2. Our Stories - Chris & Noah

New substack, who dis?

Chris’s Story

Greetings friends!   

Welcome (or welcome back) to Crypto Pulse!  WAGMI (we all gonna make it)!  

 

This newsletter is for the “crypto curious”.  You came for the money, yield, and excitement that crypto could offer.  You’ll stay for the community, freedom, and equality that it will bring.   

Unfortunately, it’s not gonna be easy, and part of the journey down the rabbit hole of cryptocurrency is learning YET ANOTHER language.  As this substack is geared towards healthcare professionals, you know what I’m talking about – “what’s the CVP, Scv02 and lactate on patient X?  Let’s start some Levo for a MAP goal 65 and broaden antimicrobial coverage to include anaerobes and order a CT A/P stat!”   

Now, in the world of crypto, here’s an example.  “Hashrate is increasing and therefore the difficulty adjustment will increase making it harder for miners to mine bitcoin, keeping the block subsidy near constant around 10 minutes.”  Or, “I bought Kusama on Kucoin using USDT that I bought and transferred from Coinbase Pro so that I can stake KSM to get airdrops of Moonriver.”  If you understand this completely, this newsletter likely will be too basic for you.  If your head just exploded…

you’ve come to the right place and you’re in luck!  I love this stuff and want to educate you so that you can learn another language – the language of Web 3.0 – one that will change everything in the financial world and society as we know it. 

It is bigger than the creation of the internet, in comparison.   

But don’t worry, we’re here to guide you through it and do our best to make sense of it all – we’re in this together!  The focus is on learning, growing up with a new asset class, protecting our time and wealth, making mistakes (hopefully small), and being part of something bigger than us all – changing the world for the better.  Wow…deep huh?  Yup.  It’s that important and has that type of potential.   

To be clear, crypto is HARD, it’s NEW, it’s COMPLICATED, and I am going to state this right from the beginning – I DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING.  No one does.  This stuff is evolving at light speed and only those hyper-focused on one area who spend all day immersed in it can keep up.  THAT’S NOT ME.  I have a day job.  A job that I love and one that fulfills me and takes up a lot of time.  I have a family and friends that I care for deeply (reason #1 I’m doing this).  However, I also have a true passion for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency outside of work and family.  It’s a hobby that engrosses me because it’s going to change the world as we know it for the better, and there is nothing more important than that given today’s seemingly endless societal problems.  Do I sound like an evangelist?  Likely.  But stick with me and over time I trust you’ll see where I’m coming from.  If you disagree, that’s okay too! No one is forcing you to agree with me.   

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Before we go further, I believe that in order for this newsletter to have any type of success and following, you need to know who I am, why I think you can trust me, what value I bring to the table, and why I am doing this.   

Well, in west Philadelphia born and raised….

JK.  I was born and raised in Upstate, NY in a small town called Vestal, NY (a few hours from Syracuse, NY – Cuuuuuuussse!).  Amazing place.  An incredible spot to grow up.  Ever heard of a spiedie?  Probably not, and you’re missing out.  Delish.  I’m a chicken guy myself but to each their own.  I formed lifelong friendships there and I LOVE the Buffalo Bills (Bills Mafia!). 

Our family and friends still make the annual pilgrimage to Buffalo, NY for the Bills game after 32 years (not counting Covid) just to see each other and catch up.  How bout those Bills btw?  Josh Allen baby!  SUPER BOWL!!!!  I went to college at Virginia Tech (HOKIES!) and went to medical school back in good ol’ Syracuse, NY.  I actually got to go through most of medical school with my older brother who was one year behind me in training, and it was without a doubt the best 4 years of my life.  Medical school…best 4 years? Yup! It’s possible for all the students out there!  Incredible friends, endless memories.  From there it was on to residency in Cincinnati where my brother joined me again in emergency medicine.  Another insane 4 years.  Amazing friends, great training.  Finally, a fellowship in St. Louis for critical care led me to my amazing wife whom I met in the MICU.  Now I split my time in emergency medicine and critical care and further specialize in telemedicine, and we have a daughter!  It’s been a wild ride! 

My parents are salt of the earth people who instilled in me the values of hard work, persistence, loyalty, independence, and oddly enough…saving, among many other qualities.  You see, I’m a saver.  My father was a saver.  My father’s father was a saver.  My brother called me out for being a saver at my wedding.  It’s who I am, it’s all I know.  I’m the guy who buys the new car and opts out of the infotainment center for a few grand because I can use my iPhone instead.  I buy rental cars from “U save” instead of Hertz.  I get immense satisfaction out of it.  I’ve gotten better over the years – certainly better than my dad.  I’m very privileged now with my job as a physician to have money that my parents could only dream of I’m sure.  This has allowed me to spend money on things to value the most important thing in my life – my TIME.  Time with family and friends.  Time to pursue my passions outside of work.     

