0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Mark mass

0:02

Show, where we're always talking about the decentralized

0:05

revolution, how the world is changing right before our

0:07

very eyes as we look at it through the lens of politics,

0:09

finance, and technology. Of course, that

0:11

technology is always Bitcoin, the decentralized

0:14

technology that's changing the world. And you know, I

0:16

like to bring to you some interesting guests.

0:18

You don't have to listen to me talk all the time, and that's what I

0:20

have for you today. I'm sitting down with

0:23

Morgan Richard. She is a financial

0:25

planner, yes old school legacy,

0:27

a financial planner. She's worked with Origin

0:29

Wealth Advisors. She's the host of

0:31

the Bitcoin for Advisors podcast.

0:34

She's the second half of Pierre Richard,

0:36

who we had on just recently as well. But

0:38

Morgan, thanks so much for joining me today.

0:41

Thanks for having me Mark Man.

0:43

We always get into so many good conversations

0:46

before we start recording, so let's go ahead and just jump right

0:48

into it.

0:48

But before we jump into the deep

0:50

endo.

0:50

The pool sort of where we were before, let's

0:53

maybe start just like a little bit higher up

0:55

and think about for a minute, you know, being

0:57

a financial planner, financial

1:00

advisor, why

1:03

do people need to have a personalized

1:06

financial plan.

1:08

Yeah, that's a great question. So I

1:11

think most people don't really want to think too much

1:13

about their finances because we

1:15

want to do more important things with our life,

1:17

right, Like we want to have families, we want

1:19

to be part of our community, we want to have a

1:21

place in the world, we want to think

1:23

about things creatively and you know, expand

1:26

ourselves spiritually. And if

1:28

you think about that, finances aren't really

1:30

on that long list of what's important to people,

1:33

but finances weave its way into

1:35

every single one of those categories. And

1:38

whether that's because money is

1:40

just it's a source of value, right, and that we're

1:42

able to put value on certain things and pay for

1:44

that, and it's a proof of work in a way, right

1:47

where people they charge

1:49

whatever it is that they're going to charge for a good or service

1:51

that somebody else would value, or

1:53

it's just that we really do live in this

1:55

financialized world as a result of you know, decades

1:58

and decades of continued

2:00

financialization of things. I think

2:02

it's a combination of the two for sure, and

2:05

that because of that, taking

2:07

a deep look at your finances, where you

2:10

want to go, where you are now and where you would

2:12

like to be and where you've been really

2:14

in the past is going to help make informed

2:16

decisions in the future that will lead you down

2:19

a responsible path.

2:20

Yeah, I find it odd. I

2:23

agree with everything you said, but I do find it sort of odd

2:25

that, like people will.

2:27

Spend so much time making money.

2:29

So, you know, school obviously,

2:31

continued education, you know, university

2:34

a lot of money and time and continued

2:36

university education, and then you know

2:38

they're going to spend all this time in their job. They're going to you know,

2:41

potentially try to you

2:43

know, climb up sort of that corporate ladder,

2:45

make more money. They're working over time.

2:48

I mean, they put so much effort into making money

2:50

and then once the money's made, they just like forget

2:53

about it.

2:53

Kind of a thing.

2:55

Seems kind of weird, but I guess yeah,

2:57

absolutely, yeah, And I guess a lot of it though, was

2:59

then given it to somebody else.

3:01

Right, Well, in a way, right, there are a lot of things

3:04

that people can do themselves to help set

3:06

themselves up to be in a better place.

3:08

So the first thing, right is you spend all this time,

3:10

like you were saying, making the money, and then the second

3:12

thing is making sure that you're saving properly, and

3:15

so for most people that's going to be at least twenty

3:17

percent of their pre tax income. It

3:19

obviously depends on where you've started, like

3:21

what you've started at, right, If you inherited money,

3:23

then maybe you can save less than that. If

3:26

you have a negative net worth, right because

3:28

you spend a lot of money getting student loan debt

3:30

and so forth, then yeah, you're going to want

3:33

to maybe save more than that twenty percent number. But

3:35

on average, twenty percent of pretext income is where people

3:37

need to start. I think where it gets kind

3:39

of hairy is that twenty percent of pretext income is actually

3:41

really difficult to do, especially in an inflationary

3:43

environment. And so what happens is

3:46

that people they get on some sort of

3:48

spending track and then they increase spend expenses

3:50

as their income goes up, because you know, oh,

3:52

I'm working so hard, I deserve it, I can

3:54

have these things, or oh my

3:57

kid needs this, or my spouse needs

3:59

that, or we have to you know, do whatever X, y

4:01

Z thing that somebody comes up with to do. And

4:03

then from there, it's kind of like how the

4:05

government they'll increase expenditures, but they

4:07

never really cut anything back and so things get

4:09

seemingly get added, but things don't get taken

4:12

away. And so in life everything is

4:14

trade offs, right, So when people do that in their personal

4:16

finances, what happens is that they just generally

4:18

save less or they accumulate debt, but

4:21

they don't really stop to think about what's going on.

4:23

And so I think if people were able

4:25

to just sit back and really look just

4:27

kind of at basic finances, like of what's

4:30

coming in, what's going out, many many people

4:32

would be in a much better situation.

4:34

Yeah.

4:34

I think of money sort of like time to time is

4:36

money, right, money is time, But you think about

4:39

like time and money are sort of the same in a sense,

4:41

well lots of senses. But I can

4:43

either at the end of the month wonder

4:46

where the heck did all my money go? Or where did all

4:48

my time go? Or we can plan in advance

4:50

where we want our time or where we want

4:52

to spend our time and money. And to your

4:54

point, yeah, most people just completely avoid that. I

4:57

want to just hit hit one more point real quick on this.

