[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast and I'm your host Viktoriia Miracle, today we have Alex. Alex is an engineer. Engineer by trade with a master's in management and business administration from the University of Florida. He turned his attention to investing and finance in early 2020 after leaving his job as a senior manager with Amazon. He has a passion for bringing personal finance, to underserved communities and regularly volunteers to help improve financial literacy in South Florida.

[00:00:47] Hi, and welcome Alex.

[00:00:49] Alex Gibbs: Thank you Viktoriia, for having me. It's great to be here.

[00:00:52] Viktoriia Miracle: Well, so great to catch you on. And I'm going to say that at the start of the internet, because I always do the same at the end of the interview. If you want to watch that interview, you can actually do it on YouTube we're not just on the podcast, it's also video. And as you can see he is so dedicated and he's traveling and making this interview happen, which is, I love commit commitment. That's what's called commitment, making things happen. Well, it's a, tell us more about, I mean, your bio stated really well. What do you did? What do you do, but share a small, like how you got into it and more about your journey?

[00:01:25] Alex Gibbs: Absolutely. So like you mentioned, I really, it was before 2020, it was really around 2014 that I first began investing in the stock market. So a couple of my peers, getting it around that time and they made off very, very well. In fact, at least four of them do not have to work another day in their life because of it.

[00:01:43] And so I saw that and I knew that there was an opportunity to take what they did. And apply it in my own life and apply it in others' lives. So, as you mentioned, a wealth and veil, it is a site, a financial education site, and it's dedicated to bringing financial wellness and financial education to as many people as possible.

[00:02:01] Now it is, it's been concentrated in South Florida, but we've expanded kind of our social media presence and more recently our website presence in an effort to really get this message out. So with that, I am a financial coach in the South Florida area as well. I helped small businesses and individuals kind of maximize their cashflow and develop these positive relationships with their money.

[00:02:22] That's so crucial if you are trying to, you know, get to that level of financial independence.

[00:02:29] Viktoriia Miracle: Cool, and I guess, I've working at Amazon was fun, but then like you left incited to do all something on your own and what's the, what's the reason I'm just curious.

[00:02:38] Alex Gibbs: Yeah. So working with Amazon was a great time, a lot of learning experiences there. Now with that said, I'm sure that, you know, most of your listeners have heard at this point that you work, you definitely work a lot of hours. So I think I saw an idea in my head that involved more of those hours being spent on things that I was passionate about and as I mentioned, my passion lies in finance.

[00:03:02] I do still plan on kind of working in the, in the tech startup industry. But I think, when I'm contributing my best, it's always in finance, whether it be, you know, to underserved communities or, you know, parents or grandparents,like I can help.

[00:03:16] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah. So what do you, I know that you have an amazing Instagram that you basically, you know, give a great, great, advice. It's not the advice, but a great content for people to learn from and that's how I basically found Alex. So tell us more about, I know you into crypto currencies a lot. So how did you start it on that?

[00:03:40] Alex Gibbs: Well on the cryptocurrency. I think this was back in 2017 is when I first started to invest in cryptocurrencies.

[00:03:48] Like most people, my first cryptocurrency was Bitcoin. I think being the first entrant to the market definitely has its advantages. And so in 2017, I got in at around a thousand dollars, didn't have a ton of money to put in, but that money I saw rapidly grow. And so, like I mentioned, I had a couple of friends of mine who got in, in 2014 and they had invested even less.

[00:04:11] And now they're in far better physicians. So, since then I've also dabbled with some Cardanos a lot of poke it up, but I think that Ethereum and light coin. I also initially got in, in 2017, and at the time I believe there were around $400 for Ethereum and about a hundred dollars for light coin and they went up very quickly too.

[00:04:35] So, like I mentioned, I've gotten to some other altcoins. I've tried to not kind of, you know, ride the hype. Uh, I don't necessarily try to invest in the, the quickest growing thing. I try to invest in things that Fisk or fit my risk tolerance levels. So Cardanos for instance, a polka dot I'm a big fan of polka dot.

