We’ve been thumping the table on the opportunity in bitcoin (BTC) here at Legacy Research going back to April 2016.
That’s when colleague Teeka Tiwari first recommended the crypto to his readers.
At the time, you could buy one bitcoin for $428.
Today, one bitcoin changes hands for $56,500.
That’s a 13,100% gain for folks who acted on Teeka’s recommendation.
But the U.S. government has been slow to regulate bitcoin and other cryptos.
And a lot of folks worry that when it finally acts, it will kneecap growth in the sector and trigger a sharp selloff.
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But as you’ll hear from Teeka in this week’s video update at the top of the page, heavy-handed regulation would be the dumbest move since the government banned alcohol during the Prohibition era.
Regards,
Chris Lowe
Editor, The Daily Cut and Legacy Inner Circle
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Transcript
Tom Beal: Have you ever wondered if the U.S. government would ban or severely regulate bitcoin and hinder its performance? We’re going to hear from Legacy Research Group expert Teeka Tiwari today to answer that question for you.
My name is Tom Beal, host of The Weekly Pulse, where we break down the biggest wealth-growth story of the week. I’m here today with the editor of Legacy Inner Circle, Chris Lowe. Chris, how do we kick off today’s conversation?
Chris Lowe: So today, we’re going to be talking about bitcoin, which I know is a very big asset that a lot of our readers hold. It’s been doing very well this year. And it’s been doing even better since Teeka Tiwari, our crypto investing expert at Legacy, recommended it all the way back in April 2016.
Teeka was one of the first guys in our industry to recommend bitcoin. When he recommended it, it was trading at around $420. And today, even after a bit of a pullback recently, it’s trading at more than $50,000. So we’re talking about somewhere in the region of a 10000% gain. It’s huge.
It’s probably one of the biggest trades we’ve recommended at Legacy. And I know it’s made a huge difference to those readers who got in on Teeka’s call.
And at Legacy Inner Circle, which is our weekly advisory, where we take a deep dive into all the big ideas around Legacy, we actually put that recommendation on our readers’ radars in July 2016.
So, a couple of months after Teeka’s readers, our Palm Beach Confidential and Palm Beach Letter subscribers, got that recommendation. We did what we do at Legacy Inner Circle, which is to pass on those recommendations, the really big ones, to our readers so they don’t miss anything that’s going on around Legacy.
When we recommended it, bitcoin was trading around $650. So again, it’s just this huge, life-changing gain that we’ve helped our readers achieve.
And there’s one very big question that our readers still have. I hear it all the time – I’m sure you do, too – which is will the U.S. government ban bitcoin? Or will they regulate bitcoin?
Is that something that you worry about, Tom? I know you’ve dabbled in crypto. But is that something that’s on your mind?
Tom: It definitely has crossed my mind. I don’t know enough to sway one way or the other. But I follow the guidance of the Legacy Research experts, and that’s helped me stay certain that I’m not even late to the game still.
Because that’s another thing to mention, Chris, with it being brought to the readers’ attention back when it was $600 or even a little bit less than that. I first got in when it was around $6,000. I thought I was late to the game then. It was a real pull on me, like, “Man, I missed the meteoric rise.”
And then, I got back in again when you and I were discussing it, and had the fortunate opportunity to have Teeka on. He predicted it would go up again in a large way. That was when it was around $14,000. Once again, I thought I was late to the game. Many of my friends thought they were late to the game, too.
And now, here we are at $50,000 plus. I’m sure many people are thinking, “Well, am I late to the game?” And “What are the feds going to do with this? What is the government going to do with this?”
So I’m interested to hear Teeka’s take on this because that would put me and others at ease. Okay, not only am I still not late to the game, but there’s really no worry or concern about it being regulated or just pushed completely under. So I’m curious as to what Teeka’s thoughts are on this.
Chris: Yeah. It was something that Teeka talked about to readers of our Palm Beach Confidential advisory, which is exclusively focused on crypto. Teeka does these video updates, which are very popular with readers. Recently, he addressed this question.
Because there is a question over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies right now. We are still very much in the very early days of crypto. So there isn’t much clarity on regulation. That’s just a fact. It’s almost like going all the way back in time to when the stock market was just coming out and there was a lot of questions about how to regulate the stock market.
So these questions do exist. There’s a chap called Gary Gensler at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is the big stock market regulator, and he’s under a lot of pressure to come up with a plan for bitcoin and other cryptos.
There is a concern that somehow, regulators at the SEC are going to step in and really quash a lot of the freedom and creativity and kind of creative destruction process that happens in crypto.
I think it keeps a lot of people away from crypto. I certainly hear from people saying, “Ah, bitcoin. I think something’s going to happen with the regulators,” or, “I think it’s going to be completely banned.”