4:59

So you talked about personalized

5:01

financial advising. So most people, though, are

5:03

probably just going through their work plan, so

5:05

they're four A one K mutual fund whatever.

5:08

Right, So they're like pulling out of their paycheck and someone

5:10

else is sort of administering that without really

5:12

taking into account.

5:13

Their personal situation.

5:15

Is that sort of what you think the traditional

5:17

path of most people is sort of like this my

5:20

plan administrator. And then is there a

5:22

big difference into getting a personalized

5:24

plan?

5:25

Yeah, definitely. So a personalized plan is

5:27

going to be working with somebody who understands

5:30

you, your family, your specific situation,

5:32

has actually spent time not only listening

5:34

to what your goals are, but actually helping you come up with

5:36

them. A lot of the times what happens is

5:38

that people just say, okay, well, you know, I want to retire

5:41

and I want to send my kids at school, but I haven't really thought

5:43

about much else. Yeah, and so a good

5:45

financial planner is actually going to sit there and go

5:48

through what is going to make life be most

5:50

fulfilling for somebody, and what

5:54

is most fulfilling for not only that person but also

5:56

for the whole family, and then organizing

5:58

the plan around that. So that's

6:00

going to mean tailoring the person's

6:03

specific savings rate. It's going

6:05

to mean picking specifically how

6:07

the person is saving versus is investing,

6:09

or like what their asset allocation itself

6:12

looks like it's going to involve estate

6:14

planning of some kind, because they're going to eventually

6:17

either pass wealth or we want to make sure that even

6:19

if they don't want to pass wealth, that they're

6:21

provided for in some way during their life,

6:23

right, and that it should something

6:25

arise to something like where they were

6:27

to become incapacitated or so forth, that they

6:30

would have the documents in place that were necessary

6:32

to make sure that somebody who loves them can

6:34

take care of them.

6:34

Right.

6:35

So basic things like this where people don't

6:37

necessarily think about it when they're like, all right, well I get my four

6:39

one K match and you know, I spend money on blah

6:41

blah blah thing, and then I'm just that's the way

6:43

I do it. And so I think a lot of the times

6:45

there's just other aspects to a financial plan

6:48

that a financial planner in and of itself will just

6:50

help bring to light. And then a

6:52

good financial planner will help be collaborative

6:54

in that process because the financial planner obviously, like

6:56

we don't know the specific intricate

6:58

details of somebody's life. We can only give the

7:01

information based on the information that

7:03

we receive, and so what

7:05

I generally recommend is that anyone is

7:07

going to work with a planner, that they make sure that person

7:09

is really listening to them and that

7:12

they're working together on the plan rather than the advisor

7:14

just throwing a you know, a stack of papers

7:16

across the desk and say do this great.

7:18

I love that it's like a coach,

7:20

like it's somebody to kind of give you this outside perspective

7:23

and help you think through things and make sure you're checking

7:25

all the boxes, which is super important. So

7:28

now let's dig in a little bit. So before

7:30

we're recording, you were telling me that you're one of

7:32

seven, one of seven financial

7:35

advisors that are bitcoin financial advisors.

7:38

I don't think there's any official designation for that.

7:40

I guess you're somewhat self designating yourself

7:43

as a bitcoin financial advisor.

7:46

How has that worked for

7:48

the last seven years?

7:49

And so just at the time of this

7:51

recording, the Bitcoin ETF just got approved

7:54

and this changes everything. But let's talk about

7:56

pre what happened this last couple of days.

7:58

How has it been been a cooin financial

8:00

advisor when most people maybe aren't able

8:02

to buy bitcoin in a traditional

8:05

you know, method.

8:07

Yeah, so it's a it's basically uncharted

8:09

territory. It's applying

8:12

the current like

8:14

it's basically applying the legacy system

8:16

to what I believe is going to be the new system,

8:19

using the rules and the regulations as they are

8:21

today to help make informed decisions about

8:23

how people can save money,

8:26

transfer their wealth, and live in the

8:28

future when I do believe that bitcoin will

8:30

be used as a currency, not just you

8:32

know, this store value, I think it'll be you know,

8:35

the store value, the meaning of exchange, the unit of account,

8:37

the whole thing. And so I don't obviously

8:39

know how long that that's going to take, and so we need

8:41

to work in the reality in which we live. In

8:43

the reality that we live right now, right is more Fiat than

8:45

it is bitcoin, in which case we need to apply the

8:47

Fiat rules to bitcoin and make it

8:49

such that people can pass this and

8:51

use it in the way that is within

8:54

the legal framework of what's available. Bitcoiners

8:56

don't like to hear that, I think from me, because they want

8:58

to, you know, just say, okay, IRS is gone,

9:01

like none of this stuff matters. And maybe they're right, right,

9:03

Maybe in the future there's no more irs, there's no

9:05

more government. You know, we live in some libertarian, utopian

9:07

society and like you know, I hope that some

9:09

of these people get their wish and that would be great, right, But given

9:11

the fact that we don't, we're not living in that society, right,

9:14

we still need to plan around these things, and

9:16

so there aren't really like these rules.

9:19

We got to cut you off right there. We got to take into a quick

9:21

break.

9:21

But if you're just tuning in, you're listening to the Mark mass Show. I'm

9:23

sitting down with Morgan Rashard. She's

9:25

a certified financial planner with Origin

9:28

Wealth Advisors. We're going to talk more about how

9:30

bitcoin can fit into your retirement plan.

9:33

We're back with more in a minute. Don't go away, we'll be right back, all

9:35

right, Welcome back.

9:36

If you're just tune in, you're listening to the Mark Moss Show, sitting

9:38

down with Morgan Richard, a financial planner

9:40

with Origin Wealth Advisors. And you know, we're

9:42

gonna have to cut you off there real quick before the break. But

9:44

you were talking about how it can fit into

9:47

a portfolio and how people can think through it.

