want to hear, or maybe someone does want to hear, but that’s the whole point of freedom of speech. Because it’s just, it’s such a hypocrisy to say freedom of speech, as long as I don’t get offended, like it doesn’t make sense, right?

48:21 Then there’s no freedom of speech. So, um, I think, um, uh, it was very important that, um, Andrew Tate blew up because he showed us that we cannot trust Instagram. We cannot trust, uh, um, I guess we’re more like YouTube, TikTok. I think all of these platforms just completely shut him down. And, uh, I mean, I knew this already because I have other friends who, um, got their verifications took taken off from Instagram because they said certain things about, um, different political matters could be vaccines, could be, uh, whatever, like things that, um, the, the platforms don’t like, and then they just take off your verification or they shut you down, they do shadow bands and all these things.

49:01 And I think it’s a very, very sad. And that’s why I’m very optimistic now that Elon seems to potentially go against that. I mean, he gave us some, uh, some proof of that by actually reinstating people like, um, uh, Andrew Tate and Trump and the likes. And if David Dyke is back, I would be very happy because I think that he also is very important for freedom of speech. Um, so, so hopefully Twitter can be become that, uh, that platform.

49:30 And I’m very big on Twitter because I love Twitter and I, I use Twitter more than I use other platforms because, um, I like that platform. And, and I really want to see it become like this town hall, like Elon calls it where everyone has the chance to speak and yeah, it’s going to be a lot of offensive stuff there. I mean, there’s a downside, right? The downside is that on Twitter, sometimes you get like really like, you know, stuff you don’t want to see.

49:56 There could be like, you know, porn. There could be like, you know, just strange things that you don’t want to get on your feet, but it’s the price you have to pay for freedom of speech. These things will come up there, you know, on Instagram, they just like ban all of these things. So, you know, you choose the platform you want to use. Some people, maybe they go with Instagram, some people go with Twitter.

50:15 There are pros and cons with everything. And, uh, but I think the freedom of speech is just, uh, too important to neglect. Yeah. If you’re a proponent of freedom of speech, then you should be prepared to be offended on a regular basis because the only time that freedom of speech applies is when someone’s saying something that you don’t want to hear. Like that’s just the way it is.

50:35 And yet most people don’t want to say that. Um, ice tea, very famous rapper who I’ve had on my show, OG rapper, he had an album. Um, and he got banned back in the day for his song cop killer, um, for various reasons, but he had an album that’s titled freedom of speech. Just watch what you say. That’s the title.

50:52 I love that. And, um, I had him on when we were getting banned back in 2020, but like you said, you have to be prepared to be offended if you want to defend that right for freedom of speech. And in the long run, it’s better for all of us as a society to have Tate out there and Ike out there and all these people out there. And at least it’s out there and you’re hearing it and you can then convince yourself that they’re wrong or they’re right. It’s also better that they’re out there and not in some echo chamber, Carl, where sometimes if you keep them hidden, it can get kind of crazy and you can build these cells and then these people never actually have to talk about these ideas outside with the public.

51:27 It’s dangerous for a lot of reasons. So it’s been fun to watch Elon do this. It’s literally one man making the call. Um, it’s so that’s fantastic. I’m hoping the other platforms see, or he’s going to start pushing it.

51:40 Now he’s going head to head with Apple and Apple’s saying they might ban the app on the Twitter on the, on the Apple store. This could become a thing because I hope, I actually hope they do because I think that would create the, um, the motivation and passion in Elon to go against Apple and actually create something new because, um, we talked about monopolies and why I don’t like them. Now that applies to Apple. Um, for example, with medieval empires, we have one, one problem right now, which, uh, which everyone in crypto has Apple doesn’t allow certain things like, you know, whether it’s like crypto NFTs and things, they have some guidelines, they just don’t allow it.

52:19 So, um, they, they make it very hard for crypto, crypto apps. Um, and they have such a huge market dominance that it really creates a problem for crypto companies. And, um, we need alternatives. We need a more decentralized, uh, you know, uh, better distributed, um, uh, version of alternatives. And if, uh, Elon creates this everything app that he calls it, he said that he wants to use Twitter to make a big everything app where everything is inside.

52:50 And I think that, that probably means that he wants to go after Apple. Um, and also it should be said that Binance also invested into Twitter and it proves that Twitter will very, very likely integrate crypto payments. I think he even mentioned it. And actually even one year ago, I, I even had the idea myself, like, why doesn’t someone just like take Twitter and just integrate crypto on it, crypto payments, because the infrastructure is already there. So it’s just like applying something, which is already there.