[00:04:56] Just because I think they are certainly faster, more scalable than Ethereum, for now, at least, right. Due to the pair of chains that they use for each application on its network. So I think kind of to, to circle back, I think the cryptocurrency market is still very, very young. The applications we are just now touching on, you know, whether it be Ethereum, Bitcoin or Cardano, polka dot or, or several of the other top off points.

[00:05:23] I all think that they have several key advantages and I'm definitely going to be interested to see how it opens it up..

[00:05:32] Viktoriia Miracle: So what, tell me more about the, you already touched on, on polygon, polygon polka-dots polka-dots and Cardano. What else that you are seeing? That is a big growth that's coming up.

[00:05:44] Alex Gibbs: Yeah. So just starting with Bitcoin. I think one of the reasons that I invested in Bitcoin, the originally was for one, it's the largest by market capitalization, the so-called first mover advantage, which gives it relative stability, in the cryptocurrency space. I think that in and of itself is a, is a huge hedge against some of these other externalities that we're seeing like inflation, right? So a lot of people are looking to gold to hedge against inflation. When, if you look at the performance of gold across, you know, even the past five decades, there's been several, periods of five years where the cost or excuse me, the, the value of gold has went down when inflation has went up. So it's not perfectly correlated.

[00:06:27] In fact, it's not very correlated at all. So I think a lot of people have turned their attention to Bitcoin, me being one of them. Now you'll get some, some, you know, traditional investors that say you know, it's too volatile. And I do think I would love to seal a longer kind of time period, but I think, we're going to see that and with, you know, more and more institutions and more and more countries backing Bitcoin, it's only going to add to, its stability and decrease its volatility.

[00:06:59] Going into a theory, I think the application of Ethereum, the application, excuse me, are far more than Bitcoin. It's, you know, it's built as a, kind of a platform to run spark contracts which are essentially just programmed stored on the blockchain that run when you know, certain conditions are met. So now we're just, like I mentioned before now, we're just kind of tapping into some of these different applications.

[00:07:22] We've all seen, you know, NFTs, you know, the $600 million entities that popped up, but other more applicable kind of application or practical applications, like, you know, the apps. So last but not least for Ethereum and I do think that there's a lot of upside just considering that it is supposed to transition to proof of stake in 2022.

[00:07:44] I think when that happens, it's going to increase the speed. And so I think we've seen some of that baked into the, the recent kind of price spike, but I do still think that there's a huge upside potential really for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cardano, one of the things after looking into this and I started Cardano probably in 2019.

[00:08:08] So fairly recently, is speed. So, whereas I think Bitcoin is about 20 to 30 transactions per second. Cardano was 12.

[00:08:18] Viktoriia Miracle: It's actually seven

[00:08:19] Alex Gibbs: 12. Okay. I thought that they had, they had increased

[00:08:24] Okay. Okay. Got it.

[00:08:28] Viktoriia Miracle: Which is super slow. Well, we're just making point that it's super slow.

[00:08:30] Alex Gibbs: Incredibly slow. Yeah. So if you look at Cardono, it's up to 250 transactions per second. So again, from a store of value standpoint, Bitcoin makes sense. I think it's a great hedge against inflation. I think Ethereum's got its own position within the all point kind of realm, but I think Cardano from a speed standpoint and then from polka dot from an application standpoint.

[00:08:55] So those are the core four. I would be remiss to say that I did not dabble in some of the, the doge coins, because I, I, you know, I did. I'm a firm believer in five to 10% of my portfolio, especially when I had a lot of income producing years ahead of me. I'm not too concerned about five to 10%. So, yes, I did buy into that very, very little, very little, I think I bought doge at around 10 cents.

[00:09:25] So I definitely saw some upside there. Didn't sell at 70 cents when, before Elon Musk came on Saturday night. But, for me, I'm not. Oh, there you go. Yeah, much better than me. Um, but again, I think just to circle back at the

[00:09:40] Viktoriia Miracle: 10 cents though, so

[00:09:42] Alex Gibbs: you didn't higher than that?

[00:09:44] Viktoriia Miracle: 10 cents though, but

[00:09:45] Alex Gibbs: still okay. Okay.

