This VC Bought Bitcoin at $200, Saw TikTok's Rise, and Now Says THIS is the Next Big Trade

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Ognery users can really tell too much difference between a girl and a deep seeker or a chatty pet. What's going to be making the huge difference is focusing on the application side. There's an interesting trend. Matter, I should just bought a Chinese company. I think it's $2 billion. $2 billion, yeah, man. The company, the entrepreneur, they move out of China because they want their application, the AI agent can be used globally because they don't want sanctions from the states. They are very strong teams. The point is, it's a close model versus open model. Compare with Google Apps Store and Apple Apps Store. They will coexist. Forget what you know about the future. While everyone is distracted by the latest AI hype and meme coins, the real revolution is happening right under our noses. My guest today, a tech entrepreneur and early crypto adopter, is here to explain why the next wave of disruption isn't coming from where you expect. We're talking about the quiet giant that's about to tokenize the world. If you want to know where the smart money is really going, you're in the right place. Welcome to Finding Peak. This is the way. Let's go through your journey. You started a little bit in the green room and I cut you off because it's so good, but you have a very unique kind of origin story. Although, I usually don't start with origin stories because I think people hear a lot of the same stuff. Yours is so unique. I think it's really important to hear. Maybe take us all the way back to your father's entrepreneur, your growing up in China. What was that like? My audience is predominantly US and I know for a lot of people in the US, China could essentially be another planet. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just so far away. I think having spoken to as many people as I have in this show provides me a lot of opportunity to reach out of the states and understand what's going on beyond. I don't think as many people do and I would love for you to explain a little bit, what does it mean growing up in China, having experienced both the Eastern world and the Western world? What are some of the differences? Just start to walk us through that process because it is such a unique journey to getting to where you are today. Yes, it is. Yes, let's get started. I was growing up in Tianjin, China. It's a very big city. It has like 13 million populations right now. I think including populations, I actually temporarily working there is like 20 million in plus. I grew up there very early in the 80s. I was born in the 80s. I grew up in a very traditional Chinese family. My father used to work for the garment and then later on he started his own business in the 90s. He has been one of the role models for me. That's why since I had very strong goals when I grew up, I just want to become someone like my father. He's my role model. When I was young, I was really interested in computer games. I had a goal when I grew up. I want to be a computer programmer. I can develop my own games. Then I decided after my high school, I decided to go study abroad. At that time, my English wasn't good. I studied really hard. I got admitted to one of the universities in Canada. In 2001, I went abroad and studied the Canada alone. That's where I started to learn English, speak English. At the same time, I was studying in computer programming at the wall. After graduation, I was working for one of the internet companies in Canada. At that time, I was taking care of operations and daily developments of some of the tools we use for business. But also because I was growing up in China, I lived in Canada. I started there. I started to realize there are actually greater opportunities. I started to invest. I started cheering for isolation skills at isolation skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills skills in France, I was lucky enough to get in. And after studying for one year full time in France, I graduated with MBA degree. And then at that time, it was booming in China. It was 2012. I saw there's a bunch of opportunities back in China because I learned all this knowledge from both on the technical side and the business side. I think there's a great opportunity for me to go back to China and start to actually be part of this booming opportunities back in China. I just went back, actually I got in, I joined one of the top local venture capital firms in China in 2013, where I invest in mobile app companies, and I started to start up in China. I was based in Beijing. I looked around projects, I think over the years I looked into like hundreds of projects across all these Chinese major cities, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Xinjiang. At the same time, actually, it was very interesting. I was looking into blockchain, and they looked at Bitcoin and everything. So I was in those investors groups with them. I started learning into blockchain. When 2013, that's the first time I actually invested in blockchain. Bitcoins at $200, I remember. And then that was one of the times we really, we couldn't really find too much information at the time. I was really still just at the early stage, understanding blockchain. But over the times we started together, we realized this is really the next big thing. As a VC investor as well, I looked into many of the platforms at the time. I think one of the biggest ones at the time was hobby.com, BTCChina.com, and even OKCoin. It's OKX today. That's their founding members was actually forming the company in 2013-2014, back in Beijing. And that's when I looked into those projects as a venture capital site. I looked into them. From that time I learned. For certain things, you have to get in early and you need to study them. You need to believe them, believe them, because I made my mistakes over the times. When I was first investing in Google and Apple shares, I sold them too early, because I didn't understand the business can grow. At the time I didn't have too much knowledge on the financial side. That's why I decided to go to business school. Also for Bitcoin, I bought 200, I sold them 300, 400. I wanted to wait until they come down and buy it back. They never come down. The reason why is because we didn't really research deep enough and understand what's really... The technology side was really actually make a difference. So make you believe that you can hold on to it for a longer time. So then after that, around the COVID time, because at the end of the COVID time, the Chinese... The government has a big lockdown in Shanghai and Beijing. And in 2021-22, I was lucky enough to join another venture capital company in Singapore, where I actually invested more. Do you feel too full after meals like your digestion could use a little support? Try Bitter X from Quick Silver Scientific. 