53:24 All the users are already there. Um, and it seems like Elon just, that’s exactly what he’s going to do now. And, um, I think considering that crypto is such a growing industry, there’s going to be so many people go to this new app, Twitter and this everything app rather than Apple, and hopefully, uh, we can see, uh, that is a great alternative, which is more crypto friendly. And, uh, I’m really hoping for Elon to, to do that. And, uh, so far it seems like he’s really, you know, pro crypto.

53:53 I think we have very, very big evidence of that. Like doge this doge that it’s funny, but, uh, but I think he also has more serious plans than just, you know, doing doge payments. Like, I think he really is taking a bet on crypto, even though he’s not like publicly saying it specifically, but just look at his actions and then you can see that that’s what’s happening. Yeah, it’s going to be beautiful to watch. I mean, Jack Dorsey, obviously who used to kind of run Twitter is big into crypto and, you know, the cash app and, you know, it was building technology where people have been, you know, buying Bitcoin regularly for a while.

54:27 Obviously he left, but that’s what people have always envisioned. Yeah. Twitter to turn into that crypto friendly platform. I mean, Elon paid 44 billion for that sucker. It was losing 4 million a day.

54:38 When he got there, he’s going to have to turn it into more than just a messaging service, even with a billion users to make that thing anywhere near profitable. And he’s got big debt service payments to make. I mean, I worked in Wall Street when you do a leveraged buyout, you got big chunky coupon payments to make every year and that needs cashflow or guess what? They take it away from you. And and so he’s going to have to do something with it, which I think will be good, which means he might have to look at something like crypto that could just take it from a messaging app or a town hall into, you know, I almost said we chat, I don’t want to go there to the to the China thing.

55:14 But, you know, a place where there’s information and payments. And look, with Apple, I hope he goes head to head with Apple. It’s a big thing. Like you said, the App Store is a 30 percent tax on the Internet. Like you said, you struggle in there.

55:26 I know a lot of companies that struggle and they have a monopoly right now. So look, knowing that, knowing Elon, he likes to pick a fight. So I think he’s going to go for it, which will be good. But the only last thing I’ll be to say that I don’t like about Elon is that he’s making subjective calls on who comes back on the platform. And, you know, Alex Jones is another question.

55:44 I’m not saying what Alex did was right at all. And he made some big mistakes. But Elon came out and said, Alex can’t come back on, but Trump can’t come back on. And he’s making these subjective calls. So again, back to your CZ reference, we’re putting a lot of power with one person.

56:00 He’s getting it done. He’s pushing the envelope. But we’re always going to come back to this age old problem of absolute power. And you’re right. Like at the end of the day, we can only hope that Elon will do good for free speech.

56:14 And even if it’s just better than Instagram, it’s still better. But as you said, of course, it’s always going to fall back on Elon at the end of the day. The very, very like rock solid solution would be a completely like blockchain, decentralized social network that would be the solution. Because then literally anyone could be there without anyone ever saying anything about it. I think that would be very beautiful to have it.

56:47 But again, that will come with massive pros and cons. Like the pros will be free speech. Easy. The cons that people will talk a lot about is that there will be child porn there. There’s going to be like, you know, terrorists or whatever.

57:01 There’s going to be a lot of drugs flowing in and out. There’s going to be like a lot of that stuff. Yeah, that’s a given. So the whole dark web basically would come into this decentralized network. So those are the cons.

57:14 But when it comes to freedom of speech, there’s going to be pros and cons. And I think that at least having the alternative out there would be it would be great, because I think that for the very few people that really have no chance to speak anywhere like Alex Jones, I mean, he should have the platform, I think. And then where is he supposed to go? Like right now, I don’t know, I don’t do research on him, but if he has no platform, then someone just silenced him.

57:40 And who is to judge whether he’s right or wrong? I mean, maybe he said controversial things. That’s possible. But controversial never means necessarily wrong. Right. And we know that with the with the people like Andrew Tate and David Dyke and other people that that have said things that might have been controversial, but some things have clearly been proven right.

57:59 So I think that it’s it’s very important that these people get the platform to speak. And I think that applies to Alex Jones, even though he said things that some people say is crazy, but it’s just subjective. Like, you know, I think I think it’s very important. So my answer is yes, he should be back on Twitter. I think it’s easy. Just get him back.

