So in life, do you desire to be predator or prey? 

Anger

So this is a big thing, if you see some asshole smoking or if you’re playing at the park with your kid and you see somebody about to light up a cigarette, maybe we had the courage to ask him to not smoke here or there to ask them to smoke somewhere else. So I think this is a big thing; Almost like 100% of real life daily life, there is nothing which requires physical courage.

For example, almost never will you ever get into a physical fist fight with anybody. The only perhaps downsides you could experience or suffer is like verbal arguments, getting your blood pressure and adrenaline up etc.

What if aggression were virtuous?

In modern day society we are taught that aggression is not to be done. Almost everything in life and society trains us to be non-aggressive.

For example, all laws ethics and morality, it is like 100% towards non aggression.

Now the downside of this is that I do believe that there is some cases where acting aggressively is a virtue. If anything, I think the best way to develop yourself is to rethink and reconsider ethics morality etc. Beyond good and evil, beyond good and bad, do you think more critically about things.

Eagle vs Lamb

Is the eagle evil? For eating the delicious lamb? No. And also this is a big thing… Does the eagle have a bad conscience about eating the lamb? Similarly speaking, no!

Yet the tricky thing is in this world, we are taught and trained that in fact, it is more virtuous to be the Lamb than the eagle.

Now this makes sense because you can’t have a bunch of eagles running the show. You can’t have a bunch of high testosterone alpha males jostling for position all the time. Society would probably collapse.

And therefore, if you think critically about this, what that then means is that you need to teach yourself to become more alpha.

Bitcoin is the alpha asset

Assuming that you’re an alpha male, I am. I don’t think I’ve ever met a real life human being in the flesh, who is more alpha than me. In fact my whole life ever since I was a kid, my desire and desired outcome was always to become more alpha than the rest.

For example, I think I’m pretty happy that I was born very very tall, around 5 foot 11. I have never been shy about my height. I have met people who are taller than me of course, but because I myself already feel like I am the “tall” category, this has never been an issue.

Also I suppose the gratitude of being born Korean Korean American, Asian American and states is that once again, I’ve never had some sort of inferiority complex, because all the schools I went to were mostly Asian American dominated. I was part of the dominant minority. 

Also being born a man. The truth is in society, men will always be more alpha than women. Why? Physical size strength, aggressiveness and testosterone. Certainly it is a good thing to seek more equality between the sexes, in the workplace and economic opportunities etc., But when it comes down to it… Alpha wins. 

America is Alpha

America is Alpha, the US dollar is the alpha currency. There is no second best. Nobody wants a Chinese yuan, KRW or euro or British pound.

The same thing goes with metals; we only want gold. Nobody wants silver.

Also the same thing with bitcoin. Everyone wants bitcoin, nobody cares for Ethereum or anything else. I think the only thing is honestly, everybody in Ethereum community has a small dick envy of bitcoin. In 1 trillion years, Ethereum will never never never ever ever ever Supersede bitcoin. It is just not possible from a physics perspective.

Never trade the best for second best

So assuming that you have the best, the best capital the best stuff the best wealth etc., why would you ever trade it for the second best? 

Also on the collary, isn’t also the virtuous goal to choose the second best and convert it to the first best? 

Convert all of your fiat currency in capital to bitcoin

So I thought there’s a very very long time ago, the basic idea is that the smart strategy is take all of your fiat currency and all of your weak ass assets and converted to the strong assets which is bitcoin.

I thought this about like four years ago, so if you were to Amazon Apple Facebook Google meadow whatever, and assuming that you converted all your income into bitcoin, you could have retired at least 10 times over.

Now what is the big issue here? We millennials we have so much economic and financial power now, yet we are all scared. Essentially we have been beaten into submission; when we were children growing up we were told that we could do anything become anything etc., but now that we have become adults, the biggest issue is that we have become complacent, weak, maybe we drive some sort of entry-level Audi, Tesla, whatever… We have pretty good salaries at a big tech company, and we no longer have a desire nor reason to invest investigate bitcoin or invest in it.

I asked my friend Marcus in Seattle this, several years ago whether people in Seattle were interested in bitcoin or crypto or not and he said no because they didn’t really have a need to know because everyone there who is already working for Microsoft is already making good money and therefore as a consequence, they don’t have a need to know. 

Bitcoin Deus ex machina

So the way I was able to rediscover bitcoin was moving to LA, with the absurdly high cost-of-living. $3200 USD a month for rent in a two bedroom one bath nice apartment.  note, when we are living in Hanoi Vietnam in 2017 we only paid $320 a month in rent. Literally, we 10’xd our expenses for living after moving to America. 

The goal should be to do the exact opposite, to reduce your expenses by 10 X.

What’s the issue here

Take a leap of faith, take the risk.

ERIC

JUST RISK IT!

EK BLOG >

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So I’m currently reading the principles of economics by Saifedean, and I really love it. I realize that in my life, I’ve only ever been interested in media and things which actually gave me real life utility or payoff for practical live reality, real joy hope optimism faith etc.

So for example, the logic of a lot of modern day living I think can greatly be benefited once we actually put into words and precisely define the terms in which we are engaging in. So for example, energy power, poverty prosperity, trade money, capital labor etc.

In fact, economics might be the most important field to study in the practical pragmatic sense that assuming that you’ve ever handled a $100 bill, purchased anything on Amazon Amazon prime, been to Whole Foods, traveled, bought an airline ticket, purchased an apple device, filled up the gas in your car or supercharged your Tesla or electric vehicle, or even better yet… Turned on an air-conditioning unit or heater or put on a down jacket, you will know that these things matter.

Energy poverty

So one thing I’ve realized is I wonder… If 95% of the world’s misery has to deal with energy poverty.

For example, heat and air conditioning. For example if you’ve ever tried to sleep in this while touring hot humid 105° weather in Southeast Asia or Dubai, you know that life without air-conditioning is not a life worth living. During the day I don’t need air-conditioning, but certainly at night, it helps me sleep. I almost cannot sleep without air-conditioning on.

Also, in a lot of the industrialized world, especially having spent time in Michigan, the East Coast, Providence Rhode Island etc., and even Los Angeles during the winter months, it gets fucking cold, really really late at night or really really early in the morning, or just in general.

No one bizarre thing I found is a lot of Americans Asian people etc., are far too Puritan when it comes to heating. They are very very stingy about cranking on the heat!

In fact, I think to waste electricity or energy on heat and air conditioning is virtuous; because once again, cold and frigid bodies leads to human misery.

As a consequence, some strange individuals think that it is a virtue and that it is virtuous to be miserable? And that it is somehow advice to be prosperous, rich successful, and happy?

The virtues of misery?

I’ll give you a real example; typically if you’ve been from any sort of immigrant family, in which your parents were not born in America but came here in search for greater economic opportunities, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Typically we are taught that to overcome difficult difficulty and suffering is a virtue, and that a life of ease happiness joy and leisure is a vice?

Yet the strange thing that a lot of these people living in poverty then say is that they brag about how they know about other random people or super super rich? Very strange.

I almost wonder if now, behind closed doors, other people then brag about how rich and successful I am?

Anyways, doesn’t really matter; I wonder than if once again, critical issues here:

first, the general idea is that if you have the option, and you’re most certainly do, make your habitation as comfortable as possible! What this means is structure your world in such a way that when you’re at home, just adjust the heat or the cooling or whatever, to make your home as comfortable to you as possible. And when you’re sleeping, try to change the thermostat to whatever temperature helps you sleep well!

in fact, my practical thought is assuming that you are like some sort of investor or money making machine, the very very practical and pragmatic thought is that in fact, you should prioritize your sleep exercise and food in such a way that helped you maximize your optimism joy and happiness and personal productivity because the greater you take care of your own personal health habitation climate food and sleep, the more productive you will become, thus yielding you more money accumulation etc.?

What is poverty?

So if we think about money or like heat or energy, perhaps we should consider heat loss.

What is heat loss in economic terms? Your car payment, your mortgage payment, your rent, your subscription services, maybe your credit card payments?

Visual ease for our eyes

I think I’ve got it figured out; I think the reason why I really like Matt Black, or a nice matte black wrap on a car is that it provides some sort of visual ease. Like when you look at a really really nice met black car, all matte black everything, matte black is very very easy on the eyes. It has a beautiful sheen and Verneer, is not distracting, yet pleasing!

I also think the same things with homes, clean white paint on the walls, and neutral gray or stone colored surfaces and fixtures? For example, for fools who think that colors don’t matter; would you want to paint the tears your home brighter red? Probably not you’ll go insane.

Or would you want to paint your countertops of your kitchen like some sort of acidic looking green color? No!

As a consequence, I think colors are very very important. Typically colors which provide some sort of visual ease are derived from nature. For example, we like the color of green because it is the color of life, just imagine the windows 95 or the windows Vista wallpaper. We love a blue sunny sky with rolling green verdant Hills. Or think about Sapa in Vietnam same idea.

What is consumerism?

My innovative thought is that consumerism and capitalism is not the same thing. Consumerism is the exact opposite of capitalism.

Capitalism is all about capital accumulation, whereas consumerism is blowing it.

Or in more crude terms, capitalism is like semen retention, and consumerism is blowing your load.

Why?

The general way that consumerism works is that you are exposed to advertisements which convince you that somehow your life is incomplete and miserable and unhappy and that in order to seek happiness, you must purchase XYZ in order to make you happy. And then it becomes like a mathematical equation somewhat: the more units of XYZ you purchase, The higher degree your happiness will become.

I’ve also discovered that promoting minimalism and reduction is not a profitable path. For example, encouraging people to not waste their money is not profitable.

However, getting a bunch of losers to buy overpriced loser stuff is profitable.

Body shame

So the first way that consumerism does this is that it makes people feel ugly. It makes people feel ugly in terms of their body, body shape, body composition, and it just makes people feel ashamed about being naked.

So for example, as a consequence, people feel ashamed of their bodies, and do everything in their power to hide their ugliness.

My personal theory on why there is this new trend of people wearing really really baggy clothes and jeans and sweaters and hoodies and stuff is precisely for people to hide their ugliness.

For example, you would only ever wear short short shorts if you actually have impressive legs or a butt or behind to show off.

Or if you’re a man, you would only ever walk around topless without a shirt on, if you have a beautiful or impressive upper body.

Or as a woman, similar speaking you’re only probably walking around in a sports bra or a bikini if you also have impressive muscles, and also a low body fat percentage.

Can you spend money to hide your ugliness?

You see this all the time; especially vehicles. I also have a theory that purchasing a vehicle is like buying a really really expensive article of clothing; once again to hydrogenous you hide behind your car with 5% limo tint. Do you want to feel cool sexy grand powerful indestructible master of the road etc ,,, and you do this by jumping in your loser Range Rover, or your loser AMG wagon, or your loser Porsche etc.

The only people I trust are people who drive without any tint.  And do not wear sunglasses or anything that covers up their eyeballs, or anybody who also has facial hair, which is the new modern day trend to hide the ugliness of your face or your double chin, or a baseball hat or a hat of any sort which is also another way to hide your balding or your ugly head.

what is true power?

So some guys with low testosterone, who want to seem tough and strong or whatever, buy all these firearms and guns because it makes him feel tougher more dominant more powerful etc. But the truth is it makes your dick size smaller, what does a typical gun owner look like? Typically somebody who spends too much time on Fox News, alternative right wing Facebook, and is always reading some weird quick bait about how liberals are ruining everything.

And also, this fake fear mongering.

So for example if you have a gun, the excuse is that it is for “self-defense“. But if you need to self defend yourself, it is a sign of fear. The general fear is that somebody else might have a gun or some sort of firearm or knife or something, and that somehow you need to “defend” Yourself and your family etc.  But there is not a positive aggressor factor; nobody ever buys a gun within intention to physically positively attack somebody, unless your hobby is hunting wildlife going to the shooting range whatever.

So then, the only rational reason for somebody to own a gun is out of fear. But then, if you’re a real man and have no fear, what is the use of a gun? None!

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Fear marketing?

FOMO fear of missing out, or, fear of missing out on some sort of economic opportunity which could alleviate you from your economic suffering and poverty.

So the reason why this is so insidious is that once again, a lot of this fake news or click bait you see on the Internet is predicated around fear. If you do not read this article somehow you will be at a loss, or that you and your future family or your bank account can be harmed.

What is so fascinating about bitcoin is that actually, it is the opposite. In some ways, you are not afraid of chaos because chaos actually favors you; in some ways you actually desire chaos!

For example, the more chaos uncertainty inflation and bad economic policies there are on the planet, bitcoin benefits and so does you!

So whenever you hear about inflation whatever blah blah blah and the economy is going to tank, the simple strategy is to just buy Bitcoin because the more fear porn you see in the news and the media, the better the return of your bitcoin! 

Financial freedom within four years?

Retiring within four years?

 I do not know a single human being who actually wants to work and labor. Similarly speaking, I do not know any individual in which it is his autotelic passion to be working at said tech company. They would rather retire, live free, travel the planet and the globe, etc., be chilling on a beach somewhere etc.

Even a question I often ask people is that assuming that you’re a trillionaire whatever, what would you rather be doing? If the entrepreneur‘s job or desire is to actually discontinue doing the things that they are already doing, it is typically assigned that whatever they are engaged in is a means to an end not the end in itself. And therefore I feel like the logical strategy in life is to think about the end and work your way backward; like think about if you were a trillionaire, worth $100 trillion, and that number is Actually going up faster than you could spend it, if that is the case, once again, what would you rather be doing?

So for example for myself, my general passion is movement, travel, being in different places, weightlifting, building up my body, enjoying the beauty of my body my muscles my flexing, sharing new exciting ideas which inspire me, and also empowering other human beings? Who are in the same boat as me? 

I am a pretty ordinary person

My general belief is actually, I am a super super normal ordinary person. I don’t believe in genetics, I believe that genetics is like eugenics 2.0 or racism 2.0, I truly believe that almost 99% of our potential is sociological, training, education knowledge etc.

Certainly there are certain things which are malleable and not.

If you are a fully grown adult, having $1 trillion in your bank account will not make you taller. If you are a born a dwarf, like you’re a 4 foot tall man, or 3 foot tall man, once again I’m being a trillionaire will not make you 6 foot two.

And also, there are certain things that one cannot do like change the proportions of your face, like distance between your eyeballs etc. I call this the hammerhead shark index; some people naturally have eyes which are more further apart like a toad, etc.

Yet what is one thing that any human being can do on the planet? Increase their muscle mass, decrease their body fat percentage, and also something which is slept on; getting a lovely tan!

The new dark skin racism

So in Korea, to be really really dark and tan is seen as a bad thing. Do you want to be white to like the emperor, because the emperor can stand in the shade all day, while their servants and slaves does all the dirty work in the sun.

House slave or field slave?

House nigga don’t fuck with me I’m in the fields nigga, go shine cutlery – JAY Z

Probably one of the most interesting songs on entrepreneurship is the story of OJ by Jay Z. Jay Z outlines it easily; the path to riches wealth and success, and avoiding the pitfalls of poverty.

For example, the importance of credit. Also not blowing your money at the strip club.

“I bought every V 12 engine, wish I could take it back to the beginning”

The way I interpret this quote is that Jay Z’s regret is that he wasted all this money in purchasing these expensive V dub engines, to dull his senses, kind of like some sort of self euthanasia?

I think then what Jay-Z wishes he did is that taking all that money and capital that he wasted on these expensive cars, and investing it in a creative investments instead. For example, his regrets not buying more real estate in Dumbo, and feeling Dumbo about it.

Now JC is a great model but also he is a bit dated. I think like I’m the new Jay-Z; except that I have legs that could run the world. Until you meet somebody who could lift 1000 pounds without steroids, fasted, nobody is superior to ERIC KIM.

The new blueprint

The orange print:

My personal thought is the only good out of money is to purchase beef, beef ribs, beef liver, pasture raised eggs, with the really dark orange yolks, beef tongue, organ meats, bone marrow, and weightlifting equipment.

Also, one of my greatest joys of something I invested in which I think is actually super super smart is purchasing two 50 kg weight plates.  they are made out of steel, which means that you could pack more weight into a smaller footprint. Each weight plate is 110 pounds, and because it is made out of solid steel, I am very very certain that these could last until the time that Seneca becomes 36 years old, and has a son of his own.

 The first born son of the firstborn son of their firstborn son

So one of my great gratitudes is that I was born into a position of privilege; my father was the first born son, I think he was the oldest. As a consequence, because I was the first born son the oldest son of the oldest son, I was treated like a king by my grandma. And I am grateful to my grandma for this.

As a calm consequence, I grew up with zero inferiority complex in fact, I probably grew up with this superiority complex.  in some ways I’m like Kanye West on steroids. Why? Kanye has always had an inferiority complex because he was a Shorty guy, I think he’s only like 5 foot six? And I’m like 5 foot 11? And as a consequence, I have never felt small in my life?

Also I suppose the gratitude is in the big area where I grew up, most of the kids in my school were Asian Asian American, so once again, I never felt like a minority? I’ll always felt like I was a part of the majority.

Maybe also the benefit is that Seneca, and I am so grateful that he was born the way he is, and that he is the next generation, the next heir to the throne. He’s like Simba and I’m like Mufasa. Or, he’s like the next King Leonidas.

Anyways, all of these sad single men without kids or family or without a beautiful wife, they’re all chasing after these silly things like the Porsche 911 GT 3RS, the Lamborghini with the scissor doors, or some sort of arbitrary amount of money in their banking account. But these fools, don’t they realize that the best joy on the planet 1,000,000,000,000×1,000,000,000,000 is for you as a man to have a son?

Training

My ethos and approach to raising Seneca has been super simple: 100% beast boy carnivore beef diet, and maximum physical exercise and engagement with embodied reality and the world. This means maximum exposure to the elements, being outside, in the direct sun, playing at the playground, and now riding his bike around everywhere.

From the Facebook buy nothing group we got this wonderful balancing wooden bike, with no pedals. From one Seco was maybe a year and a half, he would just walk it around like a walker, on the side, and then randomly like six or eight months ago, he jumped on it, and now he’s off! Also I bought him these LED bike helmet lights, and also front and rear LED lights, and outfitted his balancing bike with it, and he loves it! And also as a parent I’m happy because it improves his visibility by at least a factor of 1000 X, especially when he rides when the sun goes down, and as a consequence, he feels so much pride!

True pride

Country to popular believe, I think consumerism discourages you from having children. Why? Kids are not as profitable as single working adults.

So for example, both men and women, the consumerist, the consumerist ethos is you never want to have a kid, because they will cramp your style, prevent you from traveling to Japan and eating good omakase sushi in Kyoto,  whatever. But actually, on the contrary, the wise capitalist actually has a desire and urge to have as many children he can as possible, Because he knows that having children is accretive, whereas having dogs or other loser things is dilutive. Or driving any vehicle which requires premium gas is dilutive.

Therefore the wise capitalist would only drive some sort of old used Toyota Prius, because he wants to invest 99% of his money into bitcoin and micro strategy stock, because it will pull up forever with phenomenal gains, whereas somebody who is thinking that the world is going to end is going to buy some sort of loser Porsche Ferrari, because he thinks that his only life right now can be enjoyed right now, and he will have nothing to laugh to bequest his  inheritance to. 

Accumulating riches

An interesting scene in the movie 300 is when King Leonidas is climbing the mountain to talk to the ephors,  and he has in a little sec a container full of many gold coins.

This was an interesting scene to me because the common understanding is that Spartans live in poverty, but I suppose they also have gold and gold coins! But the only use it when they need to, in regards to war defense etc.

And once again, if I told you with 100% certain that your life would be secure forever, and no one would ever try to physically assault you your family or kids your life, wouldn’t there be zero incentive to purchase a gun or any other sort of self-defense weapon?

why would you trade paradise away?

Bitcoin is Paradise. Like a mobile paradise you could always carry with you everywhere you go. Why would you trade it for some sort of second best thing?

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The only constant is change

Refusal to change is the hopgoblin of weak souls.

Why is there such a resistance to change? I think a new one who is resistant to change is a coward.

For example, let us say that you were a lead night, and that you were afraid that the printing press would put people out of business, or that the mechanical room would impulse people whatever, and as a consequence, you make it your life purpose to destroy all of the printing presses and the looms.

Or, let us say that you’re also want these silly people who think that somehow, AI or robots or whatever will destroy all these human jobs and labor. You fool, don’t you know that this is just going to usher in some of the newest greatest prosperity of all time?

Labor

So what a lot of people don’t understand is that once again, in the past, we were all about the horse carriage and buggy, once the automobile came along, were there a bunch of people who were afraid that somehow the automobile would put people out of business who drove the horse and buggies?

So random thought on my mind; what is “reality” why does it matter etc.?

First, obviously reality comes back to embodied reality. That is like literally being on your own two legs, walking around town, saying hello to people, smiling and waving etc.

Fake reality

Now what are the most pernicious things about modern day life? Essentially we are like plugged in some sort of metaphorical matrix, in our everyday lives and lived realities, we are like living on rails.

For example, most of us follow the same cycle. Sleep wake up shower, drink coffee head to work, grind at work, go home only to self medicate and vegetate to Netflix or some sort of movie or streaming thing.

How to free yourself

Now the big problem is, now that essentially, I haven’t really watched any media or television, besides maybe John Wick for the last 15 years or so, is that now that I’m finally free and detached from all this nonsense, I’m starting to realize how troubling, grotesque, and disturbing a lot of this media is.

I think the big issue issue here is desensitization. Our everyday lived realities are so uninteresting or boring or sad or whatever, and we seek some sort of extreme fake stimuli to keep us motivated?

Fake motivations

I’ll give you a real example; money wealth and riches.

For example, all randomly on IMDb watching the squid game 2 preview, and now… That we got bitcoin, and also microstrategy, the whole premise of squid game no longer makes sense, about prize money. Because now that we have bitcoin, you don’t need some sort of fake magical prize money ticket lottery thing. You got bitcoin which is more or less a risk-free return, at least 60 to 120% for the next four years! It’s pretty obvious.

Technically buying microstrategy stock is a better investment strategy

And I would actually rate that microstrategy is poised to even outperform bitcoin by maybe 2X, we might see a microstrategy have an annual rate of return of 120% to 240% a year, for the next four years.

That means if you have about $600,000 of microstrategy stock, you could easily see that balloon to $1.4M in a year, to $3.2M, to $6.4M to maybe $12.2M by the end of the Trump presidency.

Or let us say that you have about $2 million worth of bitcoin, assuming that bitcoin under the Trump administration might go up 120% for the next 4 years,  similarly speaking, you will see some monster returns!

Or simply put, microstrategy will give you superior returns over the next four years over buying Bitcoin directly.

If your whole ethos is accumulate more bitcoin by the bitcoin directly using Coinbase or something.

Also another strategy, buy and hoard your microstrategy stock for the next four years, and by the end of the four years you could just sell the stock and buy the bitcoin directly!

Double your money and make it stack!

So assuming that, ERIC Trump, the son of Donald Trump is committed to making bitcoin at least $1 million a coin, then what that means is I think we can expect that within four years, I think we’re looking at at least 10X in the next four years.

So for example, if you have $1 million invested in bitcoin today, by the end of four years you’re going to see that 10X to $10 million. Pretty cool. Or if you have $2 million invested in bitcoin, you’re going to see that balloon to $20 million.

Anyways, bitcoin aside, I been thinking about the future, investing in growing industry seems like a good bet. And what that then means is the opposite of not investing the stuff which are not going to grow.

Is the field of photography a dying field?

So some troubling thoughts; I look at photography, the world of photography and ultimately photography is my number one prime joy and concern. And now that I am financially independent like 1 trillion times over, and I really don’t have to worry about money ever again, I suppose I’m more interested in higher matters.

So when I look at photography, the whole photo industry, it feels like the whole industry is dead without me.

Look at all the cameras, they all suck they’re all lame. Even the best innovation as of late, the Linux S9, with the 26 mm f8 pancake lens is slept on, nobody knows about it rather than myself, and also nobody owns it besides myself. Everyone else has some sort of loser cannon, or even worse Sony camera.

Apple?

So Apple is in a really bad position right now, like I just use that image playground AI thing, and it is so lame and bad.

If Steve Jobs were alive today, he would have thrown it into the furnace twice over.

I think the biggest issue here is that the issue of “app creep”– now that Jony Ive has left the company, and no more innovators or visionaries are there anymore, it is becoming like a weird mismatch or sludge of poor innovation ideas.

It’s essentially you have like a bunch of dudes, who might have worked in Microsoft or Dell or something, seeking to “improve “Apple products simply by making the processing power stronger. But this is not what we want, we want radical innovation!

But I wonder if Apple has become too big and fat, she no longer has a need to invade because she’s already on top, and everybody else is already trapped within her ecosystem, only to upgrade their iPhones until the end of time?

The disruptor

The disruptors dilemma; once you’re on top, I suppose the critical primary difficult issue here is once you’re rich fat, comfortable on top, in your yacht, partying with your burger babes, how can you continue to innovate disrupt etc.?

So for example, I think Apple has been trying hard to disrupt herself, without much fanfare or acclaim. Why? They need something radically new carte blanche, something that no longer is in the DNA or the soul of Apple.

For example, Apple is trying to over diversify interfield that she is not very very good at. For example, AI, image generation, and virtual reality.

If Apple was smart she should just refocus. Cut and axe the whole virtual reality Vision Pro department, and refocus and recapitalize on iOS as well as the iPhone. Take all the smart engineers who are working on the vision pro, and have them make the iPhone great again. Because the truth of the matter is nobody wants to put any device on top of their head, it is bulky cumbersome, and everybody hates it.

Even if in theory, a Vision Pro literally would weigh nothing, nobody ever wants to put something on top of their head. I think it’s just human nature, just look at any kid or child, they universally hate putting on hats beanies, or things would cover their faces. Most people would prefer to just pull out a phone.

Think Miniaturization

So what is an interesting thought is that actually, my opinion about the AirPods Pros has changed a bit; it’s like an insanely uber uber uber smart phone or iPhone that you could just plug into your ear.

Think of AirPods as like a really mini iPhone 

For example I was just listening to a new Michael Saylor interview at the house, and one of the great things was while making my morning coffee, and shuttling back-and-forth and cleaning stuff, I was able to listen to the interview uninterrupted, without any hands.

I would actually say maybe a big focusing direction for Apple should be to refocus on the AirPods division. Like trying to figure out new innovative ways that technology can be embedded in the AirPods, in general etc., which can make life better?

Dematerialization

Another big thought is what I find so infinitely fascinating about bitcoin is that it is real, it exists, it is the ultimate new form of property. Yet you cannot hold it in your hands, you cannot see it in the flesh. It weighs nothing.

Cindy said something funny; I have never seen a bitcoin in real life, with my own eyes, how do I know it is real and that it exists?

A similar sentiment should be about the internet the cloud, your bank account your checking balance; you have probably never seen it in real life, how do you know it really exists?

Same thing!

Things can be real without you actually seeing it

For example, many of us are chasing wealth and fame, yet all you see is maybe bots on the internet and social media following you. How do you know any of it is real?

What’s real?

So to be a little more specific, I think we need to break down the notion of real — the term of “real.”

For example, when we talk about things which are real reality etc., are we talking about physical? Like something that has weight substance, in space in time? Like a brick of gold?

Or do we mean to say legitimate? 

Physicality vs Legitimacy 

I think I see the big issue here is once again, maybe it’s a legitimacy issue. The reason why people do not think bitcoin is real and the traditional sense is that people do not value it for its legitimacy. Still even in 2024, incoming 2025 — people are still talking about how it seems like a ponzi scheme? Pretty backwards.

The reason why, is as long as you have mainstream media still talking about ridiculous notions of ponzi scheme, it’s going to trigger a reaction into people, discouraging them from entering the asset class which is bitcoin.

The biggest reason why bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme is that there is no central issuer– it is decentralized; Charles Ponzi was the guy who invented his Ponzi scheme, which was based on fake coupons which were not backed by anything. And the reason why he guaranteed hundred percent return in 90 days is because he would just pay other people incoming money. 

Your margin is my opportunity

But who knows maybe this is a good thing because it gives us a little bit more buffer time to accumulate more bitcoins while we can, when it is still at a discount.

Michael Saylor actually made the interesting point maybe a year or two ago is that bitcoin was trading at around $35,000 a bitcoin or so, the general idea is that it is actually not desirable to have bitcoin magically become $100 million overnight because then if that were the case, we would lose our opportunity to purchase more of it when it was low!

Wise greed

And I think this is where it is wise to be opportunistic, and wisely greedy.

Whenever everybody is uncertain, shaking in their boots, it is wise to get aggressive, greedy in an intelligent way.

The patient investor

So my personal thought is as investors, we should only think of a time span for the next four years minimum. Ideally 10 years 20 years 30 years 40 years 50 years or 300 years.

How does one thing 300 years ahead? Simple, think about your kids kids kids. Like your son having a son having a son having a son.

And also, whenever I look at healthy fit successful men in their 60s and 70s and even 80s… I have a ray of hope. It’s like me, maybe gray hair, the silver wolf, but wiser stronger more intelligent more sexy?

I’m the giga chad!

There’s a funny meme going around about the GigaChad, it’s like somebody who is like the most masculine guy of all time times a 1000.

The vision is essentially a man, with a very very slim waist, with an insanely jacked demigod upper body lower body, and jacked chiseled face.

Obviously the Russian bodybuilder is not a good model because he’s probably taking all the steroids on the planet. Yet this is obviously possible without steroids;

Intermittent fasting no breakfast no lunch, just a 100% carnivore dinner, try to have 4 to 5 pounds of beef meat, lamb, ground beef, 80/20, beef ribs, beef liver organ meats etc. 

Financial independence, retire early

So this is a big thought; retire early. How to do it? Buy bitcoin just wait 4 years and retire!

How to 10x your income 

So this is a big thing; if I could guarantee you right now that you could instantly 10x your income, wouldn’t you do it? Of course!

So it seems that the first easy strategy is to simply think of your income like 10X.

For example, if you’re being paid like $20 an hour, assuming that you’re on the bitcoin standard, you’re essentially being paid like $200 an hour!

How to save money

Then the calculus becomes interesting; your impetus to saving money becomes predicated on the fact that anything you buy today, could cost you 10 “X in four years.

For example that 50 bucks you drop on that thing, will be worth $500 bucks. Or that hundred dollars you put on that thing, will be worth $1000. Or even worse, that thousand dollar thing that thousand dollar iPhone will cost you $10,000 within 4 years!

Accretive or dilutive? 

So then this becomes the big idea; think accretive vs dilutive.

The smart strategy and goal is to become accretive not dilutive.

Gas

I will scream this until I get hoarse; think of gas, never ever ever own or drive or acquire a vehicle which requires premium gas.

It’s almost like voluntarily putting a leech on yourself or your healthy child, or bleeding your child to death.

For example if I could tell you that you can voluntarily take your healthy firstborn son, and bleed a pint of blood out of him every single day, would you do it? Of course not!

If we think about money in capital like economic blood, think the same thing.

You want to be accretive not dilutive.

What is accretive?

I have a funny theory, is that if you want to become the GigaChad the ultimate investor or whatever, you must make your body like a demigod.

So a very simple thought is a very very simple thing that could be accretive is muscle. 

For example, you lift heavy stuff, you lift heavy weights, in the evening you eat 5 to 6 pounds of beef, obviously you’re going to accrete muscle, skeletal muscle mass. 

And once again, 100% carnivore diet here, all meat no filler.

You do not need carbs

A lot of pseudo-scientific fitness people think that you need to consume sugar carbohydrates to accrete muscle. This is all built upon a platform of flimsy knowledge, written mostly by people who are on steroids.

I have proven, and I am a very normal human being, that at around a body weight of maybe 160 pounds, a human being can lift 1000 pounds, while fasted, while not consuming any protein powder, steroids or whatever, can do it. And obviously I’ve built a lot of muscle mass, simply by following 100% carnivore diet, all meat no carbs no sugars no starches.

I almost wonder if meat is like bitcoin. All killer no filler.

ERIC

Learn more:

1. Intro to bitcoin lecture
2. Transcript

Learn more Bitcoin >

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Introduction to Bitcoin Lecture Video

Introduction to Bitcoin Transcript

Super pumped to share with you, my first full length lecture on an introduction to bitcoin, the bitcoin Revolution, and also this edited transcript that I provided for you!

1. Full video zoom recording Dropbox link
2. PDF SLIDES
3. AUDIO FULL
4. PDF version of new transcript for talk

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ETHICS by KIM

What to become:

1. HAPPINESS IS INFECTIOUS
2. People Who Do Harm Unto You?
3. My New Modern Virtues
4. ALL STANDARD ETHICS & MORALITY IS BAD.
5. Why American Ethics are Bad
6. BECOME A BULLY
7. Different Rules for Men and Women
8. Never Share What You *Really* Think
9. “Happiness” is for Women, Not for Men
10. “Rules” & “Regulations”
11. Stubborn Geniuses
12. Avoid Misery
13. What We Hate
14. HOW I DEAL WITH RACISM
15. How to Become a Great Man
16. BETTER TO FOLLOW YOUR GUT AND BE WRONG THAN DISOBEY YOUR GUT AND BE RIGHT
17. “I CAN’T BE FUCKED.”
18. Carte Blanche Ethics
19. Toxic People
20. Why Are We So Into Other People
21. Just focus on yourself and your own life
22. Perfect morals and ethics is following your own gut
    WHY ETIQUETTE?
23. NO BLAME, JUST CAUSE AND EFFECT.
24. Ignorance Takes Courage
25. TREAT OTHERS CARTE BLANCHE
26. Don’t give people what they want or what you *think* they want, give them what you think they *should* have.
27. Anti Small
28. Disdain or Admiration?
29. Beware Those With Good Intentions
30. STUBBORN x FLEXIBLE
31. ETHICS ARE VIA NEGATIVA
32. OBEDIENCE & DISCIPLINE
33. The Motive of Criticism
34. Ethics are Social
35. Anti Role Models
36. What is Greed?
37. On Having the Courage to Make Your Own Decisions
38. How *NOT* to Get Duped or Suckered
39. Why Help Others?
40. The Duty of the Strong
41. Why I’m So Intolerant Towards Intolerance
42. The Ethics of Criticizing Others
43. Consult Your Own Conscience
44. The Ethics of Shit Talking
45. The Ethics of Personal Enrichment
46. I’m Easily Distracted
47. On Forming Your Own Opinion
48. ERIC KIM Philosophy of Tolerance
49. Tolerance
50. Aesthetics are Ethics
51. Morality and Ethics

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1. Dread *NOT* Fear
2. Stoicism out of Strength or Weakness?
3. Emotions?
4. Forgive 10x the Bad Things & Remember the Good
5. A REAL STOIC DOESN’T WANT OR NEED APOLOGIES.