So I thought what we’d do today is just run a clip that Teeka shared with his Palm Beach Confidential subscribers. They’ve kindly allowed us to share that with Legacy Inner Circle folks and Daily Cut folks.
So maybe we just go straight to Teeka as he addresses that question about Gary Gensler at the SEC and what Gensler is going to do with crypto.
As you’ll hear from Teeka, he thinks banning bitcoin would be the stupidest thing since the U.S. feds banned alcohol during the Prohibition era. But let’s hear it straight from Teeka.
Teeka Tiwari: The other thing I want to talk to you about here is Gary Gensler… Basically, he’s saying he believes that all but a handful of altcoins will be deemed securities.
So will he come out and blanket say that 9,800 coins are securities and the rest are not? Maybe in four years… maybe in two years… But to say that would happen this year or next year… Do you know what kind of political will you need to make that happen?
And the other part of it is it’s an unenforceable rule. When you have a decentralized platform, decentralized trading, and decentralized assets, you can’t just dictate what those assets can do.
Now, you can certainly hurt them and say, “American companies and exchanges can’t trade these assets.” That can be done.
But that’s not difficult to get around. I’m not suggesting you should do that or break the law. But I’m telling you what the market will do. The market will just move its trading either offshore or into decentralized exchanges that individuals can trade directly through a MetaMask wallet, for example.
So if Gensler really pushes hard on this agenda – that most altcoins are securities – all he’ll do is hasten the arrival of a fully decentralized system, where [centralized] exchanges are just not needed anymore. People can just directly exchange any asset class, at any time they want to.
That’s the long-range trajectory of this asset class. And it’s so hard for people to get their head around… Because unless you were born within the last 20 years, your whole worldview has been built around this idea of centralized authority and command-and-control types of regimes.
The SEC says this is wrong. And since the whole traditional financial world is centralized, it can just threaten sanctions against individual companies, and bend them to its will.
You cannot do that with software. And the SEC is smart enough to know that… Which is why nobody in the United States, in my opinion, is ever going to try and ban bitcoin. It would be the dumbest thing since Prohibition.
So I think we need to pay attention to those stories, but let’s not overweight them.
Tom: Well, Chris, thank you for bringing that to my and The Weekly Pulse viewers’ attention. Because when Teeka talks, I listen. Hopefully, the Weekly Pulse and the Legacy Inner Circle members listen as well because it’s proven to work quite well for me and the others that are in Teeka’s world.
And I’m really feeling more comfortable about having pretty much zero concern of the government regulating it or shutting down bitcoin.
And I’ve heard, thanks to you and other things that Teeka has mentioned, he’s extremely bullish on bitcoin. He sees this as just the beginning, just like I talked about. We’re not late to the game at $600, $6,000, $15,000, $60,000, whatever. It’s still early in the game, with a very bullish future ahead. So I’m pretty excited that we got those insights from Teeka.
Chris: And Tom, I want to make it clear. It’s not that there’s never going to be regulation of crypto. In fact, Teeka reckons that it’s good if crypto eventually gets regulated. He just thinks that Gary Gensler is going to tread carefully and do the right thing.
But actually, people shouldn’t fear regulation at all because, of course, these things are going to be regulated in some form or another. That is going to help folks have confidence in this new asset class and come into it like they come into stocks, bonds, commodities, or all the other regulated investments available to investors today.
So it’s not that it’s never going to be regulated. It’s just that Teeka doesn’t see this as an imminent threat, that there’s some big catastrophic, badly handled regulatory problem. And that’s, as he said in the video, because it would just be a huge own-goal for the U.S.
I’ve said it before in the Daily Cut, Tom. The U.S. has a lot of problems. We all know that. And people are upset about this and that part of the U.S. economy.
But one thing you can say is that America still has an amazing track record of recognizing breakthrough technologies and allowing entrepreneurs to flourish. That’s why Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are among the biggest tech companies in the world. So I think that’s the way the U.S. is going to handle this. And that’s what Teeka thinks.
So my takeaway, if you like, for The Weekly Pulse viewers, is don’t spend too much time fretting over the regulation of crypto. It is early in the crypto cycle. There will be some regulation, but I don’t think it’s something that should stop you from getting involved.
Tom: Very important point that you just clarified there. Absolutely. So there can’t be the pump-and-dumps when someone tweets something. Down the road, there will be things that will be similar to, like you said, the stock market. And that’s nothing to fear. That’s just part of actually making it more secure down the road.
Chris, as always, thank you for bringing your wisdom and Teeka’s wisdom to us today to The Weekly Pulse. And as The Weekly Pulse viewers, stay tuned. Our goal here is to help you grow and protect your wealth. We hope this is helpful for you. Chris, thanks again.
Chris: Thanks, Tom.
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