58:17 Yeah, I agree. Whenever you silence someone, if you look throughout history, even recent history, the people doing the silencing almost always leads to bad things, right? Bad things, you know, exterminations and famines and like, oh, whenever someone do that, it never turns out right. So, yeah, you might have to listen to someone that really bothers you or you fundamentally disagree with, but allowing them to just air that out. It’s always the right thing. So, yeah, I hope Elon does that.

58:47 Like you said, this decentralized is a great option in the future, but it also brings with it potentially a whole lot of problems as well. What’s nice about Elon is is that there’s no committee, there’s no fact check or nonsense companies that are controlled by other companies. There’s one guy at the top who’s saying, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. And at least you get some decisions made as opposed to like a Facebook or, you know, YouTube where it’s just like you get this runaround committee, blah, blah, blah.

59:12 And so, yeah, it’s good. I love tuning in to watch it. And I’m a big supporter of Elon. So it’s all good. Look, I want to ask you about medieval empires because you’ve been working really hard on this game.

59:23 And I just want everyone to know, like, I’ve seen you behind the scenes working on this game. You hosted a big party at your place. You were at the block future blockchain summit conference promoting the game. I can see you in all your personal time, massive meetings. I can see this entire map that you’re building.

59:41 You got this incredible Turkish actor engine. I think that’s his name, who’s just a massive celebrity who’s working on it with you. Talk to me about medieval empires. I think the token launch is coming up soon. And why have you gotten so excited about a project like this?

59:55 Because I don’t know if you’ve had a history of gaming, but tell me. So first of all, his name is Engin Alton, so yeah, he is a massive celebrity, as you said. And basically, someone connected both of us because we shared the common interest of crypto. That’s how we got connected to each other. And we instantly became very friendly and friends and we have a good vibration.

1:00:22 And we just thought that let’s make sure that we do something together. And long story short, I’ve been a gamer. When I was a kid, I was playing a lot of different strategic games and even need for speed and guitar hero. I love game. All of us do.

1:00:39 Everyone who grew up in the past, I don’t know, couple of decades have been doing gaming, especially us men, right? It’s like a male-dominated thing. And crypto is also an industry that is growing just like gaming. So from my point of view, when you have crypto, a very new market, going to dominate the world that I’ve just talked about, and then gaming, which is also a very, very fast growing market, and gaming is actually a market way bigger than movies and way bigger than music, even combined.

1:01:12 Gaming is massive in terms of the revenue and the money involved. So it’s a huge industry. So when you take those two industries and combine them together, it’s really mind blowing to think how big that new industry is, which I would like to call that crypto gaming. Crypto gaming is going to be massive. It’s already starting out.

1:01:32 And we only so far saw a few small games, like the first generation crypto games, like X infinity and so on. Very, very limited games that are more like a click to earn. It’s like small slot machines almost. Like it’s very, very basic. And usually it’s more like poor people playing it just to make like some minimum wage per day.

1:01:55 You know, people don’t play it to have fun. So medieval empires is a second generation or next generation crypto game, which is a proper game built by professional industry, gaming professional designers and game economists, like people that built proper games from studios like Zynga, EA, and people that worked with Candy Crush, for example. So we have people with massive experience. And that’s important to build a proper fun to play game. And that’s the idea.

1:02:34 Basically bring this game to Engin Altan’s fans. He has hundreds of millions of fans. This guy is more famous than Brad Pitt. He’s more famous than people that we know in the Western world. He’s a global celebrity in like half of the world, half of the world.

1:02:50 So we’re talking about like the East and South America and the Middle East. So there are many countries, but unfortunately, like Sweden, maybe US and Europe in general is not as well known. So it’s just saying we’re like Bollywood people. They’re only famous in certain areas, but there they have massive, massive, massive reach. So basically bringing this to his fans.

1:03:15 And I’m super excited. And it’s based on, yeah, it’s a crypto game. And I think that’s, like I said, the next big thing in crypto, having gaming and crypto merging together like that. So it’s really cool. Like you said, the token launch is on the 21st of December coming up now in just three weeks.

1:03:35 Why launch it now? Because we have big balls. Now, I think, so basically, obviously, everyone else is just waiting for a bull market. But at the end of the day, like, who knows when that’s going to happen? Could be another two years.

