The Money Nomad Podcast
Welcome to The Money Nomad Podcast hosted by wealth coach, Bitcoin educator, and astrologer Brandon Byrne. On this podcast, you'll hear about how to align with the wealthiest version of yourself and eliminate financial stress for good through Brandon's unique insights on money, investing, economics, Bitcoin, mindset, astrology, New Earth Consciousness, and the changing world order. All while infusing experiences from traveling the world.
The Money Nomad Podcast
9. Beginner's Guide To Your Investment Options: Invest In The Change You Want To See In The World
This episode encourages listeners to invest with purpose, focusing on the transformative power of Bitcoin while exploring various investment options such as bonds and real estate. We analyze the implications of each investment, urging a rethinking of wealth preservation strategies in light of societal impact.
In this episode we discuss:
• Investing as a pathway to create meaningful change
• Bitcoin's significant appreciation and its role in personal finance
• Understanding the risks and rewards of different investment avenues
• The implications of investing in bonds and real estate
• The vision for a future shaped by Bitcoin and purposeful investing
If you want to eliminate financial stress and/or become the wealthiest version of yourself, connect with me, Brandon Byrne, either:
1. On Instagram @themoneynomad or
2. Schedule an intro call and we'll connect human to human, and chat about money and what it's like to live in this crazy world. Oh and how you can become fabulously wealthy of course.
Hello, beautiful soul, and welcome to episode nine of the Money Nomad podcast. I'm your host, brandon Byrne, also known as the Money Nomad, and I am super excited for today's episode, because we're talking about investing, specifically, how to invest like the wealthiest people on the planet, and what I mean by that is not only investing so that you can build wealth and get a rate of return on your money, but investing with purpose and have your dollars that you invest go towards some kind of change or some kind of meaningful difference that you want to see in the world. So this episode will be a bit of a beginner's guide into the various options that you can invest your money into, but I'm also going to tell you what exactly you're contributing to when you invest in all these different options. And, of course, this episode will have a bit of a Bitcoin focus to it, just because it is the best investment that anyone can make, both in terms of generating your own wealth but in terms of bettering humanity as well. So, before we get started with all that little quick life update, I'm now in Mexico City and I'm planning on being here all of February and March, and I'm excited to get a lot of work done because I also just recently launched my online school community, which is basically like my virtual classroom where I can teach all things investing money, bitcoin and astrology, as well as all the mindset and the life lesson shifts that happen. So yeah, if you want to become fabulously wealthy, hop in, come, say hey. I'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:So I decided to name this community the wealth journey collective, and inside the wealth journey collective I'm going to be giving weekly coaching calls as well as monthly masterclasses, and I actually already gave the first masterclass on January 28th. I didn't really tell anyone about it, I just kind of recorded it and posted the recording inside the Wealth Journey Collective. So if you hop in, watch the recording and then there'll be a place to comment under it. I want to know what you guys think of it. I also only put out two podcast episodes in JDR. I want to put out more, but January was a little overwhelming.
Speaker 1:We're all going through the Mars retrograde together. None of us are immune to those challenges, but the good news there is that Mars is stationed direct on February 23rd, so February is kind of building up, and then we're in for a very heated spring in March and April. But, yeah, february is so nice astrology to it, so make the most of it. Team your work towards your dreams and, yeah, you can really make it happen in 2025. Put one foot in front of the other. And yeah, especially if you watch my how to Make 2025 the Most Abundant Year of your Life masterclass, that'll give you all the guidance you need into how to make it happen this year.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I'll probably make a future episode about like a Mars retrograde debrief and tell you guys more about what's been going on in my life. So let me know if you'd be interested in that kind of episode. Anytime, you can reach out to me on Instagram at TheMoneyNomad, and also, if you have any questions whatsoever, you can reach out to me by DMing me at TheMoneyNomad. And if you have a question, it's probably that any other people have that same question, kind of like when you're in the classroom and there's multiple people that have the same question, but people don't want to look dumb or so they don't want to like, say, the question in front of the class. But if you do that in the DM, then people never know it's you and you'll help me, help the rest of the class in terms of making a future episode about any question you have.