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So I know where the traders or the users really look for a trading platform. And I had the technology knowledge and have VC resources. So I was able to actually form a very strong team. Our tech team has a very strong background building and trading platforms for investment banks, one of the bigger banks. So our team is really focused on tech side. And my goal was building a platform really delivered a traders experience and make them feel the platform really put them at the center stage where we can provide them the tools they can succeed. So that's how I came along to became the co founder and CEO of level X from my journey. You know, there's many failures and many experience like even on the personal side. I'm a father of two daughters. I got divorced as well. And I had this personal up and down at the same time I was able to focus more on the business side on the work. So I can deliver the projects and deliver the user experience to our users. And I think in the long run, there's lots of things to come. And I think that's how it is right now. Yeah, awesome. I mean, I appreciate you going through all that. There's a lot on pack. I got a lot of questions for you. Of course, of course. Yeah. So I'm going to go back and I love the stars into buys a little bit hot here. You're good. You're good. So I love you to maybe compare and contrast for us. Like when you look at say entrepreneurship in Canada and France and kind of the Western world versus compared to like China. And is there a difference in how entrepreneur ship is approached? Like here, you know, I know in the States, especially since the rise of say Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. You know, people wear entrepreneurship like a badge of honor, right? They get a tattooed on their body. I'm everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. And there's like this whole culture to it. And you know, there's like failure porn now where people are failing. And then they're using that to launch careers. And it's all now it's been very commercial. Like entrepreneurship is very commercialized. Do you see the same things coming out of China? Is it a more mature entrepreneurial market? Is it still a developing entrepreneur market? Like where do you see the major differences in entrepreneurship in general between the two? I think before let's say let's go back to early 2000. I think 2000 maybe after 2001, 2002. The Chinese, especially on the tech side, they just start to has like this smaller tech companies. I remember back there. There's like China.com, netis.com, Alibaba, they all started very, I think late 90s early 2000. That's the time. I think the entrepreneur is my previous generation. Like they are more traditional and they didn't really had too much college education. But they are very dedicated, very diligent, very determined. So if they they work really hard, like I would say. So they set their goals. They work everything out of themselves to try to accomplish it. And that's one time, that's one time like the entrepreneurs like it's people just hard working. It's just doing the daily routines. And then they then they gather experience from maybe some failures. So they evolve onto that, like based on that. And at that time I think China didn't really have too much like technology based to build on. And then they relied more on the foreign investment. I think that's one of the times the US, the Europeans, has actually invested lots of investment and technology back into the China. I think even Taiwan is especially for the semiconductor industry and Taiwan, Japan and Korea and their time had they invested a lot in China. So I hope to develop the technology. Then that's the first, I would say that I would say it's like the first generation of entrepreneurs in China. They start from basically they start most of them from scratch, right? So they didn't have too much base to build up. But after I think after 2008, especially after the financial crisis, also after the 2008 is all Olympics, right? So Beijing Olympics, the Western world understand more about China. And even I think the general living standards in China has grown up, like grow very rapidly after that. So the second generation from the first, like there's people has been becoming a richer by doing business themselves. The first generation has generous walls. So they have their second generation has better education. And most of them actually went abroad and learned from like the Western world and see how they do business, how they do entrepreneur and I had the knowledge. And the one night those those generation I started to actually build their own business or start getting to entrepreneurship. And I think that's when the second wave actually came. I think it's the early that's when I actually I went back is 2000 after 2010. I think the Chinese, especially the VC industry and the internet industry has actually has seen a tremendous tremendous growth. So it's the growth after 2010, especially 2015 to 2000 right before the COVID. And that's when you see a 10 cent Alibaba and this big giant came out. And also the smaller ones because people had experience working for the big companies start to build their own business as well. So the software is like mobile apps like a DD we have the Chinese version of Uber is called DD. And also there's a May 20 like the delivery service of China like the apps in China because the Chinese population is very in the very the density is very high. The delivery has been very growing really fast and also because the Chinese has a big market entrepreneurship is kind of it's it's works differently than the Western world in the ways that because because the market is big enough. And you can have you would say like if you have idea that you have a quick technology base you can quickly develop your product. Even it's like a 60% 70% complete and to actually prove your ideas you can always go to the market and let the market do stress test on the products. And you can iterate after after that if you see some failures you can gain from the feedbacks from the users. It's the feedbacks and the cycle is very quick. It's not like the the states for example in Canada like the you don't have too much market you can test because it's cost too much to actually to do marketing on that like a nation wide. So you can in China is different because it costs more market like when you want to see the 10 million population and you can easily get like a million users and you know you can get quickly feedback from the product you wrote out. So that's that's different ways to we I see it for the entrepreneur side. Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about the market size being such an advantage. I mean essentially two larger Chinese cities is bigger than the entire country of Canada. Yeah. Canada is just barely bigger than the state of California and then we think of the US market is being large at what 360 million but that's a third of or less than a third of the overall Chinese market. That's really interesting and I'm assuming because I know the US has the highest like paid ad rates like CPMs are often the highest in the US. So even though the markets not as big as China you're also paying much higher CPMs if you're trying to you know test ideas or run ads into a market to try to do some product testing. So basically what you're saying there is that market size and the dynamic of it allows you to push products out and get a get feedback at a large scale very rapidly to understand like do we have something here or do we need to iterate or is just a complete miss. Yeah, and I think that's just one one example is TikTok right because TikTok started in China is its bite dance is the Chinese version is called though in in China they started actually I had a chance as a VC investor I had a chance to earn invest in the early stage of the TikTok market company back in China is that was 2013 when I was actually first joined the firm I looked into the project. They started as like a news app so they basically they post different kind of news on their apps and people seeing it and they use the algorithm basically call the algorithm at the time they developed a database because people look at different news that they mark their interest on those news they actually put text right so at the back hand. The algorithm will put text on all this news people looked at it and start pushing for for their like what they are interested so so in that way people like always sees what they interested so really they really like the app so that's that's because over the times bit like a TikTok actually they build up their algorithm because there's so many people using it that they start building the big database. Imagine if they they started up like the start up in Canada they don't have enough samples right they don't have enough users to help them build the user base and let's let's actually I would say at that time it's definitely a advantage because they have enough user base to can test out ideas and improve the products improve the algorithm. Then once they have that advantage they they won't globalize right so they start up to talk and I went wire quickly because they already had all this database algorithm they build up from the local Chinese market it just applied it globally. I think similar stories for for AIs I think the US and China they are raising for AIs very very competitively but I think you know I'm not sure if you know deep seek it's also it's it's AI model it's back in China deep seek actually they have their advantage because they they had more I would say like local Chinese market data right so so I think they are going to have a lot of data. That's that's something it's really important and even Tesla they they they they want to have their like a like all the drive tested in China and then they treat Chinese markets it's one of the most important market in globally because they they have in China you would have. Like a thousand more like road accident or condition cases then the states right because the states is all straight roads highways in China you got this small road in nowhere and the village roads and and then then Tesla the the AIs can learn all this different kind of driving conditions and it will help to improve their their their user case eventually I think I think that's the reason why right now. There's a certain advantage in China in AI competition but they're lacking of the chips because the US actually blocked the chips it expires to China and eventually but that kind of a bike fire because you are forcing the Chinese government to invest more to build their own chips so yeah. Yeah, actually there was a really good I don't know if you listen to the all in podcast with Chimoff Polly, Appetia and David Saxon those guys if you don't it's okay but it's one of the larger entrepreneur podcasts out there and they were just having this discussion this exact discussion around the merits of denying the Chinese market. But the Navidia chips that in the Tesla chips etc that these advanced chips and the argument that was being made is that while while everyone on the call could see the kind of defense argument to it from a very short term maybe scarcity or narrow view at the same time they're like look like like all this tension between you know China and Taiwan and the state like this could all be solved if you know what I mean. We could figure out a way to sell these chips in and you know this was I think it was David Sax his argument was essentially well wouldn't we rather sell China are chips know what they have and reap the benefit of selling them the chips versus creating one this kind of self imposed friction that doesn't necessarily need to be there. And to all Chinese entrepreneurs are going to do as you're describing is eventually develop their own chips and I think as we've seen you know one of the things and I followed deep seek pretty closely because I'm really interested in the fact that it's also an open source model. And you know they just came out with and I'm going to butcher some of the technicalities to it I was reading about it I'm. I'm not necessarily I'm not trained in any kind of programming stuff so I understand the usage and the ideas but I couldn't make my fingers make the magic box do the things. But you know this new model they just came out with is essentially created an entirely new framework for how to set certain boundaries and how to compartmentalize research so it's not getting lost in context and larger in larger prompts etc and it's and it's you know you see this you know deep sequel move ahead and some of the open source. Chinese models will take a step ahead and then you see open AI but I do think it feels to me and I'm interested as a technologist yourself with what your take is on this. To like you look at you look at say WordPress right WordPress open source website so now we're talking like early 2000s 2000 2010 is really when WordPress separated itself so quickly and so rapidly became the most widespread platform. Because it was open source right and at that time you know I was marketing and sales as always been my side of the house right at that time the argument was well they're open source so it's kind of like it got labeled as like amateurish or somehow like the code wasn't as good. And what was really interesting and I think this is what we're going to eventually see with open source models versus these close models with AI is WordPress one because. So many