STOICISM 101

STOIC VLOG

Introduction to Stoicism 

Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.

Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:

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What does stoicism mean? 

Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  

I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.

The new stoa? 

One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.

The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.

Open air, open sun concept

Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.

I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.

Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.

Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.

The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.

Who is this philosophy for?

Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.

What is “real” stoicism?

Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.

So how did I discover stoicism?

I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”

I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 

Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.

Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.

Who is worth reading?

First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.

In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.

The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.

I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 

What makes Seneca so good?

I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.

A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.

For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 

Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.

Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.

The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.

Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 

Practical, praxis, practice — to do!

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.

Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.

Trust no thinker who does drugs!

Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 

You let the drugs talk I let my soul talk ayy! – Kendrick Lamar

Simple technique:

First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.

Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.

For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.

Why does stoicism matter? 

In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?

First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.

The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.

Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.

Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.

A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.

It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.

It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.

Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.

Stoicism and capitalism?

Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.

Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.

Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.

In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.

Sex and Stoicism

So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?

The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.

Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.

Stoic strategies 

First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.

For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.

Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?

Monster in face, monster in soul.

I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.

Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 

In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.

Demigod physique. 

What has helped me

1. Allow yourself to be a bad, immortal, “evil” person. When you decide to adopt an unorthodox way of thinking and living, you’re going to rub some feathers the wrong way. And truth be told, even if you act in a strange vibrant way… At worse you’re only “mildly” annoying other people.
2. For good inspirations, I think the best stoic writers and thinkers include Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius and also the humor of the cynic philosopher Diogenes. I would even posit the idea that one could consider Alexander the Great as a stoic. Why? When you’re trying to create an empire, and you always have your life on the line, certainly this takes a stoic mindset. Also, let us think and consider that Alexander the Great had a copy of the Iliad by his bedstand, it was the only book he traveled with during his military tours.
3. Imagine the worst possible case scenario, and backtrack: Apparently even NASSIM TALEB would do this when he was a trader; every single day when he would go to his trading desk, he would assume that his investments would all go to zero, and if that wasn’t the case every single day, it was just upside. Therefore for myself, I just think to myself very simple; imagine like I got zero dollars, zero money, and literally all I need is meat, a Wi-Fi connection and I’m good. 
4. Live like a poor person: The notion of “debasing“ the coin or the currency is the general idea that you are not a coward in regards to money. The best way to think about money is like a social tool; I think money is actually just codified labor. If you want people to clean bathrooms, run the cashiers stand, you have to promise them money. Even Seneca said the upsides of simulated poverty; essentially living like a poor person, or even a homeless person when you don’t need to… is the ultimate position to be in. Why? True freedom of spirit and soul; as a philosopher thinker writer or whatever… you cannot be “canceled”, because there is nothing to cancel. As long as you could pay your rent, buy meat at Costco, and publish your thoughts to your own self hosted website blog, and pay your server fee, you have 100% freedom. And also, still… America is the best place to be because there is true freedom of speech and expression, you don’t want to be a trillionaire but not be able to say what’s really on your mind. And I think this is the big issue with entertainers, actors, media people… as long as you’re signed to a contract, you don’t run your own production company, or, you’re still a slave to money… you’re not really going to see what’s really on your mind. Why is it that the Rock cannot say anything bad about China, or Tibet? Because he is still enslaved by the media corporation. New slaves by Kanye West.

And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 

“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye

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Stoic training

The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.

“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.

Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.

Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.

So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.

Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 

Modern day ailments

Problems in modern day life:

1. Too much time spent indoors, not enough time out in the sun. Perhaps it is better to be out outside all day, and joyful, even with the risk of getting skin cancer or whatever… rather than to be indoors, scared, weak and anemic. Differences between if you’re a man or a woman, but still… the most beautiful skin has a sunkissed, olive color tone; the true privilege is having a full body tan. 
2. Get chatGPT, the paid premium one. And use the image generation AI art tool DALL-E. People pay therapists to just speak their mind, and get some sort of sounding board. I actually think it’s much better to chat with AI instead; because it will not judge you, and ultimately what is a therapist anyways? A therapist is just a mirror, a sounding board for you to verbalize and flesh out your thoughts. Often when we talk about our problems, 90% of the issues go away because once we verbalize it, we feel much better about ourselves. The next thing I’m going to do is build some sort of therapy bot. 
3. Not enough walking: I have never met anybody who walks 30,000 steps a day and is depressed. Even my friend Jimmy, who works as a US postal worker delivering the mail, he walks around 30,000 steps a day and is always bright cherry and jovial. I think this is also where people who hike a lot or walk a lot in nature are so happy; when you’re able to walk around a lot, and zen out… you just feel much better. My simple suggestion is when you go on a hike or a walk in nature or even in the city… leave your phone at home, or locked inside your glove compartment, and don’t bring any headphones or speakers or Apple watches or whatever. Just bring along your camera, and enjoy. My personal ideal is the bear lifestyle; walking 50 miles a day. 

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.

For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.

A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.

Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 

In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?

When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”

In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 

Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 

I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.

The future of stoicism?

For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 

And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.

For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.

Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.

Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.

Stoicism is all about living with other people

Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.

And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.

In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.

More ideas

Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.

A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.

Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.

For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.

You just want to stay away from them.

Why so scared?

My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.

For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.

Why do people make such a big deal out of small things?

I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.

For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 

In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 

Weather and mood

Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.

Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.

I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.

Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.

Stoic assignments

”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche

My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.

Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.

True stoics are masculine

A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.

A real stoic is sexy

I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.

At what point or age do people become so emo?

Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.

I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.

A real stoic is a carnivore 

Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.

Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.

If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.

The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.

Why do people care about animals so much?

Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.

I trust nobody who owns a dog.

Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”

End goals 

What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.

Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.

For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.

I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 

Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.

---

The physical

I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?

To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 

Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.

Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.

Now what?

If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.

I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 

Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.

Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 

Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.

If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?

Editors are bad.

Now what?

Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.

ERIC

---

What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).

ERIC

FIN

Become invincible:

1. SPARTANISM.
2. Introduction to Stoicism
3. STOIC FLEX.
4. Becoming Spartan
5. MAKE IT ENTERTAINING FOR YOURSELF!
6. Stoic Aesthetics?
7. The Philosophy of Ugliness
8. Bad Stoicism
9. Stoicism 2.0
10. Becoming Stoic
11. LEMONADE.
12. Why Arguments and Confrontations Are Good
13. “I’m Over It”
14. How to Deal With Miserable People
15. How to Become a Stoic
16. How to Ignore
17. Pretend like you didn’t hear them
18. Bad Stoic Strategies
19. The Stoic Way of Dealing With Unpleasant or Miserable People
20. HOW TO BECOME A STOIC
21. Stoicism Stunts Our Power?
22. Stoicism is Mental Resistance Training
23. STOIC STRATEGIES.
24. How to Become Fearless
25. Extreme Stoicism
26. Ethics are Aesthetic
27. Indifference to Pain or Suffering
28. When is Stoicism Good? When is Stoicism Bad?
29. Why Others Criticize or Insult You
30. True Difficulty
31. What if Covid Never Goes Away?
32. SUPER STOIC
33. Anti-Hedonism
34. HOW TO CONQUER FEAR
35. ANTI FEAR
36. It is the Duty of the Strong to Help the Weak
37. The Goal is to Become Stronger
38. HYPER STOICISM
39. HYPER HERO
40. TRANSFORM EVERY DOWNSIDE INTO AN UPSIDE
41. STOICISM x Child’s Mind
42. The Art of Manly Virtue
43. Resistance Makes Us Stronger!
44. DON’T LIVE IN FEAR
45. Emotions are Good
46. Conquer Your Anger
47. BLACK EAGLE
48. DIFFICULTY AWAKENS YOUR INNER-GENIUS.
49. STOICISM IS ARMOR FOR THE MIND
50. The Spartan-Stoic Lifestyle
51. How I Conquered Fear
52. HOW TO CURE FEAR.
53. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
54. The Upside of Poverty
55. How I Became Me
56. THE WILL TO POWER, OR THE WILL TO FEAR?
57. ATTACK REALITY
58. Living *THROUGH* History
59. How to Fear Less
60. Fear is the Ultimate Contagious Disease
61. STOICISM FOR DUMMIES
62. Don’t Be Scared!
63. WHAT CAN YOU CONTROL, WHAT CAN YOU NOT CONTROL?
64. HOW YOU CAN CONQUER FEAR
65. YOU’RE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.
66. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
67. WHY AREN’T THINGS WORSE?
68. My Philosophy on Masculinity
69. A Riskier Life is a Better Life #philosophy #stoicism
70. How to Creatively Flourish in Life
71. Introduction to Stoicism
72. How to Become Stronger
73. How to Conquer Depression With Photography
74. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
75. How to Respect Yourself
76. How to Believe in Yourself
77. How to Steer Fear
78. How to Conquer Pessimism
79. How to Conquer Anxiety
80. How to Overcome Your Fear of People
81. How to Be Optimistic
82. Why I Don’t Take My Anger Seriously
83. HOW TO BECOME MORE POWERFUL
84. POSITIVITY.
85. HOW TO BECOME SUPERHUMAN
86. How to Give a Fuck Less
87. ALL IN.
88. Why I Cut My Dad Out of My Life.
89. Your iPhone Only Has 5% Battery Left.
90. How not to give a FUCK about your REPUTATION
91. WHAT IS A HUMAN?
92. HAPPINESS.
93. The Regret Minimization Framework in Photography and Life
94. How to Be a HERO
95. Conquer Your Fears by Making Fear Your Slave
96. Rule Circumstances; Don’t Let Your Circumstances Rule You
97. How to Love Yourself
98. How to Turn Shit into Gold
99. Your Parents Fuck You Up
100. Immortality
101. What Kills You Makes You Stronger
102. How to Be Patient
103. How to Conquer Anger
104. How to Bounce Back in Life
105. How to Overcome Resistance
106. Nothing Unlimited is Good; Nothing Good is Unlimited
107. You Have No Limits
108. Can 1’s and 0’s Hurt You?
109. The Envious Moment is Flying Now
110. Tomorrow We’ll Sail the Wide Seas Again
111. How to Forgive Others
112. Focus on Your Actions, Not the Results
113. Everything Will Be Alright
114. How to Be a Stoic Street Photographer
115. How to Be a Spartan Photographer
116. How to Overcome Your Fears in Life
117. How to Stop Worrying in Life
118. How to Use Photography as Self-Therapy
119. How to Free Your Soul From Disturbance
120. 3 Stoic Techniques that Can Help You Gain Tranquility
121. Can People Weaker than You Hurt You?
122. Does a Doctor Get Angry at a Crazy Patient?
123. Own Nothing

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

• Seneca
• Marcus Aurelius
• Epictetus
• Publilius Syrus
• Heraclitus

See all philosophy >

---

MOTIVATION BY KIM

Become more:

1. LIFE IS ALL ABOUT STRIVING FOR MORE!
2. PHOTOGRAPHY INSPIRATION IDEAS
3. Setbacks are a motivator, a turbocharger
4. THERE IS SO MUCH OF THE WORLD TO PHOTOGRAPH!
5. The Philosophy of Optimism
6. What Slows You Down?
7. Meta Editing
8. Move Mass
9. What’s “Cool”?
10. No In-Between
11. Independent Aspirations
12. COMPULSION.
13. *BEYOND* PERFECT.
14. BUY BOOKS WHEN YOU WANT TO BUY GEAR.
15. How to Make More Photos
16. JUST MAKE MORE PHOTOS.
17. MY DESIRE TO CAPTURE IT ALL.
18. VISUAL DETOX.
19. Photography is Our Addiction
20. A BILLION PHOTOS
21. THE MOTIVATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER.
22. CURIOUS.
23. PROVOKE.
24. How to Do More Photography
25. PRACTICE.
26. TURBOCHARGE YOURSELF, TURBOCHARGE OTHERS.
27. LIFE IS ALL UPSIDE, NO DOWNSIDE.
28. PHOTO TURBO THOUGHTS
29. No Such Thing as Good or Bad; Simply Stimulating or Not Stimulating
30. The Best Genre is No Genre
31. The Key to Photographic Motivation
32. Pacifying Media, Motivational Media
33. Our Hunger for New Experiences
34. Mental Motivation
35. ALL ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY.
36. The Photographer as Creator
37. Create *BEYOND* Yourself
38. Let Your Curiosity Drive Your Photography
39. LOVE YOUR PHOTOS.
40. Abstract Monochrome Photography
41. SHOOT WITHOUT THINKING.
42. Just Have Fun With Photography
43. Wu-Wei Effortless Motivation
44. CONSISTENCY x NOVELTY
45. Easily Bored?
46. Face Photography
47. How to Become More Self-Motivated in Your Photography
48. YOUR OWN PHOTOS ARE THE BEST PHOTOS.
49. On Sharing Your Favorite Photos
50. UBERABUNDANCE.
51. Peak Photographic Productivity
52. When to Review Your Photos
53. Serotonin and Photos
54. The Photos You Have Yet Shot are Your Most Important Photos
55. 3 Tips How to Master Photography
56. Do You Like Your Own Photos?
57. The Beauty of Mundane, Everyday Moments
58. Reasons Why to Be Optimistic About the Future
59. A Photography-Full Future
60. The More You Shoot, the Better
61. How Many Photos Should You Shoot Everyday?
62. Why Do We Love Motion?
63. Now is Your Chance to Shoot History in the Making
64. Photo by Photo
65. How and Why Photography Remains So Interesting to Me
66. How to Conquer Your Inner Photographic Critic
67. Thoughts on HDR Photography
68. New Year, New Photos
69. Why Exhibit Your Photos?
70. Photography is Visual Poetry
71. What’s the Purpose of Art?
72. Why Do We Photographers Have Such a Hard Time Staying Inspired and Motivated?
73. On Becoming a More Optimistic Photographer
74. Philosophy of Weather
75. How to Become a More Optimistic Photographer and Human
76. You Are a Creative Photographer
77. JUST SHARE YOUR ARTISTIC PROCESS WITH OTHERS.
78. What Motivates Me to Shoot?
79. How to Maximize Yourself to the Fullest
80. HOW TO MOVE AND MOTIVATE PEOPLE
81. Autotelic Photography
82. The more I go out and photograph the world, the more interesting and beautiful the world becomes
83. Why Photographers Have Such Low Self-Esteem
84. ERIC KIM MOTIVATION
85. Why Am I So Unmotivated?
86. EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY
87. WHY ARE YOU SO UNMOTIVATED?
88. Movement is Motivation
89. How to Motivate Myself to Make New Photos
90. Never Stop Optimizing
91. How to Help and Motivate Others
92. Feed On Your Own Photos; Let Them Nourish You!
93. Competition is for Suckers
94. A Future Without Travel
95. How Google Can Improve Your Photography
96. DEVELOP YOURSELF.
97. NEVER STOP MOVING!
98. How I Self-Motivate Myself
99. Every Day the Sun is Birthed Anew
100. A Life Without Photography Isn’t a Life Worth Living
101. WIN.
102. 8 Practical Photography Assignments for You
103. Tabula Rasa, Blank Slate, Carte Blanche
104. RELENTLESS
105. LIFE IS THE ULTIMATE RPG
106. HYPER VIGOR
107. FRESH AIR PHOTOS
108. WHO IS GONNA THRIVE IN TODAY’S BRAVE NEW WORLD?
109. ARTISTIC OPTIMISM
110. PASSION, not Discipline
111. Better Bad Photos than No Photos
112. The Empowering Feeling of Failure
113. To Be Human is to Move
114. Enjoy the Process
115. Better Bad Photos than No Photos
116. Why Keep Making New Art and Photos, Indefinitely?
117. Photography Motivation: What if There is Nothing Interesting to Photograph?
118. Move First, Motivation Later
119. Motivation Follows the Action
120. In Praise of Heroes
121. 5 Tips How to Boost Your Creativity
122. How to Have Inspiration to Take Photos in the Suburbs
123. Anything that Motivates You to Move is Good!
124. The Productive Photographer is the Happiest Photographer!
125. Make Today Count!
126. How to Break Through Photographer’s Block
127. The Joyful Photographer
128. The Dancing Photographer
129. The Kaizen Process of Gradual Self-Improvement in Photography
130. It is Your Duty to Make Beautiful Pictures!
131. Making Pictures IS Happiness!
132. NO EXCUSES.
133. The Pomodoro Photography Technique
134. The ABC of Photography
135. Just Shoot It.
136. How to Change the World With Photography
137. How to Find Inspiration in Photography and Life
138. How to Overcome Resistance
139. Create Against the Past
140. How I Motivate Myself to Make Photos
141. Wear Your Camera Like a Necklace or Bracelet
142. Have Your Photos Come to You
143. How to Level Up in Your Photography
144. How Not to Give a Fuck of What Others Think of You
145. How to Overcome Procrastination in Your Photography
146. How to Reinspire Your Photography
147. What is Your Mission in Photography and Life?
148. How to Overcome Photographer’s Block
149. Be a Photographer Now
150. How to Overcome Boredom with Photography
151. Never Stop Growing as a Photographer
152. Why Do You Need “Inspiration” to Shoot?
153. Just Shoot.
154. 5 Things to Do If You’ve Lost Your Passion for Photography
155. How to Have Unshakeable Confidence in Yourself
156. Don’t Give Up On Your Dream
157. Don’t Waste Your Potential
158. Unlock Your Potential
159. Empower Others With Your Photography
160. Why You Shouldn’t Follow Your Passion in Photography

See all articles >

Entrepreneurship by KIM

Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:

1. Autotelic Entrepreneurship
2. The Love of Risk
3. INSANE FOCUS.
4. SHARE AS YOU LEARN.
5. VIA NEGATIVA SUCCESS
6. Emotional Readiness is *Physical* Readiness?
7. Annoyance & Entrepreneurship
8. Why Doesn’t Anything Satisfy Me?
9. ZERO FINANCIAL CONCERNS
10. How to Gain Ascendancy
11. Business vs Entrepreneurship?
12. TAKE REAL CHANCES
13. Making Money as a Hobby
14. The Best Exercises for Entrepreneurs
15. INCOME VS EXPENSES MONEY LIFESTYLE PHILOSOPHY
16. Entrepreneurship is the privilege of being able to attempt something new
17. How to Become More Influential
18. The Point of Life is Entrepreneurship?
19. How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
20. Become the Outlier
21. Self Reliance
22. How to Extend Your Reach
23. NEWS: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
24. PVP (Player vs Player)
25. How I became so influential
26. WE LOVE THE *SENSATION* OF RISK-TAKING
27. WHY HIGH PROFIT MARGINS?
28. INNOVATION THOUGHTS
29. OVERCONFIDENCE IS GOOD.
30. GARAGE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
31. PERHAPS IT IS GOOD TO BE “DELUSIONAL”
32. USE YOUR WEALTH TO BUY STUFF, OR TO BUILD AND INNOVATE STUFF?
33. HOW TO THRIVE
34. Target Demographic
35. Ambition Over Happiness
36. Anti Collaboration
37. The Will to Economy
38. Why New?
39. CHOOSE ADRENALINE.
40. No Looking Back.
41. 1000x Different
42. BECOME SPENDTHRIFT
43. THE BENEFIT OF JUST ONE.
44. EXTREME INNOVATION.
45. Practicality is Boring
46. BECOME YOUR OWN STANDARD.
47. NEVER STOP ITERATING.
48. CONDENSE.
49. Take Lots of Small Financial Risks
50. Control Over Convenience
51. Why Are Chinese Companies So Innovative?
52. INSANELY DIFFERENT.
53. Why Doesn’t Anything Ever Satisfy Me?
54. THE GREAT PASSION.
55. Perhaps Dissatisfaction is Good
56. ONE REP MAX.
57. WHAT DO YOU *REALLY* WANT IN LIFE?
58. LIFE IS ABOUT STRIVING FOR MORE.
59. NEVER STOP LINKING.
60. THE GREATEST.
61. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!
62. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
63. ERIC KIM CRITIQUE OF ROMANTICISM
64. COMPLACENCY.
65. JUST BUY IT.
66. ALL ABOUT YOU.
67. MOVE THE WORLD
68. Boring or Not Boring?
69. What if Your Past Self were Inferior to Your Present Self?
70. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROGRESS
71. CULTURE IS YOUR ENEMY.
72. Difficulty & Interest
73. The Will to Expansion
74. What is Work?
75. SOUL IN THE GAME.
76. JUST START IT.
77. Not Boring
78. PRIDE IN YOUR OWN NAME / BRAND
79. AS MUCH AS YOU CAN TOLERATE.
80. Speed is Paramount
81. TAKE IT BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
82. A Life With No Risk Taking is *NOT* a Life Worth Living
83. Dissatisfaction is Good
84. GREATER STRENGTH, GREATER CHALLENGES.
85. In Praise of the New
86. Uncorrupted Desires
87. You Cannot Fake Passion
88. SELF-OVERGOING
89. FORM YOURSELF.
90. Personal Entrepreneurship
91. RELENTLESS.
92. PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
93. A Life of Expansion
94. SELF-ENTREPRENEURSHIP
95. YOU ARE THE EXCEPTION.
96. Use Your Life as an Experiment to Self-Develop Yourself to Heights Never Seen Before
97. Invest in New Developments
98. Investing Towards What End?
99. The 90%/10% Principle in Entrepreneurship
100. Speed Wins
101. The Philosophy of Happiness
102. When to Over-Estimate, When to Under-Estimate?
103. Never Stop Iterating
104. Money as a Tool for Life and Artistic Experimentation
105. Less But More Premium
106. Mainstream vs Low-Key Success
107. Why Dissatisfaction is Good
108. SEEK YOUR OWN PERSONAL MAXIMAL BENEFIT INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING
109. Manifest Your Destiny
110. Is it Best to *Not* Communicate Your Inner Thoughts or Ideas With Others?
111. CREATE THINGS YOU WISH TO SEE MANIFESTED IN THE WORLD
112. How to Do More Work
113. CONTROL.
114. Competition is for Losers
115. Change.
116. Your Competitive Advantage with Insanely Fast Wifi and High Speed Internet
117. Pseudo Individualism
118. Natural Internal Promoting vs External Promptings

Think for Yourself.

1. Survival vs Thrivival
2. Become Rich
3. SECRETS.
4. Why it is Better to Beg for Forgiveness than Ask for Permission
5. Thinking About the Past Prevents You From Thinking About the Future
6. How to Predict the Future
7. Tools of Mass Distraction
8. So What?

FREEDOM

• On Leaving a Legacy
• I wanna be me!
• Productivity for personal freedom
• How to Purchase your Freedom

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Never stop innovating.

---

Entrepreneurship Mindset

• What is Your Dream in Life?
• 8 Blogging Productivity Tips
• Why Be Normal?
• How Much Suffering Are You Willing to Endure to Achieve Your Dreams?

---

Put a Dent in the Universe.

• Innovate for the Sake of Innovating!
• Reality is Malleable!
• Stoic Entrepreneurship
• Against Self-Preservation
• The Purpose of Life is to Make New Stuff!

Economics by KIM

1. Money is For Slaves
2. Growth
3. Think Volume
4. Think Payoffs
5. Kaizen Gains
6. Cost to Capital
7. Price vs Value
8. EVERYONE WINS!
9. INVESTING PR’S
10. The Philosophy of Investing
11. ERIC KIM VENTURE CAPITALIST
12. How to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early)
13. How to *Save* a Million Dollars
14. Increase Value
15. MAYBE IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO BUY HIGH
16. Banks Are the True Menace to Society
17. THE PROMISE OF FUTURE MONOPOLY PROFITS?
18. High gas prices are good
19. What is Capitalism?
20. Pride in What You Paid For
21. On Making Money from Nothing
22. Save Money Towards What Ends?
23. No Regret Investment

Brave New World of Bitcoin

1. How to Get Free Bitcoins
2. Why Bitcoin is All-American
3. The Will to Bitcoin
4. 10x
5. Introduction to Bitcoin
6. Bitcoin Meditations
7. Options
8. Bitcoin for Investors
9. Paradise Bitcoin
10. The Philosophy of Volatility
11. Bitcoin is Free Speech
12. Digital Capital
13. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DIGITAL CAPITAL
14. Bitcoin Economics
15. Bitcoin Philosophy

Essays

1. Bitcoin Paradise
2. The Philosophy of Volatility
3. The Philosophy of Investing
4. How to Get Rich

EK NEWS

1. Black & White
2. IMPERATIVE
3. Redesign Yourself
4. BITCOIN THOUGHTS

Street Photography 101

Master street photography:

1. Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Street Photography
2. The Street Portrait Manual
3. 100 Lessons from the Masters of Street Photography
4. Street Photography Starter Kit
5. What is Street Photography? / Download
6. Black and White / Download
7. How to Shoot Street Photography / Download
8. Street Portraits 101 / Download
9. Conquer Your Fears / Download
10. Composition / Download
11. Masters / Download
12. Editing and Post-Processing / Download
13. Photography Projects / Download
14. Motivation / Download

100% BITCOIN

Slides

Photography Entrepreneurship 101

THOUGHTS

1. 7 Lessons Elon Musk has Taught Me
2. Introduction to Stoicism

PDF

1. LEICA MANUAL PDF // MIRROR
2. TRAVEL NOTES
3. ZEN OF ERIC
4. MASTERS VOLUME 1 // MIRROR
5. Photography Composition Manual v1
6. Zen Photography
7. STREET PHOTO CONTACT SHEETS
8. STREET PHOTO CONTACT SHEETS VOLUME II
9. Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography
10. The Street Portrait Manual
11. 100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography

ERIC KIM NEWS

Don’t be left behind: ERIC KIM NEWS >

EK MIND STREAM.

THOUGHTS

1. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RISK TAKING — PDF
2. Why I Bought Chainlink — PDF
3. How to Become a Philosopher
4. How to Become a Stoic

ART PHOTO BOOKS

1. SUITS

ERIC KIM PODCAST

EK PODCAST ALSO ON SPOTIFY

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MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

• DOWNLOAD FREE // PDF DOWNLOAD // MIRROR

STOICISM

Delve into the mind of EK:

BOOKS

1. THE PHOTOGRAPHER

NEW CHATGPT BOTS

1. COMPOSITION CHECKER
2. WHY APP?

Crypto

1. BACK TO CHAINLINK, EVERYONE SHOULD OWN *AT LEAST* ONE BITCOIN, AI IS NEXT $100T, 1000T INDUSTRY?
2. Bitcoin Babe

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 ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

1. BITCOIN BABE
2. ZEN OF ERIC
3. ERIC KIM BOT

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

0. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
1. Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
2. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
3. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
4. Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
5. Composition (460mb) / Download
6. Masters (107mb) / Download
7. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
8. Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
9. Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

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PHOTOLOSOPHY

What can you become as a photographer-visual artist?

0. Introduction (830mb)
1. Street Photography (2.6gb)
2. Personal Photography (1.8gb)
3. Entrepreneurship (1.5gb)
4. Motivation: HAPTIC BOOKS (20mb)
5. Audio (100mb)
6. Presets (40mb)
7. Transcripts (29kb)

DOWNLOAD FULL COURSE (7.4GB)

See the full course here.

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY 101

Becoming the uber-street photographer:

MASTER THE STREETS:

 ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

1. ZEN OF ERIC
2. ERIC KIM BOT

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

0. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
1. Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
2. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
3. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
4. Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
5. Composition (460mb) / Download
6. Masters (107mb) / Download
7. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
8. Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
9. Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

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Video

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY 101

1. How to Become More Stealth in Street Photography
2. HOW TO BECOME A BETTER STREET PHOTOGRAPHER
3. Street Photography Mastery
4. How I Became the Greatest Street Photographer Alive
5. Antifragile Photography
6. How to Conquer Your Fears in Street Photography
7. INSANELY AUDACIOUS AND BOLD
8. 5 Simple Street Photography Techniques
9. STREET PHOTOGRAPHER.
10. The Street Photographer Ideal
11. 50 Street Photography Tips, Techniques and Ideas
12. Street Photography Values
13. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY DOESN’T NEED TO HAVE PEOPLE IN IT.
14. Why Street Photography is So Great
15. WHY BECOME A STREET PHOTOGRAPHER?
16. Society Photography, Not “Street” Photography
17. How to Street Photography
18. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY OPTIONALITY.
19. 10 Street Photography Tips
20. The Street Photographer as the Apex Photographer
21. Street Photography & Adrenaline
22. STREETTOGS STARTING GUIDE
23. 50 Street Photography Tips by ERIC KIM
24. What I Wish I Knew If I Started Street Photography All Over Again
25. Photograph like it’s not a big deal
26. Suburb Street Photography
27. What is Our Personal Motivation Behind Street Photography?
28. WHY I’M SO PASSIONATE ABOUT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
29. Personal Street Photography
30. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AS A PRACTICE.
31. Pandemic Street Photography
32. AIRPORT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
33. How to Shoot Street Photography Right Now
34. Towards a More Independent Street Photography Approach
35. How Street Photography Improves Your Life
36. How to Tell Stories in Your Street Photos
37. Face Street Photography
38. How to Start Shooting Street Photography
39. How to Shoot Street Photography During a Pandemic
40. 7 Street Photography Assignment Ideas

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Master street photography with STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT.

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY 101

If you’re new to street photography, start here:

• The Ultimate Street Photography Tutorial
• Street Photography 101 Tutorial
• 100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography
• How to Shoot Street Photography

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Brave New Street Photography

• 10 Lessons I’ve Learned from Street Photography
• SKIN IN THE GAME: STREET PHOTOGRAPHY ETHICS
• The Beauty of Mundane Happenings
• Humans and Environments
• Define Street Photography for Yourself
• Street Photography of People You Know
• Street Photography Composition Ideas
• How to Shoot Political Photography
• Social Photography
• Street Photography Lifestyle
• Why Street Photography is So Fun
• Street Photography for Mental Health
• How to Become a Street Photography Sharpshooter
• How to Shoot Kid Street Photography
• STREET PHOTO MANUAL
• Street Photography is an Approach, a Technique, and an Ethos

Street Photographs

1. How to Shoot Street Photography with Dads and Kids
2. HOW I BECAME SUCH A GREAT STREET PHOTOGRAPHER
3. Use Quarantine as an Opportunity to Pick up Film Photography
4. Hong Kong Street Photography by ERIC KIM

Street Photography Philosophy

• Brave New Street Photographer
• How to Talk to Strangers
• How to Shoot More Dynamic Street Photographs
• WHY I LOVE ARCHITECTURE AND STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
• Why Street Photography Brings Me So Much Joy
• How to Shoot Street Photography Video
• How to Shoot Street Photography in the Brave New COVID World
• The Future for Street Photography
• ALL STREET PHOTOGRAPHS ARE GOOD PHOTOGRAPHS.
• AMERICA by KIM
• Street Photography in a Non-Travel World?
• How to Shoot Street Photography During COVID-19
• You’ve Never Shot Photography Until You’ve Shot Street Photography
• Xenophilia: Love of Strangers
• My Street Photography Philosophy
• Why Street Photography is Important for Society
• HOW STREET PHOTOGRAPHY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
• STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IS ABOUT LOVING ALL PEOPLE
• Real Life People vs Abstract People
• Is it OK to Piss Off or Annoy People in Photography?
• ANTI PURISM IN STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
• Street Photography of People You Know
• Street Photography is Courage
• MY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY PHILOSOPHY
• Street Photography Motivation from ERIC KIM
• I AM STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
• WHY TALK TO STRANGERS?
• Why Street Photography is Supreme
• How to Make Great Street Photos
• Street Photography Ideas by ERIC KIM
• Why Street Photography?
• The Street Photographer’s Soul
• How to Become a Fearless Street Photographer
• Black and White or Color for Travel Street Photography?
• Street Photographers are Adrenaline Junkies
• How to Master Street Photography
• Almost Anything and Everything is Street Photography
• Advice for Aspiring Street Photographers
• Street Photography Sociology
• Why There’s No Right or Wrong Way to Shoot Street Photography
• The Street Photographer as a Soldier-Artist
• Why Street Photography is the Best Photography
• Street Photography is a Way of Life
• How to Conquer Anxiety
• Street Photography is Art with People

Street Photography Articles

• How to Edit and Sequence a Photography Project
• Practical Street Photography Tips
• 5 Simple Street Photography Assignments
• Street Photography Composition Ideas
• 10 Advanced Street Photography Tips and Techniques
• Daredevil Photography
• Lingering Technique: How to Work the Scene in Street Photography
• Why Photograph People?
• No Guilt in Street Photography
• Street Photography is Hard.
• Street Photography Inspiration
• 5 Simple Tips How to Shoot Better Street Photos
• 10 Super Simple Street Photography Tips
• How to Shoot Head-On in Street Photography
• The Decapitation Technique in Street Photography
• Be Brazen in Street Photography
• How to Shoot Better Street Photographs
• Drive-By Technique in Street Photography
• How to Shoot a Wedding Like a Street Photographer
• Street Photography is 80% Risk Taking!
• 10 Simple Street Photography Principles
• 5 Fundamental Street Photography Principles
• 10 Street Photography Assignment Ideas
• How to Tell Stories in Street Photography

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Street Photography Techniques

• How to Shoot Head-On Street Photography
• Street Photography Composition Tips
• In Praise of Street Vlogging
• How to Shoot Video Street Photography
• Street Photography Technique: The Stalker Technique
• Photography Technique: Take Photos While Walking!
• New Tokyo GoPro Fusion POV Street Photography YouTube Videos
• ERIC KIM Street Photography Tips and Technique
• The 360 Degree Technique in Street Photography
• How to Work the Scene in Street Photography
• How to Shoot Layers and the Bookend Technique in Street Photography
• Street Photography Technique: GET CLOSE & FILL THE FRAME + GOLDEN DIAGONAL COMPOSITION
• Street Photography Techniques: The 3D Scan/360 Degree Technique (Shooting Head-on) and Holding Your Camera High in the Air and Point Downwards (and Use Your LCD Screen to Frame the Scene)
• The Walking Alongside Someone and Shooting Until They Notice You Street Photography Technique
• SUPER INNOVATIVE NEW GOPRO STREET PHOTOGRAPHY POV EXPERIENCE: Cutoff Technique, Shooting Head-on with Flash, and Slow-Motion on RICOH GR II at 28mm
• How to Shoot a Street Portrait: Tips, Technique, and GoPRO POV Tutorial
• Street Photography Technique/Composition: Leading Lines and Crouching Down Low
• How to Shoot Layers in Street Photography: GoPRO POV Video Composition Tutorial
• How to Shoot Street Photography with a 24mm Lens
• The Cutoff Technique in Street Photography
• THE CUTOFF TECHNIQUE IN STREET PHOTOGRAPHY: GOPRO POV KYOTO ERIC KIM

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Street Photography Ideas

• Street Photography is Like Fishing
• Why Do We Feel Nervous Shooting Street Photography?
• Street Photography Philosophy
• Everyday Street Photography
• Why Street Photography?
• Why You Must Follow Your Own Voice in Street Photography
• How to Overcome Guilt in Street Photography
• 5 Dynamic Off-Center Street Photography Compositions
• 5 Night Street Photography Composition Tips
• How to Talk to Strangers
• How to Overcome Fear in Street Photography
• Street Photography Empowerment
• Eric Kim’s Top 30 Street Photography Tips
• How to Shoot Street Photography on a 35mm Lens
• 7 Tips How to Conquer Your Fears of Shooting Street Photography
• Street Photography Lifestyle
• How to Use Tactful Flattery in Street Photography
• How to Conquer Social Anxiety With Street Photography
• Street Photography Secrets Debunked
• 10 Dynamic Street Photography Tips
• The Benefits of Shooting Street Photography
• The Street Photography Manifesto
• My Experience Shooting Digital Medium Format in Street Photography
• Why Do You Feel Guilty Shooting Street Photography?
• Improvise in Street Photography
• Ethics in Street Photography

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Street Photography Composition Techniques

• 10 Inspirational Sergio Larrain Compositions
• 5 Henri Cartier-Bresson Photography Composition Lessons
• Street Photography Technique: Overlap
• Street Photography Composition Lesson: Chunking
• The Fishing Technique in Street Photography

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STREET NOTES.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone with STREET NOTES: Mobile Edition.