Speaker 1:Okay, now to talk about investing. So you know you need to invest your money or you'll never be wealthy or rich or financially free. Because of inflation, your wealth is always going down. If you're not doing any kind of investing to counteract the forces of inflation, then you're just net getting poor each year. But what do you invest your money into if you're looking to get the greatest return on your investment? So this podcast episode will be a quick guide into the various options available to newbie investors, as well as explanations of what you're supporting when you invest in each one. So I hope this helps you make a more informed decision in terms of investing your money and getting wealthy.
Speaker 1:And so we'll begin with the best performing investment of 2024. And that was Bitcoin. So we'll begin with the best performing investment of 2024. And that was Bitcoin. So on the newsletter that I wrote about this topic, I published this graphic that CNBC posted titled Bitcoin versus everyone else in 2024. Which, by the way, is a very bullish sign that this mainstream media site like CNBC is posting about Bitcoin in this positive way. It really goes to show that Bitcoin's kind of crossed the chasm when it comes to the mainstream media and public discourse speaking in Bitcoin in more positive light. So in 2024, bitcoin appreciated by 125% more than double, which means that if you put in $100 into Bitcoin at the beginning of 2024, your initial $100 investment would have been worth $225 at the end of the year, which is really cool, because the next highest investment on CNBC's list is the NASDAQ index, which is hundreds of tech stocks at once, like an index is just a basket of stocks, and so if you put $100 into the NASDAQ index at the beginning of 2024, you would have had your initial $100 investment would be worth $130 at the end of the year, which is not quite as cool as doubling your money, is it so? Because of a bet that I had with my brother, I actually know that Bitcoin wasn't the highest performing asset of 2024. It was just the highest performing asset class. So my brother and I had this friendly bet of which asset would have a higher performing year in 2024. I bet that Bitcoin would, and my brother bet that Nvidia stock would perform better In 2024, nvidia stock returned 171%, whereas Bitcoin returned 125%, which means I lost the bet. Sad face. I'm excited for the rematch in 2025. So we'll see what happens this year.
Speaker 1:So the S&P 500, which is the index fund that has the 500 top companies in the stock market in it, returned 24% in 2024. But most of the S&P 500 gains were thanks to just a handful of companies. Nvidia, apple, amazon, tesla, meta, alphabet, broadcom and Microsoft accounted for most of the S&P 500's growth, otherwise known as the Batman stocks, and yeah, if you think about it, it is kind of hard to overstate how much influence these companies have. You'd be hard-pressed to find many people, at least in the United States, who don't interact with meta social media platforms, apple's phones, tesla's cars, google's search engine, microsoft software, anything with a NVIDIA or Broadcom chip in it, or Amazon's e-commerce operation on a regular basis. These are the biggest companies in the world for a reason they're very good at what they do and because of that, they're very profitable.
Speaker 1:So if you buy shares in these particular stocks, then you get to profit from their profits, but it also means that you'll be dedicating your life force, energy, to their survival and continued success of these companies and there is something to be said a lot of people contributing to the long-term growth of the corporations that are already the biggest companies in the world, all the centralization risks that come with that. All this to say, as investors we shape the world around us based on our investments. So understand what you're supporting when you put your money into something. And so, while buying shares in individual stocks can come with a lot of upside, it's also sort of seen as more risky, and that's because if the company happens to go bankrupt, then you'd lose all your money as a shareholder. On the other hand, if you're invested in an index fund like the S&P 500, you wouldn't have that risk of a company going bankrupt and you losing all your money because you're invested in hundreds of stocks and what happens there is if one of those companies goes bankrupt, they just get kicked out of the index. The S&P 500 at all times is the top 500 companies in the stock market, so if at any time one of them is underperforming, a new one just takes place. And so I guess what you're supporting when you buy index fund like the S&P 500 is you're supporting and contributing your life force, energy to the stock market and the whole system of like how the stock market works. So you know, if you like, how the system operates and how it's set up, then go do that. So for the rest of this episode, we're going to talk about bonds, real estate and Bitcoin the other options available to you as an investor, at least the mainstream ones. So Bitcoin is the highest performing asset last decade.