9:49

And some people think about this

9:51

utopian state that maybe one day we'll get there,

9:53

but I agree with what you were

9:55

saying, and I often say that we

9:57

have to sort of invest in the world as it is, not as

9:59

we wanted to be here, as we think it would be, but as it is today.

10:02

So I agree with that point for sure.

10:05

Let's talk about a

10:07

question I get asked all the time, and I'm sure you get asked

10:09

all the time how

10:12

much bitcoin should I buy? And

10:14

specifically like what type of allocation should

10:17

I buy? And I'm sure the answer depends,

10:20

So maybe you could talk about how you

10:22

would answer that question for different people.

10:24

Maybe you say, hey, if you're younger, higher income,

10:27

older, less income, or I don't know, how would

10:29

you answer that question?

10:30

I should say, yeah, absolutely,

10:32

I get asked this question all the time, and I think there's

10:34

variations on this question too, but why don't

10:36

we stick with the allocation one. That way we

10:38

can sort of keep it simple. So I

10:41

would say that all of this is going to depend on risk

10:43

tolerance, which breaks down to ability to take

10:45

risk and also willingness to take risk. Ability

10:48

to take risk is less often looked

10:50

at. Ability is like how often you are paid,

10:52

how likely

10:54

it is that you're actually going to receive that income, how

10:57

much money you actually have as far as net worth is con n

11:00

right, somebody who has two billion dollars can take

11:02

more risk than somebody who has two thousand dollars,

11:04

right, So things like that play into a ability.

11:06

People often think of willingness, you know, it's like do Bunge

11:09

jump or not? Right, They think of that when they think of risk torants,

11:11

and so generally the people say, oh, people who

11:13

are into bitcoin have high high risk. Tornt

11:15

says, because they're willing to stomach that kind of volatility,

11:17

and that certainly plays into it, but ability as

11:19

well. And then it's going to be how

11:22

well you understand the technology? So are

11:24

you new at this and you're not really sure whether

11:27

or not, like bitcoin's going to become a thing, you

11:29

know, you're probably going to take a lower percentage relative

11:32

to somebody who has you know, this

11:34

is everything that they do. They live, breathe,

11:36

and sleep and eat bitcoin, right, And so that's

11:39

gonna like they're understanding the amount of hours

11:41

that they've spent trying to learn about the technology is

11:43

going to be to look very different than somebody who's maybe read

11:45

a few articles on Forbes. And so I

11:48

think that that all plays into allocation. But that said,

11:51

I generally tell people that if they want

11:53

to be one hundred percent and bitcoin that

11:55

that I don't disagree.

11:58

We don't advocate that people be high undred percent

12:00

in bitcoin because generally, what I've

12:02

found is that in my practice, people have other

12:04

goals that are shorter termed than what bitcoin

12:06

allows for, in which case you need to have

12:08

FIAT to basically subsidize

12:11

that. But that if you have a decent emergency

12:13

friend, if you have somewhere between three and six months

12:16

worth of expenses saved in fiat, that

12:18

if you want to be one hundred percent in bitcoin, and you've

12:20

got a high risk tolrance both willingness and ability,

12:22

and you also have very

12:25

good understanding of the technology, then that's

12:27

fine by me. Bitcoin is a savings

12:29

technology, it's not investment, in which case

12:32

we don't tell people how much savings they're supposed

12:34

to have, right. I mean, we can guide

12:36

them and give them guidelines on how much they should accumulate

12:38

based on their goals, but we don't tell them from

12:40

a percentage standpoint whether or not it's

12:43

like you should be one hundred percent in savings or you should

12:45

be ninety five percent in savings, So that's going to be more

12:47

dictated by somebody's

12:50

overall financial picture and whether or

12:52

not having risk on investments

12:55

make more sense relative to their picture. That

12:57

said, I'm not one hundred percent allocator generally,

13:00

and so give people kind of more buckets.

13:02

So if you're young and starting out and

13:04

you really know the technology and so forth, your one hundred

13:06

percent. Most people in my practice actually generally

13:08

fall in this forty to fifty percent range where

13:11

you know, they're on board, they understand the technology

13:13

really really well. They are

13:15

using this as a long term savings vehicle. They

13:17

think that this is going to be their best bet

13:19

to hedge against inflation. They believe

13:21

that this is going to be money that they use in the future. That

13:24

said, they have enough short term goals

13:26

that it makes the most sense for them to

13:28

hold somewhere between you know, fifty to sixty

13:30

percent of their net worth in fe out related assets.

13:33

Generally, what we found is like that kind

13:35

of is the real sweet spot for people who really

13:38

have a good understanding of the technology, but like aren't

13:40

just you know, bitcoins not everything

13:43

in their life, And then for everybody

13:45

else, it's really kind of somewhere between three and ten percent.

13:47

I actually used to fall in this one percent camp

13:49

of like just get off zero have one percent. I

13:52

don't actually think one percent is enough. I

13:54

think that starting positions actually should be larger,

13:57

provided obviously that somebody is willing to take

13:59

that risk, but because I

14:01

just don't think that one percent of somebody's net worth

14:04

is going to be enough to hedge against all the

14:06

other risks out there of not holding bitcoin,

14:08

in which case three percent, while

14:10

it's not, you know, a fail safe, it's definitely

14:12

going to help more than one percent.

14:14

Yeah, that was a really

14:16

good breakdown.

14:16

I would agree with a lot of that, I think

14:19

as far as the one hundred percent allocation, I

14:21

am I'm opposed to that. But

14:24

but I'll say that with a caveat, and that is

14:26

that I think that the more assets.

14:28

You get, the more you want to diversify

14:31

that.