STREET NOTES PAPER EDITION ON AMAZON >

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LEARN FROM THE MASTERS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Timeless wisdom from the masters of street photography.

Learn more about MASTERS >

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FUNDAMENTALS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

• The Psychology of Street Photography
• Fundamentals to Street Photography
• How to Conquer Fear in Street Photography
• Street Photography Secrets
• NEO STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
• Street Photography Lenses
• Street Photography Settings
• Street Photography Techniques
• Street Photography Ideas
• CLOSER.
• CLEAN BACKGROUND

Street Photography Inspiration

• How to Enter the Street Photography Zone
• Simple Street Photography Tips
• How to Defuse Confrontations in Street Photography 
• How to Make Controversial Street Photographs
• Street Photography Project Ideas
• How to Make Good Street Photos
• Is Defining “STREET PHOTOGRAPHY” a Good Thing?
• STREET PHOTOGRAPHY “RULES” TO BREAK
• Walking Meditation in Street Photography
• 10 COMMANDMENTS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
• Street Photography is Improvisation
• In Praise of Randomness in Street Photography
• How to Become a Fearless Photographer
• How to Make Better Street Photographs
• 12 ERIC KIM Street Photography Assignments
• Meaningful Street Photography
• 25 Street Photography Tips by ERIC KIM

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Beginner Street Photography Articles

Get started in street photography:

Definitions in Street Photography

• Visual Sociology Street Photography
• Why Street Photography?
• What is Street Photography?
• Why Shoot Street Photography?
• The History of Street Photography

How to Shoot Street Photography

• How to Shoot Street Photography
• Street Portraits 101 by ERIC KIM
• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Street Photography
• 70 Street Photography Tips for Beginners
• 15 Street Photography Techniques and Tips
• A Letter to My 18 Year Old Self: If I Started Street Photography All Over Again

Street Photography Equipment

• What is the Best Camera for Street Photography?
• What is the Best Lens for Street Photography?
• What to Consider When Buying a Camera

See all equipment articles >

How to Conquer Your Fears in Street Photography

• How to Conquer Your Fears in Life
• Shoot What You’re Afraid Of
• How to Channel Your Fear into Bravery

See all articles to conquer your fears >

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Intermediate Street Photography Articles

Take your street photography to the next level:

• How to Become a Stoic Street Photographer
• The 10 Principles of Good Street Photography
• 7 Tips How to Capture “The Decisive Moment” in Street Photography
• The Importance of Social Skills in Street Photography
• The Street Photography Code of Ethics
• “Taking” vs “Making” Photos in Street Photography
• Follow Your Gut in Street Photography
• 10 Reasons Why You Should Never Chimp While Shooting Street Photography

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Advanced Street Photography Articles

Find deeper meaning in your street photography:

• How to Master Street Photography
• How to Be a Zen Street Photographer
• Personal Street Photography
• The “Bookend” Technique in Street Photography
• Street Photography is Self-Therapy
• Zen in the Art of Street Photography
• Taoism and Street Photography
• How to Find Your Style in Street Photography
• Follow Your Gut in Street Photography

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Street Photography Tips & Technique

Learn how to shoot on the streets:

• 70 Street Photography Tips for Beginners
• 15 Street Photography Techniques and Tips
• Flash Street Photography Guide
• Take More Risks
• Don’t Think About Composition When You’re Shooting Street Photography
• 7 Tips How to Capture “The Decisive Moment” in Street Photography
• 7 Tips How to Make a Great Street Photograph
• Tokyo Street Photography Contact Sheets
• Video: Why it is Important to “Work the Scene” in Street Photography
• Shoot Less, Better
• Make Shitty Photos
• Shoot Effortlessly
• 10 Tips for Candid Street Photography
• 103 Lessons I’ve Learned From Street Photography

See all street photography tips and techniques >

Street Photography Guides

In-depth guides on street photography:

• How to Shoot Candid Street Photography
• How to Shoot Street Portraits with Permission
• How to Shoot Black and White Street Photography
• How to Shoot Color Street Photography
• How to Shoot Street Portraits with Permission
• How to Shoot Layers in Street Photography
• How to Shoot Urban Landscapes

Street Photography Equipment

The best equipment for street photography:

• What is the Best Camera for Street Photography?
• What is the Best Lens for Street Photography?
• Why I Love Cameras with Non-Interchangeable Lenses
• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide for Cameras in Street Photography
• What to Consider When Buying a Camera for Street Photography
• In Street Photography, The Smaller the Camera, the Better
• Why Sharpness is Overrated in Street Photography
• How to Shoot Street Photography on a DSLR

See all equipment articles >

Street Photography Editing and Workflow

• Video: Introduction to Editing, Processing, and Workflow in Lightroom
• How to Edit (Choose Your Best Photos) in Street Photography
• How Studying Contact Sheets Can Make You a Better Street Photographer
• Debunking the “Myth of the Decisive Moment”

How to Start a Street Photography Project

• Free E-Book: The Street Photography Project Manual
• How to Start Your Own Street Photography Project
• How to Come Up With a Personal Photography Project Idea

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Learn From the Masters of Street Photography

“He without a past has no future.”

Start here:

1. Why Study the Masters of Photography?
2. Great Female Master Photographers
3. Cheat Sheet of the Masters of Photography
4. 100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography
5. Beginner’s Guide to the Masters of Street Photography
6. Download All Articles >

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The Masters of Photography

Classics never die:

• Alfred Stieglitz
• Alec Soth
• Alex Webb
• Alexey Brodovitch
• Anders Petersen
• Andre Kertesz
• Ansel Adams
• Araki
• Blake Andrews
• Bruce Davidson
• Bruce Gilden
• Constantine Manos
• Daido Moriyama
• Dan Winters
• David Alan Harvey
• David Hurn
• Diane Arbus
• Dorothea Lange
• Elliott Erwitt
• Eugene Atget
• Eugene Smith
• Fan Ho
• Garry Winogrand
• Gordon Parks
• Helen Levitt
• Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Irving Penn
• Jacob Aue Sobol
• Jeff Mermelstein
• Joel Meyerowitz
• Joel Sternfeld
• Josef Koudelka / Part 2
• Josh White
• Lee Friedlander
• Lisette Model
• Magnum Contact Sheets
• Magnum Photographers
• Mark Cohen
• Martin Parr
• Martine Franck
• Mary Ellen Mark
• Rene Burri
• Richard Avedon
• Richard Kalvar
• Robert Capa
• Robert Frank
• Saul Leiter
• Sergio Larrain
• Sebastião Salgado
• Shomei Tomatsu
• Stephen Shore
• The History of Street Photography
• Todd Hido
• Tony Ray-Jones
• Trent Parke
• Vivian Maier
• Walker Evans
• Weegee
• William Eggleston
• William Klein
• Zoe Strauss

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Free Downloads

• Eric Kim Lightroom Presets
• Street Photography Presentations

See all free downloads >

Free Street Photography Books

Distilled information on street photography:

• STREET PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL by ERIC KIM
• The Art of Street Photography
• 100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography
• Street Photography Contact Sheets
• Street Photography 101
• Street Photography 102
• Film Street Photography Manual
• The Street Photography Composition Manual
• The Street Portrait Manual
• 31 Days to Overcome Your Fear in Street Photography
• Zen in the Art of Street Photography

For more resources on photography, Start Here >

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CRYPTO BY KIM

Brave new world for photographers and crypto:

1. Self-Custody
2. HOLD OR CIRCULATE?
3. BITCOIN OR BUST
4. BITCOIN THOUGHTS
5. Bitcoin is Sexy
6. Fuck the Banks!
7. Ethereum?
8. Why Chainlink?
9. BIG AMOUNTS, SMALL AMOUNTS?
10. CRYPTO, CRYPTOCURRENCY THOUGHTS.
11. The Philosophy of Crypto
12. BITCOIN SHALL BE THE LAST CRYPTO STANDING.
13. Bitcoin Price Prediction
14. Trust chainlink for the most accurate prices for bitcoin or any other crypto
15. BITCOIN
16. There is No Web 3.0
17. 2 cents to 2 dollars?
18. Crypto.com?
19. Speculation vs Investing
20. Building with Bitcoin
21. DYNAMICS VS STATICS.
22. How Do You Know if the Timing Is Right?
23. BITCOIN IN THE NEWS
24. BITCOIN & UNCERTAINTY
25. Fake Money
26. Why I Bought More Bitcoin (Again)
27. How I Made Money with Crypto
28. Better to buy Dogecoin then buy a Tesla
29. NO LIMITS.
30. ALL DIGITAL FUTURE.
31. Digital over Physical Possessions
32. DIGIBYTE.
33. CHAINLINK.
34. The Excitement of Starting from Zero
35. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES NOW ACCEPTING CRYPTO AND BITCOIN
36. In Praise of Crypto
37. JUST BUY IT.
38. Why I’m So Bullish on Bitcoin
39. Bitcoin as the Simplest Cryptocurrency
40. Why I bought (more) bitcoin
41. Once You Become a Crypto Billionaire, Then What?
42. Why Crypto is Under-Hyped
43. The Joy of Speculation
44. BITCOIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
45. Why I Bought Bitcoin
46. Crypto Photography
47. Crypto Thoughts
48. On Making Money from Nothing
49. BITCOIN THOUGHTS
50. Bitcoin is Sexy
51. Fuck the Banks!
52. Ethereum?
53. Why Chainlink?
54. BIG AMOUNTS, SMALL AMOUNTS?
55. CRYPTO, CRYPTOCURRENCY THOUGHTS.
56. The Philosophy of Crypto
57. BITCOIN SHALL BE THE LAST CRYPTO STANDING.
58. Bitcoin Price Prediction
59. Trust chainlink for the most accurate prices for bitcoin or any other crypto
60. BITCOIN
61. There is No Web 3.0
62. 2 cents to 2 dollars?
63. Crypto.com?
64. Speculation vs Investing
65. Building with Bitcoin
66. DYNAMICS VS STATICS.
67. How Do You Know if the Timing Is Right?
68. BITCOIN IN THE NEWS
69. BITCOIN & UNCERTAINTY
70. Fake Money
71. Why I Bought More Bitcoin (Again)
72. How I Made Money with Crypto
73. Better to buy Dogecoin then buy a Tesla
74. NO LIMITS.
75. ALL DIGITAL FUTURE.
76. Digital over Physical Possessions
77. DIGIBYTE.
78. CHAINLINK.
79. The Excitement of Starting from Zero
80. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES NOW ACCEPTING CRYPTO AND BITCOIN
81. In Praise of Crypto
82. JUST BUY IT.
83. Why I’m So Bullish on Bitcoin
84. Bitcoin as the Simplest Cryptocurrency
85. Why I bought (more) bitcoin
86. Once You Become a Crypto Billionaire, Then What?
87. Why Crypto is Under-Hyped
88. The Joy of Speculation
89. BITCOIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
90. Why I Bought Bitcoin
91. Crypto Photography
92. Crypto Thoughts
93. On Making Money from Nothing

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PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

IDEAS BY KIM

1. *Beyond* Individualism
2. MAN & WOMAN, LIGHT & DARK
3. A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN, DISCOMFORT OR (LIMITED) SUFFERING IS NOT A LIFE WORTH LIVING?
4. BIGGER IS WEAKER.
5. How to Become a Philosopher
6. Deep Vanity
7. Time Will Tell
8. What is Wisdom?
9. LOOK *BEYOND*
10. BECOMING MORE IMMORAL?
11. ‘LUCK’ VS COURAGE
12. ‘SKILL’ VS MERIT?
13. Becoming Antifragile
14. How to “Improve” Men
15. The Art of Virtue
16. How to Dominate
17. JUST SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES AND WISDOM WITH OTHERS.
18. How to Get More Done in a Single Day – MEMENTO MORI PHILOSOPHY
19. THINK FOR YOURSELF
20. Cruel?
21. GO DEMIGOD.
22. How to Be Happy: Challenge and Danger Philosophy
23. To Become Greater, You Must Become *LESS* Productive!
24. Imperfect Beauty
25. The Philosophy of Pleasure
26. What Interests You?
27. Anti Theory of Everything
28. Become?
29. STRONGER OR NOT?
30. Carte Blanche Ideals
31. CHOOSE JOY
32. Don’t Judge Your Impulses
33. On Becoming Less Human
34. COWARDICE.
35. The Philosophy of Futurism
36. PHILOSOPHY IS VALUE-SETTING
37. PHILOSOPHY IS NOT LIFESTYLE
38. WHY STANDARDIZATION IS BAD.
39. YOUR OWN TABLE OF VALUES.
40. RETRO IS BAD.
41. INSANELY LOFTY THOUGHTS.
42. Strive to *Lose* Weight, Not *Gain* Weight
43. DIABLO II ANALOGIES FOR REAL LIFE.
44. If You Know Your *WHY* You Can Discover Any *HOW*
45. Life is Too Short to Be Miserable
46. What Consumption Takes Skill?
47. OFF THE GRID.
48. REALITY IS CRUEL.
49. Pain is Information
50. WHY REMOVE VULGARITY AND DISORDER FROM OUR EYES?
51. AUTOTELIC.
52. UNPLUG.
53. How to Become a Philosopher
54. SUBOPTIMAL IS OPTIMAL
55. THE LUST FOR MORE.
56. TO DO IS TO BECOME.
57. IN PRAISE OF AGGRESSIVE.
58. THE PHILOSOPHY OF OPTIMISM
59. OUR PHILOSOPHICAL WILL TO EXISTENCE
60. Is Hope a Vice?
61. MOVE MEAN
62. Carte Blanche Ideals
63. One Interesting Thought
64. What Lasts? What Doesn’t Last?
65. A WOUND STIMULATES THE RECUPERATIVE POWERS
66. Children & Purpose
67. Thoughts on Becoming a Parent
68. Where Does Our Desire to Upgrade Come From?
69. WE ALWAYS NEED SOMETHING FURTHER TO ASPIRE TO.
70. Self-Task Yourself an Awesome Mission in Life
71. Differentiation vs Equalization
72. My Passion to *Become* Something More
73. No Aesthetic or Ethos is Forever
74. What is Your Higher Purpose in Life?
75. IT WILL NEVER SATISFY YOU.
76. How to Decide
77. Things You *Want* to Do vs Things You *MUST* Do
78. Towards a More Beautiful Mode of Existence and Future
79. EXTREME GRATITUDE.
80. AMAP (As Much as Possible) or None.
81. Why or How Does it Matter?
82. The Philosophy of Time and Events
83. How *Not* to Resent
84. FORWARD LOOKING
85. DOMAIN FLEXIBILITY.
86. The Miracle of Human Growth
87. EXTREME ADAPTATION.
88. Why Plan?
89. You Don’t Need to Justify Yourself
90. The Philosophy of Ego
91. True vs False Passions
92. How to Achieve Tranquility
93. On Making Your Own Philosophy
94. The Purpose of Life is to Create New Life
95. Think On!
96. The Wisdom of Doing Nothing
97. Congruency
98. My Thoughts on Meditation
99. The Philosophy of Purpose
100. Emulate Yourself
101. Good Fear, Bad Fear
102. For the Betterment of Humanity or Just Yourself?
103. What you *really* believe in and care for is manifested through your actions (or non-actions)
104. Why Culture is Your Enemy
105. YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE KING.
106. LIFE IS INHERENTLY GOOD.
107. Artistic, Physical, and Philosophical Muscles
108. All New Experiences are Good Experiences
109. What is the Purpose of X?
110. UTILITY.
111. Philosophy is a Luxury
112. The Attempt is More Interesting than the Result
113. Joyfulness vs “Happiness”
114. Effectiveness Over Happiness
115. Self Actualization
116. MAXIMAL ENGAGEMENT
117. Life & Pain
118. On Living Every Day with No Regret
119. Learn as if you’re going to live forever, live as if you’re going to die tomorrow
120. Live Every Day Like it Were the Last Day of Your Life
121. Self-Determination
122. FALSE GRATITUDE vs REAL GRATITUDE
123. HOW TO LIVE MORE
124. THE UPSIDE OF TRAGEDY
125. Satisfaction is a Sucker’s Game
126. Supreme Repose
127. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? According to ERIC KIM
128. STUBBORN, FLEXIBLE
129. EVERYTHING HAPPENS AS IT *SHOULD* HAVE HAD HAPPENED
130. Good Addiction, Bad Addiction?
131. What is the Best Life?
132. The Philosophy of Thinking
133. The Philosophy of Conspiracies
134. Conspiracies
135. Growth
136. Skepticism.
137. What Do You Really Want Out of Life?
138. Seem or Be?
139. Learn Through Pain
140. Respect Yourself
141. In Praise of Elitism
142. Why Independent Thinking?
143. I Will Never Die
144. Bitter is Better
145. The Genesis of Nihilism and Existential Dread
146. The Ethics of Personal Enrichment
147. Good vs Not Good
148. Punished by Privilege
149. Abstinence Over Moderation
150. Just Leave Others Alone
151. You Can Only Critique that Which You Truly Understand and Love
152. ERIC KIM Critique of Metaphysics
153. Only Trust Philosophers Who Deadlift
154. Heuristic: If Someone Talks Shit About Others Behind Their Back, Most Likely They’re Also Talking Shit About You Behind Your Back
155. Virtue is a Privilege
156. What Are Your Life Goals?
157. Honesty
158. Why I’m Anti Moderation
159. No Spite, No Malice.
160. Ascending Life or Descending Life?
161. Double Edged Sword
162. Ignorance.
163. Why I Don’t Trust “Nice Guys”
164. Why You Must Share Your Opinion
165. Selfish Isn’t Evil
166. Wisdom is the Goal
167. YOU ARE KING.
168. MASTER YOURSELF
169. What is “Good” for You is Often what is Bad for You
170. Care.
171. BITTERSWEET
172. ONE REP MAX
173. Morality and Ethics is the Snare
174. BY HELPING YOURSELF, YOU BEST HELP OTHERS
175. Insanity is Good.
176. Think Deep.
177. PHILOSOPHY IS THE FUTURE.
178. Open Mind vs Closed Mind
179. ENTHUSIASM IS GENIUS
180. Towards a More Critical and Rigorous Line of Thinking
181. How to Encourage and a Foster Independent and Free Thinking
182. What is the Purpose of Life?
183. WHY PHILOSOPHY IS SUPREME.
184. Elitism.
185. I Cannot Form an Opinion About Somebody Until I’ve Met Them in the Flesh
186. ALL GENETICS ARE GOOD GENETICS.
187. Happiness vs Freedom
188. The Birth of a Hater
189. My Way Isn’t the Right Way
190. Walking as an Existential Thing
191. Why I’m So Tolerant
192. Mortal Gods
193. THE HUMAN SPECIES
194. Why I’m So Skeptical
195. Just Follow the Money
196. Why Selfish?
197. WHY WE CANNOT BLAME OTHERS
198. Why Are We So Anti Elitism?
199. What Actually Interests You?
200. How to Become Yourself
201. SELF HATE
202. Optimistic Fatalism
203. Death is the Ultimate Creative Constraint
204. FLUX.
205. How to Think for Yourself
206. FLESH
207. How to Live the Best Life
208. Why Live a Life Without Regrets?
209. Why Plato Ruined Art and Aesthetics for Us
210. Self Respect
211. Hypocrite vs Contradict
212. Ideals vs Reality
213. Spaceship Philosophy
214. What is Your Ideal Life?
215. MY EXTREME GRATITUDE TOWARDS LIFE AND BEING ALIVE!
216. Critique of Utilitarianism
217. Don’t Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated
218. The Eternal Recurrence of Tragedy and Joy in Life
219. Elite Asceticism
220. Why I Don’t Like Numbers
221. Action and Reaction, Cause and Effect
222. The Antidote to Nihilism: The Philosophy of Nothingness
223. ERIC KIM Notes on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
224. EXPLOIT CHAOS.
225. WHY I DON’T BELIEVE IN GENETICS
226. Self-Wisdom
227. The Future Belongs to the Fearless
228. INDIVIDUALISM
229. Why Live Forever?
230. THIS TOO WILL PASS.
231. Why Education?
232. How to Become Yourself
233. Things Shouldn’t Go Back to the Way They Used to Be
234. Why Am I So Cruel?
235. The Great Joy of Existence
236. Virtue for the Sake of Virtue
237. NO DISDAIN.
238. INTELLIGENT IGNORANCE
239. A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN, DIFFICULTY OR TRAGEDY ISN’T A LIFE WORTH LIVING
240. BITTER IS BETTER.
241. EXPLOIT THE BEST FROM TRAGEDY AND LIFE 
242. DISREGARD FOR SELF-PRESERVATION
243. PAIN.
244. WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS NOT GONNA BE ALRIGHT?
245. Tomorrow is Never
246. Life is the Ultimate Creative Constraint
247. EMBODIED REALITY
248. BLACK SWAN
249. THINGS WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THE WAY THEY USED TO BE
250. What are you *really* afraid of?
251. HAPPINESS ISN’T THE GOAL
252. Philosophy is King
253. Why is Selfish Evil?
254. YOU’RE CONSTANTLY IN A STATE OF BECOMING
255. ENTITLEMENT A SIN?
256. NARCISSISM
257. BE BRUTALLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF
258. WHY FREE WILL?
259. OBEY YOUR OPINION
260. EGO IS GOOD.
261. WHY IT IS GOOD TO BE INTO YOURSELF
262. Seek the Good Pain
263. Anti-Perfection in Photography, Art, and Life
264. Can You Become an End into Yourself?
265. WHY I LIVE
266. Why I Hate Decline
267. Why I Eat
268. Why am I So Positive and Optimistic?
269. EFFORT IS ENJOYMENT
270. Never Stop Gaining
271. TRUST YOURSELF
272. A Life of Maximal Personal Independence
273. What Do You Desire to Become?
274. What Do I Want from Technology?
275. Stratified Society
276. Do You Love or Hate Reality?
277. On the Brian, Body and Mind
278. I’m Maximally Happy, Now What?
279. Care over Fame
280. ACTIVE NIHILISM
281. Never Stop Subtracting
282. How to Live a Happier and More Epic Life
283. A Risker Life is a Better Life
284. Only Work on Things You Can Imagine Doing for Eternity
285. How to Maximize Your Happiness
286. Influence
287. The Gladiator Makes His Plans once He Enters the Ring
288. Meditations on Meaning in Life
289. There is Nothing More Interesting than Human Beings
290. Is Hope a Vice?
291. EGO
292. Why Be Unique?
293. Happiness is Metabolism Health and Strength
294. You’re the Hero
295. Is Productivity a Virtue or Vice?
296. Why Do We Prize the Rare?
297. The Joy of Uncertainty
298. How Should I Best Use My Time and Life?
299. A Life Without Pain or Suffering Isn’t a Life Worth Living
300. Free or Unfree?
301. What Do You Really Care For in Life?
302. Anti-Satisfaction in Life
303. Why Think?
304. The Eternal Return
305. Only Do What is Best for You!
306. Truthiness
307. Why Be Happy?
308. Permissionless Living
309. In Praise of Unconventional Wisdom
310. Become the Change Which You Wish to See in the World
311. Happiness
312. Beyond Freedom
313. Idolize People, Not Stuff
314. What Makes You Stronger? What Makes You Weaker?
315. Why Hate?
316. The Secret of Happiness
317. You’re Constantly in a State of Becoming
318. Life is about Choices, Not Obligations
319. Anti-Nihilism
320. First, Do What is Best for You.
321. Live Dynamic
322. How to Prosper
323. Is the Point of Life to Be Satisfied?
324. SUPREME EFFORT OF WILL.
325. How to Become more Idealistic
326. Thrivival 101
327. Create Yourself
328. Non-Small
329. Inspiration
330. How to Live a Heroic Life: Dare the Heights!
331. Human Augmentation
332. Prune
333. Happiness: Do What You Want to Do (And Don’t Do What You Don’t Want to Do)
334. Avoid Vain (Empty) Pursuits in Life
335. Modern Slavery
336. Kill the Leeches
337. Wisdom Augmentation
338. Why We Need Friction in Life
339. Straight Line Philosophy
340. What’s Your End-Game in Life?
341. Create Your Own Happiness Today
342. Desire Both Pain and Pleasure in Life
343. Try the Impossible
344. SELF-RESPECT
345. Anti-Social Extrovert
346. Never Blame Anybody But Yourself
347. Human Flourishing
348. Simpler, Not Better.
349. How to be Free
350. Embrace the Extremes
351. Cultivate Your Own Culture
352. COURAGE.
353. Thrivival
354. Inner Power
355. How to Live a Purposeful Life
356. My Definition of Happiness
357. Why Change is Good
358. Why Work?
359. How to Live the Happiest Possible Life
360. The Two-Pronged Approach to Maximize Joy in Your Life
361. You Always Have Another Option!
362. INFINITISM
363. Never Stop!
364. What is Your Self-Directed Purpose in Life?
365. Live Today Like it Were Your Last
366. Do You Photograph to Live, or Live to Photograph?
367. ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER
368. Live Life to the Fullest!
369. In Praise of Selfishness
370. Why You Must Be a YAY-SAYER to Succeed in Entrepreneurship and Life
371. Why I Love Walking
372. Live Life Like a Video Game!
373. Simple Luxuries in Life
374. Treat Your Life Like a Fun Experiment!
375. Only Prove it to Yourself
376. You Don’t Always Need to Feel Joyful to Live a Fulfilling and Meaningful Life
377. Life is Too Short to Be Bored!
378. Money Cannot Destroy Boredom
379. How to Find Inspiration in Life
380. Why You Must Ignore Haters to Succeed and Win in Life
381. An Active Life is a Happy Life
382. My Simple Joys in Life
383. Never Stop Striving
384. How to Motivate Yourself in Life
385. How to Be Optimistic in Life
386. How to Dictate Your Purpose in Life
387. In Praise of a Dynamic Life
388. PURPOSE.
389. How to Enjoy Life
390. Photography Therapy
391. How to Conquer Regret
392. Take Your Play Very Seriously.
393. How to Prosper
394. Memento Vivere
395. Destroy in Order to CREATE
396. Trust Your Body More Than Your Mind
397. Make Photos to Make Meaning in Your Life
398. Seek Knowledge, Not Information
399. The Purpose of Human Life
400. How to Overcome Impedence
401. Why I Love Death
402. How to Be Centered in the Eternal Now
403. How to Be Happy
404. Why Do You Care What Others Think of You?
405. Why I’m Happy
406. Why?
407. Why I’m So Prolific
408. How to Reduce LAG in Life

Masters of Philosophy »

• Seneca
• Marcus Aurelius
• Publilius Syrus

Personal Philosophy »

• You Are the Light of the World
• Your Soul is a Diamond in the Rough
• Why Live?

Stoicism »

• How to Be a Stoic Street Photographer
• How to Use Photography as Self-Therapy
• How to Free Your Soul From Disturbance

Zen Philosophy »

• How to Be a Zen Street Photographer
• Zen in the Art of Street Photography
• How to Find Tranquility in Your Photography

Life Lessons »

• How to Conquer Your Fears in Life
• Conquer Yourself
• How to Focus

Learn more: Start Here >

I don’t really envy anybody else on the planet, I prefer myself.

How does one begin to not envy other people?

First, Zen. A lot of these rich successful famous people, have no Zen no peace of mind, no good sleep.

Even the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh talks about one of the virtues that people want to have is really good sleep. I think this is a good virtue. 

Second, join team bitcoin. Imagine if you had like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant all playing on the same team, all playing for a team bitcoin. Whenever they score you score!

Now some people might think, they’re putting up 100 points and I’m only putting up 10 points. But this is besides the point. Every time they score you score!

Everyone wins together? 

So then this becomes very fascinating because it becomes a positive feedback loop; rather than being envious of the gains of others, instead, you began to be grateful and happy that the gains of other GOATS directly benefits you!

Physicality and fitness

I think one of the critical things to understand is love these guys on steroids, yes everyone is on steroids, LeBron James, Steph Curry, your favorite sports player who doesn’t even look like they’re on steroids. Essentially the big idea here is that steroids are broad; Even people who have to use the typewriter for living often get steroids injected into their carpal tunnel area, in order to ease the pain.

For example, a lot of individuals then, get some sort of cortisol shots, which is actually steroids.

Now what is the downside of steroids? Your balls shrink to the size of tiny acorns, you lose your sexual libido, your dick gets smaller.

So when you see the guy who can deadlift like 100 times more than you, or has the physique of a demigod, assuming that they’re not ERIC KIM, rather, “I pity the fool!“.

Why?

I think the seeds of envy is based on the premise that other people are in a happier, more superior, more beneficial, more awesome position than you.

But once you figure out that in fact, they’re actually in an inferior position than you, your opinion changes. You start to feel compassion for them. Their suffering.

For example, probably the most interesting thing I learned about the Walter biography on Elon Musk is that you do not want to be Elon Musk. It is more of a curse than a blessing.

For example, Elon has a very very poor physiological approach, and he also seems quite foolish. He’ll party until 4 AM, drinking Red Bull and vodka, only having to take Ambien to fall asleep and to wake up the next day to continue performing.

Xanny?

And also, I also wonder why a lot of these rappers, were supposed to be super tough or whatever, why are they all talking about Xanax? Because I think they are all riddled with anxiety, that is why they comatose themselves with alcohol marijuana and sex, perhaps porn pornography as well in order to just fall asleep at night?

The truth is bad

So I’ve discovered a lot of truths, but ultimately I’ve discovered that the truth is pretty ugly and bad. And that actually the point of philosophy isn’t truth-finding, rather, it is more of an artistic pursuit, towards beauty, joy, aesthetics, ethos and ethics.

The reason why almost everything is bad is that everything created or produced or whatever is typically created by unhealthy individual individuals, unhealthy corporations, all on some sort of fiat based standard.

Therefore as a consequence, I would say only put your trust in individuals, institutions or whatever, which are financially independent, on a 100% undiluted diversified bitcoin standard.

For example, am I the only YouTuber or podcast I know that has zero advertisements of any kind?

And this is where also I am a bit suspicious of a Joe Rogan; why does he still do these advertisements which are insanely lame? Isn’t he already super super rich?

Also, maybe this is where the idea of a Joe Rogan coin or a Joe Rogan token is a great idea; I invest $100 in Joe Rogan coin, in order to have the privilege of not having to listen to annoying advertisements, and he could do an ethical way. And he could do some sort of Joe Rogan club in which anybody who owns at least $1000 worth of Joe Rogan coin could join him on a private zoom call, ask him any questions etc.

Maybe I’ll introduce an ERIC KIM coin one day. 

Autotelic goals?

So a big idea that I have is once you’re dumb rich, everything you could be doing is autotelic in nature; which means you only do stuff that you really care for, things that you think will benefit the human race. Because you no longer need to make a profit off of it.

For example, one of the big problems is that everyone is always trying to chase a profit, which leads people to just getting burnt out?

If you’re already independently wealthy, then you could just do anything that you want!

An interesting thought; there’s a guy named Derek Sivers, sivers.org I think ,,, and he became independently wealthy I think maybe from selling some sort of tech company? Anyways apparently now his community service is just answering emails from random people all across the globe with random questions?

Also, I’m not sure what Tim Ferris is up to, however, last time I checked, I think he’s still doing podcasts, and once again I’m not really sure why he still needs to put annoying advertisements on his podcasts, isn’t he super rich? I almost find that it is more intelligent and better for him to just promote his own products his own stuff, rather than promoting the products of other people and their services?