Speaker 1:I was confident Bitcoin would have a strong 2024, and I was right. I'm also confident that Bitcoin will have a strong 2025. You see, investing in Bitcoin in 2025 is like investing in the whole internet in 1994. We're in the early stages of an asset that is undergoing a monetization process. In other words, bitcoin is a form of money that is competing with other forms of money. Bitcoin is in the process of becoming the most widely used currency in the world. Because of that, bitcoin is the best performing asset of the last decade. Also, because Bitcoin is still so early in the monetization process, the most likely outcome is that Bitcoin will continue to be the best performing asset every decade for the rest of the 21st century.
Speaker 1:So I mean, if we're talking about return on investment, there is nothing better when it comes to Bitcoin. And yeah, I mean I have no idea what Nvidia is going to do this year, next year, the year after that, and that's because I'm not sitting in on the board meetings with the leaders of the company, but Bitcoin is just a thing, similar to how gold is just a thing. Once you understand Bitcoin, there's a lot that becomes clear. A big reason for this is because Bitcoin separates control of money from humans, who are susceptible to imperfection, emotional decision making and corruption. I don't know what Nvidia stock is going to do because I don't know what the humans at the company are going to do, but I know what Bitcoin will do because there's a lot less human involvement. When it comes to Bitcoin, there is no board of directors, no company or single entity that controls how it operates. Because of this, bitcoin is known as the people's currency.
Speaker 1:So there's $900 trillion of wealth in the world. In the newsletter that this episode is based off of, I posted a graph of where all that $900 trillion of wealth is allocated. The biggest asset classes in the world are real estate, coming in at $330 trillion and bonds coming in at $300 trillion. So I've never liked bonds as an investment because I never saw a big ROI or return on investment. Bonds pretty much help you recoup what you lose through inflation, but they don't really help you get any closer to financial freedom, you essentially just get to the same place where you were before all your money lost its value, or like a percentage of its value, due to inflation, but you don't actually get any wealthier.
Speaker 1:So what do you support when you buy bonds? Bonds are a debt instrument. When the government needs money because they're hella broke and don't have money, they borrow money by issuing bonds. If you buy a bond, the government promises to pay you back with some interest next year or however many years the bond is worth Could be like 2, 5, 10, or even like 20 years but what happens next year? The government needs to pay you back, but since they're so broke, they essentially will borrow the money to pay you back by issuing new bonds. So, all this to say, when you buy bonds, you're dedicating a portion of your energetic life force into the debt-based system that perpetuates the cost-of-living crisis. So by buying a debt instrument like a bond, you support the very existence of the debt-based system that we live in and, as a result, prices keep climbing to a level that is more and more difficult to afford without relying on debt. So if you don't like debt, don't buy bonds.
Speaker 1:So what makes real estate so popular? So real estate was the greatest wealth generator of the 20th century. It was really interesting to see because before real estate, gold was the most monetized asset. But beginning in the 19th century and then continuing to the 20th century, gold became demonetized. Real estate became the primary method of long-term savings. If you wanted to preserve your wealth beyond a few decades, you bought real estate. It's just what you did.
Speaker 1:And so what am I talking about when I'm talking about like monetized and demonetized? So I'm essentially talking about the functions of money. So money is a tool to send value across space and time. The two functions of money that I'm talking about right now are medium of exchange and store value. A medium of exchange is what you use to buy things or like that's sending value across space is what you use to buy things or like that's sending value across space. And then a store of value is how you send money across time or how you send value across time. So in today's world, we pretty much use cash and either credit or debit cards to buy things as our medium of exchange, but we use assets like stocks and real estate as our savings or store of value. Assets like stocks and real estate as our savings or store of value. In one way or another, all of these are money because they're serving one of the functions of money. So, like your credit card is monetized, real estate has become monetized. Stocks are monetized because they're either serving one of the functions of money, either the store of value or the medium of exchange. Right, they are all money because money is a form of savings just as much as it is a means of buying things. So, because the cash that we use on a day-to-day basis is always losing value because of inflation, it's impossible to save your way to wealth. When people think of investing into something like stocks, they're really just looking for a long-term savings, which means your investments are your long-term savings accounts.