1:03:53 I think that if you really need a bull market to launch, then, like, why is that the only thing you have? Like, we’re building a fundamentally very solid game with industry professionals. And like the fundamentals are really, really strong. And when the fundamentals are strong, it’s very easy to get investors. I mean, our token race was very easy to fill.

1:04:17 We fill the seed and the private now very quickly, which I don’t think other people are doing. It’s very hard to raise currently in crypto. But for us, it was quite easy because we just show them the work in progress. People can see the world map and our town builder. People can go to medieval empires, YouTube channel, and medieval empires.com, and they can see all these things.

1:04:40 And that kind of washes out the doubt. But I have to admit that in crypto, there are many people that just do a lot of talking. And that’s why it’s important to do more of the showing. And that’s what we’re doing. And so far, it’s going very well.

1:04:55 And yeah, it’s a bear market. But I think launching in a bear market and a bull market has pros and cons. If you launch in a bull market, yeah, you get investors very easily. But the chart is most likely going to go down after, and it’s just not going to look nice. It’s going to lead to people investing at the top, and it goes down.

1:05:13 Launching in a bear market is actually better for the investors because they get a lower valuation. And you get a very good price to hopefully get some better returns in the bull market. So pros and cons, pros and cons for the project itself, it is probably better to launch the bull market. It is like that because it’s just the money and the users and the players. It would be easier to get people.

1:05:41 But it’s not going to stop us from launching something that we find very fundamentally very solid that we have a lot of passion for building. So yeah, I don’t want any bear markets to let us stop us. So yeah, we keep going. Yeah, it’s well said. I mean, if all you’ve got is the bull market for a reason for your company to be successful, then you probably don’t have a company, right?

1:06:04 So like you said, if the game is good, then people want to play it. And so yeah, why not launch it and allow them to play it? They’re using the token to play it and to get invested. And one other good thing that you didn’t mention, Carl, I thought you were going to say is that in a bull market, you’ve also got all the other games piling in at the same time. And it’s hard to show people that, wait a second, mine is actually worth playing.

1:06:26 And so in this market, it’s maybe clear for people to see, okay, this one’s coming out and this is the one to play. So I’m really glad you’re moving ahead with that. Yeah, well, that’s a very good point. In the bull markets, the competition is massive. And the competition is massive because there’s just so much money going around that even bad actors come in.

1:06:47 And that’s when you see like 90% of all the projects that come out in a bull market are usually very fundamentally broken projects. They have just an idea, but they don’t have the people behind it to execute it. So in the bear markets, it’s just way less competition. And I think it’s a better market for a fundamentally solid project to grow and launch. And many of the big projects in crypto, we’re talking about the biggest later one blockchains and the biggest, biggest billion dollar companies, many of them launched in the middle of bear markets because guess what?

1:07:26 They don’t care. They don’t care. They just wanna get their product out because hype is something that is just good for marketing, but it doesn’t create a fundamentally strong business. Hype is just something that is good if it comes later for some marketing purposes, but you cannot build business only for marketing. You have to actually build the product and then you can do marketing.

1:07:50 And I think in crypto, people do the exact reverse. That’s why we have so many NFT collections coming out or that came out that have nothing behind them. It’s just like they copy paste in someone else’s NFT collection and then they just sold it as the next big thing made in pretty websites with cool pictures and people bought it for millions of dollars. But there’s nothing backing it up because people are just chasing the money all the time. So that’s why I’m very proud of myself and the team that we’re thinking long term, not short term, and that we are brave enough to go against what people are telling us.

1:08:30 Everyone keeps telling us, don’t launch now, don’t launch now. It’s so stupid. But we’re thinking, if no one is launching now, maybe that’s even good for us because that means we’re the only ones taking all the attention. And actually showing people that, look, we do have something to show. That’s why we are launching now.

1:08:49 Let’s see if it’s good or bad. The future will tell. But I believe in myself, I believe in the team, and I believe in crypto and crypto gaming. So I have many reasons to launch this now. Yeah.

1:08:59 Now, I think it’s a great idea that you’re launching now. I actually bumped into the guys from across the ages at the token 2049 conference here, which is really up and coming gaming play. They got investments from Ubisoft and Animoca. And we invested in them last year. And yeah, Sammy, the CEO who’s been on the show, was like, Brian, we’re building.

1:09:20 They got people playing the game. They got revenues coming in. Because they want to build one of the greatest games ever. And the price of Bitcoin has nothing to do with that for them. So we knew that from the beginning.