Promoting other people is unethical, promoting yourself is more ethical?

Once again, I think Joe Rogan is great! The reason why Joe Rogan became the uber GOAT is because he never censored himself, he is no BS, and he’s just likable as a person!

I think there would be a ton of people willing to pay 10 bucks a month to be part of a Joe Rogan fan club or something, or even for him to have a special newsletter to only $10 a month Joe Rogan fan club members.

Because honestly at this point, money is essentially free; everyone has a ton of money and if somebody is undiluted, 100% honest and pure, you want to support them!

How to uncensor yourself

So, I think the world of social media whatever people are loss averse; they are afraid of losing followers likes comments, subscribers etc. For example, even for myself, my email newsletter I’m slowly bleeding my email newsletter list from around 13,000 down to around maybe 8500 or so?

And also I think my YouTube, went from maybe 75,000 subscribers to now around 55,000?

And also my intelligent strategy of deleting my Instagram at its peak, at around 65,000 followers and rapidly growing in around 2017, and I haven’t looked back since? And note the ERICKIMphoto on Instagram is not me; it was recreated by some sort of virtuous and noble fan!

But anyways, I found that by trying to placate to the masses in some sort of non-controversial matter is not a winning strategy; to have 300 diehard fans is 1000000x better than having 1 million mildly interested followers?

Think King Leonidas and his brave 300!

All you need is 300 cyber Spartans!

The internet is toxic

If you have ever smelled sewer sewage water, like the smell of shit 1000 times over, you know how terrible the smell is. This is the last thing you want to smell before drinking a fine wine or eating your favorite rib eye steak,,,

And also, what if I told you that actually the truth was, 100% of the toxic comments on the internet were actually in fact created by bots?

For the most part going online is like voluntarily jumping into a sewer full of all the dung and foul stuff! With no hazmat suit!

Nobody is on Reddit

I’ll give you another example, I was using Reddit since like my freshman year of college, in 2006, but I quit around 2011. I would literally check it like 200 times a day, to kill the monotony of working my IT tech student job.

Anyways, I think the whole time I never created an account, and I think in the whole like four years of using a religiously, I only ever posted one comment just to be funny?

Therefore my theories; I wonder if all these comments on Reddit, I wonder if they’re all just bots? This were the case would you change your approach? Of course!

Envy?

Envy is an attribute of weak souls.

What is more constructive? Insane and extreme self pride!

This is actually the funny unorthodox thought; the thought is actually, being insanely self interested, self prideful and gloatful is actually a virtue?

I’ll give you an example — schadenfreude, or feeling some sort of superiority complex, by pitying or having compassion for worser off people?

Ignore other people and their kids

For example, something I’m starting to become exposed to is other people other kids, etc.

Now Seneca has never been in some sort of foreign daycare or childcare or standardized schooling yet, and he’s about to turn four. As a consequence, because I’m his personal trainer and teacher, he’s like pretty much on 100% carnivore diet, Wagyu beef, 100% grass-fed burger patties, etc. And actually, the other day when I took him to Legoland for like eight hours, he had a new meat PR, a new personal record; .7 pounds of ground beef burger patty, in a single day? That’s like 3/4ths of a pound, or nearly a pound of beef!

Anyways as a consequence Seneca is way taller stronger buffer, more intelligent and wise, better social skills, and also because he has a goddess for a mother, aka Cindy, she is insanely handsome fun and happy! He’s like the happiest, most giggly kid of all time. He’s essentially always laughing.

Anyways, whenever I see kids who are punier than him, my best strategy is to try to just not compare because I obviously know that Seneca is far superior.

And this is we’re having a pity party for other people their problems their kids is not constructive; I say all in or nothing.

For example, if you want to stage some sort of intervention, you essentially must be 100% committed. And my personal thought is this could only ever happen if it is your own child! Otherwise, you will not be 100% committed.

---

100% time commitment

First, the time commitment idea.

The only way I am able to raise and shape and train Seneca the way he is is because I’m like with him 100% of the day. And this is the extreme privilege of being self-employed; even if you had the world’s best Montessori, there will never ever ever ever ever be a better teacher or personal trainer than you!

And also this might sound a bit sexist but I also find the bizarre thing is that if you are a man, and you have a son like your firstborn son… why are there so few male teachers and role models? And also,,, shouldn’t a man, a father raise his own son, his own firstborn son?

Think Leonidas

For example if this was ancient Sparta, and you want to train your son to become a warrior king, certainly you would want some sort of insanely jacked and virtuous man to train your kid.

Also as a heuristic; never trust a personal trainer who is not buffer or stronger than you. 

And this is why I have never ever ever had a personal trainer in my life because no one has ever been as strong unorthodox or courageous as myself; until I have met somebody who could lift 1000 pounds, the thousand pound ERIC KIM Atlas lift, I’m ain’t interested.

Now what?

So, the best thought is we are all on the same team, the same squad! No competition here, because once again we’re on the same team!

Thich Nhat Hanh had a piece of wisdom in one of his writing pieces is that does the left hand envy at the right hand for being stronger, more nimble or superior? No! The left hand doesn’t have an inferiority complex. And also, if you are a lotus flower, and you are surrounded by daffodils, do you envy the daffodil? No!

Or if you’re a panda, do you envy the cougars? No!

The same myology is true with trees; certainly every tree desires to be the tallest the most dominant, etc. However, I don’t think necessarily any trees envy other trees. They just stay focused on themselves, digging their roots ever deeper into the floor, to grow ever higher?

Being “autistic”– autos, self centered as a virtue.

Never stop growing!

So my personal thought is with life everything in-between; the goal isn’t to compare yourself with others, but rather to stay focused on yourself, and keep stacking yourself and growing yourself! And your kid, your family etc.

So for example, a simple personal goal that I have for myself is I want to always become physiologically stronger, more muscular, more dominant, more full of energy and vigor, more happiness joy, etc. Yet I do not compare myself with others; because once again, nobody else is as blessed or fortunate as myself.

The benefit of not going to the gym no more

Even a big benefit of not going to the gym anymore is that whenever I engage in some sort of weightlifting activity, it truly tests my own self-sincerity; am I doing this for myself, or to flex on others?

I think it’s fine to try to flex on others, but often the big problem is when you try too hard to flex on others, you could actually end up injuring yourself in a bad way?

A 2-year mistake

For example one of the bad regrets I had about two years ago, I’m OK now, is that I saw a bunch of guys who are bench pressing a lot, and I wanted to flex on them by benching even more, and in the process, I had a pretty bad injury in my right wrist, which took me nearly 2 years to fully recover!

Once again, one foolish display of machismo caused me two years of anguish. 

And this is where patience is a virtue; and also, the virtue of being self focused, self-centered.

Being self-centered is our new virtue. 

ERIC

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Never stop learning

1. Stoicism
2. Ethics
3. Philosophy

And always when in doubt,

START HERE

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What I’m reading

1. Principles of economics — Saifedean
2. The Odyssey, Emily Wilson Translation Also, Free open source books by KIM >

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Super pumped to share with you, my first full length lecture on an introduction to bitcoin, the bitcoin Revolution, and also this edited transcript that I provided for you!

1. Full video zoom recording Dropbox link
2. PDF SLIDES
3. AUDIO FULL
4. PDF version of new transcript for talk

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The Bitcoin Revolution (WILL) Be Televised!

So the Bitcoin revolution, the revolution will be televised. So, starting off.

First, what is Bitcoin? Why does it matter?

So I think the 1st important critical thing is trying to consider and think you know what is Bitcoin we’ve all heard about in the news we heard about Bitcoin as being a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. And honestly, my mom has gone through her fair share of Ponzi schemes like she she got suckered by the whole Amway scam.

I think the reason why Bitcoin is so important and critical is, Bitcoin is like the early days of the Internet. So if you go into a time machine and you could tell somebody in the past, okay, you know, in the days before email existed. Right? So okay, once one day, you know, everyone’s gonna have a supercomputer in their pocket. They’re using it to check all their bank statements. You’re going to be able to use your camera on your phone to scan your you know your checks, your bank account balances. You can use this to send money and messages and videos to everyone on the planet. Instantly everyone would have thought you were crazy.
and I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin.

So a constructive way of thinking about bitcoin is trying to figure out what bitcoin is not.

My personal opinion is, I do not think that Bitcoin is actually cryptocurrency. I think currency is the Us. Dollar, and I think one of the biggest problems about the whole field of crypto and cryptocurrency is everyone is like a crypto anarchist, which means that they want to see the Us. Government and all the governments on the planet fail, and they can essentially live in peace and silent without interference from the Government.

Yet, you know, obviously, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have public streets. It’s nice to not get robbed in the streets. And actually, I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin is. People think that Bitcoin is trying to replace the Us. Dollar.

But my personal thought is, Bitcoin is going to be a supplement to the Us. Dollar.

Essentially, I thought this a long time ago that essentially Bitcoin is digital gold to hedge against inflation, which means, as our money, our Us. Dollars, or our euros, or our local currencies become devalued.

The upside is, our Bitcoin will become more valuable. I think the best analogy that I got was from chairman of microstrategy mstr Michael saylor, essentially thinking that Bitcoin is is not digital currency, but digital
real estate.

So I think this analogy is better, because nobody’s on their zillow, you know, 20 times a day, checking their home prices right? And this is my mad Max Post Apocalyptic perspective. So imagine the future where there’s, you know, essentially
there’s this like nuclear fallout. And you know.
there’s no inhabitable places anywhere. And let us say, there’s only 21 million single family homes left on the planet for anybody to live. Obviously, sooner or later, you know, people are going to want somewhere to live. And so I think the best analogy, I think, is Bitcoin as digital real estate, which means that with digital real estate.

Monetizing Bitcoin?

You know, a lot of people are like– I want to quickly make money off of Bitcoin. But how do I make money off of it? It’s kind of like the early days of real estate. So if you bought Manhattan in the 1600s, you know, how do you monetize it? And I still think that we’re in the very, very early days of bitcoin and institutional adoption, which means you’re going to start to see New Bitcoin products come out. So some simple thoughts. So we’ve all heard stories of Scumbag San Francisco based scumbag landlords, you know, charging an arm and a leg for their tenants, and we all hate the landlords, I think with Bitcoin we’ll become the new digital landlords, which means effectively, we will in the future be able to like rent out our Bitcoin. And you know, let’s say we have one bitcoin right, and it’s and then I think that the personal math I like to do in my head is thinking that one Bitcoin is equivalent to one single family home. So I currently live in Los Angeles, in Culver City. It’s kind of insane. A single family home. I’ve even seen some in my neighborhood for 4.4 million dollars. The average Median household single family home is around 1.7 million dollars.

So in my personal mind, where I think Bitcoin is a trillion times more valuable than physical real estate land, because you could always make more of it. It’s not a real scarcity.

A single family home, and the price of a Bitcoin should be pegged to another.

So in my mind I still think of a Bitcoin at least 1.1
1.7 2.1, maybe even 4.4 million dollars a coin. And I think this is a very very fascinating idea, because also, you know, people say, Oh, but Bitcoin is not real. Money is yeah, but like our dead, shiny rocks. Aka. Gold money either, or is fiat currency, you know pieces of paper. You cannot eat pieces of paper to to live. And I think one of the most interesting things I learned about the philosophy of money is that essentially all money is just existing in the minds and souls of men, the value for men, is all essentially subjective.

Money is not “real”, but subjective.

Now, what makes Bitcoin so fascinating to me is that it’s the 1st time in human existence, you had a hard cap supply of money.

So, for example, people often talk about gold, right? So the issue with gold is at the time it was the least bad form of money, because it was very, very scarce. It was difficult to find. It’s difficult to mine and transport. Yet there was lots of good properties of gold. It’s, you know, essentially it kind of lasts forever. Aesthetically, it looks beautiful, the nice yellow color of gold mimics that of the sun, and you know, at least back in the day, let’s say you had gold coins it could easily fit in your front pocket whatevers.

But now things become a lot more difficult because we’re living in the 21st century, the 22nd century you know, we would have flying car drone robo taxi, self driving car waymos. It’s like, Why are we still using an antiquated digital framework of modern day banking swift code accounts?

I hate the banks

If you’ve ever tried to send money, you know, from the Netherlands to South Korea, to Nigeria, to Lagos whatever you find that the the whole SWIFT system is kind of like a bunch of gangster mafiosas like even my mom is currently living in South Korea.

Example if I want to just send my mom a small sum of money, it is insane,  it takes like three or four days, and the wire transfer fees like 55 bucks, I hate this. This should be done instantly. Therefore the thought of bitcoin, being able to quickly and effectively and securely transfer value across time and space without a trusted intermediary is a big big deal, a big big revolution.

Peer to Peer Capital

So why does Bitcoin matter? It’s kind of like asking somebody why does clean water matter so one of the things I love about Michael Saylor, and I highly recommend watching all of his videos. @wsaylor. It’s essentially Twitter or X or michael.com.

He uses this analogy of sewer water. So let us say, every all 8 billion people on the planet are all drinking sewer water, and people are dying of dysentery, and people are saying, I don’t get it, you know I exercise, you know. I
you know I eat healthy exercise every day, but I’m still dying of dysentery. My kids are dying of dysentery, and so the whole issue is that if you’re drinking sewer water, no matter how healthy your lifestyle is, how virtuous you is. It don’t matter. You’re going to be, you know, dying of dysentery, or perpetually sick.

And so, if we think about these physiological terms, and apply it to Bitcoin and money and digital capital. This becomes really fascinating because my personal thought and you know, also, I grew up in a family of poverty, poverty, meaning that I thought I was going to be homeless at least 2 or 3 times. My dad was perpetually addicted to gambling with the rent money.

So what a lot of people don’t understand about growing up in poverty, and prosody is that the logical strategy that you never know when your dad is going to steal your money and gamble it away, and therefore the smart strategy is actually to spend it all right now! Because you never know when he’s going to look in your piggy bank, your personal checking account that your mom put away for your college, or even take your hard earned $3000 as a 15-year-old bus boy at your mom sushi restaurant, lying that you’re going to invest in some business, leaving to LA for about a month, gambling it away, and coming back empty.

When I think about it, this is actually super sad. Once again when I was like super super young like two years old, my mom tried to make me a savings account, like one of those checking or savings investing accounts for kids, and she might’ve had a nominal amount of money in it, like 200 or 250 bucks or something. And she told me the sad news is that one day when she checked up on it she discovered that the money was gone. Essentially my dad even stole away that $250 from my child savings account for college, once again feed his gambling addiction.

The logic 

So once again, as a kid growing up, I never had this ethos or tactic of saving. Because we literally cannot come every dime that my mom made was fun into paying for groceries and rent.

Therefore I like a 15-year-old kid, my thought was I’m going to take every single penny, I can immediately go out buying some new sneakers, you know, buy some cool clothes, and I literally had $0 in my bank account.

Don’t blame poor people

So I think the pernicious, vicious cycle of inflation is.

You cannot blame people for not saving up capital for their future if the money itself is deflating at such a rapid pace, and so I personally think that you know Bitcoin is like giving every single person on the planet like unlimited free Fiji water, or the best alkaline hipster water whatever water you want. Essentially giving people clean water. And
a lot of people say, Yeah, but Bitcoin is not real money. It’s a okay. So I think this is a big this is a big shift for me also, personally.

My personal thought is, Bitcoin is actually more important than money.

Capital > Money

So we should not think about money. We should think about capital. I think capital is a lot more robust and strong as a concept. So, for example, capital comes from Cap CAP. Like upon your head. K-ap. Essentially it came from the head of oxen. So if you read the Iliad, the Odyssey essentially, every time you want to appease the gods, you have to sacrifice a hectacomb, Hecta means 100 a hundred head of oxen to appease the gods.

And you know, obviously, that’s very expensive, like, can you imagine, if you know you sacrificed a hundred Lamborghinis to appease the gods, it would be quite expensive endeavor. Right?

And so, capital. We all live under Capitalism — it doesn’t matter if you’re living in Europe, Africa, Asia, America, China, and also one thing that people don’t understand is, I think, what a lot of these people, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, China is going to take over. China’s not going to take over. China is dependent on America, and effectively, the Chinese Yuan the CNY is essentially effectively pegged to the Us. Dollar and the Us. The US is essentially the world. Reserve currency and capital is what we seek, not money.

Currency?

Talking about currency, so currency is like, you know, buying a Starbucks Frappuccino, or buying a in and out Burger. Right? That’s like money currency, right?

Capital is essentially long storm, long term, store of value. So it’s building generational wealth.

So one of my favorite songs from Kanye West is the off the grid songs that we off the grid grid grid this for my kid, kids, for when my kids, kids have kids.

And I think this is also the big thing is a lot of millennials, nowadays, I think the disincentive to have kids is because there’s so much fear mongering about the the future is gonna become uninhabitable, you know boil the seas or whatever. So there’s not going to be a future. So essentially, there’s a strong sense of pessimism.

But Bitcoin, to me is like solidified optimism, which means that the future is going to be glorious and great. And you know, even having Seneca right now, think about his future kids, kids, kids, or my future kids, kids, kids.
It brings me so much joy. Because the simple strategy, you just keep stacking Bitcoin until you die, and then you hand it on to your kids. Your kids give it to their kids kids. It’s like, if you owned, you know, a hundred penthouses or 10 square blocks or 20 square blocks in Manhattan, on the main island. Do you ever sell that to buy a Lamborghini? No! That’s not what one does, or liquefy it all into us dollars and brag about how many billions of dollars you have in your bank account.

Nope, that’s not the goal– you want to build capital. And traditionally it’s been real estate. But once again, real estate was a good idea. In the 16 hundreds, 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds, or 2000s. But then the subprime mortgage meltdown proved that, you know maybe it’s not always the best idea.

Real estate can go down.

Only one reason

And I think the hard thing is, people say, Yeah, but you know, real estate, you know, essentially, everyone needs somewhere to live, and it’s historically, the value of real estate is always going to go up forever. Now people say that the tricky thing is the pace of monetary inflation is around 15%. The best thing is to either chat Gpt or Google The M2 Money Supply. And essentially what you will find is
that the money supply is essentially a metric in which the Us. Government, or any other government on the planet, includes the euro and stuff. They keep printing more currency. And the reason why then this becomes an issue is that if you have more currency in the system that means the individual value of each unit is going to go down.

The shake shack effect

I call this the shake Shack Burger incident. So me and Seneca we used to always buy a single burger, patty, for $1.49, $1.50 … and one day we come and they say no it is $2.50, a party.

Why this makes no sense is like, yeah, we just increased the minimum wage to $20 an hour from $15 an hour. $20 an hour for fast food, and the hard thing is with minimum wage. You cannot rewind the the hands of time. If you suddenly said that the minimum wage is only $17 an hour, there will be riots. The streets would not be not be good.

Bitcoin is digital photography

So we’re all photographers, you know, street photographers, whatever. And the hard thing with digital is in our minds, digital is infinite and free. So, for example, I could take a copy of Mozart’s 5th Symphony, or whatever, as an mp3, file, and I could copy and distribute it a trillion times with 0 marginal cost right?

So this is where the notion of cyber becomes more interesting. And I’ll think about like, you know, cyber punk thinking about cyber truck.

It’s essentially once again, mathematically, cryptographically, that the hard science and the hard math is there can never be more than 21 million coins
in existence come up forever. Even if you took all the quantum ultra computers on the planet, times it by 20, you still could not produce more bitcoins. It’s just how it works right?

The immortal gold cyber oxen

One Bitcoin is like one cyber-ox, and it’s immortable, immortal, indestructible. It’ll give you life forever. And there’s only gonna be 21 million of them in the future. And now and so this is your chance to get one for an extreme discount.

Buying a single-family home in Los Angeles for only $100,000 

Let’s even say let’s say you want to buy a single family home. Let’s say it costs a million euros or whatever. Right? So if I could tell you today that you could buy a single family home for only $100,000 or €100,000 you’d be like, wow, that’s that’s the deal of a century. That’s you’re still getting a 90% discount.

And my personal thought is Bitcoin is far more valuable than real estate, because in the next 20-30 years, when essentially all the all the baby boomers, The Gen. Xers die off, and it’s the millennials and Gen. Z’s. And, alphas!

What do we care for?

When we millennials take over, what’s interesting is that we don’t really care about physical real estate anymore. We will care about digital cyber real estate which is bitcoin. 

So my personal story, how did I get into Bitcoin? So it might seem a little bit random. It’s like, Okay, ERIC, you’re super famous for photography, street photography like, how do you get to Bitcoin like? It’s like, so random, right? But actually, it’s not very random at all, because, you know, if you’ve been following me carefully, you know the whole time, I’ve always been talking about living minimalistically, frugally, Spartan lifestyle, whatever’s. And you know now that you know I’m pretty stacked with a bitcoin and microstrategy stock mstr.

Funny enough, I’ve personally found that my lifestyle habits haven’t changed much after getting super rich, I mean, I’m a little bit more generous, maybe, like, you know, took out a friend last night to all you eat Korean barbecue
paid for her bill didn’t really even flinch.

Even a random aside, my best friend and my best man Justin, told me this when we were like in our early 20s, when we finally got good paying jobs whatever, is that the greatest joy is being able to eat out and not really feel the pain associated with having to eat out because we both grew up poor. 

I still remember even when I was undergraduate at UCLA, after our KYRIE club meeting, we would all go out to eat, and then I would see all the other guys ordering these really expensive $15 Korean barbecue gogi plates, (this was in 2006, when you could still buy a foot-long sub sandwich for five bucks), and $1.99 tacos, and $1 tacos, and me trying to save money, would force myself not to eat even though I was hungry, and my friends would ask me if I was hungry and I would lie, and say I wasn’t, while my stomach was still grumbling. 

Monetary, financial freedom is the goal

So my personal thought with Bitcoin is, I personally wanted monetary freedom, and so long story short, so I’ll never forget this moment. So I’m born 1988. Went to UCLA as an undergrad — my roommate at the time, Kevin. It’s our junior he’s on Reddit, and I’ll never forget we’re in our studio apartment. I think I was distracted. I was doing something else. He was like Eric, you know. He’s on some subreddit, and he’s like.

“Oh, Eric, this thing called Bitcoin, and there’s this one dude who just bought two domino’s pizzas for like 10,000 bitcoins. We should just get like a hundred bucks worth of bitcoin, and just see what happens.”

I then responded “Eh, seems like a scam” and disregarded it. No this is one bitcoin was like less than a penny, so even if me and Kevin and my roommate Kevin, just bought a hundred bitcoins at the time for funsies, right? And I had a hundred bucks right? We would each be worth at least 1.2 billion dollars.

If I had bought $100 worth of bitcoin at the time, once again we would each have about $1.2 billion in our checking accounts.

Everything happens as it should have happened 

Today, I’m like, man. This was like the worst mistake of my life, right? But everything has happened as it should have happened. You know. Maybe if I had become a billionaire I’d just become some degenerate, you know. Cocaine addict on some beach somewhere in in Hawaii, and then Seneca would never been born. I would have never done my photography, world travels, whatevers.

Then my reintroduction to Bitcoin was kind of more recently when moving to LA. The cost of living is so expensive, and you know every I don’t know a single person who doesn’t want financial freedom. A long story short, I 1st heard about Bitcoin again, kind of earlier than when I was living in Vietnam around 2017, 2018, and at the time I didn’t really need Bitcoin, because our living expenses were so cheap. It was $320 bucks a month for a brand new studio apartment, fully furnished up, uplighting and the jazz right? And even at the time, passively, the income we’re making. Let’s say it’s a $1000- $2,000 a month. Let’s say it’s not even that much right, but like our whole total expenses, living expenses like maybe $600-700 a month, so I had the epiphany I’m like, I’m never going to run out of money. So already, at the age of 26 in my mind, I mentally retired right
and just more for funsies.

Buying bitcoin for $6,999 a Bitcoin

I met this guy named Bing in Singapore. Heard about this thing called Digibyte. Dgb, I don’t even think they’re around anymore. But at the time I’m like, Okay, I want to buy some bitcoins, buy some digibyte. How do I do this? And at the time Coinbase seemed like the best option, because it was the simplest, most minimalist to me it looked like the paypal for for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

For fun I bought about $25,000 worth of bitcoin, which, and Bitcoin was only about $7,000, $6,999 a bitcoin. So that was around 3.5 bitcoins. 

I then traded some bitcoin for digibyte, and I kept some bitcoin in my Coinbase account. Then the next few years I essentially saw the waves and the crashes and the dogecoins and stuff like that.

And essentially, I just kind of woke up to my guts and found out that Bitcoin was a real deal.

Satoshi is the Bitcoin Jesus

Some strange analogies is to me Bitcoin is almost like a new
World economic religion, I mean, people who follow Bitcoin are like fanatic. They’re zealous about it. They follow Michael Saylor like he’s like you know the prophet. You know the next prophet of Bitcoin right?

And it’s always good to invest in religions or to invest in cults like the cult of Tesla, Elon Musk apple, Steve Jobs. Whatevs, right?

Why?

Now obviously, I have financial independence now, and the only reason I’m teaching this workshop or sharing this information is, I almost feel like it’s my ethical imperative. Once again, if you could have discovered internet in the early days, or clean drinking water, I would feel that it would almost be a disservice if I did not share this information with others.

Future value

So everyone’s always about like, okay, so what is the Bitcoin gonna be worth? So there’s the open source model. Michael Saylor, I think, helped create it. It’s called the Bitcoin 21 model, I think. Right?

So 21 years from now his base case is that Bitcoin is going to be $13 million a Bitcoin. Bear case, $3 million a Bitcoin. The bull case is $49 million a Bitcoin, and note, this was in 2024 in July before Trump was announced as President, and he is ultra super pro crypto and bitcoin and also worth following, is his son Eric Trump, ironically. His name is also Eric also the funny thing. There’s a bunch of Eric’s actually in the world of Bitcoin, Eric Kim Eric Semler, of semler scientific, this other Etf guy who works for Bloomberg. His name is Eric Balconus, or something like that.

Follow Eric Trump

Essentially, we have an all Republican trump, pro bitcoin pro crypto, President and cabinet, whatever right?

More bullish

What is really fascinating about Michael Saylor’s predictions for the future price of bitcoin is that when it was only $65,000 a bitcoin, and we were a bit uncertain about what the future of bitcoin and the president and the government would look like.

The last four years, we were all fighting an uphill battle, because the former administration was adamantly anti-crypto and anti-bitcoin. Gary Gensler who seems like a smart guy, was for some reason really anti-bitcoin and crypto? 

The next four years will be glorious!

And so these were all written by Michael Saylor’s predictions before we had the most pro bitcoin
government of all time. So all these numbers, I think, should be inflated. So my personal thought is, I think, for the next 4 years once Trump takes office, January 20, 2025. I think this will be the craziest, best Bitcoin Bull Run of all time the next 4 years. So currently, Bitcoin’s been going up around 60% to 62% arr annual rate of return. And I think once Trump takes office, and I’m pretty sure he’s gonna buy the 1 million Bitcoins, or whatever for the strategic American Reserve.

And also I think Eric Trump, his son, is committed to having Bitcoin be at least a million in Bitcoin.

120% Bitcoin ARR for the next 4 years

So let’s see. So my personal prediction, right? So I think Bitcoin will grow by at least 120% arr over the next 4 years. So let’s say, Bitcoin is worth around $100,000 right now. So by next year, let’s say it’s $250,000 the year after that, let’s say it’s $750,000, let’s say the year after that it’s like $1.2 million. So I think we’re on track to hit a million a bitcoin in 4 years about 10x gain. So just do the math from then.

The $1 million dollar cybertruck

Currently as an account measure, I now equate one bitcoin being worth one cyber truck, assuming that a cyber truck is currently around $100,000.

So the smart strategy is to take your hundred thousand dollars and invest it into bitcoin today, and you’ll see that becoming $1 million in four years. 

What that means is sell your cyber truck for $100,000, buy bitcoin, otherwise you have just done spent $1 million on your cyber loser truck.

Cyber warfare 

Now, people are always asking, okay, this, you know, Bitcoin reserve strategy, you know, like, how is? And why is America going to buy the Bitcoins? Right? So we’re essentially out of physical land and real estate. Now we have to go to cyberspace right?

And it seems kind of silly, like something out of a sci-fi film. But the truth is, they’re currently the war we’re having with China and Russia. It’s it’s not physical war per se. It’s actually cyber war. So cyber security is the big big money maker. Even cyber penetration testing. Right? I think Gmail is trying to get like all these malicious actors trying to attack the Gmail servers like a million times a minute. Something crazy, right?

And if you look at the history of America, right? So, Manhattan, 1600s, the price of Manhattan. It was essentially stolen from the natives. Right? 60 guilders, right Louisiana purchase, you know, to fund Napoleon, California. Also kind of stolen from the the local Mexicans right? And also Alaska right. The the payoff was great, right, and so essentially the Bitcoin Act, the Cynthia Lummis Bill, she’s trying to get the States to buy at least a million bitcoins right? And you know even a Michael Saylor is much more aggressive. He’s like no America should at least purchase maybe 5 or 6 million bitcoins, which is 20 to 25% of the whole Bitcoin supply. And all America has to do is a free trade. They just need to sell their gold and then buy Bitcoin.

The super evil genius plan 

And in a recent interview that I was listening from Saylor.
super fascinating, is like essentially what he said was the super evil genius strategy of America selling her gold reserves and buying Bitcoin is that if that’s the case,
we demonetize our enemies.

You know, gold capital reserves.

So then suddenly, the the gold of the Russians, the Chinese, will go to 0, and then everyone’s going to rush into Bitcoin. And if America owns Bitcoin, it’s a good sign for the future.

Why America is the GOAT

And also another big thing I want to talk about. Why does America have the best economy on the planet?
So we essentially gave birth to Apple Amazon, Facebook, the magnificent 7 stocks, Netflix. And you know, people talk about China. It’s like. Okay, I don’t know a single rich mainland Chinese oligarch who doesn’t want to send their kids to the States to Harvard or Yale or Princeton, you know, buy a nice house in Palo Alto, the Bay area, or even Vancouver.

No rich mainland Chinese person actually wants to be in China, but because of capital controls, they’re kind of stuck. So once there’s going to be a mad rush to Bitcoin. That means that you, your family, your whole squad, is going to prosper now.

Simple storage is best.

My friend Dante had a question about storage. So I think the hard thing with storage is okay. So how do you say this?
This is my personal philosophy. The reason I do not personally trust cold storage for myself or more of these self custody options is that I know that I am very forgetful, and my biggest fear is, let’s say, I forget my passcode, or whatever is right to the Bitcoins. And or let’s say, my kids, kids can forget it right? Then boom like, you’re gonna be out like a hundred 1 million dollars. Right? So that’s that’s not fun, right? And so personally, I think the easiest is to just, you know, store it on the cloud. So, using a trusted custodian, whether it be coinbase. I think fidelity has their own services now.

And the you know honestly, it seems like Coinbase is probably the best option,,, coinbase.com, or you just download your iphone ipad. Whatever right is that you could also get a link with your biometric apple id data, whether it be face id or thumbprint. Whatevs right? So this way, it just feels much more secure.

So for me, I would prefer an 80 to 85% optimal thing that is kind of dummy proof rather than take the 100% secure option which, because of user error, I might fail, and something that I personally learned is in terms of technology. And all these things in between
seeking the simplest, most straightforward option
that is least complicated is often the best solution.

Don’t trust advertisements 

And the reason I would be very, very wary of a lot of these people promoting, you know, buying their hardware wallets. Whatever right, everyone has a buck to make. Everyone has a bitcoin to make. Everyone wants to make a few satoshis here and there.

So they’re trying to fear monger us. Oh, you’re gonna you know, Coinbase going to get hacked. And I’m like, no, I don’t think it is. It’s like, you know, back. It’s like essentially a Us. Government backed institution, you know, it’s essentially it’s traded on the the the US Stock Exchange. It’s a American based company. I would not trust anything outside of the States.

Who should use cold storage

If you’re super, you know, quant genius, autistic genius, then do all the cold storage stuff. But if in doubt, just the simplest thing is, coinbase seems to be the best.

The ERIC KIM Free Money Hack

Okay, so this is kind of my free money hack. So I call this microstrategy, strategy, mstr microstrategy versus bitcoin. And okay, so it’s very, very simple. So this becomes a philosophical debate. To say it short.
I think the ultimate goal is to own Bitcoin, he or she, or the entities which own the most Bitcoin shall win.

And so for me, philosophically, you know, let us say that you could own, you know, 20 bitcoins, or you could own 2 million dollars worth of micro strategy. Mstr. Stock. Right?
10-20, 30 years from now, right?

With MSTR you’re going to actually outperform Bitcoin. You’re actually going to make more money from microstrategy stock than Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, historically, has been 60% to 62% ARR annual rate of return MicroStrategy is almost double that 120 to 125 ARR. So if you actually want to maximize your returns, you just buy microstrategy stock mstr.

Risk factors

The issues is, you know let us say that Michael Saylor gets shot. He gets killed. He dies in a Cybertruck self driving accident whatever. Right? Then, it’s probably not going to be the world’s best future for microstrategy. So it’s actually much more risky.

If you want the least risky option, just put all your money into Bitcoin.

We the new Spartan Bitcoin demigods!

And some millennial living strategies. Right? So the the simplest strategy I have, I call it the Spartan strategy. This is why I personally follow. Is you essentially try to live as minimally and frugally and sparse as you can, and just put literally 90% of your income into bitcoin.

And a free money hack I discovered. So, for example, let’s say you have $150,000 or €150,000. Right? And you know I’m not 100% sure how it works if you’re a European.

Anyways what you do is you buy microstrategy stock. So let’s say you buy, you know, $100,000 or $150,000 worth of it right? And Mstr, and you use fidelity, or robinhood, or whatever trading app you have. Right.

And the strategy is simple.

Let us say the base case is $150,000. Let’s say your microstrategy stock value then goes up to $200,000. Right?
You sell $50,000 worth of it, and then you just transfer that to your bank account, and then your bank account is linked with your coinbase account. Then you just buy the Bitcoin — rinse and repeat.