programmers were able to get their hands on it and play with it and fix it and they don't want their stuff getting hacks the entire argument of it not being as secure when out the window really fast and. And that you know WordPress continue to ascend and you know take over the number one platform in the country and are in the world and many platforms tried but. I truly believe it was the open source nature of WordPress that did that so do you see something similar happening with open source AI models versus the close models like over time you know the battle for a while but open source eventually will win or in talking. Wide spread use I think they'll always be very specific use cases for close models but I can see these open source models taking the the larger everyday user. Market segment. Well I think I think we need to look at two things we talking about models models is actually the computing power or the AI models right so so they have this they can generally talk and so so people you can they can inquiry them and apply to things but I think eventually it doesn't matter like if the chips getting blocked from the stage or trying to invent their own chips. I think it would eventually the models will be very close to each other and there's not too much difference I think you can really like I mean like for for for ordinary users like you can really tell too much difference between like a growth and. Like a deep seek or or chat GPs they all do similar things right even a talk had their own AI is called double as well right so so they they all has kind of similar logic behind it and you know the more ironic about it like the many of the Chinese science test actually is working for those companies right. Yeah you look at like like the like the Tesla like they they introduced their their AI team is many of like Asian faces but I that's just it's not very important I would say like the difference would be very very minimum and what's going to be making the huge difference I think right now is it's focusing on the application side. I think there's a interesting trend I'm not sure if you know see the news the matter actually just bought a Chinese company yeah for I think it's two two billion yeah man yeah matters the company the Chinese company the country entrepreneur they they move out of China because they want their their application the AI agent can be used globally because they don't want sanctions from the states but I think they are. Very strong team they they they actually found it like only eight months old I think yeah yeah if I remember right so the the point I'm trying to make is that it's the close model versus open model I think eventually it's going to be it is I would compare with like a Google Google App Store and an Apple App Store and they they will co exist. But I think eventually what's going to be big difference is the applications to be going to came out like the AI agent to be going to use I think the test lies more using their AI AI system for for daily like a transport or robots and that kind of things deep seek is open source so it's the access the the bear to entry to you. And I think it's very easy to use the model is very low and and chat to be on the other side I think it is currently I think it's a little bit more advanced and it has more resources because they got the biggest investment from the. Soft bank or that kind of thing they got more yeah more firepower I think they're going to be the strongest but I think eventually is is depending on the ecosystem like how they use their models to actually to apply to the to affect the daily life of regular users right so so for us we also interested in. On because we are doing the trading platforms we also often look at like a AI tools to help traders or investors to do better investment and there's many applications to that as well i'm not sure if you read the story actually deep seek the founder. They initially invented the model just for help them to do stock trading basically so they made lots of money to stock trading that then they decided to make this model publicly available with open source because they see this there there's lots of applications you can use with the open source make it more more wildly adapted is this help more people rather than. Just keep them close yeah i think the acquisition of man is by meta was really interesting so i've been using man is almost since day one since like it's first day that it was available in the states i've been using it and watching how quickly that team has deployed. Like level two and level three functionality has been in my mind incredible i mean personally i use it so for let's just stay for. Join midnight casino and discover a whole new. With hot slots jackpot live casino roulette and blackjack at the ready come and play your way get 100 free spins when you spend 20 pounds on eligible games search midnight casino or download the midnight app today. Midnight casino down better you decide new customers only restrictions and tnc's apply 18 plus be gumblerware dot org the production of this podcast 90% of the post production that happens with this podcast is a result of man is so i've created a series of prompts i take the transcript i take a few screenshots i take a few headshots i pop it into man is and then i have. A set of prompts that i work through and essentially everything that i then need everything from podcast youtube show notes page what i'm sharing on social the graphics that come out and it gives me all these different options and. It's all incredibly high quality and they actually added a feature before this was to me and this is why i think these a i agent so for guys for those of you listening at home may not know the difference man is is not necessarily working off its own model per se it does. Have its own model but what it does that is so particular and where in my mind they've stepped ahead and i think shown the everyday user market something they haven't seen in the other models is this ability to create. On the fly agents that then go out and execute off other models so it's pulling in Nana banana pro to graphics and then it's pulling in you know i maybe it's pulling in a video from so on it's pulling in you know it's using these different resources and then it also has the ability to go out and hit the. Web which it could do that before open a i could so man is because it used different models actually had the ability to go out and do deep research and deep analysis of websites inside a flow before open a i could do that and it's this idea of a i agents i think which is really going to be the next level and we'll look back on these. Single chat flow you know the kind of early days we'll look back and laugh at how remedial you know that stuff was when we see these agents and you know how quickly voices