14:32

You know. Obviously, Warren Buffett talks about, you

14:34

know, concentration for growth and diversification

14:37

for protection. But I

14:39

learned the hard way in two thousand and eight after selling

14:42

two businesses, after building

14:44

tons of real estate, and

14:47

I was all in on southern California

14:49

real estate, and that turned out very horribly

14:51

for me. So my PTSD,

14:53

I'm like, never all in, and I get like the smaller

14:56

allocators, the plubs, the younger people. If

14:58

you will, you got a thousand bucks, are two

15:00

thousand bucks? Like you're all in? You got

15:02

five million or ten million? Like

15:04

you probably want to buy some other things. So I

15:06

think it sort of depends on that as well.

15:09

I totally agree, And I think that's also why,

15:12

I mean, we generally deal with a higher networth population

15:14

and why people generally follow these forty to fifty

15:16

percent allocation ranges is exactly because

15:18

of that.

15:18

Yeah, So I think a lot of the noise that I hear online,

15:21

oh one hundred percent go in or the

15:24

cell your chairish movement, you know, yeah,

15:26

if you got two thousand bucks, like go all in? What do you got

15:28

to lose? Kind of a thing, right, But Michael

15:30

Saylor as bullish he is.

15:32

I've been to his house.

15:33

He's got really big houses, and he's got really

15:35

big boats, and he's got businesses, right, so he

15:37

has other things like that. I

15:40

also liked what you said about the time frame,

15:43

right, So I think that's another

15:45

big piece.

15:45

Right.

15:46

So bitcoin typically sort

15:48

of runs in these cycles, and maybe there hasn't been

15:50

a period of more than about three years where

15:53

the price has been down and I, as

15:55

I said, sort of came from this real estate sector and

15:57

it was sort of like time five year timeframes

16:00

typically think about that cycle. So then

16:02

would you typically tell some of your clients,

16:04

like, hey, only put money into bitcoin that you

16:06

could allow to sit there.

16:07

For at least three, four or five years.

16:10

Do you give them some sort of.

16:10

A time I generally go longer than that.

16:13

My feeling is that these cycles

16:16

may you know, they may or may not be related to the

16:18

having. Every time they have been related

16:21

to the having, and therefore like, yeah, we can kind

16:23

of look at past performance and maybe

16:25

predict future performance, but maybe we

16:27

can't, right, in which case it's

16:29

probably better to air on the side of like not needing

16:31

this money for more like eight to ten to fifteen

16:33

years generally if somebody doesn't,

16:37

I'm really more looking at a ten year timeframe for

16:39

people to be holding things in general. That's

16:41

kind of how I look at risk ask assets in general.

16:43

So, whether it be to stock market, real estate,

16:45

anything like that, where especially real estate where you're

16:47

going to have intense costs

16:50

right to sell and so forth, you

16:52

want to be holding these for longer time periods so

16:54

that it makes sense. And same thing with bitcoin.

16:56

It's like we are here for the long term.

16:59

If you need something over the shorter period

17:01

of time that we are planning for, we're not using bitcoin

17:03

to plan for it. Bitcoin to me is like especially

17:05

well for younger crowds, right, it would be a retirement asset.

17:08

For older crowds, it would be a portion of retirement

17:10

assets because they have generally long periods

17:12

of time where you're actually in retirement. Most people

17:14

have a thirty year retirement period, let's call it.

17:17

And then also legacy planning, right, Bitcoin would

17:19

be a great tool for that. There are other longer

17:22

periods of time, like let's say you have student

17:24

loan debt or something like this, and you're in one of these income based where

17:26

you became payment programs. These are twenty

17:28

thirty year periods of time, right where you could use bitcoin

17:30

as a savings vehicle to help headge against a tax

17:32

bill or so forth for any of these kinds of things. So

17:35

it's just kind of looking at the time period and making sure

17:37

that it's long enough to be able to withstand cycles.

17:40

Yeah, it's a great point, and I think about some of these traditional

17:42

vehicles to invest through, like an IRA or

17:44

four oh one K, where your money's basically locked

17:47

up in there anyway, you have penalties to get it out. So

17:49

if you think about it in those terms, like hey, I'm locking

17:51

it up, I don't get it for later, I think you'll

17:53

probably be better off. Obviously, the long term perspective,

17:55

we'll get into that. I want to jump into

17:57

now the big elephant in the room, which is the

18:00

biggest news in Wall Street. It's all over

18:02

mainstream media right now, and this is the Bitcoin ETF.

18:05

So I want to talk about the Bitcoin ETF, what you think about

18:07

that long term locations for bitcoin and

18:09

for your clients. Before we do, I gotta take a very

18:12

quick break. So if you're just tune in, you're listening to the Mark

18:14

Moss Show, sitting down with Morgan Shard, a

18:16

financial planner, and we'll

18:18

be back with more on the Bitcoin ETF in a minute.

18:20

Don't go wait, bear back.

18:21

Hi, welcome back. If you just tune in you're listening to the Mark

18:23

Moss Show. I'm sitting down with Morgan Rashard.

18:26

She is a financial planner with Origin

18:28

Wealth Advisors, host of the Bitcoin

18:30

four Advisors podcast. So if

18:33

you're in that niche, you should definitely be checking her out.

18:35

But let's talk about Morgan. Let's talk about the big

18:37

news here. The ETF, the Bitcoin ETF

18:40

finally came through. You

18:43

know, it's been in the works

18:45

for years. At this point it seemed like Bitcoin,

18:47

I'm sorry, Wall Street was always gonna want to sort of get their

18:50

grips on this, if you will. So

18:52

the Bitcoin ETF is approved yesterday,

18:55

Wednesday, January tenth,

18:57

and it's now changing things pretty

18:59

rapid. Let's just start from a big

19:01

picture analysis. I guess, what's your sort of viewpoint

19:04

out on this from an advisor

19:06

standpoint?