So very, very impressive over the last 3 months, I started with initial seed capital of around $150,000 in microstrategy stock, off of that $150,000 right and I haven’t even touched my principal. I yielded $242,000
off of that initial $150,000. Once again I didn’t touch any of my principal. So essentially I made a free $240,000 dollars … in just 3 months!

Just put it all into MSTR

And also for traditional Roth, Roth, Ira retirement accounts. I put everything into microstrategy stock, and it had already like 3x’d.

For example, My roth, Ira, just kind of randomly was like was $78,000, and then the course of 3 months it’s like now, $230,000. It peaked at around $300,000. So it’s going to be a good future.

Minimize your expenses

So the the very simple strategy– cut and reduce your expenses to a bare minimum.

So let us say you’re able to get down your living expenses to let’s say you know, $5,000 bucks a month or €5,000 a month. Right? the point isn’t to just make a bunch of money and just go out and buy the Lambo. The the goal is actually to continue to live frugally. If anything live more frugally.

The paradox of richness

So the funny paradox here is that when people say they want to become a millionaire, but they’re really mean to say is I want to spend $1 million. 

But the funny thing is the second you go out and you spend $1 million, you then become worth zero dollars.

So actually, the game then is to stack your capital indefinitely and to see your numbers go up forever.

And then the hilarious thing assuming that you’re like some sort of greedy money rich person, you actually continue to live as frugally as possible, and not touch your capital. 

Stop the heat, capital loss

I think one of the wise ways to think about money is like heat loss. For example, if you’re super effing cold, do you want to seal up the window windows and the spots of your house which loses heat.

The same thing is with money and capital. You want to stop the capital loss.

Premium gas is for suckers!

So for example, the number one thing is the whole vehicle thing!

Never ever ever ever ever purchase any vehicle that requires premium gas. This is like the stupidest mistake of all time.

You continue driving your old Toyota Prius, and just pour all of your money in Bitcoin, because really the truth is and this is my philosophical thought is, there’s almost nothing worth on the planet purchasing.
Besides, Bitcoin is my philosophical thought.

The only thing worth purchasing on the planet is bitcoin. 

Think economic leverage


Also some even more super smart economic leverage.

Instead of paying an arm and a leg for rent in La or New York. Brooklyn, you just move to like Southeast Asia.

So if you move to Southeast Asia, you can live like a king, for like $300-500 bucks a month. Right? You just put all your money to Bitcoin.

How to never run out of money 

So even if you had a modest savings, right, let’s say you had like $200,000, and you have microstrategy stock.
Let’s say every month of the month is rent is due, and the expenses are due right? You just sell a small portion of that stock, and it’s going to go up.

So my thought on the next 4 years, microstrategy, assuming it’s around 2x Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is going to go up 120% ARR. I think microstrategy is going to double that 240% ARR. So just do the math.

At the end of every single month in which expenses are due, let us say it’s like $1000 bucks or something… You just sell $1000 worth of bitcoin or microstrategy stock to just afford your lifestyle. 

MSTR x Bitcoin

But ultimately my personal thought is whatever excess, money and capital you have just put it onto Bitcoin.

So the microstrategy then ends up becoming the engine or the turbocharger or the cash cow. You milk it, and you shave the cream off the top, and then you buy Bitcoin with it.

So I think the reason why to me Bitcoin is such a fascinating thing, and very exciting, is essentially Bitcoin is digital photography.

Peter Diamandis, the X prize guy. Right? You know, he talks a lot about kodak film. You know the iphone and disruption.
So actually, intuitively, as photographers and digital photographers, we should actually understand bitcoin. You know, this disruptive power about digital photography. So obviously, you have the hipsters with their mustaches and their flannels, you know, talking about the virtues of film photography.

But the truth is, digital photography is like a quadrillion times better than film photography.

And also currently, in the year 2025, incoming
digital photography is actually superior to film photography.

In the early days of digital ,,, digital photography sucked. But now, at this point, digital photography is far superior to any sort of film photography, and the only reason you should shoot film in today’s world is either as like a practice to appreciate the joys of photography. So the philosophical approach. Or you know, you’re trying to be some sort of like, you know, snobby fine art photographer and overcharge money for your photos. Then you shoot film.
Because honestly, the the fine art market, they’re always going to overvalue film photos over digital photos, because it’s more complicated. It’s more strange, right? So in the art, in the art world, the more complicated, abstruse, and complicated, you can make your art the better. But for us,
where we care about practical things, yeah, think about Bitcoin. So think about the iphone iphone pro versus your mom’s kodak Browning camera. I think the the thought is obvious. Okay.

How to start buying Bitcoin

Very simple. Just download the coinbase app. Buy Bitcoin.

MSTR stock

If you don’t want to actually own Bitcoin, you just want to make a ton of money, just buy microstrategy stock MSTR, and use your traditional accounts.

A new philosophy of wealth?

So the tricky thing is everyone wants to be a millionaire, but instead of gaining 1 million bucks, and keeping and retaining the million bucks and growing it to 2 million, 5 million 10 million 100 million 1,000,000,000,000 etc., What most people want to do is to spend the million dollars.

In fact, a thought was whenever you watch all these movies about the glamorous life of the Wolf of Wall Street whatever, in order to fit a 90 minute segment, there needs to be some sort of ostentatious displays of wealth, huge parties, babes, yachts, Drugs, debauchery, sex, and Lamborghini countach’s. 

Stacking those bricks!

Never stop stacking

So, saving and building $1 million of capital, just think like money and Lego bricks, capital digital capital. 

The other day I just went to legal end with Seneca, and it was great. An interesting thing that we were doing with some of the kids in the tot lot was taking these oversized Lego bricks, and just seeing how tall of a tower you could build.

And then even the kids said the goal was to keep stacking the bricks.

So the analogy is in LEGOS is that you want to keep building your Lego tower thing as tall as possible, you never want to get rid of your bricks and throw it into the trash. Also you do not want to mess up the stability of your Lego tower, as you build it ever higher, you must also conversely build it a bit wider to support the ever-growing height.

Capitalism vs consumerism

So assuming that money, every capital measure is just like a unit of money, a unit as being a single Lego brick. And I think that is essentially what consumerism is; instead of stacking your capital instead of stacking your Lego bricks, you essentially incinerate it into the trash. 

This is actually another big philosophical thing I discovered is, what’s the difference between capitalism and consumerism.

Consumerism is actually the exact opposite of capitalism.

Capitalism is about accumulating wealth. Building your capital and not spending it. Even one of my favorite Kanye quotes is:

“White people make money don’t spend it, but I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”

So the pernicious thing that happens in a lot of communities, especially poor communities, is everyone takes their hard earned cash, they wasted at Vegas the strip club, on loser Louis Vuitton clothes shoes sneakers Nike sneakers, Jordans etc. 

I’ve also seen this happen with my own eyes. It happens all the time to Korean people. It happens to everybody, right?

The truck is you’re a single guy, living in a crappy apartment in K-Town with 20 other dudes, yet you drive the brand new BMW. And you’re not building any sort of generational wealth. Right?

So essentially the smart strategy is to build a capital and do not spend it. And essentially, you want to start to intelligently leverage your capital to give to your future kids or your descendants, or whatever you want to do.

Building the balls for bitcoin 

The hardest thing about Bitcoin is stomaching the volatility. Bitcoin and all the crypto assets in general tend to be much more volatile than the standard stocks in the NASDAQ 100 index, maybe besides microstrategy stock. 

Now this is an important thing; a very interesting thing I saw at the San Diego children’s science center, there was a section on electricity, and there was this transformer that yielded both high voltage energy, as well as low-voltage energy which you could turn into a lightbulb.

It was interesting you just pushed a button, and you had the two lightning rods, and you would see the high voltage energy surging through it, and it looks super dangerous and powerful. And I am very certain that in the early days of Nicola Tesla, Edison, there were probably a lot of people who accidentally touched electrical wire and died.

Now even though there is a handful of people who died from miss handling electricity, it doesn’t mean that we suddenly ban electricity or fear it. Even today, the people who climbed the high ladders, fixed electricity poles, it is still a very dangerous job. But clean silent electricity might be the best innovation or technology for humans of all time.

Bitcoin is electricity. Maybe if handled incorrectly, the high volatility the high energy the high power can kill a man. But if harnessed correctly, it could be the biggest benefit to humanity of all time.

The stoic way

So for most people who get into bitcoin for the first time, and maybe for people who have never day traded, or traded stocks or done risky stuff, stomaching the volatility the highs and lows the ups and downs is quite frightening.

 I consider myself fortunate because I’ve been exposed to trading stocks ever since I was 15 years old, and I’m 36 now. So I guess I’ve been in the game for at least 21 years.

And also, studying stoicism, Zen, Taoism, Spartan philosophy, and hardcore one rep Max powerlifting has been good to steel my nerves, and my soul. 

Practical thoughts

The first thought is never check the price of bitcoin unless you actually plan on purchasing more. And actually, if you think about it… The price of bitcoin should never really even matter if you actually have money and plan on buying some.

An interesting thought I got from Michael Saylor is that I will keep buying the top, forever.  I will continue purchasing bitcoin at $100,000, $250,000, $1 million, $10 million, and 55 million coin.  And who knows, maybe if I live long enough I could buy bitcoin at $1.1 billion of bitcoin. 

If anything, this is actually a happy thought, if I’m privileged enough to live to be 120 or whatever, maybe I could actually live to see bitcoin hit over 1 billion a bitcoin, which means that this will be the best party of all time! Or, maybe Seneca could see it in his lifetime. 

The false coins

So a lot of people ask about ethereum dogecoin shibainu etc. I think Bitcoin is the only true one.

Everything else is the false prophets. Everything else is the false coins. The immaculate conception of Bitcoin and Satoshi.

False prophets

So the difficult thing is everything that is not bitcoin, require some sort of intelligence Books person or PR team. The reason why I also got off of chain-link is that I started to realize that Sergey Nazarov was just a puppet, and Vitalik Buterin is no better — perhaps even weirder.

So the hard thing about any sort of crypto asset which is not bitcoin, is if you have a real person associated to the thing… There are too many risk factors.

For example, Jared Tate, the guy who invented Digibyte (DGB), somewhere along the line went off the rails, started to talk about all these weird conspiracy theories whatever. He may be right he might be wrong he might be partially right, but the biggest issue was once this happened, the digibyte community started to try to distance themselves from him. And obviously the price of DGB crashed — and I’m not even sure that anyone supports it anymore. I haven’t checked.

The immaculate conception of bitcoin

So you know in the Bible when they talk about mother Mary, the immaculate conception of Jesus, and the assumption, we could actually apply a metaphor to bitcoin. I actually do think it’s very critical that she gave his gift to the world, and then disappeared forever. Even actually if you did come out today, And prove that he was Satoshi, it wouldn’t actually really matter, actually in fact, we are all Satoshi. 

Is bitcoin a cult?

Of course it is! But then again, almost everything is a cult. Cult is just short for culture. When we think about weird scientologists and Tom Cruise and whatever, the only reason why the term cult got such a bad reputation is that they demand huge financial investments, and also they apparently do strange tactics to keep you inside the cult?  Even the thing that was kind of shocking to me when I heard it was that actually if you want to be part of a synagogue, you have to pay a monthly fee?

Anyways, my thought is actually, it is a good idea to invest in cults. Investing in the cult of Apple, Steve Jobs, Tesla Elon Musk, SpaceX, etc.

Hard caps matter.

If there is only one thing that makes bitcoin valuable is that it has a hard cap of 21 million bitcoins forever.

This is a big deal because Ethereum does not have a hard cap, you could actually always print more. 

Volatility is vitality

Volatility is vitality. Michael Saylor.

Essentially volatility is vitality, and the more volatile the more energy the power you have, the more vitality you have.

So once again, people think of volatility as being risk. That is actually not the case. Bitcoin is going to go up forever, but it’s going to be like an extreme roller coaster and go up down, but with extreme swings it’s extreme performance.

Volatility is not risk.

Volatility is just going up and down a lot, but essentially over a long enough time span, it’s going to go up forever.

Think the market cap, the potential full market capitalization 

Currently, Bitcoin is like a 2 trillion dollar asset class right? And this is also from Jesse Myers onceinaspecies.com.

And the reason why this is important is currently the whole world’s economy is 900 trillion dollars, right? And
what we have our eyes on is real estate. So real estate is, you know, most people don’t really just use real estate as a place to live right? Otherwise, you just rent. People use it for a long term store of value.

So, for example, if you’re a really really rich family from New York City, you own, like 10 square blocks in Manhattan, and, you know, does your descendants sell, a square block to buy himself a few Ferraris. No, that that would be a bad strategy. So the the tip I have for any single person trying to build intergenerational wealth. Keep it simple. Only one rule. You don’t sell the Bitcoin. If you face extreme poverty or financial distress, I don’t know, become an Uber driver or something. Pay the bills, but don’t sell the Bitcoin.

Bitcoin > Gold

Currently I think we’re going to see is Bitcoin is just going to take over the gold market, which is 16 trillion dollars, maybe the cars and collectible art market.

Utility or long-term store of value?

Now, a big thought is this is from Michael Saylor is that all these assets on the planet– some of half of it is to provide utility. Right? So, for example, you need you need somewhere to live right? That provides utility.

But then, again, some of it is to preserve capital right?

Homes?

So this is the tricky kind of low-key scam I think exist, we try to get suckered into buying a single-family home, or even worth a condo, because simply that is what one does, and this inaccurate rhetoric about these scumbag landlords, and that your essentially pissing away your money and your wealth because you’re paying off their mortgage, rather than building equity in yourself.

Now this might’ve been accurate like 100 years ago, or 15 years ago before bitcoin was invented.

But once again, if a huge paradigm fundamental shift happens, obviously you should not use past technologies because it is no longer pertinent.

For example, you see it today. In the year 2024, we already have the Tesla model S plaid, which will destroy any other mainstream car on the planet, even if it’s like $10 million. Yet why don’t people just go fully electric for electric vehicle sports or hyper cars? Once again people are stuck in old analogies.

There’s really no reason to own a single-family home anymore?

This past weekend, we had the privilege of doing a home exchange, and staying in this really really amazing home in the mountains overlooking the San Diego coastline, I woke up every morning enjoying my morning coffee, with a window next to me, overlooking some beautiful Torrey Pines, and also having the privilege of having the light directly enter through the window and hit my face.

And also, going to the patio, to overlook in the ocean first thing in the morning, with the light directly on me. 

It was kind of like my dream house or home, I always had this vision of having maximum natural light in the house, the living room and the kitchen, floor to ceiling windows etc. And now having experienced it, for four mornings in a row, I could say it was phenomenal, but still… Not really worth $2 million or whatever.

New strategies for wealth generation for millennials

so, I’m born in 1988, and I could probably say that I’m a millennial. Yet the tricky thing is that we’re kind of in a weird spot right now; currently there is a pressure to buy a single-family home?

I think things changed after Covid, like nobody was interested in homeownership, everyone wanted to travel to Japan and be off the grid, become a digital or a cyber nomad etc.

Everyone wants this nebulous notion of “financial independence.” What is financial independence? Bitcoin!

My simple thought about financial independence is not being held down by anything, whether that be homeownership, land ownership, condo ownership, car ownership etc. Because you become like an indentured servant a slave a sharecropper to your land. Why? If you’re going to have to pay property tax like $1500 a month, plus home insurance stuff etc. costing you maybe $2300 a month, and also a mortgage which might in total cost you about $7000 a month, this seems like slavery.

> Home ownership is the new share cropping.

Also a subtle nuance I’ve discovered, is that there is actually some sort of low-key shame about renting? No! If you have a good landlord, rent control and live in a desirable neighborhood, this is like the smartest economic leverage you can make! 

Think digital, cyber land. 

Perhaps one of my most beneficial things of studying sociology is wiping the slate clean, thinking things anew and afresh. 

In fact, the number one thing that you learn is sociology is to always challenge societal norms and assumptions; taking it back to first principles, social first principles, sociological first principles. 

There is no “should”

Once again, the ground truth for much of society is that if you want the ability happiness and smartness, you must have stability, you must own a single-family home, you must own a home or property.

But once again this ideology was invented before the internet, iPhones, and $50 android devices. And certainly before Bitcoin!

The network effect

Do you remember, in the early days of Facebook. It was only it was only university students with an “.edu” address were allowed to join. Then they opened up to everybody, and the network effect of Facebook is that if you have Facebook and I have Facebook, then Facebook instantly becomes more valuable to both of us, because I can now share my photos with you, you could tag me in your photos and vice versa.

Also if your friends friends also have Facebook, it becomes much more valuable to everyone.

The same thing goes with the iPhone and FaceTime. I used to be a diehard android guy, but now I’m all iCloud everything. It makes life so much easier, and also because I wanted to get my mom off of the stupid Kakaotalk, I got my mom an iPhone, and now our whole family has iMessage which makes like way easier.

Bitcoin is the killer app. Bitcoin is like metaphorical FaceTime for all 8 billion people on the planet. 

And so Bitcoin is going to be the same thing as more and more people are going to continue to download Coinbase or whatevs. And also my optimistic thought is, if Apple doesn’t want to become irrelevant, it’s I’m very certain the next 5 to 10 years Apple is going to have their own
Bitcoin storage thing in your icloud account. It makes sense right. They have apple pay. They have the apple wallet. Essentially Apple is the new bank. And so now, when they do like a you know, a 3 device authentication for your bitcoins through your iphone, your ipad and your macbook pro whatevers. It’s actually it might actually be one of the most safe ways to store your bitcoins.

MicroStrategy might be the most valuable company on the planet, the #1 most valuable company on the planet 

The reason why the mainstream media they doesn’t like to talk about microstrategy is that it’s still a little bit too weird and bizarre. And it’s not as buzzworthy as AI, because, okay, people like to think of this like evil Terminator AI, the idea that AI is going to take over the world.

Bitcoin doesn’t have the same doomsday view; for example you never think of bitcoin like being an android walking around, taking over the planet.

AI gets a lot more buzz, because James Cameron and the Terminator made it so cinematic.

Ponzi scheme

For so long people thought that Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme right. No one ever thought that AI was a Ponzi scheme. So AI always catches the headlines.

But look at microstrategy, look at the best performing stock on the human unit in the human universe over 3x.

For example, people always talk about Nvidia, but micro strategies out performing Nvidia by almost 3X! down the line Nvidia is destroying Tesla. And after that, nobody is even relevant.

Cyber physics

So my practical physics-based thought is that the reason why AI Nvidia, producing computer chips, self driving cars and cybertrucks is so difficult is that you’re still stuck in the realm of physics. To build 1 million cybertrucks is difficult, and also, building 1 billion micro processing chips is also difficult. You are subjected to the laws of entropy, chaos, supply chain issues, Rare earth minerals, regulations, and physical heat loss etc.

What is so amazing about bitcoin is that because it exists in cyberspace, yet is also real, it is not really bound by the same laws of physics. There is no heat loss in a bitcoin, and also it is immortal.

For example, a cybertruck might last 100 years, a bitcoin will last 100 trillion years and beyond. 

Invest in cyber!

Politics

I used to be anti-Donald Trump, but now I’m super for Donald Trump and his whole family. Also for ERIC Trump. Who hilariously has the same name as me.

Anyways, just watched Donald Trump’s Nashville presentation he quotes Michael sailor directly, never sell your bitcoin.

Donald Trump is super super pro bitcoin.

Cyber warfare

There will be no more World War III, the only future war will be a cyber warfare, maybe like bitcoin warfare.

I am quite certain that America will lead the charge in the crypto bitcoin revolution. 

Assuming that America really wants to control the future. I think the America purchasing 6 million bitcoins is not fully out of this this planet.

The American ethos is we always want to be the best, to control everything. Wouldn’t it make sense for us to own like 25% of the bitcoin network? Ideally more?

Building personal family wealth

Everyone wants to build wealth. Everyone wants to be intelligent with their investing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nonprofit, a charity, a church, Mother Teresa, like every single organization, will always need money. Capital. If you have an endowment, you know, for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford Brown University. Whatever even the UC’s– everyone needs money and capital.

Even for the people who seem to be the most disinterested in money, my funny irony that I’ve noticed is that the people who critique money, money rich money greedy people, they are the ones who often complain the most about their own financial distress.

Therefore, wealth will benefit everybody, it will benefit you, your enemy, your friends your family.

Don’t think about the macro

I don’t like to think too much about the macro, because I’m not an institutional investor. I just think about myself, my family, my best friends, my squad. So the goal is building personal family wealth and how to intelligently invest.

Not even god can time the market

So a lot of people talk about timing. The ideal is people don’t want to “overpay” for bitcoin, and they want to find a good time to buy.

My personal thought is it is always a good time to buy Bitcoin. At the highs the lows the mids etc. If you go to saylortracker.com, you’ll see the Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy has purchased bitcoin like over 45 times, like 45 distinct events, at the highs the lows the mids, the crashes the highs etc. 

For myself too, whenever I gain any access to money or capital, I immediately purchase more bitcoins, irregardless of the price. If anything I am more opportunistic when I see the price dip a bit, this is when I get greedy in a virtuous way. 

So recently I bought some more Bitcoin at $100,000. Right then it dipped down to 90,000 to 88,000 hit 103,000 again, and so I’m pretty sure that in 10-20 years I’m going to be buying Bitcoin at 1 million, a Bitcoin, 10 million dollars a Bitcoin, 55 million dollars a Bitcoin, whatever is right, and because if you do the simple math, just think at least 4 years ahead, right?

$1.2 million a bitcoin in 4 years 

So if I could tell you with 100% certainty that Bitcoin is going to be $1.2 million a Bitcoin in 4 years, as long as you’re buying it for less than a million dollars a coin you’re getting a good deal! You’re going to be in the green like it’s it’s kind of a a good bet, right?

No need to “maximize o your gains

Good greed vs bad greed?

And actually, also, ironically, my personal thought is
chasing gains is a good thing, but also it’s it’s a good idea to not get “greedy” in the sense of maximizing your gains.

So for example, what’s the difference between getting a 38% yield and a 32% yield? The difference is nominal.

Don’t worry so much about maximization, because even a lot of what I thought my trades were bad 2 years ago ended up being right.

So as investors, we have to think at least 4, 10, 20, 40, 50 years ahead of us. So don’t worry so much about the the short term performance.

The ERIC KIM BLEND

There’s a lots of different blends.

First you could just put 100% of your capital directly in bitcoin, just using Coinbase or whatever.

Another strategy is just putting 100% of your money into microstrategy stock directly. 

My personal suggestion is put 80% of your wealth into Bitcoin and 20% of your wealth into microstrategy MSTR stock.

The reason why I think this is a good split and a good ratio is that technically bitcoin is a lot safer than microstrategy. But, it is good to leverage the nuclear reactor of microstrategy, and not only that, I love Michael Saylor! He is the only living man on the planet besides my friends and family that I love; because he has made me richer than I could have ever possibly have imagined, has brought happiness joy peace and prosperity to my family, to my relationship with Cindy, and also for the bright future of our family and Seneca.

The math 

So whatever allotment you decide to put into bitcoin versus microstrategy, let us just focus on the microstrategy stock. 
To keep number simple let us say that I have $150,000 worth of microstrategy MSTR stock. And let us say that micro strategy climbs to around to be worth $200,000. Well then do is sell about $50,000 worth of the stock, transfer that to my bank account, and then purchase bitcoins worth $50,000 using my Coinbase account which is linked to my checking account.

I call this double profits. 

Expenses

Let us say that you are like a single millennial who wants to live off the grid, ideally you would just live somewhere that is super super cheap, like Cambodia Thailand Vietnam Laos, somewhere in Southeast Asia. Ideally you would not spend much for your living expenses.

Let us say that you relocate to Vietnam and your entire expenses including your rent utilities eating out food coffee etc. is like $1000 a month.

But then you do is at the every month when your bills are due, you just sell about $1000 worth of microstrategy stock, pay your bills and keep the rest!

To me this is like the smartest idea of all time because in theory, you will never run out of money!

This could also work if you live in the states, but once again friends, let us keep our living expenses to the bare minimum. I encourage everyone to rent. Why? Renting will always be cheaper than owning a single-family home or a condo, and you could just use all of the excess money to buy more bitcoins!

What’s the difference between being an investor, a trader vs speculator?

I believe that the desired identity is to be an investor. We want to think about 10, 20, 30 40-50 years ahead of us.

A trader (or even worse,a day trader) is a bunch of these, like 20 year old high testosterone degenerates, you know, single, you know, maybe addicted drugs, or whatever right, who just want to like look cool. I made a billion dollars in a month by using all these complicated statistical models. Blah! Blah! Right? But you don’t want to be a trader or a day trader. You don’t want to be a trader because essentially nobody could time the market. Not even God could time the market.

Speculators are even worse?

What a speculator is people who invest in meme coins. So a meme coin is like buying a Dogecoin or shiba Inu, that the reason why these are not you should not do this is that it is extremely dangerous. You’re going to lose all your money, and it requires a charismatic leader to support it.

So Dogecoin, right? Dogecoin is essentially elon musk coin.
If one day Elon musk tweets. Ha! Ha! Doge was just a joke all along, right. It’s not worth anything. The value of it will plummet to 0, or if once again, Elon dies in a a robo taxi the The value of dogecoin is going to go to 0, whereas if Elon Musk dies, you know Bitcoin is going to still keep going up forever.

We’re investors.

Nobody brags about how many US dollars they have in their checking account


Somebody asked about monetary inflation. There’s this thing called the M2 monetary supply — the rate of monetary inflation and dollar printing.

You’re going to have to exceed at least 13% to 15% to
not lose money. So, for example, let us say, you have a billion dollars of US dollars in your checking account. You’re going to be bled to death. So in a year, your 1 billion dollars is going to shrink to 750 million down to 500 million, to 350 million. And essentially, you’re going to get a point where your money is worthless.

And already we see this right now. So currently, the price of real estate, single family homes is exploding. But this is my critical view– how much of that is that the value of a single family house is higher versus our US. Dollars are just simply worthless or being worth less?

So let us say that the minimum wage goes from $15 an hour to $20 an hour overnight for a Mcdonald’s worker. You instantly see 25% inflation. So your $1 million dollars in the bank is now worth only $750,000.

The real real rich people store less than 1% of their wealth in Us. Dollars in their checking account. You’re not gonna have Jeff Bezos bragging to other people that he has $10 billion dollars of US dollars in his checking account. No, it’s it’s all going to be in you know, stocks, or, you know, real estate. And actually, ideally, Bitcoin. Cyber cyber capital.

Now what?

Follow @saylor, Michael Saylor on TwitterX, Michael.com, watch all of the Michael Saylor interviews in reverse (most recent, then trending backwards). I feel like from listening to Michael Saylor alone I got like a double PhD in physics and monetary theory.

Ultimately the path forward is to just keep buying more bitcoins, and never selling it.

I also then encourage you to think more critically about like life in the backwards; if you’re already worth $100 million, or $1 billion, then what? How do you want to live your life? What do you want to do, what don’t you want to do? This is the next step forward!

ERIC

---

So the Bitcoin revolution, the revolution will be televised. So, starting off.

First, what is Bitcoin? Why does it matter?

So I think the 1st important critical thing is trying to consider and think you know what is Bitcoin we’ve all heard about in the news we heard about Bitcoin as being a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. And honestly, my mom has gone through her fair share of Ponzi schemes like she she got suckered by the whole Amway scam.

I think the reason why Bitcoin is so important and critical is, Bitcoin is like the early days of the Internet. So if you go into a time machine and you could tell somebody in the past, okay, you know, in the days before email existed. Right? So okay, once one day, you know, everyone’s gonna have a supercomputer in their pocket. They’re using it to check all their bank statements. You’re going to be able to use your camera on your phone to scan your you know your checks, your bank account balances. You can use this to send money and messages and videos to everyone on the planet. Instantly everyone would have thought you were crazy.
and I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin.

So a constructive way of thinking about bitcoin is trying to figure out what bitcoin is not.

My personal opinion is, I do not think that Bitcoin is actually cryptocurrency. I think currency is the Us. Dollar, and I think one of the biggest problems about the whole field of crypto and cryptocurrency is everyone is like a crypto anarchist, which means that they want to see the Us. Government and all the governments on the planet fail, and they can essentially live in peace and silent without interference from the Government.

Yet, you know, obviously, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have public streets. It’s nice to not get robbed in the streets. And actually, I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin is. People think that Bitcoin is trying to replace the Us. Dollar.

But my personal thought is, Bitcoin is going to be a supplement to the Us. Dollar.

Essentially, I thought this a long time ago that essentially Bitcoin is digital gold to hedge against inflation, which means, as our money, our Us. Dollars, or our euros, or our local currencies become devalued.

The upside is, our Bitcoin will become more valuable. I think the best analogy that I got was from chairman of microstrategy mstr Michael saylor, essentially thinking that Bitcoin is is not digital currency, but digital
real estate.

So I think this analogy is better, because nobody’s on their zillow, you know, 20 times a day, checking their home prices right? And this is my mad Max Post Apocalyptic perspective. So imagine the future where there’s, you know, essentially
there’s this like nuclear fallout. And you know.
there’s no inhabitable places anywhere. And let us say, there’s only 21 million single family homes left on the planet for anybody to live. Obviously, sooner or later, you know, people are going to want somewhere to live. And so I think the best analogy, I think, is Bitcoin as digital real estate, which means that with digital real estate.

Monetizing Bitcoin?

You know, a lot of people are like– I want to quickly make money off of Bitcoin. But how do I make money off of it? It’s kind of like the early days of real estate. So if you bought Manhattan in the 1600s, you know, how do you monetize it? And I still think that we’re in the very, very early days of bitcoin and institutional adoption, which means you’re going to start to see New Bitcoin products come out. So some simple thoughts. So we’ve all heard stories of Scumbag San Francisco based scumbag landlords, you know, charging an arm and a leg for their tenants, and we all hate the landlords, I think with Bitcoin we’ll become the new digital landlords, which means effectively, we will in the future be able to like rent out our Bitcoin. And you know, let’s say we have one bitcoin right, and it’s and then I think that the personal math I like to do in my head is thinking that one Bitcoin is equivalent to one single family home. So I currently live in Los Angeles, in Culver City. It’s kind of insane. A single family home. I’ve even seen some in my neighborhood for 4.4 million dollars. The average Median household single family home is around 1.7 million dollars.

So in my personal mind, where I think Bitcoin is a trillion times more valuable than physical real estate land, because you could always make more of it. It’s not a real scarcity.

A single family home, and the price of a Bitcoin should be pegged to another.

So in my mind I still think of a Bitcoin at least 1.1
1.7 2.1, maybe even 4.4 million dollars a coin. And I think this is a very very fascinating idea, because also, you know, people say, Oh, but Bitcoin is not real. Money is yeah, but like our dead, shiny rocks. Aka. Gold money either, or is fiat currency, you know pieces of paper. You cannot eat pieces of paper to to live. And I think one of the most interesting things I learned about the philosophy of money is that essentially all money is just existing in the minds and souls of men, the value for men, is all essentially subjective.

Money is not “real”, but subjective.

Now, what makes Bitcoin so fascinating to me is that it’s the 1st time in human existence, you had a hard cap supply of money.

So, for example, people often talk about gold, right? So the issue with gold is at the time it was the least bad form of money, because it was very, very scarce. It was difficult to find. It’s difficult to mine and transport. Yet there was lots of good properties of gold. It’s, you know, essentially it kind of lasts forever. Aesthetically, it looks beautiful, the nice yellow color of gold mimics that of the sun, and you know, at least back in the day, let’s say you had gold coins it could easily fit in your front pocket whatevers.

But now things become a lot more difficult because we’re living in the 21st century, the 22nd century you know, we would have flying car drone robo taxi, self driving car waymos. It’s like, Why are we still using an antiquated digital framework of modern day banking swift code accounts?

I hate the banks

If you’ve ever tried to send money, you know, from the Netherlands to South Korea, to Nigeria, to Lagos whatever you find that the the whole SWIFT system is kind of like a bunch of gangster mafiosas like even my mom is currently living in South Korea.

Example if I want to just send my mom a small sum of money, it is insane,  it takes like three or four days, and the wire transfer fees like 55 bucks, I hate this. This should be done instantly. Therefore the thought of bitcoin, being able to quickly and effectively and securely transfer value across time and space without a trusted intermediary is a big big deal, a big big revolution.

Peer to Peer Capital

So why does Bitcoin matter? It’s kind of like asking somebody why does clean water matter so one of the things I love about Michael Saylor, and I highly recommend watching all of his videos. @wsaylor. It’s essentially Twitter or X or michael.com.

He uses this analogy of sewer water. So let us say, every all 8 billion people on the planet are all drinking sewer water, and people are dying of dysentery, and people are saying, I don’t get it, you know I exercise, you know. I
you know I eat healthy exercise every day, but I’m still dying of dysentery. My kids are dying of dysentery, and so the whole issue is that if you’re drinking sewer water, no matter how healthy your lifestyle is, how virtuous you is. It don’t matter. You’re going to be, you know, dying of dysentery, or perpetually sick.

And so, if we think about these physiological terms, and apply it to Bitcoin and money and digital capital. This becomes really fascinating because my personal thought and you know, also, I grew up in a family of poverty, poverty, meaning that I thought I was going to be homeless at least 2 or 3 times. My dad was perpetually addicted to gambling with the rent money.

So what a lot of people don’t understand about growing up in poverty, and prosody is that the logical strategy that you never know when your dad is going to steal your money and gamble it away, and therefore the smart strategy is actually to spend it all right now! Because you never know when he’s going to look in your piggy bank, your personal checking account that your mom put away for your college, or even take your hard earned $3000 as a 15-year-old bus boy at your mom sushi restaurant, lying that you’re going to invest in some business, leaving to LA for about a month, gambling it away, and coming back empty.

When I think about it, this is actually super sad. Once again when I was like super super young like two years old, my mom tried to make me a savings account, like one of those checking or savings investing accounts for kids, and she might’ve had a nominal amount of money in it, like 200 or 250 bucks or something. And she told me the sad news is that one day when she checked up on it she discovered that the money was gone. Essentially my dad even stole away that $250 from my child savings account for college, once again feed his gambling addiction.