So why should you trust me?  What value do I bring to the table?  Well, I believe that I know more about Bitcoin and crypto than 99% of the population, and probably 99.9% of healthcare professionals out there who have no time or interest in this stuff. There are no degrees in crypto, unfortunately.  Second, I’m really writing this for my family and friends because I believe in this so much that it would kill me if I kept it to myself.  If you think I would do something to intentionally burn them – think again.  Third, I’m not a financial advisor and don’t pretend to be one.  I’m a doctor.  I’m a doctor who has saved his entire life and thinks about it 24/7/365.  I’m not here to sell you anything, I’m here to educate you and open your mind to something that 99% of the world is closed off to because it’s “new” and they don’t understand it.  Fourth, I didn’t get in on crypto until over a year ago.  I haven’t been in since 2009 and made all these gains just to dump on you.  I’ve lost some money, I’ve made some money, I interact with crypto daily, I keep up on the news so you don’t have to.   

That’s the value proposition of Crypto Pulse right there. 

I’m a curator and educator regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.  I won’t tell you what to buy and when to sell (that’s illegal).  I don’t really do chart analysis and trading.  I’m an investor, not a trader.  I keep on the pulse of crypto so you can keep on the pulse of your patient.  You’re busy, you don’t care about this stuff, and you just wanna scroll on Insta and spend your money like you always have.  I get it.  But you also know that “something” is going on in the crypto world and it’s not going away.  You only hear about it more and more actually and it’s annoying to you.  You hear “crypto” and “Bitcoin” and reflexively say, “ Ponzi!”  You also know deep down that you say that because that’s what everyone else says and you don’t want to be different.  You don’t really understand crypto because it takes 1000s of hours to master, like medicine, and you’re busy.  Reading one or two biased articles on CNN is not enough.  It’s really frickin’ hard.  It’s not instinctual and it’s scary because it’s RADICALLY NEW.  You could lose money.  You also have the opportunity to protect your hard earned wealth like never before in history.  Even if you don’t trust me and don’t think I’m qualified (which I can’t really disagree with), you can stick around for the education, attempt at humor, and community that I hope this newsletter generates. 

There’s a lot of noise out there, Crypto Pulse is trying to create a community that learns together and is the signal in the noise. 

The beauty of crypto is it’s an OPT-IN SYSTEM.  You can laugh at me, ridicule me, insult me, and I’m totally fine with it (although that would be rude).  No one is forcing you to read this newsletter or participate in crypto.  It’s new, it’s volatile, it’s evolving, and no one can accurately model its behavior because there is nothing to compare it to from the past.  You can sit on your hands and wait 5-10 years until it’s more established, or you can assume some risk and get on the ground floor now of a powerful, open, transparent, new financial system that you will be using day in and day out in 5-10 years.  Your choice.  I decided to take the opportunity now.  So how did I get started in all this craziness?   

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Life is all about timing and I know I’ll take heat for this, but I love the chick flick Serendipity.  Kate Beckinsale?  Wowza.  

IF only they had put a “Buy Bitcoin” stamp on that five-dollar bill! Dang…maybe the sequel. For whatever reason this movie grabs me and I relate to it in my life.  I would have never gotten into Bitcoin and crypto if it wasn’t for the birth of my daughter. It was serendipitous.  When she was sleeping one night I checked my Robinhood account to look at some stocks/ETFs that I could put some money for her 529 plan in, and I saw the flashy crypto sign.  First thought – “wtf is crypto?”  I clicked on it and saw the tickers for Bitcoin and Ethereum.  “Ohhh, Bitcoin!  I remember now.  That fake internet money I heard about years ago on the golf course.  It’s still around?? 

The price is 9k?!?  And what the heck is Ethereum???”  Cue obsession.   

I have an endless appetite for knowledge and a thirst to learn things that don’t make sense to me.  It’s even more appealing to me the harder it is to learn.  It satisfies something deep down in me I can’t explain (inside joke – circle of knowledge!!!).  That night was my first step down the Bitcoin rabbit hole that started with countless Google searches, YouTube videos, books, and reading Twitter posts.  One question opened up 5 others.  I was hooked.  Still am.  Not only was I fascinated by this new technology (blockchain), but I started to learn about how our current financial system actually works and how messed up it is.  It’s REALLY COMPLICATED.  Do you know how the Federal Reserve and Treasury function?  Do you understand banks and payment rails and bonds?  What’s the debt ceiling?  What’s yield curve control?  It’s endless.  Ever watched The Big Short (great movie)?

People say Bitcoin is too complicated so they don’t trust it. Can you tell me how your credit card works?