coming and visual recognition and all this kind of stuff it's it's really wild. Yeah but the what what man is with the acquisition of man has showed me and I was I wish it wasn't met at the bottom because I think meta zi is kind of whack compared to the other ones personally but but was how important this idea of multi agent functionality is to high production like if you really want to get high output you need to be able to run multiple agents they need to be able to talk. To each other and you need to know how to layer and I honestly I don't think there's a better retail user product on the market that man is when it comes to that and that was a really interesting acquisition particularly. Born out of China move to the US or at least you know had a had a US headquarters and now being bought by a US company it just shows how global this stuff is and how you know I often you know it's funny like I love watching politics because it's like watching like real housewives of you know Washington DC kind of because it's all just so it's all performance art you know and like there's you see these problems you know the Chinese are doing this the US is doing this and everyone's and you see this and underneath it's just. All the business people and regular people just working with each other do it do getting business like it's just funny how you know you can you can get caught up in headlines but you know I always tell my buddies in particular and I'm blessed to have the show and be able to talk to people like yourself I'm like the people that are actually getting shit done like. I don't know if you don't even think twice about this crap you're like we're doing business or not you know I mean obviously there's always a little bit of something you got to work through but I want to move over to blockchain and particularly. What you're doing there because. Obviously if you were in early on BTC I have made the mistake twice as you did of buying feeling amazing about myself when it go up selling and then watching it go down a little and then go way up again I've played that game multiple times now and I'm now just in a I'm just going to hold this shit until you know for a decade or so before I sell any of it big believer big believer in the tech what we've seen maybe. Over the last three to four years in particular is this. Of alt coins and meme coins and all this kind of stuff. And you know there was for a while there were all these core networks that still exist salon etc but it feels like. Bitcoin is really one in term at least for now as like the gold standard crypto currency like today if you walk into you walk into your your local bar. Or you know your card game or your golf your you know your golf match or whatever and you say hey I bought some Bitcoin today people like okay you know three years ago peeler laugh at you and say you're you know playing with video game money or whatever what do you like when you're you know being having a trading platform seeing all this stuff having people being able to trade Bitcoin as much as you know Wolf coin 133 or whatever right. What is then maybe some of your high level takeaways of this maturation and where do you see the market continuing to mature as we go. Yeah I think like you mentioned I bought it early I sold it early to but I think there's a reason why I wasn't really a true believer at the time. Because there is no institutional adoption at the time it was too early right so the people didn't really like there's value definitely there's values in Bitcoin and but either at the time there's not many people actually understand it or can realize or kind of agree on the value of Bitcoin so. So so at that time there was higher risk than than now right like I'm not sure if you do lots of your mask when you always hear about like a reward over risk there's a ratio right so so the higher the reward with higher risk but right now Bitcoin might already be has a higher price. That you won't get that kind of tremendous growth if you bought like 300 dollars but right now the risks is way lower the reason why is because the I think over the over the years like especially 2003 to 2000 at 20 2023 2024 because the institutional adoption because the spot if ETFs the Wall Street adoption. Of big though the big institutions coming in and realize there's value also Cassie Wood from Arc and Tesla and Elon and they all bought Bitcoin right so this is one there is common recognition on the value of Bitcoin and it's obviously the bring up the price but I think it at the same time it has reduced risk tremendously. So the volatility on Bitcoin price has been has been done even like over the last year or two people are talking about this four year cycles right so we're supposedly people arguing if there's still another four year cycle for Bitcoin and right now even there if there is still big four year cycles and the volatility will be less right because of this institutional money as far as the market. The quality of traditional finance institutions has access Bitcoin as a storage of value right so because Bitcoin is is treated as digital gold because it's scarcity it has limited quantity of 21 million and even a big chunk of that has belongs to Satoshi but Satoshi speak to coin is not no longer moving so it's not in the supply. So the supply is limited and there is definitely application of Bitcoin on payment or or the other things we can use as as Bitcoin as a as a blockchain even I think it's definitely there is a value for big for Bitcoin itself and on the other side I think is the. Is there is no need to mention is that is there has a different utility I would say like I think Tom Lee has been the biggest like a bullish like a bullish follower for for we're you sir because he's seeing you serum as as one of the only layer one blockchain has never been done since the since the online and it's one of the the basics for Wall Street to access blockchain the basically I think in the near future we're going to see a real world access like bonds and stocks that they are going to be going on chain and it's going to be on an is there is going to be one of the most viable chain that they're going to they're going to adapt so I think the two two thousand twenty four when the spot ETF for Bitcoin came out that's the adoption the Wall Street adoption for Bitcoin and two thousand twenty five this year because of Tom Lee and and Bitcoin is one of the biggest ETH holders for I've listed company right now so he's holding I think over almost five percent of the float of a serum and I think he is one actually that's that's actually a bookmark for you serum getting a Wall Street adoption like the institutional money actually supporting that and also on top of that this cycle the bullish cycle is way different than the last one in the 2017 because like you