[00:09:47] Well, like I mentioned, I think I use the points essentially as a way to kind of hedge against some of the volatility that we see with Bitcoin. And I do it in a way that, you know, the risk reward ratio kind of fits my liking, right. And every person's going to be a little bit different, you know, some people can stomach the swings that go from, you know, 60% of the day.

[00:10:10] But I think what we're starting to see is a little bit more stability and some of the primary outpoints and Bitcoin.

[00:10:19] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely. Yep. So what you said, right? The risk reward, risk management, and I think it's very important. Speak into that, right. Dive into the risk management. What is your current assets allocation between your crypto investments and like stocks, bonds, or real estate or whatever the other hard assets?

[00:10:43] Alex Gibbs: Yeah, that's a great question. So I have a belt, 70, 80% of my portfolio in stocks. I have about 25% in crypto. I have about 5% and REITs. I do not own any gold. I do not own any bought bonds. I think bonds right now. I mean, even your treasury inflation protected securities, that your tips, they don't do much because you're going to have to pay on any, capital gains.

[00:11:09] So I think one day we might eventually see a shift back to where bonds are a little bit more lucrative. But right now, considering that I'm some, you know, fairly young and I still have all these income producers and years ahead of me, I think my app, my portfolio can, can stand to be a little bit more risky.

[00:11:28] In terms of stocks, I can tend to route my portfolio in index funds. Sometimes I dabble with trading. I don't have too much time for it anymore, at least. But like I said, I, I think just from the crypto gains alone of, of 25% of my portfolio, its been, made me happy.

[00:11:48] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely. I, so what do you think is like a coming on trends in crypto?

[00:11:57] Alex Gibbs: Well, like I mentioned, I think my one fear is slightly more regulation. I don't think that any one country would be able to do it. In fact that, I mean, we've all seen, they've done it in China. How many times they've been it in several other countries?

[00:12:12] Where they've tried to kind of clamp down on Bitcoin. Do I think that's going to be enough to really reduce value because it any type of a 30% swing? No, absolutely not. I think it's too established at this point. You have large institutions. I mean, you have, you know, a sailor who just purchased another 600 million, you know, dollars worth of Bitcoin.

[00:12:33] So I think not only are you seeing banking institutions and countries, now you're seeing companies and the only reason that they're profitable is because they're investing in things like Bitcoin. So, I'm not sure that Bitcoin is going to face those huge swings that it did, you know, even a year or two ago. I think one of the reasons that we saw that was because people were so leveraged and they had to cover cover themselves, when it started to drop just a little bit and I think that that's natural. But yeah, I think at least for the large alt points in Bitcoin, especially Ethereum, we're going to see less volatility in the next few years.

[00:13:10] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely. So what would you like? So what's the trend? Bitcoin is not a trend kind of anymore, right? And then there's so much that we can go into and so what is the coming trends? Don't tell me Shiba.

[00:13:27] Alex Gibbs: No, no, no, no, to be honest, I think I did that more as a joke than anything, but, I couldn't tell you the next trend. I really don't know. In fact, again, I don't look for the height coins. I think we all saw the squid games coin and how they did the rug poll on, on pretty much everyone outside of the, the developers.

[00:13:46] So I can tell you from personal experience, I've had, you know, cryptocurrency developers reach out, want to spread a Rudd pole, which is essentially they want influencers on Instagram and, and Facebook you know, Tik TOK these days to come on and pump up their cryptocurrencies. And meanwhile, they've already purchased it at fractions of a cent.

[00:14:11] And then when it does pump up, they rubbed Boulder. So I caution all your listeners, I think, again, only risks which you can lose. I do think that for your younger listeners, it's, it's very important to, if you have conviction in a certain investment, go for it, right. I think a lot of people take a very, very safe approach in index fund investing is fine, but that's not where the real reward is.

[00:14:38] Again, just to put things into perspective. I've known people that have taken their portfolios from, you know, a couple thousand dollars to over $4 million in a matter of a couple years. So I do think cryptocurrency is the, is the future. It's got the capacity to really revolutionize, not just a centralized banking, but a lot of the applications that we see that we're not even thinking of NFTs is just the start.