19:07

Yeah, So as an advisor, this doesn't really

19:09

affect my practice at all. So

19:11

what I've tried to focus on for the

19:13

last I've been advising on bitcoin basically since twenty

19:15

sixteen, and what I've advised clients on is

19:18

that we buy bitcoin outright and we store it properly,

19:20

and so to me, that's self custody, and that

19:22

we do that either in a single SIG or a multi sig

19:24

solution. And so to me, the ETF,

19:27

while it doesn't really necessarily

19:29

affect my practice or how we're going to do things

19:31

going forward. Obviously, it does affect the industry

19:33

going forward and how financial advisors are going to

19:35

be approaching this. I think that

19:38

if i'm my hope is that it's a stepping

19:40

stone. My hope is that people

19:42

allocate to bitcoin through the ETF

19:45

and that they use this as a stepping stone to realize

19:47

that, hey, maybe I want to figure out how this technology

19:49

works now that you know it's this you know,

19:51

multi billion dollar asset and so forth, and

19:54

it's been around for fifteen plus years and it's now

19:56

an ETF, and maybe this

19:58

is something that's really worth more my time. And

20:01

so even though I've got this one percent or two percent

20:03

allocation with my advisor, I'm

20:05

now going to take it upon myself to buy

20:07

bitcoint outright and see how it works and so forth,

20:09

and eventually I will be like all of Morgan's

20:12

clients and take self custody. That's my great hope.

20:15

I obviously, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm

20:17

an optimist when it comes to thinking whether

20:19

or not that will be what people actually do. I think that

20:21

it's much more likely that most people get their

20:23

assets parked in the CTF. They

20:26

don't necessarily look at what it is or even think

20:28

about having it in their portfolio. They

20:30

just see it as a diversifier that their advisor

20:32

told them is prudent for whatever reason,

20:34

and they don't even give it a second thought. But

20:36

there will be a percentage of people who do

20:39

actually go down the bitcoin rabbit hole,

20:41

so to speak. And that is beneficial, I think,

20:43

because the more people who take self

20:45

sovereignty over their money. Right, that's the whole point of

20:48

this project, is that we start to remove these third

20:50

parties, these trusted their parties, and we start to

20:52

retake control of our money. And

20:54

then we have you know, we're outside

20:56

the purview of the government, you

20:58

know, government surveillance and so forth on all of our transactions.

21:01

Like people have a right to that. And

21:04

this is not like conspiracy theories. We obviously

21:06

know that the government is looking at every single one of our transactions.

21:08

Obviously they're not you know, honed in on what Mark

21:11

Moss is specifically doing or what Morgan Richard is

21:13

specifically doing, right, but they could be if they want it to

21:15

be. And so I think just like it's

21:17

un American obviously, and that

21:19

for most people, right, even if they don't

21:21

necessarily agree with like the libertarian utopia

21:23

that we were talking about earlier. For most people, they still

21:25

just want to live their lives and not be bothered by the government.

21:28

And so I think that this

21:30

adds to that project in a way that it's becoming

21:32

more you know, institutionalized, that this

21:34

is something that's here and here to stay, and

21:37

that you know, the government necessarily isn't going to attack

21:39

it. But it doesn't It doesn't help

21:41

move it move the project forward in the regard of people

21:43

actually using bitcoin the way it's meant to be used.

21:45

Yeah, so it helps them with

21:47

their debasement of their savings, but doesn't

21:50

really advance the project forward.

21:52

I get messages all the time. I'm sure you do as

21:54

well.

21:54

I think I just yesterday I got one and

21:56

someone asked me specifically, you

21:59

know, I'm thinking about liquidating my entire four oh

22:01

one K and paying a massive penalty and just putting the whole

22:03

thing into bitcoin. Do you think that's a good idea? Which,

22:05

I mean, I can't really answer that question. But in

22:08

this type of environment an ETF, they don't necessarily

22:10

have to do that, right, So

22:12

they don't have to liquidate their entire four oh one K

22:15

and pay a penalty. They could just now move some of

22:17

that into bitcoin now because there's

22:19

an ETF solution for that.

22:20

Right, Well, it depends, right

22:22

because sometimes these four oh one K plans have specific

22:25

investments that they're allowed to invest in, and so if

22:27

the plan itself allows for bitcoin investment, then

22:29

obviously they could do that. If the plan doesn't,

22:32

then they wouldn't be able to do that. They would still

22:34

have to liquidate their four O one K and pay the penalty and

22:36

so forth. So I think it would depend on whether or not you're

22:38

able to self direct and so forth.

22:40

Are a lot of those able to be converted over into

22:43

a self directed four oh one k.

22:45

Again, it's also going to depend on the plan and

22:47

who is administrating the plan and so

22:49

forth. So I'm sure like I've seen fidelity

22:52

of plans where that's where it's kind

22:54

of open allocation or open architecture to to

22:58

allocate a certain percentage of your four O one k, but

23:00

not the whole thing to be self directed. Other

23:02

options that people have would be like if they separated

23:05

from an employer to roll it over into an IRA

23:07

and not take the penalty and then work with a

23:09

company like Unchanged Capital or so forth to

23:11

set up like a collaborative custody

23:13

multi sig Ira and so forth, And obviously

23:15

they're going to be fees associated with doing that, but then you're

23:17

holding bitcoin the right way. So there the

23:20

avenues are available, but the penalty

23:22

would still apply, just depending on whether or not the

23:25

four oh one K itself is allowing for the ETF.

23:28

Okay, So just because there's an ETF doesn't

23:30

mean that your four oh one K will have access to

23:32

it, because it has to.