mentioned there's millions of coin out coins out there and and I would say most of them is has no value and that's also the reason why the even the major coin Solana and a serum is they're not going up as much on the percentage wise as last cycle because the like there's so many coins to select especially for the retails they follow like a K.O.R. also they K.O.R. also often like very excited to pushing for for a couple of mean coins and then eventually this came down and crashed and they and there has no value and people just lose money on that and it's distracted all this potential money can invest in in in the major coins the Bitcoin serum Solana we do have values so that's why I think this full market is more like institutional driven rather than like we have like a retail really making lots of money on the last cycle and also and there's another side note is that during the last cycle the the Chinese market the Chinese retail can can still can easily access to to cryptos but right now because the Chinese government has a very strict rules on trading cryptos in the mainland China is not easy accessible to any training platforms so that's potentially has reduced the money flowing to the market as well so but it could be a potential opportunity maybe I think in one day there there's going to be open policy and for the Chinese can get access to to the crypto trading and that will will be like potentially boost the market a little bit more higher I think that's that's a really good insight and so I have a couple things I'd like to clear up for the audience and because you talk a little bit about this and I and will let's just stick with Bitcoin and Ethereum for now for this part of the conversation right we have Bitcoin which I think it's maybe more naive detractors you know it's not worth it doesn't do anything it you know it's it's really that idea of a store of value right there's it's not no one's running applications on the Bitcoin network to certain you know for the most part like for them it's it's basically just I buy this because it has value and I also have some gold and I also have some mutual funds and I'm diversifying and whatever okay and then you have networks like Ethereum which have incredible utility right I my industry that I grew up in was the insurance industry here in the States and there has been talk for a long time and while the insurance industry in the States seemingly believes it's 20 years in the past technology wise or anything that's actually happening today they tend to just be massive laggards the conversation around you know insurance policies are an incredible use case for you know using blockchain technology you know a coin or otherwise and the conversations around that have been if the industry were to start to make a move Ethereum would be the network in which the you know an insurance policy blockchain would be built on okay so if I'm if I'm sitting here and I'm just a retail investor I like to I got 5 10% of my portfolio like to play around with I like to put it in some different things how do I how do people start to gauge like a Bitcoin investment which as you said and I and I've seen it as well as just a retail investor volatility is down and even though you saw a move recently you know if you pull out a little bit you can just see the dips in the highs are not as big and you're kind of seeing a natural kind of up and down progression with with up into the right being that the overall course where Ethereum seemingly is going up but has been much flatter it's kind of been around that 20 100 to 4,000 mark for a long time and as you said if I'm if I'm just a Yolo Reddit investor who looks for the next hype hype cycle on some reddit board you know deep down and reddit and I put a bunch of money in whatever coin that could be going to an Ethereum it could be going to one of these other chains so should I be should I be thinking more Ethereum Salana etc like like one of these these that haven't moved in a long time but have a tremendous humanity utility have thousands if not in some case hundreds of thousands of millions of applications being built on them like seemingly are going to be around for a long time because of the tech or should I be thinking more hey let me just put my money in Bitcoin and ride the way ever do I Yolo and chase the chase the reddit boards like how do I start to think through where I should play because I have so many friends so many who when you get a couple whiskey's in them will tell you about all the ridiculous coins the type of money in that they fell amazing about for about 20 minutes and then all sudden their account was at zero when you know when everyone crashed out so how do you start to think through this as a we'll call it a unsophisticated crypto retail investor Yeah, I think if you are our beginner I think the It's always to start to get for example if you You knew to the to the crypto trading. I think you always good to start with the spot trading And so if you know your your trading platforms for example Binance okay acts or even as levyx and you can you can get in there and you can you can open your account and deposit your Your USDT or your coins and do spot trading to start with just get familiar with the features and get favor spot trading Bitcoin is Serium the major ones not the smaller ones, right? So so you just go on core market cap. It's it's one of the Website you use just go go down to the list and the top I would say top Five aside like top five is like first one is Bitcoin second is Serium After that is Binance Solana XRP. I think until that point XRP is the I think is the most Risk is once you you want to invest in rates of so so it just just just start there and and then maybe start slowly as well and then one straight you can use is called the Dollar cost average you can do DCA and And over the times you can build for example, let's say today is 92k for Bitcoin You buy 10% on your portfolio and tomorrow it came down or or next week the same day next Monday came down and then you buy another 10% doesn't matter the price and you just in 10 batches right right now Like you can just slowly go down like maybe in 10 weeks it came down to 80k and you started at 90k So your average is like 85 right so then when they start to go back up Want to make a difference in your community, but not sure how go to gofundme.com right now and start a go fund me Seriously your next fundraiser doesn't have to start in a school hall or a church You can start a go fund me today in just minutes Fundraise for yourself a friend or family member or a charity all that matters is that you care about them Gofundme is the trusted place to fundraise for what you care about with no pressure to hit your fundraising goal But tons of tools to help you reach it. You can confidently start fundraising right