Speaker 1:What makes Bitcoin valuable is that it is a supreme store of value that also happens to be a damn good medium of exchange. Like, imagine if the money in your bank account and your paycheck went up in value like your stock or real estate investments do. That's what Bitcoin is. It's money that appreciates some value, and so Bitcoin will continue to be the best performing asset every decade for the rest of the century, because it's the best form of money that's ever existed. Like, how can you have like all those in one thing and not have that be valuable, which means that as Bitcoin becomes monetized, other asset classes will slowly become demonetized.
Speaker 1:If you buy Bitcoin, you'll never need to worry about investing again because your money will be appreciated. You'll actually be able to save and become wealthy. That way, none of us will need to be a part-time investor when it comes to managing our money, because the best individual strategy will be to just spend less than you make and you'll see your wealth increase over time. It's that simple. Adopting Bitcoin as money makes investing obsolete. I mean not completely, like they'll still be investors, but like the need won't be as big for everyone to be a part-time investor in addition to everything else in life.
Speaker 1:So what do you support when you buy real estate? Just to drive this point home, let's finish this point. So, because real estate became the most monetized asset on the planet, houses cost a lot. This is supply and demand, in effect. It. Houses cost a lot. This is supply and demand, in effect. Because people were looking to preserve their wealth across multiple decades in the most effective and efficient way possible. Real estate emerged as the best method to fulfill that purpose. And then all that demand raised the price slash, value slash, cost of a home to a place that is relatively unaffordable for most people in 2025. This is to say, when you buy real estate as an investment, you contribute to the housing crisis and that's not very power to the people of us to make homes unaffordable for our fellow humans. None of us are free until we all are. The monetization process of Bitcoin comes as other asset classes, like real estate, become demonetized.
Speaker 1:Bitcoin is a black hole in terms of global wealth. There's $900 trillion of wealth in the world and the Bitcoin market currently represents only $2 trillion. But I bet that if we were to look at this global wealth 50 years from now, bitcoin could easily be worth $200 trillion. That would be about a 100x increase from where we're at currently. Where else can you 100x your money over the next 50 years with this level of certainty? And I understand you probably don't have this level of certainty right now. But there's all this stuff I teach inside the Wealth Journey Collect Like the only difference between where I'm at and where you're at is knowledge. I can teach you the knowledge and you can gain the same level of certainty that I have. So that's all inside the Wealth Journey Collect. So hop in, it's popping in there, but I'll give you a little piece that represents well a piece of my overall thesis.
Speaker 1:So for Bitcoin to eventually be worth $200 trillion in terms of market cap, it would need to capture some of the wealth from these other boxes, most notably from the bond market and the real estate market. There are some other options, other asset classes that Bitcoin will also capture wealth from, but we're just going to focus on real estate and bonds for now. And that's because the real estate market is worth $330 trillion, which is a third of global wealth. The bond market is also worth $300 trillion, and that also represents a third of global wealth. So two-thirds of all the wealth in the world is either in real estate or bonds. And the reason I think Bitcoin being monetized over these assets is good for humanity is because it helps us solve the problems that are arising in society out of having real estate and bonds be the primary form of wealth preservation among the people.
Speaker 1:And to explain what those problems are, first with bonds. Bonds essentially represent everything that's wrong about a debt-based financial system. So when we ended the gold standard in 1971, which was 54 years ago we've essentially been on what's called a fiat standard just government money and so we've been in a buy now and pay for it later way of doing things for over 50 years now, but the thing is we never actually pay for it. We just keep buying stuff and then, well, I'll pay that later. Just keep buying stuff and then, well, I'll pay that later. But, like now, 50 years have passed and the way we're paying for it is in the form of a cost of living crisis, where the cost of living is at a point where it is where it's hard to afford without relying on debt, and that's largely because of people keep buying bonds and giving their life force energy into the system that perpetuates the cost of living crisis. So demonetizing bonds will help us to solve the debt problem, which is one of the underlying causes of the cost of living crisis.