The logic 

So once again, as a kid growing up, I never had this ethos or tactic of saving. Because we literally cannot come every dime that my mom made was fun into paying for groceries and rent.

Therefore I like a 15-year-old kid, my thought was I’m going to take every single penny, I can immediately go out buying some new sneakers, you know, buy some cool clothes, and I literally had $0 in my bank account.

Don’t blame poor people

So I think the pernicious, vicious cycle of inflation is.

You cannot blame people for not saving up capital for their future if the money itself is deflating at such a rapid pace, and so I personally think that you know Bitcoin is like giving every single person on the planet like unlimited free Fiji water, or the best alkaline hipster water whatever water you want. Essentially giving people clean water. And
a lot of people say, Yeah, but Bitcoin is not real money. It’s a okay. So I think this is a big this is a big shift for me also, personally.

My personal thought is, Bitcoin is actually more important than money.

Capital > Money

So we should not think about money. We should think about capital. I think capital is a lot more robust and strong as a concept. So, for example, capital comes from Cap CAP. Like upon your head. K-ap. Essentially it came from the head of oxen. So if you read the Iliad, the Odyssey essentially, every time you want to appease the gods, you have to sacrifice a hectacomb, Hecta means 100 a hundred head of oxen to appease the gods.

And you know, obviously, that’s very expensive, like, can you imagine, if you know you sacrificed a hundred Lamborghinis to appease the gods, it would be quite expensive endeavor. Right?

And so, capital. We all live under Capitalism — it doesn’t matter if you’re living in Europe, Africa, Asia, America, China, and also one thing that people don’t understand is, I think, what a lot of these people, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, China is going to take over. China’s not going to take over. China is dependent on America, and effectively, the Chinese Yuan the CNY is essentially effectively pegged to the Us. Dollar and the Us. The US is essentially the world. Reserve currency and capital is what we seek, not money.

Currency?

Talking about currency, so currency is like, you know, buying a Starbucks Frappuccino, or buying a in and out Burger. Right? That’s like money currency, right?

Capital is essentially long storm, long term, store of value. So it’s building generational wealth.

So one of my favorite songs from Kanye West is the off the grid songs that we off the grid grid grid this for my kid, kids, for when my kids, kids have kids.

And I think this is also the big thing is a lot of millennials, nowadays, I think the disincentive to have kids is because there’s so much fear mongering about the the future is gonna become uninhabitable, you know boil the seas or whatever. So there’s not going to be a future. So essentially, there’s a strong sense of pessimism.

But Bitcoin, to me is like solidified optimism, which means that the future is going to be glorious and great. And you know, even having Seneca right now, think about his future kids, kids, kids, or my future kids, kids, kids.
It brings me so much joy. Because the simple strategy, you just keep stacking Bitcoin until you die, and then you hand it on to your kids. Your kids give it to their kids kids. It’s like, if you owned, you know, a hundred penthouses or 10 square blocks or 20 square blocks in Manhattan, on the main island. Do you ever sell that to buy a Lamborghini? No! That’s not what one does, or liquefy it all into us dollars and brag about how many billions of dollars you have in your bank account.

Nope, that’s not the goal– you want to build capital. And traditionally it’s been real estate. But once again, real estate was a good idea. In the 16 hundreds, 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds, or 2000s. But then the subprime mortgage meltdown proved that, you know maybe it’s not always the best idea.

Real estate can go down.

Only one reason

And I think the hard thing is, people say, Yeah, but you know, real estate, you know, essentially, everyone needs somewhere to live, and it’s historically, the value of real estate is always going to go up forever. Now people say that the tricky thing is the pace of monetary inflation is around 15%. The best thing is to either chat Gpt or Google The M2 Money Supply. And essentially what you will find is
that the money supply is essentially a metric in which the Us. Government, or any other government on the planet, includes the euro and stuff. They keep printing more currency. And the reason why then this becomes an issue is that if you have more currency in the system that means the individual value of each unit is going to go down.

The shake shack effect

I call this the shake Shack Burger incident. So me and Seneca we used to always buy a single burger, patty, for $1.49, $1.50 … and one day we come and they say no it is $2.50, a party.

Why this makes no sense is like, yeah, we just increased the minimum wage to $20 an hour from $15 an hour. $20 an hour for fast food, and the hard thing is with minimum wage. You cannot rewind the the hands of time. If you suddenly said that the minimum wage is only $17 an hour, there will be riots. The streets would not be not be good.

Bitcoin is digital photography

So we’re all photographers, you know, street photographers, whatever. And the hard thing with digital is in our minds, digital is infinite and free. So, for example, I could take a copy of Mozart’s 5th Symphony, or whatever, as an mp3, file, and I could copy and distribute it a trillion times with 0 marginal cost right?

So this is where the notion of cyber becomes more interesting. And I’ll think about like, you know, cyber punk thinking about cyber truck.

It’s essentially once again, mathematically, cryptographically, that the hard science and the hard math is there can never be more than 21 million coins
in existence come up forever. Even if you took all the quantum ultra computers on the planet, times it by 20, you still could not produce more bitcoins. It’s just how it works right?

The immortal gold cyber oxen

One Bitcoin is like one cyber-ox, and it’s immortable, immortal, indestructible. It’ll give you life forever. And there’s only gonna be 21 million of them in the future. And now and so this is your chance to get one for an extreme discount.

Buying a single-family home in Los Angeles for only $100,000 

Let’s even say let’s say you want to buy a single family home. Let’s say it costs a million euros or whatever. Right? So if I could tell you today that you could buy a single family home for only $100,000 or €100,000 you’d be like, wow, that’s that’s the deal of a century. That’s you’re still getting a 90% discount.

And my personal thought is Bitcoin is far more valuable than real estate, because in the next 20-30 years, when essentially all the all the baby boomers, The Gen. Xers die off, and it’s the millennials and Gen. Z’s. And, alphas!

What do we care for?

When we millennials take over, what’s interesting is that we don’t really care about physical real estate anymore. We will care about digital cyber real estate which is bitcoin. 

So my personal story, how did I get into Bitcoin? So it might seem a little bit random. It’s like, Okay, ERIC, you’re super famous for photography, street photography like, how do you get to Bitcoin like? It’s like, so random, right? But actually, it’s not very random at all, because, you know, if you’ve been following me carefully, you know the whole time, I’ve always been talking about living minimalistically, frugally, Spartan lifestyle, whatever’s. And you know now that you know I’m pretty stacked with a bitcoin and microstrategy stock mstr.

Funny enough, I’ve personally found that my lifestyle habits haven’t changed much after getting super rich, I mean, I’m a little bit more generous, maybe, like, you know, took out a friend last night to all you eat Korean barbecue
paid for her bill didn’t really even flinch.

Even a random aside, my best friend and my best man Justin, told me this when we were like in our early 20s, when we finally got good paying jobs whatever, is that the greatest joy is being able to eat out and not really feel the pain associated with having to eat out because we both grew up poor. 

I still remember even when I was undergraduate at UCLA, after our KYRIE club meeting, we would all go out to eat, and then I would see all the other guys ordering these really expensive $15 Korean barbecue gogi plates, (this was in 2006, when you could still buy a foot-long sub sandwich for five bucks), and $1.99 tacos, and $1 tacos, and me trying to save money, would force myself not to eat even though I was hungry, and my friends would ask me if I was hungry and I would lie, and say I wasn’t, while my stomach was still grumbling. 

Monetary, financial freedom is the goal

So my personal thought with Bitcoin is, I personally wanted monetary freedom, and so long story short, so I’ll never forget this moment. So I’m born 1988. Went to UCLA as an undergrad — my roommate at the time, Kevin. It’s our junior he’s on Reddit, and I’ll never forget we’re in our studio apartment. I think I was distracted. I was doing something else. He was like Eric, you know. He’s on some subreddit, and he’s like.

“Oh, Eric, this thing called Bitcoin, and there’s this one dude who just bought two domino’s pizzas for like 10,000 bitcoins. We should just get like a hundred bucks worth of bitcoin, and just see what happens.”

I then responded “Eh, seems like a scam” and disregarded it. No this is one bitcoin was like less than a penny, so even if me and Kevin and my roommate Kevin, just bought a hundred bitcoins at the time for funsies, right? And I had a hundred bucks right? We would each be worth at least 1.2 billion dollars.

If I had bought $100 worth of bitcoin at the time, once again we would each have about $1.2 billion in our checking accounts.

Everything happens as it should have happened 

Today, I’m like, man. This was like the worst mistake of my life, right? But everything has happened as it should have happened. You know. Maybe if I had become a billionaire I’d just become some degenerate, you know. Cocaine addict on some beach somewhere in in Hawaii, and then Seneca would never been born. I would have never done my photography, world travels, whatevers.

Then my reintroduction to Bitcoin was kind of more recently when moving to LA. The cost of living is so expensive, and you know every I don’t know a single person who doesn’t want financial freedom. A long story short, I 1st heard about Bitcoin again, kind of earlier than when I was living in Vietnam around 2017, 2018, and at the time I didn’t really need Bitcoin, because our living expenses were so cheap. It was $320 bucks a month for a brand new studio apartment, fully furnished up, uplighting and the jazz right? And even at the time, passively, the income we’re making. Let’s say it’s a $1000- $2,000 a month. Let’s say it’s not even that much right, but like our whole total expenses, living expenses like maybe $600-700 a month, so I had the epiphany I’m like, I’m never going to run out of money. So already, at the age of 26 in my mind, I mentally retired right
and just more for funsies.

Buying bitcoin for $6,999 a Bitcoin

I met this guy named Bing in Singapore. Heard about this thing called Digibyte. Dgb, I don’t even think they’re around anymore. But at the time I’m like, Okay, I want to buy some bitcoins, buy some digibyte. How do I do this? And at the time Coinbase seemed like the best option, because it was the simplest, most minimalist to me it looked like the paypal for for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

For fun I bought about $25,000 worth of bitcoin, which, and Bitcoin was only about $7,000, $6,999 a bitcoin. So that was around 3.5 bitcoins. 

I then traded some bitcoin for digibyte, and I kept some bitcoin in my Coinbase account. Then the next few years I essentially saw the waves and the crashes and the dogecoins and stuff like that.

And essentially, I just kind of woke up to my guts and found out that Bitcoin was a real deal.

Satoshi is the Bitcoin Jesus

Some strange analogies is to me Bitcoin is almost like a new
World economic religion, I mean, people who follow Bitcoin are like fanatic. They’re zealous about it. They follow Michael Saylor like he’s like you know the prophet. You know the next prophet of Bitcoin right?

And it’s always good to invest in religions or to invest in cults like the cult of Tesla, Elon Musk apple, Steve Jobs. Whatevs, right?

Why?

Now obviously, I have financial independence now, and the only reason I’m teaching this workshop or sharing this information is, I almost feel like it’s my ethical imperative. Once again, if you could have discovered internet in the early days, or clean drinking water, I would feel that it would almost be a disservice if I did not share this information with others.

Future value

So everyone’s always about like, okay, so what is the Bitcoin gonna be worth? So there’s the open source model. Michael Saylor, I think, helped create it. It’s called the Bitcoin 21 model, I think. Right?

So 21 years from now his base case is that Bitcoin is going to be $13 million a Bitcoin. Bear case, $3 million a Bitcoin. The bull case is $49 million a Bitcoin, and note, this was in 2024 in July before Trump was announced as President, and he is ultra super pro crypto and bitcoin and also worth following, is his son Eric Trump, ironically. His name is also Eric also the funny thing. There’s a bunch of Eric’s actually in the world of Bitcoin, Eric Kim Eric Semler, of semler scientific, this other Etf guy who works for Bloomberg. His name is Eric Balconus, or something like that.

Follow Eric Trump

Essentially, we have an all Republican trump, pro bitcoin pro crypto, President and cabinet, whatever right?

More bullish

What is really fascinating about Michael Saylor’s predictions for the future price of bitcoin is that when it was only $65,000 a bitcoin, and we were a bit uncertain about what the future of bitcoin and the president and the government would look like.

The last four years, we were all fighting an uphill battle, because the former administration was adamantly anti-crypto and anti-bitcoin. Gary Gensler who seems like a smart guy, was for some reason really anti-bitcoin and crypto? 

The next four years will be glorious!

And so these were all written by Michael Saylor’s predictions before we had the most pro bitcoin
government of all time. So all these numbers, I think, should be inflated. So my personal thought is, I think, for the next 4 years once Trump takes office, January 20, 2025. I think this will be the craziest, best Bitcoin Bull Run of all time the next 4 years. So currently, Bitcoin’s been going up around 60% to 62% arr annual rate of return. And I think once Trump takes office, and I’m pretty sure he’s gonna buy the 1 million Bitcoins, or whatever for the strategic American Reserve.

And also I think Eric Trump, his son, is committed to having Bitcoin be at least a million in Bitcoin.

120% Bitcoin ARR for the next 4 years

So let’s see. So my personal prediction, right? So I think Bitcoin will grow by at least 120% arr over the next 4 years. So let’s say, Bitcoin is worth around $100,000 right now. So by next year, let’s say it’s $250,000 the year after that, let’s say it’s $750,000, let’s say the year after that it’s like $1.2 million. So I think we’re on track to hit a million a bitcoin in 4 years about 10x gain. So just do the math from then.

The $1 million dollar cybertruck

Currently as an account measure, I now equate one bitcoin being worth one cyber truck, assuming that a cyber truck is currently around $100,000.

So the smart strategy is to take your hundred thousand dollars and invest it into bitcoin today, and you’ll see that becoming $1 million in four years. 

What that means is sell your cyber truck for $100,000, buy bitcoin, otherwise you have just done spent $1 million on your cyber loser truck.

Cyber warfare 

Now, people are always asking, okay, this, you know, Bitcoin reserve strategy, you know, like, how is? And why is America going to buy the Bitcoins? Right? So we’re essentially out of physical land and real estate. Now we have to go to cyberspace right?

And it seems kind of silly, like something out of a sci-fi film. But the truth is, they’re currently the war we’re having with China and Russia. It’s it’s not physical war per se. It’s actually cyber war. So cyber security is the big big money maker. Even cyber penetration testing. Right? I think Gmail is trying to get like all these malicious actors trying to attack the Gmail servers like a million times a minute. Something crazy, right?

And if you look at the history of America, right? So, Manhattan, 1600s, the price of Manhattan. It was essentially stolen from the natives. Right? 60 guilders, right Louisiana purchase, you know, to fund Napoleon, California. Also kind of stolen from the the local Mexicans right? And also Alaska right. The the payoff was great, right, and so essentially the Bitcoin Act, the Cynthia Lummis Bill, she’s trying to get the States to buy at least a million bitcoins right? And you know even a Michael Saylor is much more aggressive. He’s like no America should at least purchase maybe 5 or 6 million bitcoins, which is 20 to 25% of the whole Bitcoin supply. And all America has to do is a free trade. They just need to sell their gold and then buy Bitcoin. And in a recent interview that I was listening from Saylor.
super fascinating, is like
essentially what he said was the super evil genius strategy of selling America, selling her gold reserves and buying Bitcoin is that if that’s the case, comma.
we demonetize our enemies.
you know, capital reserves. So then suddenly, the the gold of the Russians, the Chinese, will go to 0, and then everyone’s going to rush into Bitcoin. And if America owns Bitcoin, it’s a good sign for the future. And also another big thing I want to talk about. Why does America have the best economy on the planet.
So we essentially gave birth to Apple Amazon, Facebook, the magnificent 7 stocks, Netflix. And you know, people talk about China. It’s like. Okay, I don’t know a single rich mainland Chinese oligarch who doesn’t want to send their kids to the States to
to Harvard or Yale or Princeton, you know, buy a nice house in Palo Alto, the Bay area, or even Vancouver. No rich mainland Chinese person actually wants to be in China, but because of capital controls, they’re kind of stuck. So once there’s going to be a mad rush to Bitcoin. That means that you, your family, your whole squad, is going to prosper now.
you know, issues. My, my friend Dante had a question about storage. So
I think the hard thing with storage is okay. So how do you say this?
I, my, this is my personal philosophy. The reason I do not personally trust cold storage for myself or more of these self custody options is that
I know that I am very forgetful, and my biggest fear is, let’s say, I forget my passcode, or whatever is right to the Bitcoins. And or let’s say, my kids, kids can forget it right? Then boom like, you’re gonna be out like a hundred 1 million dollars. Right? So that’s that’s not fun, right? And so personally, I think the easiest is to just, you know, store it on the cloud. So, using a trusted custodian, whether it be coinbase. I think fidelity has their own services now.
And the you know honestly, it seems like Coinbase is probably the best option coinbase.com, or you just download your iphone ipad. Whatever right is that you could also get a link with your biometric apple id data, whether it be face id or thumbprint. Whatevs right? So this way, it just feels much more secure. So
for me, I would prefer an 80 to 85% optimal thing that is kind of dummy proof rather than take the 100 secure option which, because of user error, I might fail, and something that I personally learned is
in terms of technology. And all these things in between
seeking the simplest, most straightforward option
that is least complicated is often the best solution. And the reason I would be very, very wary of a lot of these people promoting, you know, buying their hardware wallets. Whatever’s right, everyone has a buck to make. Everyone has a bitcoin to make. Everyone wants to make a few satoshis here and there.
and so they’re trying to fear monger use. Oh, you’re gonna you know, Coinbase going to get hacked. And I’m like, no, I don’t think it is. It’s like, you know, back. It’s like essentially a Us. Government, you know, it’s essentially it’s traded on the the You know the Stock Exchange. It’s a American based company. I would. I would not trust anything outside of the States.
But yeah, I would say, choose now, obviously, if you’re super, you know.
quant genius, autistic genius, then do all the cold storage stuff. But if in doubt, just the simplest thing is, coinbase seems to be the best. Okay, so this is kind of my free money hack. So I call this microstrategy, strategy, mstr microstrategy versus bitcoin. And okay, so it’s very, very simple. So this becomes a philosophical debate. To say it short.
I think the ultimate goal is to own Bitcoin, he or she, or the entities with the owners of the most Bitcoin shall win. And so for me, philosophically, you know, let us say that you could own, you know, 20 bitcoins, or you could own 2 million dollars worth of micro strategy. Mstr. Stock. Right?
1020, 30 years from now, right?
You’re going to actually outperform. You’re actually going to make more money from microstrategy stock than Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, historically, has been 60% to 62% AR annual rate of return micro strategies is almost double that 120 to 1, 25 AR. So if you actually want to maximize your returns. You just buy microstrategy stock mstr and bitcoin. Right? But the issues is, you know. Let us say that Michael Saylor gets shot. He gets killed. He
you know, dies in a Cybertruck, whatever. Right? Then, it’s probably not going to be the world’s best future for microstrategy. So it’s actually much more risky. So if you want the least risky option, it’s just put all your money into Bitcoin right? And some millennial living strategies. Right? So the the simplest strategy I have. I call it the Spartan strategy. This is why I personally follow. Is you essentially try to live as minimally and frugally and sparse as you can, and just put literally 90% of your income into bitcoins right?
And a free money hack I discovered. So, for example, let’s say you have $150,000 or €150,000. Right? And you know I’m not 100 sure how it works. If you’re a European. What is right. But you, you buy micro strategy stocks. So let’s say you buy, you know, 100,000 or $150,000 worth of it right? And Mstr, and you use fidelity, or robinhood, or whatever trading app you have. Right.
And the strategy is simple. It’s whenever you know. Let us say the base case 150,000.
Let’s say your microstrategy stock value then goes up to 200,000. Right?
You sell $50,000 worth of it, and then you just transfer that to your bank account.
and then your bank account is linked with your coinbase account. Then you just buy the Bitcoin right and rinse and repeat so very, very impressive over the last 3 months, I started with initial seed capital of around $150,000 in microstrategy stock
off of that $150,000 right? And I haven’t even touched my principal. I yielded $242,000
off of that initial 150,000 right? And also for traditional Roth, Roth, Ira retirement accounts. I put everything into microstrategy stock, and it is already like 3 x like, for example.
My roth, Ira, just kind of randomly was like what $78,000, and then the course of 3 months. It’s like now, it’s like 230,000. It peaked at around 300,000. So it’s going to be a good future. And so the the very simple strategy. So let us say you’re able to get down your living expenses to let’s say
you know, 5,000 bucks a month or €5,000 a month. Right?
the point isn’t to just make a bunch of money and just go out and buy the Lambo. The the goal is actually to continue to live for good. If anything live more fully. People who says like, Oh, you know, you want to get rich, don’t care about money or whatever. If you’re a real real greedy, you know money, loving person. Actually, the optimal strategy is.
you live, you know. You continue driving your old Toyota Prius, and just pour all of your money in Bitcoin, because really the truth is and this is my philosophical thought is, there’s almost nothing worth on the planet purchasing.
Besides, Bitcoin is my philosophical thought. So and also some e even more super smart economic leverage. Right?
So instead of paying an arm and a leg for rent in La or New York. Brooklyn, you just move to like Southeast Asia. Right you go. Move to Southeast Asia, live like a king, for like 300 500 bucks a month. Right? You just put all your money to Bitcoins right? So even if you had a modest savings, right, let’s say you had like $200,000, and you had microstrategy stock.
let’s say every month of the month is rent is due, and the expenses are due right? You just sell a small portion of that stock, and it’s going to go up. So my thought on the next 4 years, micro strategy, assuming it’s around 2 x Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is going to go up 120% error. I think micro strategy is going to double that 240% error. So just do the masses. At the end of every single month
you make a small. Your gains go up like crazy right, and let’s say your living expenses are like under a thousand bucks, or if you, if you live in the States, 5,000 bucks, you sell X amount of monies to just support your living expenses, and you just continue to ride your gains. But ultimately my personal thought is whatever excess, money and capital you have just put it onto Bitcoin. So the micro strategy then ends up becoming the engine or the turbocharger or the cash cow. You milk it, and you shave the cream off the top, and then you buy Bitcoin with it.
So I think the reason why to me Bitcoin is such a fascinating thing, and very exciting, is essentially Bitcoin is digital photography. Peter Diamandis, the ex guy. Right? You know, he talks a lot about kodak film. You know the iphone and disruption.
So actually, intuitively, as photographers and digital photographers, we should actually understand. You know, this disruptive power about digital photography. So obviously, you have the hipsters with their mustaches and their flannels, you know, talking about the virtues of film photography.
But the truth is, digital photography is like a quadrillion times better.
And also currently, in the year 2025, incoming
digital photography is actually superior to film photography. I mean.
maybe in the early days of digital sucked right. But now, at this point, digital photography is far superior to any sort of film photography, and the only reason you should film in today’s world
is either as like a practice to appreciate the joys of photography. So the philosophical approach.
or you know, you’re trying to be some sort of like, you know, snoppy fine art photographer and overcharge money for your photos. Then you shoot film.
because honestly, the the fine art market, they’re always going to overvalue film photos over digital photos, because it’s more complicated. It’s more strange, right? So in the art, in the art world, the more complicated, abstruse, and complicated, you can make your art the better. But for us.
where you care about practical things, yeah, think about Bitcoin. So think about the iphone iphone pro versus your mom’s kodak Browning camera. I think the the thought is obvious. Okay.
so how to start buying Bitcoin. Very simple. Just download the coinbase app, or you know if you if you don’t want to actually own Bitcoin, you just want to make a ton of money, just buy micro strategy stock Mstr, and use your traditional
accounts. And I still think that this is the biggest thing is that everyone wants to become a millionaire, right?
But you know what I think people want to do is
they don’t want to earn like, okay, okay.
people want to spend a million dollars.
They don’t want to actually save and build a million dollars right? And so if you think about, you know, money and
capital digital capital, I think about like Lego bricks, right? I just went to Legoland. Senecall is great. So let us say that
each bitcoin, or dollar or 1 million dollars like these. Let’s say these are Lego bricks right? The goal is, you want to build your Lego Tower brick thing as tall as possible. You don’t ever want to
get rid of your bricks and throw into the trash. That’s essentially what consumerism is. And this is actually another big philosophical thing I discovered is, what’s the difference between capitalism and consumerism. Consumerism is actually the exact opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is about accumulating wealth.
building your capital and not spend it right. Even one of my favorite Kanye quotes is like why people make money don’t spend it. But I’d rather buy 80 gold chains go ignorant, right ignorant. And so the pernicious thing that happens in a lot of communities, especially poor communities. Right? I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes. Right?
Happens to Korean people. It happens to everybody, right? Is that you know you live in a crappy apartment in K. Town with 20 other dudes. Yet you drive the brand new Bmw. And you’re not building any sort of generational wealth. Right? And so essentially, yeah, you want to build the capital and not spend it. And essentially, you want to start to intelligently leverage your capital
to give to your future kids or your descendants, or whatever you want to do. Now, the hardest thing about Bitcoin is stomaching the volatility so volatile, mean. Just it goes up, it goes down, and then, like honestly for most people, it’s going to give them like 5. 100 heart attacks over right now
I think of a Bitcoin kind of like nuclear energy, so
nuclear energy in the untamed formed is obviously toxic could cause the next Fukushima whatevers right? But if you have a bunch of smart people, engineers, nuclear physicists working in a controlled manner, right? It’s like the greatest benefit to society, because to humanity, because essentially, you’re giving people free electricity forever. Right? And
I think my personal thought is the volatility is a future not above. So the reason why Bitcoin goes up and down the sideways so much all the time, and you can have huge swings
is because you could trade a 24, 7, 365 on the weekends in the evenings. Right?
It still befuddles me that in the year 2024, 2025 like. Why is it that you know, after 5 pm. You know Eastern time, or on the weekend Saturday, Sunday like, why did they close the market? So what if there’s another Cuban missile crisis. It makes no sense right?
And also the reason why it’s so volatile is that it’s actually the most
desirable commodity on the planet. And there’s all these people with these weird Bloomberg machine terminals, whatever they are, always pegging everything to the Bitcoin. So a lot of people ask about ethereum dogecoin webs, right. I think Bitcoin is the only true.
Everything else is the false prophets. Everything else is the false coins. The immaculate conception of Bitcoin and Satoshi.
I think this is actually a big deal, because anything that is not Bitcoin, you know, ethereum and the like. They they need some sort of spokesperson, or, you know, individual to prop up the value right, whereas Satoshi, he invented it, he disappeared forever. Now the reason why this is such a big deal is that
every other crypto thing which is not Bitcoin.
It does not have a hard cap
like you could print more ethereums. You could print more. Whatever tokens you cannot print more bitcoins, and that’s that’s the big thought.
So. Volatility is vitality. Eric Kim. I actually didn’t say that. Sorry. That was actually Michael Saylor. I typed that in wrong. But essentially
you know, volatility is vitality, and the more volatile the more energy the power you have, the more vitality you have. So once again, people think of volatility as being risk. That is actually not the case. Bitcoin is going to go up forever, but it’s going to be like an extreme roller coaster and go up down, but with extreme swings it’s extreme performance. So
yeah, volatility is not risk. Volatility is just going up and down a lot, but essentially over a long enough time span. It’s going to go up forever.
So I borrowed a lot of slides quite liberally from Michael Saylor. Some of these are from his recent Microsoft. Pitch. And yeah, just go. michael.com go to his presentations looking at yourself. So I’ll just make some quick points. So
essentially, currently, Bitcoin is like a 2 trillion dollar asset class right? And this is also from Jesse Myers once in a species.com. And the reason why this is important is currently you know. Let us say the whole world’s economy is 900 trillion dollars, right? And
what we have our eyes on is real estate. So real estate is, you know, most people don’t really just use real estate as a place to live right? Otherwise, you just rent. People use it for a long term store of value. So, for example, if you’re a really really rich family from New York City, you own, like 10 square blocks in Manhattan, and, you know, does your descendants sell, you know.
a square block to buy himself a few Ferraris. No, that that would be a bad strategy. So the the tip I have for any single person trying to build intergenerational wealth. Keep it simple. Only one rule. You don’t sell the Bitcoin. If you face extreme poverty or financial distress, I don’t know. Become an Uber driver or something. Pay the bills, but don’t sell the Bitcoin.
and currently I think we’re going to see is Bitcoin is just going to take over the gold market, which is 16 trillion dollars, maybe the cars and collectible art market.
Now, a big thought is this is from Michael Saylor once again, is that
all these assets on the planet.
Some of half of it is to provide utility. Right? So, for example, you know.
let’s say you need you need somewhere to live right? No so that provides utility right? But then, again, some of it is to preserve capital right? And
as a 36 year old millennial nowadays. The pressures. Oh, you got to buy a single family home today, right? But the the reason I get so sus of people saying you should buy a house is that they’re like, oh, you essentially need somewhere to live. You’ll build capital. Blah! Blah, right? You don’t want to give money to land, but it’s like no, you only need one reason like you would only ever buy a single family house. If let’s say you really like having a backyard and a garage, or what is right. But it’s really not
a money making thing, because homeownership is like a trillion, times more expensive than you would otherwise think, and as a consequence, with a single family home, even if the price is going up right
at best, you might be breaking, even if not, you know, slowly bleeding yourself. Because, let’s say, real estate is on average, going up 10% a year, right? The money supply the inflationary. M 2 supply is 15% a year. So you’re actually kind of losing money.
So the big thought is once again, you know.
the optimistic thought is eventually all these long term sort of things are going to become digital capital. I still think about this, the Warren Buffett. They’re all gonna die. And then, when we, you know, take the take the mantle. What’s gonna happen the next 20 years, even if you’re 80 years old right now? 81 years old. Shout out.
You know, I think I’m optimistic. We could live to be 100 20. So yeah, this is definitely the next wave. You’re not going to want to miss right? And you know, currently a lot of millennials. People like everyone wants to buy the Lambo or the Ferrari.
You’re you’re going to lose the value of it in about 3 years. You want to live forever.
So these are some kind of conservative growth estimates, according to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin 24 model. So in about 21 years, and this was still pretty conservative. Right? Bitcoin is going to become a 280 trillion dollar, you know thing right? So going from 2 trillion to 200 trillion, so at least 10 x. So you’re conservatively, you’re going to see your money at least 10 x in 21 years, which is pretty cool. Right? It’s not going to take over all these other things. It might, but it might not.
Now people always ask.
what is Bitcoin backed by? So I did the maths right and based on what other people say, too essentially the Bitcoin network. If you took all the apple Amazon aws servers, Meta.
combine them all times 20, you could still not hack the Bitcoin network in in terms of the raw power that goes into powering. Think about like 20 nuclear power reactors powering the thing right? And also people don’t understand is there’s already been 850 billion dollars of quote, real money investment thing follow Blackrock. They just recently recommended most of their
you know, owners to allocate at least 2% of their portfolio into Bitcoin, which is kind of a big deal. Look about what Larry Fink says. Blackrock is like what they own. What 40 trillion dollars of assets around the planet. They’re they’re kind of a big deal. And also it’s a network effect. So you remember, in the early days of Facebook. It was only it was only university students with the Edu address were allowed to join in. Then they opened up to everybody, and the network effect of Facebook is that
if you have Facebook and I have Facebook, then Facebook instantly becomes more valuable to both of us, because I can now share my photos with you, whatever’s right. But then, if your friends friends also have Facebook, it becomes much more valuable to everything. Same thing goes with facetime right. The reason why I got you know I used to be a Diehard android dude. Now I’m like all icloud everything. It makes life so much easier. You get your mom an iphone. Now you get facetime imessage. It makes life way better.
And so Bitcoin is going to be the same thing as more and more people are going to continue to download Coinbase or Whatevs. And also my optimistic thought is, if Apple doesn’t want to become irrelevant, it’s I’m very certain the next 5 to 10 years. Apple is going to have their own
Bitcoin storage thing in your icloud account. It makes sense right. They have apple pay. They have the apple wallet. Essentially.
apple is the new bank. And so now, when they do like a you know, a 3 device authentication for your bitcoins through your iphone, your ipad and your macbook pro whatevers.
It’s actually it might actually be one of the most safe ways to store your bitcoins.
Also things to think about. If you’re a traditional investor
so there’s this notion called the cost to capital cost to capital that Michael Saylor says a lot. I might be getting this wrong. But
essentially the S. And P. 500 right?
on average, is like 14 to 15% return year over year. Right? So if you’re not making at least 15% or over 15% a year, you’re essentially losing your bleeding money. So real estate gold bonds is kind of a losing bet, right? And so the magnificent 7 which all the big tech stocks 28%, a little bit better, right? But look at Bitcoin. It’s like 62% year over year. And it’s kind of the obvious bet, right?
And even if you think about you know, everyone’s talking about Nvidia Tesla. You know what is right.
I think the reason why the mainstream media they don’t like to talk about micro strategy is that it’s still a little bit too weird and bizarre. And it’s not as buzzworthy as AI, because, okay, people like to think of this like evil Terminator AI, the video going to take over the world and find it right. But nobody is like Bitcoin, like
Bitcoin is not an android walking around 2 feet, taking over the planet right? So people actually don’t like to talk about Bitcoin. And for so long people thought that Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme right. No one ever thought that AI was a Ponzi scheme. So the video always catches the headlines. But look at microstrates, look at the best performing stock on the human unit in the human universe
over 3 x. That of Nvidia, which is already impressive, and Nvidia is already destroying Tesla by a massive margin as well. Right? So
I mean? That’s that’s pretty obvious, right?
Even Donald Trump watches a Nashville presentation. He quotes Michael Saylor directly, says, Never sell your Bitcoin. Apparently Eric Trump, the son of Donald Trump has known Michael Saylor for 20 years. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if that’s the case.
I’m like a hundred percent certain that. You know, Michael Saylor essentially has the left ear of Donald Trump.
And yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a very good thing.
So if you want to plug and create your own models. Google, the Bitcoin, 24 model. It’s on Github
plug in your own assumptions.
And this is the big thing that I have my eyes set on. So currently, you know, it’s December right? And everyone’s waiting for the trump to get into the office January 20.th So this is a tricky thing. So I used to be Super Anti Donald Trump, right? Because I could care less about politics and stuff like that right? And
but
one Donald Trump became super super pro bitcoin. I started to listen and start watching all his interviews and looking like honestly the you know, I’m from the Bay Area like Liberal Democrat, my whole life right? And actually, I kind of realized, wow, the the left leaning media is kind of the they’re kind of the evil ones here. And Donald Trump, he seems actually kind of like a cool, nice nice nice guy, right?
And the big thought is.
there’s no, there’s not going to be a World war 3. What is right? And Bitcoin, under the trump administration is gonna explode, and it’s gonna be the
the greatest 4 years of prosperity of all time, and this once again coming from like a super left leaning liberal. So this is a good thought so. Anyways. Let us say, you know.
America leads the charge in the crypto Bitcoin revolution. Right? And yeah, I think
assuming that America really wants to control the future. I think the America purchasing 6 million bitcoins is not fully out of this this planet. Right?
So some thoughts on building personal family wealth.
So the reason why I think this is kind of a big deal is that
everyone wants to build wealth right. Everyone wants to be intelligent with their investing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nonprofit, a charity, a church, Mother Teresa, like every single organization, will always need money. Capital. If you have an endowment, you know, for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford Brown University. Whatever even the Uc. Is right, everyone needs money and capital right.
and I don’t like to think too much about the macro, because I’m not an institutional investor. I just think about myself, my family, my best friends, my squad. Right? So the goal is building personal family wealth and how to intelligently invest. So a lot of people talk about timings. Oh, when should I buy Bitcoin? Should I time it the high. Then people take out these charts and these candlesticks, which is all just witchcraft and pseudoscience don’t follow any of that.
Essentially the thought is.
anytime is a good time to buy Bitcoin if it’s high, low, Middle, whatever. We’re going to keep buying the top forever. So recently I bought some more Bitcoin at $100,000. Right then it dipped down to 90,000 to 88,000 hit 103,000 again, and so I’m pretty sure that in 1020 years I’m going to be buying Bitcoin at 1 million, a Bitcoin, 10 million dollars a Bitcoin, 55 million dollars a Bitcoin, whatever is right, and because if you do the simple math, just think at least 4 years ahead, right? So if I could tell you with 100 certainty that Bitcoin is going to be 1.2 million a Bitcoin
in 4 years
as long as you’re buying it for less than a million dollars a coin. You’re going to be in the green like it’s it’s kind of a a good bet, right? And actually, also, ironically, my personal thought is
chasing gains is a good thing, but also it’s it’s a good idea to not get quote greedy in the sense of maximizing your gains. So so, for example, right like, what’s the difference between getting a 38% yield and a 32% yield like the the difference is nominal. Don’t don’t worry so much about maximization, because even a lot of what I thought my trades were bad
2 years ago ended up being right. So as investors, we have to think at least 410-20-3040 years ahead of us. So don’t worry so much about the the short term
so practical and pragmatic investing strategies right? So once again, so if I had a simple blueprint, so
some some simple thoughts.
there’s lots of different blends. You could do this, you could. You could be super simple. Just 100 to Bitcoin, buy it on Coinbase what is right, and just keep stacking forever.
100 legitimate. That’s the Bitcoin Maximus opposed the triple, triple Maxi, the triple Maximalist approach. If you just need to pay the bills whatever, and still stack the Bitcoins. My personal suggestion is put 80% of your wealth into Bitcoin and 20% of your wealth into micro strategy Mstr stock. And once again. This is this is what you do. So let’s say, for simplicity of math. Let’s say
Let’s say you have a million dollars or a hundred $1,000, or you use whatever kind of a number you want, right? So put 20% that to microstrategy stock whenever it goes up
beyond the principal, sell some of that stock and put that into micro strategies. Sorry. Put that into Bitcoin, and or use that money to just pay your your bills. So once again what I personally did right?
$150,000 working capital into micro strategy Mstr stock. And let’s say, when it goes from worth $150,000 to $160,000. I’ll sell $10,000 worth that stock. That $10,000 gets deposited to my checking account, which is linked to my coinbase. Then I’ll just buy $10,000 worth of bitcoin right? Or, if you need that, $10,000
for living expenses. Let’s say
you need $3,000 to pay your rent. You take $3,000 of that to pay your rent, and you put the other 7% of that into Bitcoin.
also some other definition. What’s the difference between being an investor, a trader versus speculator?
So an investor, we want to be investors. We want to think about (102) 030-4050 years ahead of us. A trader is a bunch of these, like 20 year old. High testosterone degenerates, you know, single, you know, maybe addicted drugs, or whatever right, who just want to like look cool. I made a billion dollars in a month by using all these complicated
statistical models. Blah! Blah! Right? But you don’t. You don’t want to be a trader because essentially it’s
nobody could time the market. Not even God could time the market right. And what a speculator is people who invest in meme coins. So a meme coin is like buying a Dogecoin or shiba Inu, that the reason why these are not you should not do this is that it is extremely dangerous. You’re going to lose all your money, and it requires
a charismatic leader to support it. So Dogecoin, right? Dogecoin is essentially elon musk coin right?
But if one day Elon musk tweets. Ha! Ha! Doge was just a joke all along, right. It’s not worth anything. The value of it will pump it to 0, or if once again. Elon dies in a you know a robo taxi accident. The value of dogecoin is going to go to 0, whereas if Elon Musk dies, you know Bitcoin is going to still keep going up forever. So speculator is meme coins beyond bitcoin us Bitcoiners. We’re we’re investors.
So you know, somebody also asked about, you know, monetary inflation right? So there’s this thing called the M. 2 monetary supply of the the rate rate inflation.
And once again you’re going to have to exceed at least 13% to 15% to
not lose money. So, for example, let us say, you have a billion dollars of us dollars in your checking account. Right? You’re going to be bled to death. Right? So in a year, your 1 billion dollar is going to shrink to 750 million down to 500 million, to 350 million. And essentially, you’re going to get a point where your money is worthless.
And already we see this right now. So currently, the price of real estate, single family homes is exploding. But this is my critical view. How much of that is that the value of a single family house is higher versus our Us. Dollars are just simply worthless. Right? So if you just do the same simple maths, right?
So let us say that. You know, minimum wage goes from $15 an hour to $20 an hour overnight for Mcdonald’s worker. Right? That means instantly. You see, 25% inflation. So your 1 million dollars in the bank is now worth only 750
$1,000. So yeah, once again. The real real rich people. They store less than 1% of their wealth in
Us. Dollars in their checking account like, you’re not gonna have Jeff Bezos bragging to other people that he has 10 billion dollars of us dollars in their checking account. No, it’s it’s all going to be in you know, stocks, or, you know, real estate. And actually, ideally, Bitcoin. Cyber cyber capital.
So yeah, that’s that’s essentially the the end of my presentation.