now whether it's creative Local or critical your cause matters. There's a reason why gofundme is backed by millions and chosen by fundraisers everywhere It works and it matters gofundme helps you make a real difference Start your gofundme today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com geo FUND me.com This is a commercial message brought to you by gofundme ready to launch your business get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs Shopify especially designed to help you start run and grow your business with easy Customisable themes that let you build your brand marketing tools that get your products out there Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups online in person and on the go Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup Maybe in the next month or so and you go you can always make money, right? So and you don't have to worry about liquidation and everything and that's one strategy for the beginners Digest to get used to how the market moves and they get a get a sense How's trading right and then once you start making some money and You can use your profit. You can take some of the profit out and sell them You can start looking to some of this more aggressive ones, right? So you can If you started with Bitcoin you can move into isurium or even Solana or XRP and it can do the same same Strategy, right? So you can you can just buy a spot and and and start making like a making your like a regular buys and Eventually you can make some profit Just make make sure the money you put aside is like the investment money not the money you need to to pay the everyday cost, right? So so once you have made some successful trade and and you can go to the next level and it can start looking at the perpetual trading What's the perpetual is it's the futures contract? Basically you can have leverage But you you got to do leverage very smart because I think In the long run people lose money because they they overlaid and and a leverage and in certain sense I would say my my Business school professor always tells me leverage Will if you use it right way it's the only way to make you like it Richard Make you to the next class, right? So so you like it even retail the same like if you're buying a house using mortgage that's a leverage You start a company and you raise money that's a leverage and trading stocks is margin that's a leverage So trading crypto and and using Propecial contracts as a leverage as well. So you understand the leverage and then you You use it only partially of your the capital you have like I think the best case is you made money trading spot and use that profit and you do Lever trading when the market is actually is very clear not in in not the market is in a range bounding But right now I think the market is still in range bounding. It's not a great time to use leverage to trade but we can still building The spot at this moment just doing DCAs I do see in the first half of the year we might see some downside I personally I'm waiting Bitcoin because I sold my spots and I'm waiting to buy back my spot Maybe under 80k even though I think there's currently there's a bounce I think there's still a little bit more downside and and wait until the water is cleared and the trend is clear I can I will buy some spot and then I will do some leverage very low like it three to five X and that's normally my play Basically, we need to wait till CNN and Fox News are saying that Bitcoin's dead and it's going to zero and the minute they say that that's when we probably should start Yeah Or you see the high line news is that there's like over the last 24 hours is like a hundred million 100 billing Like a market value lost in the crypto market and things like that. Yeah, yeah, those type of I basically Because I'm not smart enough nor do I have the self-discipline to trade I've tried and I just like my ADD goes off the rails And I I just want more you know, I want action. I just set up I just invest I just DCA every week. I literally have it just set up to auto auto By you know a certain amount every week and I don't even think about it And that's when like I see oh it was at you know 127 and now it's at 92 and I'm like, you know, I'm not who cares I'm not I'm not investing today for you know a Quick lift You know for the type of investor I am for Bitcoin in particular It's just I think there will come a day where it could be five years from now it could be a decade from now 300 200 500 thousand if you're just DCAing or if you're doing it in chunks, you know, you're big There's gonna be a time in the future when they're when you're very happy that you just you didn't try to time it You didn't try to get out at certain times exactly. I think if you're very smart and you know what you're doing I think there's incredible amount of money to be made trading I think for a lot of the people listening especially if you're a business owner and you don't have the time right? This is where you get caught I think in and Futures trading at least my friends who've really lost these in chunks has been they don't have the time to invest They think it's like this side hustle where I can show up for 20 minutes and open up my app and do some and You just can't be successful long-term that way. It's a there's too much. Yeah, it's a job like trading is a job This is what people do all day long. Yeah, yeah, it's harder than the daily job Yeah, and you have to compete against people like for example the the financial firms or or professional traders They have invested maybe 10 millions in developing a software trading against you and How do you think you can successful beating them right? So you can only beat them with luck or you beat them with time like you can you can use You can open like a broad in your time frame and then then you slowly put in money in and you get a average Your your your your cost down and then play the long game So because the professional traders they they're looking for a short run right or You wait until maybe the AI tools came out and they can help you to trade and and we Like as as a trading platform. We we actually looking into those features as well We're in the middle of developing those so so we hope this kind of help the traders improve their trading Success rate. Yeah, so with your platform, right? I can Buy and hold right? It's not is it only trading or I can just go with like let's say today I'm listening to this you like you know, I like this guy I've been wanting to buy some Bitcoin. I've been wanting to get in I've been saying I'm gonna do it for a while. I can just go download the app, you know Put my information in I can buy and hold But then if I do want to start playing around and maybe like you said take take some profits here and there and and actually make put some bets in Do a little futures trading