Speaker 1:And for real estate? For real estate, I'll explain it through the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So the bottom rung, or like fundamental needs for humans, are food, water, clothing and shelter. Like, shelter is a basic human necessity and because of that there is a lot of demand for people to need homes. Demand for people to need homes. But because real estate represents a third of global wealth, or because a third of global wealth is in real estate. There's also really strong demand for people to buy homes and real estate as a form of investment, and so these two demand factors on top of each other are so strong that houses are at a point that are relatively hard to afford for the common person, especially without debt. So there's some overlap there in terms of debt into the system and how expensive houses are. So if we demonetize real estate, then we remove the demand factor for real estate to be the primary form of wealth preservation among the people, and then, of course, there'll still be strong demand because shelter is such a strong need, but you won't have that effect of houses being so unaffordable because there's also so much demand for people to buy houses in terms of a investment. All this to say that demonetizing real estate will help bring housing prices lower and help bring an end to the housing crisis.
Speaker 1:But to demonetize these asset classes would mean monetizing something else. The reason that these have been this way for so long was because there simply wasn't a better alternative now until Bitcoin. So the thing with Bitcoin there's only 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist. So a common question is like isn't that a weakness? How can you possibly fit all of the global wealth in an asset that has a limited supply cap like that? The answer is because Bitcoin is highly divisible. You can fit an infinite amount of wealth in Bitcoin. The smallest denomination of Bitcoin is what's called a set sort for Satoshi. There's a hundred million Satoshis in one Bitcoin, similar to how there's a hundred cents in a dollar. So let's say, for example, that your morning cup of coffee costs 500 cents. When the price or value of Bitcoin goes up, because that's just what it does your morning cup of coffee gets a little cheaper and not only costs you 450 cents.
Speaker 1:You cannot fit an infinite wealth in assets like real estate, or even gold, for that matter, because we would just make more. If the price of a home suddenly jumped up to $5 million, you would see a lot of us go out and start building homes. On one hand, it is pretty sweet that we're able to create wealth with our own hands. Like, yeah, if a house suddenly is worth $5 million, you're like I can build a house, but yeah. And then the other example if the price of gold suddenly shot up to $1 million, you'd see a lot of people go out and start mining gold. The point I'm trying to make here is that if the demand is great enough, demand finds supply, and in the case of real estate, demand like this would be detrimental because we would need to cut down trees to make space for all the houses, not to mention using our natural resources as the building materials. And this is what's so backward about how our economic and financial system operate. We cannot afford to grow at all costs on a planet with limited space and limited resources.
Speaker 1:The next couple of decades are all about technology-driven abundance. Technology helps us increase productivity and raise the standard of living through cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things. As an emergent technology, bitcoin has a key role in ushering in abundance to humanity. It is the key to ending the cost-living crisis, but understanding how it's also the key to ending the climate crisis. It's not exactly a beginner topic, and so to really nail that point home, it will require further understanding, but it is a fascinating topic.
Speaker 1:But for now, understand that Bitcoin's fixed limited supply of 21 million is what drives its value and one of its key features that makes it the ideal money. But because of Bitcoin's limited supply of 21 million. If demand becomes too exorbitant, the only way to get some will be to provide value to someone who would be willing to pay you in Bitcoin for the value you provide. With the focus shifted towards providing value, we will make the world a more valuable place to be a part of, as well as have an easier time finding value in all things, especially within ourselves.
Speaker 1:Scarcity and money creates abundance in everything else. So thank you so much for listening. If this episode brought up any questions or anything else, you can either DM me on Instagram at TheMoneyNomad, or you can hop in my school community, the Wealth Journey Collective, and hop on a coaching call or write a post about a question, and I'll answer those questions there. I love and appreciate every single one of you guys. Be sure to take care of yourself, hydrate, invest in yourself, be the change you want to see in the world and bye for now.