1:09:31 And they were doing this for the right reasons. So it’s great to be around people like that, especially in the bear markets. And actually, I have a whole investment group as well. We’re deploying about a half million dollars of capital right now in the next few weeks before year end and two really interesting blockchain companies. So yeah, I love these times if there’s a fundamental great team and a long-term vision.

1:09:51 So yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Carl, I want to finish a couple of personal questions about you. It’s pretty common knowledge you don’t drink. And I was wondering, why? Is that a decision you made back in the day?

1:10:03 Is that a decision you made recently? And how does it help you? This is something I decided way back. I think it’s been maybe seven, eight years or something. I don’t count the days or whatever.

1:10:16 So I don’t even know exactly when I stopped. But I stopped because I realized a long time ago that I want to try to be happy. Because back then, I was not. I was actually feeling depressed. I didn’t know what to do with my life.

1:10:32 I had really nothing. I had no education. I dropped out. And I just didn’t really see how my life could become good in any way. So I thought I need to start optimizing my life for happiness.

1:10:47 So I at least stopped all of the drugs and all of the alcohol and cigarettes. Because I thought these are just stimulants to artificially make me happy in the moment. But it just steals happiness from the future. So then you just feel like shit after. And it just doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do.

1:11:08 And then some people, they are able to drink just one glass of wine. But I just decided, why should I even do that? I don’t even like wine. So I just stopped everything. And I think that was a great decision.

1:11:19 Ever since then, I just completely lost the urge to drink alcohol. I don’t even crave beer anymore. I don’t want it. So I just thought I will never go back to it. So it’s just a decision about happiness and also success.

1:11:37 I thought, if I’m going to be very successful, I can’t be drunk. And I can’t be high on drugs. I have to be clean from these things to be able to optimize my life for success. So well said. If you want to be successful, you have to optimize for every minute of your life.

1:11:57 And like you said, if one minute you’re not present, you’re not focused, or you’re hungover, those minutes add up to hours. And how many hours do you actually have in a day to be productive? And then you just lost another day on your dreams. So look, it’s taken me most of my life, Carl, to give up drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. I stopped drinking five years ago.

1:12:18 But now that I do, I’ll never go back. I love having clarity. I love waking up ready to go. And I’m hanging out with all the parties in Dubai. I don’t even think that I’m not drinking anymore.

1:12:28 I don’t even notice it. I’m having a great time. And I just don’t usually stay past like 1 a.m. or midnight. That’s when it sometimes gets too crazy.

1:12:37 But by then, there’s nothing good happening anyways, right? Yeah, that’s exactly right. I say the exact same thing. It’s like, first of all, it’s a mindset. So if you stop drinking and have the mindset, I don’t need to drink, then it’s fine.

1:12:49 But some people, they try to quit. And then they think, oh, but it would be so nice to drink tonight. Because when you have the mindset that you need alcohol to have fun, then you actually need it. So it’s all about the mindset. I’m having a lot of fun without it.

1:13:04 You seem to be doing very well without it as well. So we’re proof that you can clearly party without alcohol. I’m even going to nightclubs. Like sometimes, I’m the guy doing the most. Like if people go to my Instagram, they can see that I’m sometimes being really crazy in the nightclubs, like you’re hanging from things or like jumping on people.

1:13:24 But I’m completely sober. I’m just having fun based on the energy of being with people. And then, like you said, at 1am, 2am, I’m out. The other people, they can keep going drunk. That’s fine for them.

1:13:38 But I enjoyed the best hours. The next few hours are usually the bad ones. So I think that it’s the best decision ever. And I think everyone should try it. But actually, if people actually want to quit something like cigarettes or alcohol, they should never use the word try.

1:13:59 Like when people say, I’m going to try to quit smoking, I already know they’re going to fail. You cannot say something like that. You have to say, I quit smoking now. Like you already had your last cigarette. That’s how it has to be.

1:14:15 Because if you want one more, one last one, then your mindset is not correct. It has to be, I already quit, I already did my last, and I’m never going to have another cigarette. That’s the only way to do it. That’s the only way for your brain and subconscious to really like get reprogrammed. So for people out there, it comes to anything.

1:14:33 If it’s like stop watching porn, stop drinking, stop cigarettes, stop anything, you have to use your words and thoughts carefully. Never use the word try. Because it shows me that you still have the option open to, ah, maybe I’ll just go back a little bit next week if I have a rough time, you know. So very important. Yeah, and language is so important, you know.