on the side? I want to learn that game. I can your platform allow me to do that as well So I kind of the full spectrum of opportunities to play in the game definitely definitely we have Well, we have a spot trading. We have futures trading. You can even don't using the spot as a collateral to do some kind of leverage to trade as well and and also we have definitely like across all these sales marketing we have this Welcome bonus and everything that you can maybe just come sometimes we have Promotions going out you can come and deposit somebody get some Trading credits and it can trade with the trading credits is not costing your own money and it's it's a good way to get the use to some of the trading features as well Yeah, so I want I want to finish with like You've had this dynamic entrepreneur journey Not just in China across the world. You've been in multiple different places interactive with a ton of different people You're in sitting in Dubai today while we're talking which just makes this so incredible to begin with Doesn't have to be crypto can be whatever you want when you can you kind of sit in your spot and you look out over the ecosystem Maybe you put your your VC hat back on for a second like What's what's the one tech sector etc. Where you're like Maybe maybe the market doesn't understand how much further this has to go right like like we'd keep hearing like A eyes a bubble It's gonna pop and you know, it's gonna become or you know crypto or is it you know energy? Is it nuclear is it you know space tech like if you were sitting there today and We're you know something that really got you excited. What what's that thing that you're like man? This is gonna move like I don't know maybe no when maybe not sure which company but this sector's got legs and it's gonna hit here in the next next few next few years Well, I think AI is already everybody is already talking about I Think AI agents like a manus. I think it's definitely there's there's more I think it is AI Agent is like the application on top of AI models There's gonna be a lots of use for for AI agents as well But I think one thing I'm currently looking at I think I still have lots of hope in need Serium Because like we talk about No, I think Tom Lee sometime is overstated some some point But I do agree with him Uncertain degrees because it's Serium is the Utility wise like it is the gateway for the whole Wall Street or traditional finance to access blockchain and and that's something gonna be really huge Like you mentioned the insurance Even real estate's right so in Dubai they already put Some of the buildings real estate got tokenized and put it on a blockchain and people can buy shares of it Or buy the coins so basically only only in a park partial share ownership of that building I think also there's there's many many applications you can use uh Also poorly market right so poorly marketed and you can do all this betting forecasting on blockchain and I think there's there's how many things you can do My markets on Ethereum build off Ethereum Oh, I think they definitely utilize these Serium Blockchain network. I think you're right. I just was yeah, I wasn't a hundred percent sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah We can double check well. I I love that. I mean to be honest with you Ethereum had definitely fallen off my radar a little bit Mostly just because I don't think about crypto every day, but um I think you're right. I mean Bitcoin is essentially paving the path. I think culturally for people to accept doing air quotes for those that are listening kind of crypto in general It's kind of that beach head crypto is kind of establishing the beach head, but I I could you know, I'm listening to you and I can't find a hole in in the idea that the next wave is going to be these actual utilitarian Chains that where people are building I mean and guys just so you know like it's not like there's a few applications on Ethereum Like we're talking to major major applications major platforms. I mean entire entire business models companies You know regulatory regular I know regulated industries that are starting to to either that are currently using or dip in They're chosen and I think once you start to see like you said finance insurance these highly regulated industries start to grab on to these I think that's where the the dominoes really start to fall because Once once the regulated industries are in there's not really an excuse for anyone else to not start to so invest and go down the rabbit hole Harvey man, I could talk to you about this stuff all day. I know it is where you are. I appreciate that guy you guys It's probably close to 1 a.m. Now in Dubai or Harvey is so appreciate you taking this time. It's been a wonderful conversation Where could people learn more about your company and then if they want to follow along with you personally Do you create do you share thoughts anywhere? Is there any platform that you'd like to push people to? Yeah, actually we have official website is www.levxlevx.com and also I'm Twitter as well my account is at Harvey levex and our official twitter handle is at levex. It's just That's how for our official account. So if you want to learn more information about us just hop on to our one of the platforms and look for us and also I will be on spaces every Tuesday There is a content economic spaces. I will talk there talking about the market every Tuesday I think it's 10 a.m. Eastern time. I'll be there So if you guys want to listen, like you can always find me there as well And also thank you Ryan for for inviting me and having this interview today and really love to talk to you Maybe we can set up another show later on for AI or the other stuff we will love to talk about I love that. I love that. I Yeah We spent a lot of time on we'll call them higher level psychology leadership type topics the last year Coming into 2026. We're going to focus more on finance on technology on you know AI etc and these I think It's a tough game, you know when you're in a leadership position managing kind of the humans right you got the humans Which are really hard and then you have then you have the actual business that you're trying to build in the technology related to it and You know we're trying to capture the full spectrum here and give people a place to have these conversations and and learn So I just appreciate you. I know it's late. This has been a wonderful conversation and look man open invitation We will definitely have you back anything comes up you drop that Some of the AI features you're talking about into into levex Come right come right back on man. I'd love to have that conversation. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Ryan Yeah, it's it's very nice. Yes, that's that touch. 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