23:34

Yeah, definitely, and I would say if anything, it

23:36

will probably mean that people will not have access

23:38

to it for a while because there are all sorts

23:40

of rules and regulations that govern four oh one

23:42

K plans, and most four

23:45

oh one K providers are going to take a conservative

23:47

approach to what they do and don't allow their participants

23:49

to invest in.

23:50

And a lot of the four oh one K stuff

23:52

is managed. I mean, it's what we talked about,

23:55

So it's not self managed, it's managed for you. So they're

23:57

the ones that are sort of dividing that up and

23:59

divvying that up a making your investments for you. So

24:01

it's sort of like I'm asking

24:03

a question, but is it sort of like where

24:06

that plan administrator at some point,

24:08

and it might be years from now, would decide

24:11

that he wants to bring big one into the allocation and then

24:13

you get it that way.

24:15

Well, so generally pensions

24:17

work more like that, where there are actually

24:21

like a money manager that chooses the asset allocation

24:23

based on actuary assumptions

24:26

about who is in the plan. The

24:28

four to one K plans are what's called divine contribution,

24:30

and so what the plan administrator does is they

24:32

pick what people are allowed to invest in

24:34

in the plan, but they don't pick the allocation the

24:36

person themselves. They decide like

24:39

how much money they're going to put into the plan, and

24:41

then how they're actually going to invest that money.

24:43

Generally, what the plan administrator does is they set

24:46

some sort of allocation in one of these target date

24:48

style funds that's based on your age and when

24:50

they think you're going to retire, and they force you into

24:52

that, and then the onus is on the participant

24:55

to go in there and actually change their asset allocation

24:57

based on what other funds are available.

24:59

Okay, so maybe

25:01

not a big influx from people

25:03

that are already in these traditional vehicles, the four

25:06

to one k's, et cetera. Because of different

25:08

rules and regulations that are there.

25:10

Yeah, I would say, like the IRA crowd is going

25:12

to benefit more because the IRA crowd, like

25:14

they didn't want to take maybe their assets out of their

25:16

IRA and pay the penalty, or they didn't want it, or

25:18

they didn't know about a company like

25:20

unchained Capital, or don't want to do something

25:22

like that because it seems risky, and

25:25

so they would benefit from

25:27

the ETF for sure. I mean there's trillions of

25:29

dollars in these IRA style plans,

25:32

so I mean the ETF will benefit

25:34

from that.

25:34

You told me before we started recording that some

25:36

of the bitcoin financial planners

25:39

were being I don't know, investigated,

25:41

they're coming after you something like that. I

25:43

don't know if you want to touch on that briefly. But

25:46

also do you think that now with this

25:48

sort of more institutional adoption with ETFs

25:50

sort of takes some of that pressure off.

25:52

Yeah, I kind of wonder. So the CFP Board

25:55

of Enforcements, So I'm a member of CFP

25:57

board just because I have the CFP designation

26:00

and I've been a member since twenty sixteen,

26:02

and we have a website

26:04

called the Bitcoin Financial Advisors Network. There's

26:07

like seven or eight of us on there, and

26:09

basically what we do is we help clients buy

26:12

bitcoin outright and take self custody for the most part,

26:14

or we just work with clients

26:16

who want to own bitcoin in some capacity. And

26:18

so, prior to obviously the ETF being

26:21

issued right, this is not something

26:23

that financial advisors could touch, and so we

26:25

create this network to be just sort of a directory where

26:27

people can find people like me who are

26:30

very happy and willing to help people who are interested

26:32

in bitcoin. The CFP

26:34

board came found the website and decided,

26:37

for whatever reason, that we may or

26:39

may not be doing something that they agree with. We

26:41

actually don't have that much information on

26:44

what it is that they are suspecting is

26:46

wrong about the network, other than the fact

26:48

that we all advise on bitcoin. And so they

26:50

asked some questions that I felt

26:53

personally were not We're

26:55

beyond the scope of what was allowable

26:57

for them to ask, like specific, not specific

27:00

client information, but like just kind

27:02

of wondering about client's asset allocation and so forth,

27:04

and how they store bitcoin in my practice, and like what

27:06

my role in that is. And so I

27:09

responded very kind of tersely that

27:12

this information is confidential, and so give me more information

27:14

about what you're looking for, and maybe we'll give you more information

27:16

type of the thing. We all submitted

27:19

our responses last week, and we're

27:21

still waiting to hear back from the CFP board about

27:23

what they're going to do with that information and

27:26

what they're going to do with us. But so far it's

27:28

been a pretty poorly done

27:31

investigation, I would say, because they asked for publicly

27:33

available information from a lot of us, and

27:36

they also got my gender incorrect. So I

27:38

thought that was kind of funny that they didn't even go on the website

27:40

to see whether or not I was a man or a woman and

27:42

just called me mister Rochard. So maybe they're actually after

27:45

Pierre.

27:45

And I mean, if

27:47

you're just tuned in, you're listening to the Marc Moss Show. I'm sitting

27:49

down with Morgan Rishard, a financial planner,

27:51

as you just heard, and we're talking about how bitcoin

27:54

fits into that. When we come back, I want to talk

27:56

about how you talk to your

27:58

clients about bitcoin and and sort of this future

28:00

that you paint for them. I gotta

28:02

take a very quick break, though, don't go away.

28:04

We'll be right back. All right, Welcome

28:06

back.

28:06

If you just tune in, you're listening to the Mark Moss Show.

28:08

I'm sitting down with Morgan Richard. She's a

28:10

financial planner and a bitcoin

28:13

financial planner and she is with Origin

28:16

Wealth Advisors, also the host of the Bitcoin

28:18

for Advisors podcast. Morgan,

28:21

let's talk sort of about this like future

28:24

vision that you have. So you talked about sort

28:26

of like talking to your clients and you mentioned

28:29

like how well do they understand the

28:31

tech? That was kind of one of the things that you threw out, right,

28:33

So depending on where you how

28:36

well you understand it and where you think it's going, then you can

28:38

decide how you want to allocate.