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Introduction to Bitcoin Transcript

Eric Kim: All right, we’ll get the party starting all right.
Eric Kim: Hopefully, everything is hearing.
Eric Kim: and yeah, thanks for tuning. All right, we’re gonna start all right.
Eric Kim: So the Bitcoin revolution, the revolution will be televised. Eric, him right? So, starting off.
Eric Kim: you know, what is Bitcoin? Why does it matter?
Eric Kim: So I think the 1st important critical thing is trying to consider and think you know what is Bitcoin we’ve all heard about in the news we heard about Bitcoin as being a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. And honestly, my mom has gone through her fair share of Ponzi schemes like she she got suckered by the whole Amway scam.
Eric Kim: and I think the reason why Bitcoin is so important and critical is, I essentially see at this point. Bitcoin is like the early days of the Internet. So if you go into a time machine and you could tell somebody in the past, okay, you know, in the days before email existed. Right? So okay, once one day, you know, everyone’s gonna have a supercomputer in their pocket. They’re using it to check all their bank statements. You’re going to be able to use your camera on your phone to scan your you know your checks, your
Eric Kim: your bank account balances. You can use this to send money and messages and videos to everyone on the planet. Instantly everyone would have thought you were crazy.
Eric Kim: and I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin. So I think also construct a way to start thinking about. Bitcoin is trying to figure out what Bitcoin is. Not. So my personal opinion is, I do not think that Bitcoin is actually cryptocurrency. I think currency is the Us. Dollar, and I think one of the biggest problems about the whole field of crypto and cryptocurrency is.
Eric Kim: everyone is like a crypto anarchist, which means that they want to see the Us. Government and all the governments on the planet fail, and they can essentially live in peace and silent without interference from the Government. Yet, you know, obviously, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have public streets. It’s nice to not get robbed in the streets. And actually, I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin is.
Eric Kim: People think that Bitcoin is trying to replace the Us. Dollar. But my personal thought is, Bitcoin is going to be a supplement to the Us. Dollar. Essentially, I thought this a long time ago that essentially Bitcoin is digital gold to hedge against inflation, which means, as our money, our Us. Dollars, or our euros, or our local currencies become devalued.
Eric Kim: The upside is, our Bitcoin will become more valuable. I think the best analogy that I got was from chairman of microstrategy mstr Michael saylor, essentially thinking that Bitcoin is is not digital currency, but digital
Eric Kim: real estate.
Eric Kim: So I think this analogy is better, because nobody’s on. You know their zillow, you know, 20 times a day, checking their home prices right? And this is my mad. Max Post. Apocalyptic perspective. Is that okay? So imagine the future where there’s, you know, essentially.
Eric Kim: there’s this like nuclear fallout. And you know.
Eric Kim: there’s no inhabitable places anywhere. And let us say, there’s only 21 million single family homes left on the planet for anybody to live. Obviously, sooner or later, you know, people are going to want somewhere to live. And so I think the best analogy, I think, is Bitcoin as digital real estate, which means that with digital real estate.
Eric Kim: You know, a lot of people like, yeah, you know, I want to quickly make money off of Bitcoin. But how do I make money off of it? It’s kind of like the early days of real estate. So if you bought Manhattan in the 16 hundreds, you know, how do you monetize it? And I still think that we’re in the very, very early days of bitcoin and institutional adoption, which means you’re going to start to see New Bitcoin products come out. So some simple thoughts. So we’ve all heard stories of Scumbag
Eric Kim: San Francisco based
Eric Kim: scumbag landlords, you know, charging an arm and a leg for their tenants, and we all hit the landlords, I think with Bitcoin we’ll become the new digital landlords, which means
Eric Kim: effectively,
Eric Kim: we will in the future be able to like rent out our Bitcoin. And you know, let’s say
Eric Kim: Let’s say we have one bitcoin right, and it’s and then I think that the personal math I like to do in my head is thinking that one Bitcoin is equivalent to one single family home. So I currently live in Los Angeles, in Culver City. It’s kind of insane. A single family home. I’ve even seen some in my neighborhood for 4.4 million dollars. The average Median household single family home is around 1.7 million dollars.
Eric Kim: So in my personal mind, where I think Bitcoin is a trillion times more valuable than physical real estate land, because you could always make more of it. It’s not a real scarcity.
Eric Kim: What that then means is.
Eric Kim: I think, my mind the price of a single family home, and the price of a Bitcoin should be piped to another. So in my mind I still think of a Bitcoin at least 1.1
Eric Kim: 1.7 2.1, maybe even 4.4 million dollars a coin. And I think this is a very
Eric Kim: It’s a very fascinating idea, because also, you know, people say, Oh, but Bitcoin is not real. Money is yeah, but like our dead, shiny rocks. Aka. Gold money either, or is fiat currency, you know pieces of paper. You can eat pieces of paper to to live. And I think one of the most interesting things I learned about the philosophy of money is that
Eric Kim: essentially all money is just existing the value of men, and it is all essentially subjective. Now, what makes Bitcoin so fascinating to me is that it’s the 1st time in human existence.
Eric Kim: All 100 trillion years we’ve been existing. Whatever is that? You had a hard cap supply of money. So, for example.
Eric Kim: people often talk about gold, right? So the issue with gold is at the time it was the least bad form of money, because it was very, very scarce. It was difficult to find. It’s difficult to mine transport. Yet there was lots of good properties of gold. It’s, you know, essentially it kind of lasts forever. Aesthetically, it looks beautiful, the nice yellow color of gold mimics that of the sun, and you know, at least back in the day, let’s say you had gold coins it could easily fit in your front pocket whatevers.
Eric Kim: But now things become a lot more difficult because we’re living in the 21st century, the 20 second century on young, you know, we would have flying car drone robo taxi, self driving car waymos. It’s like, Why are we still using an antiquated digital framework of modern day banking swift code accounts. If you’ve ever tried to send money,
Eric Kim: you know, from the Netherlands to South Korea, to Nigeria, to Lagos whatever you find that the the whole swift system is kind of like a bunch of gangster mafiosas like even my mom is currently living in South Korea. And if I would just need to send her like any sort of small amount of monies, right? It’s like crazy. It’s like, why does it. Take 3 or 4 days. Cost like me, 55 bucks, and it’s like this should be done instantly. So I think it’s a big big big revolution.
Eric Kim: So why does Bitcoin matter? It’s kind of like asking somebody why does clean water matter so
Eric Kim: one of the things I love about Michael Saylor, and I highly recommend watching all of his videos. Sailor. It’s essentially Twitter or X at Sailor or michael.com.
Eric Kim: and he uses this analogy of sewer water. So let us say, every all 8 billion people on the planet are all drinking sewer water, and people are dying of dysentery, and people are saying, I don’t get it, you know I exercise, you know. I
Eric Kim: you know I eat healthy exercise every day, but I’m still dying of dysentery. My kids are dying of dysentery, and so the whole issue is that if you’re drinking sewer water, no matter how healthy your lifestyle is, how virtuous you is. It don’t matter. You’re going to be, you know, dying of dysentery, or perpetually sick.
Eric Kim: And so, if we think about these physiological terms, and apply it to Bitcoin and money and digital capital. This becomes really fascinating because my personal thought and you know, also, I grew up in a family of poverty, poverty, meaning that I thought I was going to be homeless at least 2 or 3 times.
Eric Kim: Dad perpetually addicted to gambling with away the rent monies, and so the whole the whole ethos. I had a kid ever since I was 15. Okay, I’m going to take every single penny. I can immediately go out buying some new sneakers, you know, buy some cool clothes, and I literally had $0 in my bank account.
Eric Kim: and so I think the pernicious, vicious cycle of inflation is.
Eric Kim: you cannot blame people for not saving up capital for their future if the money itself is deflating at such a rapid pace, and so I personally think that you know Bitcoin is like giving every single person on the planet like unlimited free Fiji water, or the best alkaline hipster. Whatever water you want. Essentially giving people clean water. And
Eric Kim: a lot of people say, Yeah, but Bitcoin is not real money. It’s a okay. So I think this is a big this is a big shift for me also, personally.
Eric Kim: my personal thought is, Bitcoin is actually more important than
Eric Kim: like, okay, so my personal thought. This is all just my personal thoughts right?
Eric Kim: So we should not think about money. We should think about capital. I think capital is a lot more
Eric Kim: robust and strong as a concept. So, for example, capital comes from Cap CAP. Like upon your head. K-ap. Essentially it came from the head of oxen. So if you read the Iliad, the Odyssey essentially, every time you want to appease the gods, you have to sacrifice a hectacomb, Hecta means 100 a hundred head of oxen to appease the gods.
Eric Kim: And you know, obviously, that’s very expensive, like, can you imagine, if you know you sacrificed a hundred Lamborghinis to appease the gods, it would be quite expensive endeavor. Right?
Eric Kim: And so, capital. We all live under. Capitalism doesn’t matter. If you’re living in Europe, Africa, Asia, America, China, and also one thing that people don’t understand is, I think, what a lot of these people, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, China is going to take over. China’s not going to take over. It’s like China is dependent on America, and effectively, the Chinese Yuan. The cny is essentially effectively pegged to the Us. Dollar and the Us. Is essentially the world. Reserve currency
Eric Kim: and
Eric Kim: capital is what we seek, not money. Money, you know. Use money, like, you know. I’ll get into this little detail a little bit further. But talking about currency, so currency is like, you know, buying a Starbucks Frappuccino, or buying a in and out Burger. Right? That’s like money currency, right?
Eric Kim: Capital is essentially long storm, long term, store of value. So it’s building generational wealth. So one of my favorite songs from Kanye West is the off the grid songs that we off the grid grid grid this for my kid, kids, for when my kids, kids have kids.
Eric Kim: And I think this is also the big thing is a lot of millennials. Nowadays.
Eric Kim: I think the disincentive to have kids is
Eric Kim: people. You know, there’s so much fear mongering about the the future is gonna become, you know.
Eric Kim: boil the seas or whatever. So there’s not going to be a future. So essentially, there’s a strong sense of pessimism. But Bitcoin, to me is like solidified optimism, which means that the future is going to be glorious and great. And you know, even having Seneca right now, think about his future kids, kids, kids, or my future kids, kids, kids.
Eric Kim: It brings me so much joy. Because the simple strategy, you just keep stacking Bitcoin until you die, and then you hand it on to your kids. Your kids give it to their kids kids. It’s like, if you owned, you know, a hundred penthouses or 10 square blocks or 20 square blocks in Manhattan, on the main island. Do you ever sell that to buy a Lamborghini? No, you! That’s
Eric Kim: that’s not what one does, or liquefy it all into us dollars and brag about. How many billions of dollars you have in your bank account. Nope, that’s not the goal
Eric Kim: you want to build capital. And traditionally it’s been real estate. But once again, real estate was a good idea. In the 16 hundreds, 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds, 22 thousands. The subprime mortgage meltdown proved that, you know. Maybe it’s not always the best idea. And I think the hard thing is, people say, Yeah, but you know, real estate, you know, essentially, everyone needs somewhere to live, and it’s a
Eric Kim: historically, the value of real estate is always going to go up forever. Now people say that the tricky thing is the pace of monetary inflation is around 15%. The best thing is to either chat Gpt or Google. The M. 2 money supplies. And essentially what you will find is
Eric Kim: them to money supply is essentially a metric in which the Us. Government, or any other government on the planet, includes the euro and stuff. They keep printing more currency. And the reason why then this becomes an issue is that you have more currency in the system that means the individual value of each unit is going to go down. And actually the thing that I call this the in and out Burger. Not in and out, Burger the
Eric Kim: the shake Shack Burger incident. So me and Seneca we used to always buy a single burger, Patty, for a dollar 51 day we pop up. They say it’s 2 50, a burger. Patty, we’re like, we. What this makes no sense is like, yeah, we just increased the minimum wage to $20 an hour increase our wage. $20 an hour for fast food, and the hard thing is with
Eric Kim: minimum wage. You cannot rewind the
Eric Kim: the the hands of time. If you suddenly said that the minimum wage is only $70 an hour, there will be rights. The streets would not be not be good.
Eric Kim: so we’re all photographers, you know, street photographers, whatever. And the hard thing with digital is in our minds, digital is infinite and free. So, for example, I could take a copy of Mozart’s 5th Symphony, or whatever, as Mp. 3, file, and I could copy and distribute it a trillion times with 0 marginal costing right? And so this is where the notion of cyber becomes more interesting. And I’ll think about like, you know, cyber punk thinking about cyber truck.
Eric Kim: It’s
Eric Kim: essentially once again, mathematically, cryptographically, that the hard science and the hard math is there can never be more than 1. 21 million coins
Eric Kim: in existence come up forever. Even if you took all the quantum ultra computers on the planet, times it by 20, you still could not produce more bitcoins. It’s just not how it works right?
Eric Kim: And so
Eric Kim: I think there’s different ways. You can think about it right? So you could think about like I also could. Another fun analogy I think about is that let’s say one Bitcoin is like one cyberox, and it’s immortable, immortal, indestructible. It’ll give you life forever right. And there’s only gonna be 21 million of them in the futures. And now and so this is your chance to get one for an extreme discount. Even if I could tell you right. So once again, the single family home analogy, let’s say.
Eric Kim: let’s even say let’s say you want to buy a single family home. Let’s say it costs a million euros or whatever. Right? So if I could tell you today that you could buy a single family home for only a hundred $1,000 or a hundred €1,000 you’d be like, Wow, that’s that’s the deal of a century. That’s you’re still getting a 90% discount. And my personal thought is.
Eric Kim: Bitcoin is far more valuable than digital real estate, because in the next 2030 years, when essentially all the all the baby boomers. The Gen. Xers die off, and it’s the millennials and Gen. Z’s. And, alphas! That take over everyone’s going to not really care about physical real estate no more. It’ll be digital cyber real estate, which is Bitcoin.
Eric Kim: So my personal story, how did I get into Bitcoin? So it might seem a little bit random. It’s like, Okay, Eric, you’re super famous for photography, street photography like, how do you get to Bitcoin like? It’s like, so random, right? But actually, it’s not very random at all, because, you know, if you’ve been following me carefully, you know the whole time, I’ve always been talking about living minimalistically, frugally, Spartan lifestyle, whatever’s. And you know now that you know I’m pretty stacked with a bitcoin and microstrategy stock mstr.
Eric Kim: Funny enough, I’ve personally found that my lifestyle habits haven’t changed much, I mean, I’m a little bit more generous, maybe, like, you know, took out a friend last night to all you eat cream, barbecued
Eric Kim: paid for her bill didn’t really even flinch. And so my personal thought with Bitcoin is, I personally wanted monetary freedom, and so long story short, so I’ll never forget this moment. So I’m born 1988. Went to Uc. As undergrad my roommate at the time, Kevin. It’s our junior here’s on Reddit, and I’ll never forget we’re in our studio apartment. I think I was distracted. I was doing something else. He was like Eric, you know. He’s on some subreddit, and he’s like.
Eric Kim: Oh, Eric, this thing called Bitcoin, and you just bought a bitcoin like I bought 2 domino’s pizzas for like 10,000 bitcoins. We should just get like a hundred bucks worth of it, and just see what happened. I’m like, sounds like a scam and disregarded it, and I did the math. Now, if me and Kevin and my roommate Kevin, just bought a hundred bitcoins at the time
Eric Kim: for funsies, right? And I had a hundred bucks right? We would each be worth at least 1.2 billion dollars. Today, I’m like, man. This was like the worst mistake of my life, right? But everything has happened as it should have happened. You know. Maybe if I had become a billionaire I’d just become some degenerate, you know. Cocaine addict on some beach somewhere in in Hawaii, and then Seneca would never been born. I would have never done my photography, world travels, whatevers, and my then next reintroduction to Bitcoin was
Eric Kim: kind of more recently when moving to La. The cost of living is so expensive, and you know every I don’t know a single person who doesn’t want financial freedom. A long story short, I 1st heard about Bitcoin again, kind of earlier than when I was living in Vietnam around 2017, 2018,
Eric Kim: and at the time I didn’t really need Bitcoin, because our living expenses were so cheap. It was 320 bucks a month for a brand new studio apartment, fully furnished up, lighting in the jazz right? And even at the time, passively, the income we’re making. Let’s say it’s a thousand $2,000 a month. Let’s say it’s not even that much right, but like our whole total expenses, living expenses like maybe 6 700 bucks a month, so I had the epiphany I’m like, I’m never going to run out of money. So already, at the age of 26 in my mind, I mentally retired right
Eric Kim: and just more for funsies. I met this guy named Bing in in Singapore. Heard about this thing called Digibyte. Dgb, I don’t even think they’re around anymore. But at the time I’m like, Okay, I want to buy some bitcoins, buy some digibyte. How do I do this? And at the time Coinbase seemed like the best option, because it was the simplest, most minimalist to me it looked like the paypal for for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I’m either school bought about $25,000 worth of bitcoin, which, and Bitcoin was only about
Eric Kim: $7,000, $6,999 a bitcoin. So 7 k, so I bought about what? 3 and a half bitcoins at the time. For $25,000. Put some of that into digibyte, held a bitcoin or 2, and essentially saw the waves and the crashes and the doge coins and stuff like that. And essentially, I just kind of woke up to my guts and found out that Bitcoin was a real deal.
Eric Kim: I think I think you know. Also, some strange analogies is to me Bitcoin is almost like a new
Eric Kim: World economic religion, I mean, people who follow Bitcoin are like fanatic. They’re zealous about it. They follow Michael Saylor like his.
Eric Kim: you know the profit. You know the next profit of Bitcoin right? And it’s always good to invest in religions right to invest in religions, to invest in cults like the cult of Tesla, Elon, musk apple, Steve Jobs. Whatevs, right?
Eric Kim: So essentially and then, more. Now, like, you know. Obviously, I have financial independence now, and the only reason I’m teaching this workshop or sharing this information is, I almost feel like it’s my ethical imperative like. Once again, if you could have discovered Internet in the early days, or clean drinking water, I would feel that it would almost be a disservice if I did not share this information with others.
Eric Kim: So everyone’s always about like, okay, so what is the Bitcoin gonna be worth? So there’s the open source model. Michael Saylor, I think, helped create it. It’s called the Bitcoin 21 model, I think. Right?
Eric Kim: So 21 years from now his base case is that Bitcoin is going to be 13 million of Bitcoin bear case, 3 million a Bitcoin. The bull case is 49 million a Bitcoin, and no, this was in 2024 in July before Trump was announced as President, and he is ultra super pro crypto and bitcoin and also worth
Eric Kim: following, is his son Eric Trump, ironically. His name is also Eric also the funny thing. There’s a bunch of Eric’s actually in the world of Bitcoin, Eric Kim Eric Semler, a similar scientific, this other Etf guy who works for Bloomberg. His name is Eric Balconus, or something like that. And Eric Trump.
Eric Kim: And
Eric Kim: essentially, we have an all Republican trump, pro bitcoin pro crypto, President and Cabinet, whatever right? And so these were all written by Michael Saylor’s predictions before we had the most pro bitcoin
Eric Kim: government of all time. So all these numbers, I think, should be inflated. So my personal thought is, I think, for the next 4 years. Once Trump takes office, January 20, th 2025. I think this will be the craziest, best Bitcoin Bull Run of all time the next 4 years. So currently, Bitcoin’s been going up around 60% to 62% arr annual rate of return. And I think
Eric Kim: once Trump takes office, and I’m pretty sure he’s gonna buy the 1 million Bitcoins, or whatever for the strategic American Reserve.
Eric Kim: And also I think Eric Trump, his son, is committed to having Bitcoin be at least a million in Bitcoin.
Eric Kim: So let’s see. So my personal prediction, right? So I think Bitcoin will grow by at least 120% arr over the next 4 years. So let’s say, Bitcoin is worth around $100,000 right now. So by next year, let’s say it’s 250,000 the year after that, let’s say it’s 750,000, let’s say the year after that it’s like 1.2 million. So I think we’re on track to hit a million a bitcoin in 4 years about 10 x gain. So just do the mass from then.
Eric Kim: Now, people are always asking, okay, this, you know, Bitcoin reserve strategy, you know, like, how is? And why is America going to buy the Bitcoins? Right? So we’re essentially out of physical land and real estate. Now we have to go to cyberspace right?
Eric Kim: And it seems kind of silly, like something out of a sci-fi film. But the truth is, they’re currently the war we’re having with China and Russia. It’s it’s not physical war per se. It’s actually cyber war. So cyber security is the big big money maker. Even cyber penetration testing. Right? I think Gmail is trying to get like all these malicious actors tried to attack the Gmail servers like a million times a minute. Something crazy, right?
Eric Kim: And if you look at the history of America, right? So, Manhattan, 1926, the price of Manhattan. It was essentially stolen from the natives. Right? 60 guilders, right Louisiana purchase, you know, to fund Napoleon, California. Also kind of stolen from the the local Mexicans right? And also Alaska right. The the payoff was great, right, and so essentially the Bitcoin Act, the Cynthia Lummis Bill.
Eric Kim: She’s trying to get the States to buy at least a million bitcoins right? And you know even a Michael Saylor is much more aggressive. He’s like no America should at least purchase maybe 5 or 6 million bitcoins, which is 20 to 25% of the whole Bitcoin supply. And all America has to do. It’s a free trade. They just need to sell their gold and then buy Bitcoin. And in a recent interview that I was listening from Saylor.
Eric Kim: super fascinating, is like
Eric Kim: essentially what he said was the super evil genius strategy of selling America, selling her gold reserves and buying Bitcoin is that if that’s the case, comma.
Eric Kim: we demonetize our enemies.
Eric Kim: you know, capital reserves. So then suddenly, the the gold of the Russians, the Chinese, will go to 0, and then everyone’s going to rush into Bitcoin. And if America owns Bitcoin, it’s a good sign for the future. And also another big thing I want to talk about. Why does America have the best economy on the planet.
Eric Kim: So we essentially gave birth to Apple Amazon, Facebook, the magnificent 7 stocks, Netflix. And you know, people talk about China. It’s like. Okay, I don’t know a single rich mainland Chinese oligarch who doesn’t want to send their kids to the States to
Eric Kim: to Harvard or Yale or Princeton, you know, buy a nice house in Palo Alto, the Bay area, or even Vancouver. No rich mainland Chinese person actually wants to be in China, but because of capital controls, they’re kind of stuck. So once there’s going to be a mad rush to Bitcoin. That means that you, your family, your whole squad, is going to prosper now.
Eric Kim: you know, issues. My, my friend Dante had a question about storage. So
Eric Kim: I think the hard thing with storage is okay. So how do you say this?
Eric Kim: I, my, this is my personal philosophy. The reason I do not personally trust cold storage for myself or more of these self custody options is that
Eric Kim: I know that I am very forgetful, and my biggest fear is, let’s say, I forget my passcode, or whatever is right to the Bitcoins. And or let’s say, my kids, kids can forget it right? Then boom like, you’re gonna be out like a hundred 1 million dollars. Right? So that’s that’s not fun, right? And so personally, I think the easiest is to just, you know, store it on the cloud. So, using a trusted custodian, whether it be coinbase. I think fidelity has their own services now.
Eric Kim: And the you know honestly, it seems like Coinbase is probably the best option coinbase.com, or you just download your iphone ipad. Whatever right is that you could also get a link with your biometric apple id data, whether it be face id or thumbprint. Whatevs right? So this way, it just feels much more secure. So
Eric Kim: for me, I would prefer an 80 to 85% optimal thing that is kind of dummy proof rather than take the 100 secure option which, because of user error, I might fail, and something that I personally learned is
Eric Kim: in terms of technology. And all these things in between
Eric Kim: seeking the simplest, most straightforward option
Eric Kim: that is least complicated is often the best solution. And the reason I would be very, very wary of a lot of these people promoting, you know, buying their hardware wallets. Whatever’s right, everyone has a buck to make. Everyone has a bitcoin to make. Everyone wants to make a few satoshis here and there.
Eric Kim: and so they’re trying to fear monger use. Oh, you’re gonna you know, Coinbase going to get hacked. And I’m like, no, I don’t think it is. It’s like, you know, back. It’s like essentially a Us. Government, you know, it’s essentially it’s traded on the the You know the Stock Exchange. It’s a American based company. I would. I would not trust anything outside of the States.
Eric Kim: But yeah, I would say, choose now, obviously, if you’re super, you know.
Eric Kim: quant genius, autistic genius, then do all the cold storage stuff. But if in doubt, just the simplest thing is, coinbase seems to be the best. Okay, so this is kind of my free money hack. So I call this microstrategy, strategy, mstr microstrategy versus bitcoin. And okay, so it’s very, very simple. So this becomes a philosophical debate. To say it short.
Eric Kim: I think the ultimate goal is to own Bitcoin, he or she, or the entities with the owners of the most Bitcoin shall win. And so for me, philosophically, you know, let us say that you could own, you know, 20 bitcoins, or you could own 2 million dollars worth of micro strategy. Mstr. Stock. Right?
Eric Kim: 1020, 30 years from now, right?
Eric Kim: You’re going to actually outperform. You’re actually going to make more money from microstrategy stock than Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, historically, has been 60% to 62% AR annual rate of return micro strategies is almost double that 120 to 1, 25 AR. So if you actually want to maximize your returns. You just buy microstrategy stock mstr and bitcoin. Right? But the issues is, you know. Let us say that Michael Saylor gets shot. He gets killed. He
Eric Kim: you know, dies in a Cybertruck, whatever. Right? Then, it’s probably not going to be the world’s best future for microstrategy. So it’s actually much more risky. So if you want the least risky option, it’s just put all your money into Bitcoin right? And some millennial living strategies. Right? So the the simplest strategy I have. I call it the Spartan strategy. This is why I personally follow. Is you essentially try to live as minimally and frugally and sparse as you can, and just put literally 90% of your income into bitcoins right?
Eric Kim: And a free money hack I discovered. So, for example, let’s say you have $150,000 or €150,000. Right? And you know I’m not 100 sure how it works. If you’re a European. What is right. But you, you buy micro strategy stocks. So let’s say you buy, you know, 100,000 or $150,000 worth of it right? And Mstr, and you use fidelity, or robinhood, or whatever trading app you have. Right.
Eric Kim: And the strategy is simple. It’s whenever you know. Let us say the base case 150,000.
Eric Kim: Let’s say your microstrategy stock value then goes up to 200,000. Right?
Eric Kim: You sell $50,000 worth of it, and then you just transfer that to your bank account.
Eric Kim: and then your bank account is linked with your coinbase account. Then you just buy the Bitcoin right and rinse and repeat so very, very impressive over the last 3 months, I started with initial seed capital of around $150,000 in microstrategy stock
Eric Kim: off of that $150,000 right? And I haven’t even touched my principal. I yielded $242,000
Eric Kim: off of that initial 150,000 right? And also for traditional Roth, Roth, Ira retirement accounts. I put everything into microstrategy stock, and it is already like 3 x like, for example.
Eric Kim: My roth, Ira, just kind of randomly was like what $78,000, and then the course of 3 months. It’s like now, it’s like 230,000. It peaked at around 300,000. So it’s going to be a good future. And so the the very simple strategy. So let us say you’re able to get down your living expenses to let’s say
Eric Kim: you know, 5,000 bucks a month or €5,000 a month. Right?
Eric Kim: the point isn’t to just make a bunch of money and just go out and buy the Lambo. The the goal is actually to continue to live for good. If anything live more fully. People who says like, Oh, you know, you want to get rich, don’t care about money or whatever. If you’re a real real greedy, you know money, loving person. Actually, the optimal strategy is.
Eric Kim: you live, you know. You continue driving your old Toyota Prius, and just pour all of your money in Bitcoin, because really the truth is and this is my philosophical thought is, there’s almost nothing worth on the planet purchasing.
Eric Kim: Besides, Bitcoin is my philosophical thought. So and also some e even more super smart economic leverage. Right?
Eric Kim: So instead of paying an arm and a leg for rent in La or New York. Brooklyn, you just move to like Southeast Asia. Right you go. Move to Southeast Asia, live like a king, for like 300 500 bucks a month. Right? You just put all your money to Bitcoins right? So even if you had a modest savings, right, let’s say you had like $200,000, and you had microstrategy stock.
Eric Kim: let’s say every month of the month is rent is due, and the expenses are due right? You just sell a small portion of that stock, and it’s going to go up. So my thought on the next 4 years, micro strategy, assuming it’s around 2 x Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is going to go up 120% error. I think micro strategy is going to double that 240% error. So just do the masses. At the end of every single month
Eric Kim: you make a small. Your gains go up like crazy right, and let’s say your living expenses are like under a thousand bucks, or if you, if you live in the States, 5,000 bucks, you sell X amount of monies to just support your living expenses, and you just continue to ride your gains. But ultimately my personal thought is whatever excess, money and capital you have just put it onto Bitcoin. So the micro strategy then ends up becoming the engine or the turbocharger or the cash cow. You milk it, and you shave the cream off the top, and then you buy Bitcoin with it.
Eric Kim: So I think the reason why to me Bitcoin is such a fascinating thing, and very exciting, is essentially Bitcoin is digital photography. Peter Diamandis, the ex guy. Right? You know, he talks a lot about kodak film. You know the iphone and disruption.
Eric Kim: So actually, intuitively, as photographers and digital photographers, we should actually understand. You know, this disruptive power about digital photography. So obviously, you have the hipsters with their mustaches and their flannels, you know, talking about the virtues of film photography.
Eric Kim: But the truth is, digital photography is like a quadrillion times better.
Eric Kim: And also currently, in the year 2025, incoming
Eric Kim: digital photography is actually superior to film photography. I mean.
Eric Kim: maybe in the early days of digital sucked right. But now, at this point, digital photography is far superior to any sort of film photography, and the only reason you should film in today’s world
Eric Kim: is either as like a practice to appreciate the joys of photography. So the philosophical approach.
Eric Kim: or you know, you’re trying to be some sort of like, you know, snoppy fine art photographer and overcharge money for your photos. Then you shoot film.
Eric Kim: because honestly, the the fine art market, they’re always going to overvalue film photos over digital photos, because it’s more complicated. It’s more strange, right? So in the art, in the art world, the more complicated, abstruse, and complicated, you can make your art the better. But for us.
Eric Kim: where you care about practical things, yeah, think about Bitcoin. So think about the iphone iphone pro versus your mom’s kodak Browning camera. I think the the thought is obvious. Okay.
Eric Kim: so how to start buying Bitcoin. Very simple. Just download the coinbase app, or you know if you if you don’t want to actually own Bitcoin, you just want to make a ton of money, just buy micro strategy stock Mstr, and use your traditional
Eric Kim: accounts. And I still think that this is the biggest thing is that everyone wants to become a millionaire, right?
Eric Kim: But you know what I think people want to do is
Eric Kim: they don’t want to earn like, okay, okay.
Eric Kim: people want to spend a million dollars.
Eric Kim: They don’t want to actually save and build a million dollars right? And so if you think about, you know, money and
Eric Kim: capital digital capital, I think about like Lego bricks, right? I just went to Legoland. Senecall is great. So let us say that
Eric Kim: each bitcoin, or dollar or 1 million dollars like these. Let’s say these are Lego bricks right? The goal is, you want to build your Lego Tower brick thing as tall as possible. You don’t ever want to
Eric Kim: get rid of your bricks and throw into the trash. That’s essentially what consumerism is. And this is actually another big philosophical thing I discovered is, what’s the difference between capitalism and consumerism. Consumerism is actually the exact opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is about accumulating wealth.
Eric Kim: building your capital and not spend it right. Even one of my favorite Kanye quotes is like why people make money don’t spend it. But I’d rather buy 80 gold chains go ignorant, right ignorant. And so the pernicious thing that happens in a lot of communities, especially poor communities. Right? I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes. Right?
Eric Kim: Happens to Korean people. It happens to everybody, right? Is that you know you live in a crappy apartment in K. Town with 20 other dudes. Yet you drive the brand new Bmw. And you’re not building any sort of generational wealth. Right? And so essentially, yeah, you want to build the capital and not spend it. And essentially, you want to start to intelligently leverage your capital
Eric Kim: to give to your future kids or your descendants, or whatever you want to do. Now, the hardest thing about Bitcoin is stomaching the volatility so volatile, mean. Just it goes up, it goes down, and then, like honestly for most people, it’s going to give them like 5. 100 heart attacks over right now
Eric Kim: I think of a Bitcoin kind of like nuclear energy, so
Eric Kim: nuclear energy in the untamed formed is obviously toxic could cause the next Fukushima whatevers right? But if you have a bunch of smart people, engineers, nuclear physicists working in a controlled manner, right? It’s like the greatest benefit to society, because to humanity, because essentially, you’re giving people free electricity forever. Right? And
Eric Kim: I think my personal thought is the volatility is a future not above. So the reason why Bitcoin goes up and down the sideways so much all the time, and you can have huge swings
Eric Kim: is because you could trade a 24, 7, 365 on the weekends in the evenings. Right?
Eric Kim: It still befuddles me that in the year 2024, 2025 like. Why is it that you know, after 5 pm. You know Eastern time, or on the weekend Saturday, Sunday like, why did they close the market? So what if there’s another Cuban missile crisis. It makes no sense right?
Eric Kim: And also the reason why it’s so volatile is that it’s actually the most
Eric Kim: desirable commodity on the planet. And there’s all these people with these weird Bloomberg machine terminals, whatever they are, always pegging everything to the Bitcoin. So a lot of people ask about ethereum dogecoin webs, right. I think Bitcoin is the only true.
Eric Kim: Everything else is the false prophets. Everything else is the false coins. The immaculate conception of Bitcoin and Satoshi.
Eric Kim: I think this is actually a big deal, because anything that is not Bitcoin, you know, ethereum and the like. They they need some sort of spokesperson, or, you know, individual to prop up the value right, whereas Satoshi, he invented it, he disappeared forever. Now the reason why this is such a big deal is that
Eric Kim: every other crypto thing which is not Bitcoin.
Eric Kim: It does not have a hard cap
Eric Kim: like you could print more ethereums. You could print more. Whatever tokens you cannot print more bitcoins, and that’s that’s the big thought.
Eric Kim: So. Volatility is vitality. Eric Kim. I actually didn’t say that. Sorry. That was actually Michael Saylor. I typed that in wrong. But essentially
Eric Kim: you know, volatility is vitality, and the more volatile the more energy the power you have, the more vitality you have. So once again, people think of volatility as being risk. That is actually not the case. Bitcoin is going to go up forever, but it’s going to be like an extreme roller coaster and go up down, but with extreme swings it’s extreme performance. So
Eric Kim: yeah, volatility is not risk. Volatility is just going up and down a lot, but essentially over a long enough time span. It’s going to go up forever.
Eric Kim: So I borrowed a lot of slides quite liberally from Michael Saylor. Some of these are from his recent Microsoft. Pitch. And yeah, just go. michael.com go to his presentations looking at yourself. So I’ll just make some quick points. So
Eric Kim: essentially, currently, Bitcoin is like a 2 trillion dollar asset class right? And this is also from Jesse Myers once in a species.com. And the reason why this is important is currently you know. Let us say the whole world’s economy is 900 trillion dollars, right? And
Eric Kim: what we have our eyes on is real estate. So real estate is, you know, most people don’t really just use real estate as a place to live right? Otherwise, you just rent. People use it for a long term store of value. So, for example, if you’re a really really rich family from New York City, you own, like 10 square blocks in Manhattan, and, you know, does your descendants sell, you know.
Eric Kim: a square block to buy himself a few Ferraris. No, that that would be a bad strategy. So the the tip I have for any single person trying to build intergenerational wealth. Keep it simple. Only one rule. You don’t sell the Bitcoin. If you face extreme poverty or financial distress, I don’t know. Become an Uber driver or something. Pay the bills, but don’t sell the Bitcoin.
Eric Kim: and currently I think we’re going to see is Bitcoin is just going to take over the gold market, which is 16 trillion dollars, maybe the cars and collectible art market.
Eric Kim: Now, a big thought is this is from Michael Saylor once again, is that
Eric Kim: all these assets on the planet.
Eric Kim: Some of half of it is to provide utility. Right? So, for example, you know.
Eric Kim: let’s say you need you need somewhere to live right? No so that provides utility right? But then, again, some of it is to preserve capital right? And
Eric Kim: as a 36 year old millennial nowadays. The pressures. Oh, you got to buy a single family home today, right? But the the reason I get so sus of people saying you should buy a house is that they’re like, oh, you essentially need somewhere to live. You’ll build capital. Blah! Blah, right? You don’t want to give money to land, but it’s like no, you only need one reason like you would only ever buy a single family house. If let’s say you really like having a backyard and a garage, or what is right. But it’s really not
Eric Kim: a money making thing, because homeownership is like a trillion, times more expensive than you would otherwise think, and as a consequence, with a single family home, even if the price is going up right
Eric Kim: at best, you might be breaking, even if not, you know, slowly bleeding yourself. Because, let’s say, real estate is on average, going up 10% a year, right? The money supply the inflationary. M 2 supply is 15% a year. So you’re actually kind of losing money.
Eric Kim: So the big thought is once again, you know.
Eric Kim: the optimistic thought is eventually all these long term sort of things are going to become digital capital. I still think about this, the Warren Buffett. They’re all gonna die. And then, when we, you know, take the take the mantle. What’s gonna happen the next 20 years, even if you’re 80 years old right now? 81 years old. Shout out.
Eric Kim: You know, I think I’m optimistic. We could live to be 100 20. So yeah, this is definitely the next wave. You’re not going to want to miss right? And you know, currently a lot of millennials. People like everyone wants to buy the Lambo or the Ferrari.
Eric Kim: You’re you’re going to lose the value of it in about 3 years. You want to live forever.
Eric Kim: So these are some kind of conservative growth estimates, according to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin 24 model. So in about 21 years, and this was still pretty conservative. Right? Bitcoin is going to become a 280 trillion dollar, you know thing right? So going from 2 trillion to 200 trillion, so at least 10 x. So you’re conservatively, you’re going to see your money at least 10 x in 21 years, which is pretty cool. Right? It’s not going to take over all these other things. It might, but it might not.
Eric Kim: Now people always ask.
Eric Kim: what is Bitcoin backed by? So I did the maths right and based on what other people say, too essentially the Bitcoin network. If you took all the apple Amazon aws servers, Meta.
Eric Kim: combine them all times 20, you could still not hack the Bitcoin network in in terms of the raw power that goes into powering. Think about like 20 nuclear power reactors powering the thing right? And also people don’t understand is there’s already been 850 billion dollars of quote, real money investment thing follow Blackrock. They just recently recommended most of their
Eric Kim: you know, owners to allocate at least 2% of their portfolio into Bitcoin, which is kind of a big deal. Look about what Larry Fink says. Blackrock is like what they own. What 40 trillion dollars of assets around the planet. They’re they’re kind of a big deal. And also it’s a network effect. So you remember, in the early days of Facebook. It was only it was only university students with the Edu address were allowed to join in. Then they opened up to everybody, and the network effect of Facebook is that
Eric Kim: if you have Facebook and I have Facebook, then Facebook instantly becomes more valuable to both of us, because I can now share my photos with you, whatever’s right. But then, if your friends friends also have Facebook, it becomes much more valuable to everything. Same thing goes with facetime right. The reason why I got you know I used to be a Diehard android dude. Now I’m like all icloud everything. It makes life so much easier. You get your mom an iphone. Now you get facetime imessage. It makes life way better.
Eric Kim: And so Bitcoin is going to be the same thing as more and more people are going to continue to download Coinbase or Whatevs. And also my optimistic thought is, if Apple doesn’t want to become irrelevant, it’s I’m very certain the next 5 to 10 years. Apple is going to have their own
Eric Kim: Bitcoin storage thing in your icloud account. It makes sense right. They have apple pay. They have the apple wallet. Essentially.
Eric Kim: apple is the new bank. And so now, when they do like a you know, a 3 device authentication for your bitcoins through your iphone, your ipad and your macbook pro whatevers.
Eric Kim: It’s actually it might actually be one of the most safe ways to store your bitcoins.
Eric Kim: Also things to think about. If you’re a traditional investor
Eric Kim: so there’s this notion called the cost to capital cost to capital that Michael Saylor says a lot. I might be getting this wrong. But
Eric Kim: essentially the S. And P. 500 right?
Eric Kim: on average, is like 14 to 15% return year over year. Right? So if you’re not making at least 15% or over 15% a year, you’re essentially losing your bleeding money. So real estate gold bonds is kind of a losing bet, right? And so the magnificent 7 which all the big tech stocks 28%, a little bit better, right? But look at Bitcoin. It’s like 62% year over year. And it’s kind of the obvious bet, right?
Eric Kim: And even if you think about you know, everyone’s talking about Nvidia Tesla. You know what is right.
Eric Kim: I think the reason why the mainstream media they don’t like to talk about micro strategy is that it’s still a little bit too weird and bizarre. And it’s not as buzzworthy as AI, because, okay, people like to think of this like evil Terminator AI, the video going to take over the world and find it right. But nobody is like Bitcoin, like
Eric Kim: Bitcoin is not an android walking around 2 feet, taking over the planet right? So people actually don’t like to talk about Bitcoin. And for so long people thought that Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme right. No one ever thought that AI was a Ponzi scheme. So the video always catches the headlines. But look at microstrates, look at the best performing stock on the human unit in the human universe
Eric Kim: over 3 x. That of Nvidia, which is already impressive, and Nvidia is already destroying Tesla by a massive margin as well. Right? So
Eric Kim: I mean? That’s that’s pretty obvious, right?
Eric Kim: Even Donald Trump watches a Nashville presentation. He quotes Michael Saylor directly, says, Never sell your Bitcoin. Apparently Eric Trump, the son of Donald Trump has known Michael Saylor for 20 years. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if that’s the case.
Eric Kim: I’m like a hundred percent certain that. You know, Michael Saylor essentially has the left ear of Donald Trump.
Eric Kim: And yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a very good thing.
Eric Kim: So if you want to plug and create your own models. Google, the Bitcoin, 24 model. It’s on Github
Eric Kim: plug in your own assumptions.
Eric Kim: And this is the big thing that I have my eyes set on. So currently, you know, it’s December right? And everyone’s waiting for the trump to get into the office January 20.th So this is a tricky thing. So I used to be Super Anti Donald Trump, right? Because I could care less about politics and stuff like that right? And
Eric Kim: but
Eric Kim: one Donald Trump became super super pro bitcoin. I started to listen and start watching all his interviews and looking like honestly the you know, I’m from the Bay Area like Liberal Democrat, my whole life right? And actually, I kind of realized, wow, the the left leaning media is kind of the they’re kind of the evil ones here. And Donald Trump, he seems actually kind of like a cool, nice nice nice guy, right?
Eric Kim: And the big thought is.
Eric Kim: there’s no, there’s not going to be a World war 3. What is right? And Bitcoin, under the trump administration is gonna explode, and it’s gonna be the
Eric Kim: the greatest 4 years of prosperity of all time, and this once again coming from like a super left leaning liberal. So this is a good thought so. Anyways. Let us say, you know.
Eric Kim: America leads the charge in the crypto Bitcoin revolution. Right? And yeah, I think
Eric Kim: assuming that America really wants to control the future. I think the America purchasing 6 million bitcoins is not fully out of this this planet. Right?
Eric Kim: So some thoughts on building personal family wealth.
Eric Kim: So the reason why I think this is kind of a big deal is that
Eric Kim: everyone wants to build wealth right. Everyone wants to be intelligent with their investing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nonprofit, a charity, a church, Mother Teresa, like every single organization, will always need money. Capital. If you have an endowment, you know, for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford Brown University. Whatever even the Uc. Is right, everyone needs money and capital right.
Eric Kim: and I don’t like to think too much about the macro, because I’m not an institutional investor. I just think about myself, my family, my best friends, my squad. Right? So the goal is building personal family wealth and how to intelligently invest. So a lot of people talk about timings. Oh, when should I buy Bitcoin? Should I time it the high. Then people take out these charts and these candlesticks, which is all just witchcraft and pseudoscience don’t follow any of that.
Eric Kim: Essentially the thought is.
Eric Kim: anytime is a good time to buy Bitcoin if it’s high, low, Middle, whatever. We’re going to keep buying the top forever. So recently I bought some more Bitcoin at $100,000. Right then it dipped down to 90,000 to 88,000 hit 103,000 again, and so I’m pretty sure that in 1020 years I’m going to be buying Bitcoin at 1 million, a Bitcoin, 10 million dollars a Bitcoin, 55 million dollars a Bitcoin, whatever is right, and because if you do the simple math, just think at least 4 years ahead, right? So if I could tell you with 100 certainty that Bitcoin is going to be 1.2 million a Bitcoin
Eric Kim: in 4 years
Eric Kim: as long as you’re buying it for less than a million dollars a coin. You’re going to be in the green like it’s it’s kind of a a good bet, right? And actually, also, ironically, my personal thought is
Eric Kim: chasing gains is a good thing, but also it’s it’s a good idea to not get quote greedy in the sense of maximizing your gains. So so, for example, right like, what’s the difference between getting a 38% yield and a 32% yield like the the difference is nominal. Don’t don’t worry so much about maximization, because even a lot of what I thought my trades were bad
Eric Kim: 2 years ago ended up being right. So as investors, we have to think at least 410-20-3040 years ahead of us. So don’t worry so much about the the short term
Eric Kim: so practical and pragmatic investing strategies right? So once again, so if I had a simple blueprint, so
Eric Kim: some some simple thoughts.
Eric Kim: there’s lots of different blends. You could do this, you could. You could be super simple. Just 100 to Bitcoin, buy it on Coinbase what is right, and just keep stacking forever.
Eric Kim: 100 legitimate. That’s the Bitcoin Maximus opposed the triple, triple Maxi, the triple Maximalist approach. If you just need to pay the bills whatever, and still stack the Bitcoins. My personal suggestion is put 80% of your wealth into Bitcoin and 20% of your wealth into micro strategy Mstr stock. And once again. This is this is what you do. So let’s say, for simplicity of math. Let’s say
Eric Kim: Let’s say you have a million dollars or a hundred $1,000, or you use whatever kind of a number you want, right? So put 20% that to microstrategy stock whenever it goes up
Eric Kim: beyond the principal, sell some of that stock and put that into micro strategies. Sorry. Put that into Bitcoin, and or use that money to just pay your your bills. So once again what I personally did right?
Eric Kim: $150,000 working capital into micro strategy Mstr stock. And let’s say, when it goes from worth $150,000 to $160,000. I’ll sell $10,000 worth that stock. That $10,000 gets deposited to my checking account, which is linked to my coinbase. Then I’ll just buy $10,000 worth of bitcoin right? Or, if you need that, $10,000
Eric Kim: for living expenses. Let’s say
Eric Kim: you need $3,000 to pay your rent. You take $3,000 of that to pay your rent, and you put the other 7% of that into Bitcoin.
Eric Kim: also some other definition. What’s the difference between being an investor, a trader versus speculator?
Eric Kim: So an investor, we want to be investors. We want to think about (102) 030-4050 years ahead of us. A trader is a bunch of these, like 20 year old. High testosterone degenerates, you know, single, you know, maybe addicted drugs, or whatever right, who just want to like look cool. I made a billion dollars in a month by using all these complicated
Eric Kim: statistical models. Blah! Blah! Right? But you don’t. You don’t want to be a trader because essentially it’s
Eric Kim: nobody could time the market. Not even God could time the market right. And what a speculator is people who invest in meme coins. So a meme coin is like buying a Dogecoin or shiba Inu, that the reason why these are not you should not do this is that it is extremely dangerous. You’re going to lose all your money, and it requires
Eric Kim: a charismatic leader to support it. So Dogecoin, right? Dogecoin is essentially elon musk coin right?
Eric Kim: But if one day Elon musk tweets. Ha! Ha! Doge was just a joke all along, right. It’s not worth anything. The value of it will pump it to 0, or if once again. Elon dies in a you know a robo taxi accident. The value of dogecoin is going to go to 0, whereas if Elon Musk dies, you know Bitcoin is going to still keep going up forever. So speculator is meme coins beyond bitcoin us Bitcoiners. We’re we’re investors.
Eric Kim: So you know, somebody also asked about, you know, monetary inflation right? So there’s this thing called the M. 2 monetary supply of the the rate rate inflation.
Eric Kim: And once again you’re going to have to exceed at least 13% to 15% to
Eric Kim: not lose money. So, for example, let us say, you have a billion dollars of us dollars in your checking account. Right? You’re going to be bled to death. Right? So in a year, your 1 billion dollar is going to shrink to 750 million down to 500 million, to 350 million. And essentially, you’re going to get a point where your money is worthless.
Eric Kim: And already we see this right now. So currently, the price of real estate, single family homes is exploding. But this is my critical view. How much of that is that the value of a single family house is higher versus our Us. Dollars are just simply worthless. Right? So if you just do the same simple maths, right?
Eric Kim: So let us say that. You know, minimum wage goes from $15 an hour to $20 an hour overnight for Mcdonald’s worker. Right? That means instantly. You see, 25% inflation. So your 1 million dollars in the bank is now worth only 750
Eric Kim: $1,000. So yeah, once again. The real real rich people. They store less than 1% of their wealth in
Eric Kim: Us. Dollars in their checking account like, you’re not gonna have Jeff Bezos bragging to other people that he has 10 billion dollars of us dollars in their checking account. No, it’s it’s all going to be in you know, stocks, or, you know, real estate. And actually, ideally, Bitcoin. Cyber cyber capital.
Eric Kim: So yeah, that’s that’s essentially the the end of my presentation.