1:14:56 They say that like, well, the language leads the brain and then the brain leads the body. And so it’s so important. I had a guest on my show named Mike Dolce and he used to train a lot of the UFC fighters. And he said, every action of your day is either getting you closer to your goals or further from your goals. And if you look at your life that way, and then as a few years start going by, you start thinking, wait a second, like, do I really want to do something great with my life?

1:15:20 Do I want to be a great father or a great mother or a great entrepreneur or be remembered as doing something great? Well, then you start to look at those habits and you’ll think you’ll start to look at them as things that are detracting from your life. And then when you look at that cigarette, you’ll say, gross. That’s actually making me feel bad about my future every day. And yeah, you have to reframe it in a way where I’m not missing it.

1:15:40 It’s like, thank God, I don’t do that anymore because now I see this vision. Yeah, I read a book. I think it’s because words, like you said, are very important. And I think in our last interview, I was talking about how words are energy and thoughts are energy. So to become a person who quit smoking, you have to feel and act like a person who is not smoking.

1:16:08 So now you are a non-smoker. You’re not a smoker who’s trying to quit. No, you are a non-smoker. It’s a new, different person. It’s a new energy.

1:16:17 It’s a completely new world you’re living in. It’s like the universe broke the matrix and it’s different. You cannot take your old thoughts and energy into that new life. It has to change. And the only way to change it is to dramatically or completely make it 180.

1:16:36 And the thoughts has to be, I’m a non-smoker. I will never have a cigarette in my life. And obviously, if it helps to physically fix things, of course, you have to throw them away. But just the life has to change. And I think some people just don’t get that.

1:16:52 And that’s why it’s so easy to fall back on things. And you can apply this to everything. So I’m using cigarettes as an example. But of course, you can apply that to literally everything. And this is how I quit smoking just like that.

1:17:06 From one day to the other, I just quit. And I never looked back. And of course, I was young. It’s not like I quit. I was smoking for 30 years.

1:17:14 But I had maybe six, seven years of smoking and snooze, which is like tobacco in Sweden, which is even harder to quit, many people say, which I agree to. But the mindset was the big shift for me. And the first few days might be a little bit tough. But you get over it and then you won. Yeah.

1:17:31 I read a book called Alan Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Spoken. And it just reframed it in my mind to where I looked at it as this thing that I didn’t need in my life. And then I just decided it was super helpful. And look, I think we should finish on this call because it’s really important. You just talked about a way that you used your mind to basically put yourself in a new reality.

1:17:55 And this new you was Carl the Moon that we know today. And I want to talk about this. And again, if people want to go deep on this, our last episode, we spent a lot of time on this. I’d say go watch that as well. But I’ve been to Dubai and I’ve seen you.

1:18:08 And it’s all legit. It’s all real. It’s actually probably even more than you see on Carl’s channels. I mean, like you have a massive team working for you. You’re massively invested in the industry.

1:18:18 And you haven’t even blinked an eye in the bear market when all of your assets are in this. And you still keep going. So this is real what you’ve built. It’s not like it is because I’ve seen it. And you built it from the picture that’s pinned on your Twitter, which is you in the supermarket five years ago, six years ago, whenever that was.

1:18:35 And I was wondering if you could maybe finish by telling people about how you did that. Because I know it’s not simple, but it’s a way of you completely visualizing this new person and then holding that into where every action is congruent towards it, I think. But I don’t know. How do you explain that to people? Because it’s so hard for people to understand how you did that.

1:18:56 Okay, so to make it very simple, I would have to say that it all comes back to changing, again, your mindset. And you can make a direct comparison with when you quit smoking. So like I said, you have to change your world, right? And what I’m talking about is changing your mindset and your worldview, your thoughts, your energy, your words, everything. And just like smoking is bad, same goes with wasting your time on watching TV or just being lazy and like maybe eating too much, doing things that do not take you to your goal.

1:19:35 Like you said, either what you do takes you closer or further away from your goal. And back when I was working in the grocery store, almost everything I was doing was taking me further from my goal, which was I wanted to become successful. So I completely changed my mindset. In my mind, I acted successful. I started to think like, if I was successful, what would I do?

1:20:04 How would I think? How would I walk? How would I talk? How would I carry myself? I didn’t do it the whole day, but at least a few times per day, I was doing these exercises just to change my energy and my subconscious because your subconscious has a massive impact on your world, on your universe.