28:40

But if I think about this, you

28:42

know, I think you would agree.

28:43

Bitcoin is a commodity, so we value

28:46

it like a commodity, not like an equity. So equities have

28:48

cash flows and things like that, so

28:50

there's some sort of calculation intrinsic value,

28:52

which that's a whole different topic. But a commodity

28:54

is basically supply and demand driven, right Copper,

28:58

Right, Copper goes up when the economy is good, Copper go down

29:00

on the economy's bad. Right, for example, right,

29:03

uranium, Right, do we think nuclear

29:05

is going to be bigger in the future or less in the future, And

29:07

you sort of play commodities like that,

29:09

So it's really driven off supply and demand. I don't

29:11

really have to understand exactly how uranium

29:14

is get got out of the ground and how it

29:16

then powers nuclear reactors.

29:18

So I don't really need to know the tech behind the uranium.

29:20

I just need to know if it's going to be in more supply and demand.

29:24

So I'm curious, you know, how how

29:27

you think about now that we're a little bit further along

29:29

now, especially with the ETF sort of maybe

29:31

changing the paradigm or crossing the chasm,

29:33

if you will, do you

29:35

talk about it more like a commodity and just like,

29:38

hey, do you think the government's print more money in the future

29:40

or less? Do you think governments are more authoritary

29:42

in the future or less from a supply demand

29:44

aspect? Or do you still think it's important to

29:46

like really get into the nitty gritty details

29:49

of the tech.

29:50

Yeah, so it's a great question. Right, you don't have to

29:52

like know everything about your car in order to

29:55

start the ignition and be able to put

29:57

gas in it. Right, but you should know that you shouldn't put diesel

29:59

in in your car if it's not a diesel engine

30:01

and so forth, and so yeah, I mean I think

30:04

in regards to bitcoin, it's the same thing. There are certain things

30:06

that people are really going to have to know, whether

30:08

or not they need to know all the intricate details

30:11

of buying and how nodes work, and you know

30:13

what miniscripts are. Obviously I don't agree.

30:15

I don't think people need to know that. What people do

30:17

need to know though, because it is so volatile,

30:20

is why they're going to hold this. Because

30:22

what you don't want to have happened, which has happened time and

30:24

time again, is that people buy it at the absolute

30:26

top, right, and then they can't hold through the

30:28

cycle, and so they're worse offt

30:30

right for buying it and then immediately selling, even if

30:32

they had the long term goal of being able to hold this for

30:34

ten plus years, because they don't actually need that money for

30:36

ten plus years. And so understanding the technology

30:39

to me is it's actually similar to what you're talking about, right.

30:41

Will governments be more or less authoritarian

30:43

in the future, like generally people think more so just

30:45

given everything that's going on it, Right, Will governments

30:47

continue to print money, Yeah, until we take their money printer

30:50

away. Right. They've shown time and time again that they're going to do

30:52

that. And so you want to be able to opt out of

30:54

the system in a way where there's

30:56

less uncertainty with your savings. And so savings,

30:59

the whole point of savings is that we minimize

31:01

uncertainty. We don't minimum, we don't reduce risk,

31:04

right, because there are different risks that are measurable and so forth.

31:06

But we do minimize uncertainty because there are different

31:08

things that are going to happen in people's lives, whether they

31:10

be good or bad, and you need savings in

31:12

order to help in those situations,

31:14

whether they are good or bad. And so bitcoin is

31:16

one of those things that, Yeah, it can help with minimizing

31:19

long term uncertainty, but it can only

31:21

do that if you're willing to hold it for a long period of time, in

31:23

which case, again you're going to have to make

31:25

sure that you understand why you're holding it.

31:27

Yeah, let's talk about that holding for long periods

31:29

of time. I've said many times, like when people

31:31

ask me at what price will you sell your bitcoin?

31:33

And I'm like, well, you don't really understand how

31:35

building wealth works because the goal

31:37

is to get more assets. My goal is

31:39

to get more assets and then pass those assets onto

31:41

my kids, not to get more FIAT and

31:44

so like I want to Typically

31:46

I think about assets in three categories, the

31:48

best being scarce assets,

31:51

so fine art collectibles and waterfront

31:53

property and bitcoin, things like that that can outpace

31:55

inflation. And my goal is to get more

31:58

of those things and not less, like

32:00

why would I want to sell it? And so you talk about

32:02

this long term perspective, do

32:04

you think about when you think about this long term perspective?

32:06

Are you thinking, like I mean, is that what you tell your clients,

32:09

Like, hey, the goal is to get more assets, pass those assets

32:11

down to your kids. Your balance sheet is your scorecard,

32:14

not selling them as a trader trying

32:16

to get more dollars in your bank account. Is

32:18

that sort of how you think about that long term perspective.

32:22

Yeah, So we like to frame the long term

32:24

perspective relative to what the client wants to do in

32:26

the long term. So for most people, that's going

32:28

to be living some kind of comfortable retirement.