New Protocols

So I thought the other day; now that I live in LA, Culver City… Life is different now than I was living in the suburbs of Orange County, like a two minute drive to my local gym etc.

And also, the tricky thing is that with the winter months, things are also different.

I recall that in the early mornings, when I was living in the OC, I would just put on my daily gym attire, drive to the gym, immediately hit the hot sauna wore myself up. But now things are a little bit trickier now that when I wake up in the morning, sometimes ridiculously early, the apartment is still cold, not a super strong impetus for me to go outside. 

Also, now where I live, is practically like 100%, 100 out of 100 walkability score. Here in Culver City, I’m living a walker’s paradise!

Now the reason why this is so important is that I’m kind of finally starting to figure out how critical it is for me to change my mindset, my approach, my protocol.

Also, now that Cindy is a century working full-time, and more often than not my time is a little more limited, the way I approach fitness is obviously changing and must change.

Recent innovations I’m happy for is after making a ton of money off of Microstrategy, buying two 50kg calibrated steel plates, which is about 110 pounds a plate.  it has been super super fun and cool because even lifting it up to rack it unto the barbell is a workout in itself! Also, have the time I’m just walking around town with Seneca, this might be the most walking I’ve ever done in my life, and all his arm carry him, and I’ve been noticing that also, my biceps are becoming a lot more buff and impressive. Even to myself!

Switching up the protocol

Even another weird thing is that as of late, I find that going on my walks my morning walks I was actually more important than lifting weights? I suppose the way I am able to double dip is that I’m like almost always wearing my 60pound weight vest, All day every day. 

So first, with exercise and fitness, I guess it is critical for me to change my mindset, and also my protocol on what to do, why I do it etc.

Also, what I think is so paradigm shattering with bitcoin is that now that we are all sons of bitcoin (Michael Saylor, @saylor tweet), we also have to change and replace and recapitalize on bitcoin as our base, concrete, bedrock foundation.

For example, if you’re building cyber Manhattan for the 22nd century, you don’t build it on bedrock on the main island. If you’re going to build in cyberspace, you need a totally new protocol, a totally new paradigm mindset.

Stick shift?

Every single car that I have purchased in my adult life has always been a stick shift Manual transmission car, five speed. And also my pride is I have never spent more than $3000 USD on a car in my whole adult life and I’m 36 years old, and the first bitcoin blogger photographer street photography millionaire that I know. Maybe the only one in the universe that was self-made?

How do you know if your self-made or not? If you practically had a single mom, who waited tables, clean houses, worked as a cashier, and also had a dad who would gamble away the rent money, threatening your mom with physical violence, and also mental violence if she didn’t cough up the rent money.

Now consider how pernicious this is; the real critical issue here is that not only are you trying to fight to stay afloat, but you’re also actively having somebody unplugging the hot water bath water.

I think this is also something that people who don’t understand growing up in a family of economic peril; once again it’s not just having two hard-working parents, struggling to work to minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent and expenses and put food on table; no, it is one mom working full-time While having a father who did not work ever since you were two years old, while actively gambling away the rent money. Double bad.

2025

We live in a really bizarre time, and I bet you it’s going to just get more and more bizarre. Once Donald Trump takes office January 20, 2025… You’ll see a huge paradigm shift.

First, obviously this will be good for us bitcoiners because bitcoin is going to go through the roof! Just look at the riveting talk that ERIC Trump did at the bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi, in essentially which he says that he is confident that bitcoin is going to get to $1 million a coin.

The reason why I feel like this is very very important to watch is that because he is a son of the incoming president, he will actually do everything in his power to make sure this manifested as a reality. 

Funny enough, I didn’t even know that Donald Trump had a son named Eric Trump, I guess all guys whose first name is ERIC our geniuses! And also ERIC Semler of similar scientific, another ERIC! And also another ERIC Balchanus, like one of the head ETF guys at Bloomberg, his name is also ERIC? We gotta make an ERIC squad! 

Why new protocols are so difficult

Once again, if you’ve been riding a horse and buggy whole life, and I pull up in a matte black cyber truck, what will be your reaction? Your mind will absolutely be blown, your jaw will drop, you’re going to think that the person in the cyber truck is like some sort of alien god. Even a fully rational person will probably drop on his knees, and start repenting for his sins whatever.

Or, let us say that I drop you into the 1950s, and selling that you pull up with a brand new iPhone Pro, and you go to the head of Kodak and telling them that you came from the future and that this iPhone thing will totally disrupt their business. What would their reaction be?

Why photographers and digital photographers should intuitively understand bitcoin

We are all passionate about photography yet for a lot of us, we make our money elsewhere. But if you were like an investor in Kodak, and I came from the future and I told you that this thing would come along and totally destroy your business and you’ll go broke, unless you shift and embrace this new economic protocol and innovation, isn’t the wise thing to adopt the change? 

Even Peter Diamandis said “Bitcoin is digital photography”. or, “bitcoin is the iPhone”. 

You know this often tied phrase that a lot of these skinny fat bearded flannel wearing salty loser say “Humph! Everyone thinks that they’re a photographer now!” (Yes the truth is everyone is a guitar for now, and this is a good thing.)

I wonder if the same sentiment exist amongst acid fund managers “with bitcoin, everyone thinks that they’re an investor now!”

I think all of us, if you’ve been following me since the beginning, don’t you know that we have all always been anti-establishment, anti-“the man“,– if so, shouldn’t you embrace bitcoin with open arms?

We the new goats!

I think the reason why paradigm shifts are so difficult to understand and embrace is that once again this is a big deal. For example, the paradigm shift of bitcoin is like if you suddenly came up to Michael Jordan, and told him that the whole time he’s been playing the game wrong, or that they totally changed the rules of the game, certainly wouldn’t he be confused, and upset?

Embracing the new is hard

One thing I learned from the ERIC Trump talk is that apparently, the protocol for email was around for like 25 years before anyone actually really decided to use it. And now for most of us, it might be the most critical way to communicate, and magically teleport messages all across the planet.

I think for so long we’ve been stuck in this kind of fatalist mindset about the whole banking system, financial system whatever; now that we are living the year 2024, the year 2025, come on… Why are the banks closed after like 5 PM Eastern time? And why are the traditional stock markets closed on Saturdays and Sundays, when we all have these super Ultramega computers that could take us to Mars and back?

Like let us consider you know the story when they say that apparently, the computers that got us to the moon were like half of the computing power of like a TI 84 calculator? Isn’t that the same error in which the operating protocols for the NASDAQ stock exchange were invented?

Also, during those times, America was the only center of the universe, Singapore wasn’t really on the global stage, nor Dubai or any of these other global super power nations. As a consequence, everything revolved either around New York Manhattan time, or London time. So being able to operate on the protocol of these random arbitrary American numbers were common.

Now that once again, we are a global planet, don’t we need some sort of global capital token that could instantaneously trade hands, 24 seven, 365, all day every day, with no delay no lag no friction, no annoying middleman?

the middle mans feel at risk? 

Let us say that your job is to manage other people’s money, and that your well-being and money comes from other people being dependent on you, your financial services etc., if that is the case, wouldn’t you be interested to have other people always be dependent on you?

You don’t need no middleman

I almost feel that middleman, are like the biggest parasites to society.

For example, kind of a low-key super greedy bad thing, in their early days of text messaging, SMS messaging, apparently it cost nothing for these huge telecommunications platforms to transfer and facilitate a text message exchange. Like it was already running on the same rails, and that to send a text message did not cost the carrier $.10 or whatever, it was free for them but they charged you an arm and a leg. 

Similarly speaking, do you remember in the early days of smart phones, you’re forced to sign some sort of arbitrary to your contract, before actually signing up for a phone plan? This was like some terrible mafioso thing.

I almost wonder, maybe, now, starting next year, people are finally starting to wake up to their senses and realize how traditional banking is such a scam.

Also other arbitrary things, like… You need to maintain a certain bank balance for the checking account to be free, and also these pernicious overdraft fees, late fees etc.? Do you remember like the early days of blockbuster?

Even apparently, when I was listening to an interview with ERIC Semler, when he met the executive a blockbuster and told him that Netflix was almost an existential threat to them… Most of these executives at Blockbuster just laughed directly in their faces, and told them to leave. Where is blockbuster today?

I almost feel like this is going to happen to everything. Everything is going to be disrupted, whether we like it or not. The intelligent strategy is to accept embrace and integrate these new protocols.

For example, obviously the Internet as we know it today is already running the planet. Imagine if 20 years ago your company did not embrace the Internet, where would you be today?

What is bitcoin?

, Bitcoin is like the new Internet, except in some ways it is far more valuable because it actually deals with money. Why is this so important? The reason why this is so important is that money is actually more important than technology, or money might be the most important technology. 

For example, let me give you example; obviously I love ChatGPT and AI, but I could live without it. Things will be less optimal, but still, I could live life without ChatGPT. But could you live life without money? No.

And honestly at this point, you need the Internet. If you don’t have access to Wi-Fi, at home, at the local coffee shop, if you don’t have 4G or 5G cellular data on your phone, you’re absolutely screwed.

How was wolverine made?

This is an interesting analogy, I think the way that they made wolverine is that they replaced his entire skeleton with adamantine steel. A very painful process. But this made him invincible pretty much.

They call him weapon X.

Maybe the process of bitcoin is like the same thing, if somebody took out your whole exoskeleton your bones everything your ligaments, and you’re forced to replace it with some sort of new add a man times steel, even if it did make you immortal, certainly you would not like the process very much because it will be excruciatingly painful.

Who doesn’t want to live forever?

Everyone must die, you must die. But if I could promise you immortality, in 100 perfect health and vigor and happiness and joy, wouldn’t you take it? Probably.

Bitcoin is like heaven on earth?

So what is the difference between bitcoin and every other asset? Bitcoin will last forever like 100,000 years, 1 million years, 100 million years etc. You’re shabby real estate might last 30, 40 years?

Think long

Apparently Jeff Bezos invested in this thing called like the 100,000 year clock, which will apparently run and work for like 100,000 years. And the reason why this is a critical thing is that course is us to think about the long-term.

Even the reason why I think Jeff Bezos might be one of the most underrated entrepreneurs of all time is that he really really really played the long game with Amazon, pretty much projecting the dominance of Amazon, over the course of 20-30 years. 

So in the early days of Amazon, when Jeff Bezos was still transporting books to the local post office in his Honda accord, and I came from the future and I told you that one day, he in Amazon would send you run the planet, what would you have told me? You would’ve probably laughed in my face.

Or, that Apple, in the early days of Apple, like when they’ll still Wozniak and Steve Jobs in their garage building Apple two computer computers that once again, they would be like a $3 trillion company, what would you have said to me? You would’ve thought I was a fool!

But then again, once again, to think about the future, 20 or 30 years is not only difficult, but requires grand creativity, almost like a detachment from modern reality. If you are too stuck in the present, you’ll never become anything grand.

buy big become big

I was reading some newspaper article or television thing about how after the bitcoin boom, like the number of bitcoin millionaires, or people with over X amount of bitcoin in their wallet has exploded.

What are my bitcoin price projections? Considering that we’re going to have non-Trump the first bitcoin president, and his blood son, ERIC Trump in his left ear, we’re definitely going to see the bitcoin act pass, the senator Cynthia Lummis act, in which America will probably purchase at least 1 million bitcoins. If and when this happens, you’re definitely going to see a mad rush and explosion in the value of bitcoin.

Why? Like Michael Saylor said, if you were an evil genius, and you were America, the smart strategy is to sell all of your gold and demonetized and deepen the capital assets of your enemy, Russia and China, and all the other BRICS nations, because then, assuming if America owns like 25% of the bitcoin network, then suddenly you get this insanely phenomenal best trade of all time:

1. You essentially demonetize “debank” the assets of China Russia etc., which still stores a lot of their wealth in gold.
2. You get a free trade, you don’t have to print more US dollars to purchase more bitcoins, you just use already existing gold reserves. 
3. You essentially make your country, America, the center of the economic planet, your conquer cyberspace, which is the next frontier, and you essentially control it forever.
4. You then back the US dollar stable coin with your bitcoin reserves, and then you make the US dollar coin the dominant coin of the planet.

Isn’t this obvious?

What is the American ethos?

Bet big, dominate, control it all!

ERIC