1:20:26 And I’m in the strong belief that all of us have, we control our own universe. So it’s not one universe. There are eight billion universes out there because there are eight billion people and we control the nature and the progress and involvement of our own world. And this comes down to the law of attraction, the energy that you have inside of you to materialize the external energy which could be a Bugatti or just happiness or friendships. So I visualized my dream life.

1:21:00 I was acting as if I was already living my dream life at least a few times per day. And I started to tell people instead of saying, oh, it would be so nice to have this in the future. I was telling people, look, I am going to have a Bugatti in the future. Like it’s just decided, like I will have it and I will fly private jets. Like it’s just something that it’s going to happen.

1:21:22 It’s not about maybe your opinions is like it’s going to happen. Like I changed my energy to completely this is happening. Like there’s no option. And I think when I made that mindset switch that was the moment that started everything because that’s when my universe got the memo, got the message like, okay, Carl has decided that this is going to happen. So then all of the energies started to align.

1:21:54 And eventually one by one, step by step, things started to move in my favor, whether it’s me getting good ideas, me meeting the right person, me taking the right risk, the right step. And people sometimes ask me like, so does the law of attraction mean you can just sit in your sofa and just visualize and it comes to you? And I would say, I don’t think that’s necessarily correct. I think that you have to first put your energy in the right location, like change your energy.

1:22:25 And then you have to start just allowing your thoughts and your actions to take the chances and take the opportunities that come your way because the universe is not going to just give you a lottery ticket where you win money and then you sit in your sofa and made money. That’s not how it works. All of these steps, they will be taken by you, but given to you, the opportunities will be given to you from the universe. So instead of getting a lottery ticket, there will be this one person who you meet who will give you this one idea and it’s up to you to take that risk or not.

1:23:03 And if you say no to that risk, there’s going to be this other opportunity maybe, but the universe will meet you halfway. But you have to take that first step yourself. It’s not going to happen automatically. You have to meet the universe halfway. That’s how I usually phrase it to make it obvious to people that there has to be some degree of acting and some degree of going out there and allowing the universe to help you because I think that’s how it works and that’s how it works for me.

1:23:34 And yeah, it worked very well actually. Four years ago, I was in a grocery store. So November 2018, I was still scanning milk packages in the cashier in Sweden. And today, like you pointed out, I have this big office with more than 100 employees globally and doing very cool things. And I’m very proud of myself.

1:24:00 My parents are very proud of me and I’m happy I was able to do it. My mission right now is of course to do my businesses, but one of my main missions is to really inspire people because I feel like if I could do it, I really think anyone can do it. I must stress it very, very important. Like back when I switched my mindset, I had really nothing. I was in a grocery store.

1:24:28 I didn’t have any crazy money. I had my grocery store money. I had no clue what Bitcoin was. I never heard about it. I didn’t know what crypto was.

1:24:37 I had no business experience. I had dropped out of school. I had literally nothing that would make it seem like I could ever make it. So even then, my mindset was I am making it. I’m going to do it.

1:24:52 No matter how it’s going to happen, the universe will give it to me in terms of, like I said, opportunities, the people, the opportunities, and the stars will align for me. That’s what I believed very, very strong-heartedly. And I think to end this up, I want to end on the word belief. I think you really have to believe in this for it to work. If you don’t think this is valid or true, then I don’t think the energy is going to be very strong.

1:25:19 You have to believe that what I just said will work and that you believe in yourself, you believe in your future, and then the mountains are going to start moving for you. Amen to that. Do you follow Dr. Joe Dispenza by any chance? Have you heard of him?

1:25:36 I heard you talk about him before, but I’ve never… So he’s been on my show many times, and I did a retreat with him in London about four months ago, and I’m doing these morning walking meditations for like an hour every morning, Karl. And I’m literally not only seeing the future version of myself, but I become it to where it’s actually already happened. And then how it happens is the surprise in life. Like, what color is the Bugatti?

1:25:58 Or what’s the this? But it’s like you see it and it’s already happened, and so you kind of almost celebrate it like it’s today. But Joe always said, you have to change. You have to change for your future to change. So that means something about you has to change, your energy, your thought process.

1:26:13 And it’s not going to show up until you change and you believe it, like you said. And most people don’t think their energy, their thoughts, or their subconscious is powerful, but it’s super powerful. And the world will deliver exactly what you’re thinking. So if you think, I’m a smoker, but I’m going to try to stop smoking, that’s what you’re going to get. If you think you don’t deserve these things, that’s what you’re going to get.