32:31

Maybe it means traveling, maybe it means

32:33

starting a business. Right, there are all sorts of reasons why

32:35

people need money in the future, whether it be today or thirty

32:37

years from now, and so we

32:40

like to frame how we're saving in

32:42

those terms and making sure that we are

32:44

presenting scenarios that are relative to what

32:46

the client wants to do. So if, for instance,

32:49

the client has a huge goal of

32:51

legacy planning right where not only do

32:53

they give to their kids, but they also give to certain charitable

32:56

organizations that are important to them, Like,

32:58

how can we set those things up so that maybe

33:00

the charitable organization could actually hold the bitcoin

33:03

and so forth Right, These are all kind of areas that we're

33:05

now planning into, and so setting it

33:07

up is like if it's kind

33:09

of like how they came up with that. I think it was like this app

33:11

where you can actually make yourself look older,

33:14

so it would force you to want to save because you're like, oh,

33:16

I can see myself in the future. While

33:18

that app I think probably fizzled out, it

33:20

does help people to actually kind of think about

33:22

what they would be doing, even obviously if they changed their

33:24

mind. But having more savings is going

33:27

to provide flexibility, whether you know exactly

33:29

what you're going to be doing in thirty years or not. And so being

33:32

able to like put sort of the framework

33:34

around what will that person specifically

33:36

be doing in the future is going to help with that long term

33:38

savings plan. And yeah, having more rather

33:41

than less is generally going to be helpful. I

33:43

do think though, that if bitcoin does

33:46

become a global reserve currency, we could potentially

33:48

be in a situation where, if you know, inflation's

33:50

not really the factor that we're looking at anymore,

33:52

and maybe we are in some sort of deflationary

33:55

position where you know, we're not trying to accumulate

33:58

so much as just preserve. But

34:00

we don't live in that reality yet, right, So we're still

34:02

in that accumulation no matter kind of what stage

34:05

of life you're in, even if you're in retirement. Yeah, you still

34:07

need to accumulate throughout retirement by not spending

34:09

more than you can.

34:10

Yeah. And I just think I

34:12

love that you frame it up like savings. That's how I think

34:15

about I try to not think

34:17

about investing. I think about savings. So when I buy

34:19

real estate, which I still buy. Sorry

34:21

bigoin guys, I know I hate that I still buy real estate

34:24

waterfront property, but

34:27

I think about my real estate, and I think about my bitcoin.

34:29

Of savings, I'm just saving that.

34:31

That's just where I put my money, right, I

34:33

do I think if some investing is more like some

34:35

specuative stuff that I do. I do obviously

34:38

do the Bigcoin Opportunity Fund. You know, I'm investing

34:40

in startups and VC stuff and stuff

34:42

like that, so that's more of like my investment stuff. But yeah,

34:45

real estate bitcoin, that's like long term savings.

34:48

I know you're working on a new book,

34:50

and I know that's probably not coming

34:53

out anytime soon, but I'm wondering if you want to give

34:55

us a little sneak peek on that and kind

34:57

of what your goal and intention is of that

34:59

book. Yeah.

35:01

So I wrote a book already called

35:03

The Personal Finance Quick Start Guide, and it's

35:05

really a feat financial planning book with a very small

35:07

sliver of bitcoin in there. And got

35:10

actually pretty good feedback from the bitcoin community

35:13

about the book, but them wanting more

35:15

from a bitcoin perspective, and really me

35:17

wanting to deliver more from a bitcoin perspective.

35:19

There isn't any book out there right now that's

35:21

specifically about bitcoin financial planning. There

35:24

are a lot of books out there about why you should buy it and

35:26

what it is, and you know how it can help

35:28

you in all sorts of aspects of your life, and you know

35:30

what's wrong with the money, right You can go on and on. There's

35:32

a list of so many bitcoin books out there, and there

35:34

are a lot of very talented authors. So this

35:36

is not a knock on any of these people, you know, I

35:38

think of what everyone is contributing to the community

35:40

is amazing. But I do think

35:42

that my role here just given what I've

35:45

seen and like we basically

35:47

in the last three four years only have

35:49

people coming through who have large Bitcoin

35:52

positions, and so the territory

35:54

that I'm in right now and the financial

35:57

planning problems that are coming up are not financial planning

35:59

problems that people typically think of, and

36:01

are going to be financial planning problems that I think

36:03

that a lot of people are going to have going forward. And

36:05

so I would like to just tailor the

36:08

fiat planning content to be more

36:10

Bitcoin focused. And that's the whole heart of the book.

36:12

So it's not as you said, Yeah, there's

36:14

lots of great books out there, but this

36:17

one specifically is not to convince someone why

36:19

they should buy bitcoin or where bitcoin goes

36:21

in the future, but more specifically, if you're using

36:23

it, here's how you may want to think about it through

36:26

a larger sort of view

36:28

of your own financial future.

36:30

Yeah. Absolutely, I'm not here to orange pill anybody.

36:33

People ask me that all the time. They're like, how do you orange pill?

36:35

And I'm like, I really don't. I'm not here for that. What I'm

36:37

here for is the people who are already orange pilled. How

36:39

can we make this be very fulfilling and

36:42

worthwhile and also make it

36:44

such that you actually achieve the goals that you

36:46

set out to do, right, And so that's what the book

36:48

is going to be about, is like taking advantage

36:50

of whatever FIAT rules are out there to apply

36:52

that and also making sure that bitcoiners are actually asking

36:54

themselves the high level questions that they need to ask about

36:56

their personal financial situation.

36:58

Yeah, love it all right.

37:00

If you're just tuning in, you're listening to the Mark mos

37:02

Show, we've been sitting down with Morgan Richard.

37:04

She's a financial planner with Origin Wealth

37:06

Advisors and the host of the Bitcoin for Advisors

37:08

podcast. We're going to link to all that in

37:10

the show notes down below. Hopefully

37:13

that makes sense. The world's

37:15

changing very fast. I think this Bitcoin ETF

37:17

gets bitcoin to cross the chasm. The

37:20

early majority is about to flood in, so

37:22

make sure you take a position, but do it responsibly.

37:24

So listen to somebody smart like Morgan

37:26

and don't go it on your own.

37:28

But that's what we got. Thanks so much for listening today.

37:30

Until next time. Thanks Morgan, thanks

37:33

for having me