I’m a doctor – not a finance guy.  This stuff is not taught in school, you have to learn it on your own.  With the invention of the internet we now have unparalleled access to information and people that was never before possible - FOR FREE.  It’s like the invention of the printing press and getting your information from someplace other than the church.  It opens your eyes.  The invention of the internet will go down in history like the printing press, electricity, the wheel, etc. 

Similarly, Bitcoin and the invention of blockchain technology will be the next inflection point in human history.   

We are entering the Digital Era/Exponential Era/4th Industrial revolution.  Technology as a whole (5G, mobile, AI/ML, IOT, etc), but specifically blockchain, is going to revolutionize our world in ways that the human brain cannot comprehend due to its exponential growth.  Software is truly eating the world, and next up after music, media, maps, shopping, you name it...is finance.  EVERYTHING is going digital, it’s foolish to think our financial system won’t as well, and it is PRIMED for MASSIVE DISRUPTION.  Blockchain is dematerializing the legacy financial industry as we speak, you just don’t know it yet because it’s happening behind the scenes.  It’s scary because instead of buying a shirt online instead of at a store, we’re talking about money/savings/stocks/real estate all going digital in the blink of an eye.  Maybe even what you have always known as “money”, won’t be “money” anymore.  This rocks people to their core, and it should, but in my opinion, you have two options: 

1.  Learn about it now and position yourself accordingly.  Be an early adopter of this novel technology that will drive humanity forward and democratize finance.  Fix the money, fix the world.  

2. Get run over by the train when it comes and it’s too late.  The horn is blowing right now.   Don’t be the bus.

   

Noah’s Story

I have had a crazy life. My journey with crypto is only a very small part of that path. I am a 30 year rock climber and identify chiefly as a climber. I graduated Tulane Med School in 2003 and worked until I was 45 (last year). I basically live by the following sentiment:

I also think that one of my heroes put it best:

As such, I have taken many risks, none of which I regret. I competed on NBC’s American Ninja Warrior for 7 seasons and one of my best friends won the show. One year I ran it in a gold suit (which is my dancing outfit when I go to Burning Man every year). Here’s a glimpse of my American Ninja Warrior experience.

I am a father to an amazing 10 year old, a semi-retired ER doc (I feel too young to completely stop!), an avid chess player, Blues and Classical guitarist, Series 65 financial licensee, and crypto aficionado.

I started buying Bitcoin in 2015 and now I earn interest off of it… enough to live comfortably. I also own a quaint little cabin in the beautiful Red River Gorge in Kentucky that I rent out as an Air BnB.

CRYPTO

I play the long game. I trade a little here and there and I use options to hedge and amplify bets, but mostly, I HODL and accumulate. Primarily Bitcoin (80% of my Net Worth) but also other altcoins. Crypto is a MASSIVE new asset class that is a black hole which is sucking capital from the bond market, real estate, precious metals and soon, equity and derivative markets. The next ten years are going to see a tremendous and unstoppable transfer of wealth into this novel and futuristic asset class.

Very few people understand the impact that crypto (and specifically the Bitcoin network) will have on society. The future will look far different than it does today: Houses will be tokenized (as an NFT and will have fractional ownership which will LIQUIFY the real estate asset class). Securities will be tokenized. SOCIAL VALUE will be tokenized. Yes, you may have a YOU TOKEN that will have value. Nuts. Virtual “items” will have real-world value. We are alive during the era of the actual digitization of money.

The ramifications of this can not be overstated. Crypto is currently an accumulation game, a land grab of sorts and it is the Wild West. It is very very early.

I have loved sharing my knowledge of crypto investments and have helped many physicians invest early by “skating to where the puck will be”. This includes, famously, Kevin MD, who took my suggestion to buy Bitcoin seriously in this article I wrote for him when Bitcoin was around $15,000:

KEVIN MD ARTICLE

KEVIN MD FOLLOW-UP PODCAST

I have also done numerous podcasts and debates about Bitcoin, and if you are interested:

CITIZEN BITCOIN PODCAST

BITCOIN DEBATE

At heart, I am a philosopher and a lover of this fantastic gift. I believe that this is heaven and that we have won the cosmic lottery. My contributions to CRYPTO PULSE may be more esoteric than Chris’s and I often float in the gestalt, preferring a high-time bias and conceptual understanding of projects and ventures in the space.

Thanks again for joining CRYPTO PULSE and we look forward to educating you about this exciting new space and making sure you are up to date on Bitcoin and the crypto projects that Chris and I find most exciting!

That’s enough for now.  Your attention span is short, we know. 

Next week we’ll talk about where to buy Bitcoin/crypto if you want some “skin in the game” before we dive deep into understanding Bitcoin first, and then other cryptocurrencies/topics.

Thanks for reading.   

Be humble, stay hungry, stay foolish.  

This is Crypto Pulse