1:26:35 So it’s super powerful. And I’m so glad you keep talking about it, Carl, because imagine this world, if everybody just could channel their energy, it would be such a great and much better place if everybody could do this. Yeah, even a little bit. So I think, actually, so some people think that if everyone was rich, then it doesn’t make sense because there’s not enough money in the world. But it’s not about being rich, it’s about being abundant.

1:27:00 And I think the universe has enough for everyone. I think that there is so much energy in the ether, like here in the quantum field, there’s enough energy for everyone to be abundant for eternity. The energy is there. It’s just that in our physical world, where we are, it’s almost like a physical prison, we have allowed banks and governments to control the assets that are physical. And it is true that physical assets are limited, but the non-physical is not limited.

1:27:34 So if everyone used the law of attraction and felt abundant like this and did these exercises, I’m 100% convinced that everyone could escape boredom and escape negativity. We could all live in fantastic, beautiful harmony, and everyone would just be abundant through using the universe and the whatever you want to call it, the quantum field. Now, maybe it’s the case that there are certain entities in the world that don’t want that to happen. That’s very possible.

1:28:07 And maybe that’s why we don’t learn this in school. Maybe this is why TV and sports and things are distracting us from these very important things. And why school is teaching us to become these physical workers instead of thinking bigger and thinking in terms of energy and in terms of abundance. And I think it’s important that people start waking up from that, because if everyone was waking up to this, then I think that we would have less negative things happening in the world.

1:28:43 I think wars would end. I think banks would cease to exist. I think maybe governments would cease to exist. We could live in harmony. And maybe there is a split reality somewhere out there in the future, in the past or parallel, where humans are living in abundance, all of us together without any concept of being rich or poor or good or bad, black and white.

1:29:08 Where everyone lives based on everyone being the same energy, because we are all the same. That’s why I truly believe that we’re all part of the same consciousness. So I think there is a point in the future where hopefully we can go back to that, where we stop thinking about the physical and we basically escape from that and go into the metaphysical, the universe. And all of us can just live in abundance. So maybe I speak like I ate too many mushrooms or smoked too much weed.

1:29:39 But I really think that it’s a valid point. Yeah, it’s super valid. I just think the path of least resistance for humans, maybe because we’re animals somehow, is the low energy. Like again, the path of least resistance is to go to these low energy levels of anger, hate, vices and stuff. But if you put in a little bit of effort, you can get to these higher level of energy.

1:30:04 And then like you said, there’s like unlimited and everybody could change their life for the better and we would all win. But you have to push yourself, I think, to do that. And there’s a lot of entities out there that just take advantage of the fact that maybe people don’t. Some of the ones you mentioned, but we can all get there. And again, I’ve been doing the show now for 11 years.

1:30:23 I spoke to a lot of people and this theme, Carl, continually comes up on the show from people of all sorts of walks of life. And when they all come to the end of the show, the wise ones say we are all one. We are energy. We are all consciousness and we can all take this to another level. And it’s important that we remind people of that.

1:30:44 And you’re living proof. And I appreciate you constantly talking about this, Carl. I really do. Yeah, thank you so much. I always appreciate these interviews, man.

1:30:53 You’re doing a great job. And I hope this interview goes viral so that your channel grows even more. And we can keep educating people about these things because I think it’s so important and people can change their life if they know about these very simple things, actually. It’s not even complicated, right? It’s not like I’m trying to teach people rocket science.

1:31:11 It’s actually very simple stuff. You don’t need any math, no knowledge about anything like that. It’s all about the energy and aligning with it. So yeah, I hope people change their life based on what I’ve said. Yeah, if there’s one lesson people could take from probably this whole year, it’s the one Carl just said.

1:31:26 So yeah, again, you can do this. You can change your life today. And again, Carl, you’re living proof because the last time we talked, we were riding through the big old bull market. This is the bottom of the bear market and you’re the same guy with the same mentality. You’re keeping your frame, you’re building.

1:31:40 So the proof’s in the pudding. So I appreciate you, Carl. Follow this man on Twitter. Check out Medieval Empires. Token’s dropping soon.

1:31:46 Play the game. Check it out. It looks amazing, by the way. And look, I’ll be out in Dubai in a few months. I can’t wait to hook up with you again.

1:31:53 And thanks for the hospitality and thanks for everything you do. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. All right.

1:31:59 Big love. Thank you, everybody. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Take care. Bye.