[00:15:01] Right. So that still in a very, very early time to invest in it. Don't think you're too late. And I would encourage all of your listeners to, to do their due diligence and if they're interested in something, make sure you do your research and then make sure it, this fits your risk tolerance level.

[00:15:19] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely. I absolutely agree. What would you recommend

[00:15:28] Alex Gibbs: in terms of, in terms of cryptocurrency?

[00:15:31] Viktoriia Miracle: No, no, no, no, no. Just in terms of risk management and like?

[00:15:36] Alex Gibbs: Yeah, again, I think that that's going to be a function of age, right. You know, being someone that's still got 30, 30 years ahead of me where I can produce income, for me, I take a little bit more risk on.

[00:15:49] I've tended to do that for the past five, six years now as well. For someone that's in their forties or fifties or, or closing in on retirement, I would start to kind of wean their way off of certain cryptocurrencies, especially the volatile ones. That's when I would start to take a more index fund bond approach, I don't love bonds, but if you're approaching, you know, retirement, the last thing that you want is the stock market to collapse.

[00:16:13] I mean, there's a lot of bubbles that we, we know are eventually going to have to come down. The last thing that you want going into retirement is to lose 50% of your portfolio and then have to work for the next 10 years. So again, it's a function of age. If you are someone that's got 30 plus years of income producing years ahead of you, that I would say, take some risks as you approach 50 to 60 start to make that transition to less risky stocks. Index funds are a great way. I mean, you can pretty much count on 10% per year. There are going to be some market pullbacks and some corrections, which are absolutely healthy for stocks to continue. And then as you approach, you know, the, the, maybe the two to three years out of retirement, then I would start to leverage some bonds and maybe some rates and maybe some commodities.

[00:17:05] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely. I absolutely great. Can you work? You can work and make more money and invest, always send another Dodge or I'm just kidding.

[00:17:12] Alex Gibbs: That's, that's that's that's that's exactly right.

[00:17:15] Viktoriia Miracle: I know, but that's, that's the reality. If you're younger just go for it, right? You can make money, you can lose money and we all made the good decisions, bad decisions, and I think it's better.

[00:17:26] The more you do bad decisions, like what is it that you'd get a really great lesson and experience so that then you're older, you're like, okay, I've done that. I know that mistake. I'm not going to do it. So yeah, definitely, don't be like so scared and trying things because I think that's what beauty of this world is people just trying, doing Bitcoins and exchanging in the cafes with like a cache.

[00:17:49] And then look, look at this industry now. So.

[00:17:55] Alex Gibbs: Yeah, 10 years from now. I'm not sure that cash maybe 15, maybe 20.

[00:17:59] Viktoriia Miracle: Probably 10 or 15, I'm on the same way.

[00:18:02] Alex Gibbs: I think cash is going to be a completely outdated thing. We're already starting to see it on some certain airlines in certain countries. So, definitely excited to, to see what the future has in store for us.

[00:18:13] Viktoriia Miracle: Exactly. Amazing conversation. I know you have so awesome gift for my audience and yeah, just share more about how they can get in touch with you.

[00:18:24] Alex Gibbs: Sure. So for the first three of Viktoriia's listeners, we'll be giving away two months of coaching where we'll kind of take you through a deep dive to understand where your opportunities are.

[00:18:32] We'll create a plan and we'll help you start to kind of form your goals. So for the first three, that message @wealthunveiled, DM me, uh, we will, we will give you that offer.

[00:18:43] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, we will put everything as always in a episode by page. If you're watching, listen, just scroll down. It's going to be the first thing, the link that you see. And then when you go there, there's going to be all contact information and video and audio of the podcast. And you can subscribe to email newsletter.

[00:19:01] Thank you so much, Alex, for coming on. So good to connect and chat about crypto, always fun. And thank you for watching and listening and I'll see you next week. Bye.

[00:19:11] Alex Gibbs: Thank you for having me.

[00:19:12] Bye-bye okay.