Expert Bitcoin Analyst Willy Woo

Podcast

Jan 21

Magic Internet Money: Willy Woo

So much has been happening in the Bitcoin space. Bitcoin rebounded after devastating tumbles early last year to surpass and even double its 2017 all-time high. Institutional investors are suddenly either pouring in money into the currency or singing its praises. And the general consensus is that Bitcoin's days in the dumps are now forever behind us. For the average Bitcoin investor or newcomer, it's all quite a lot to digest.

In this episode, Brad sits down with Willy Woo, one of the most respected Bitcoin on-chain analysts in the space to process it all. The two touch on several topics, including:

Willy's acclaimed newsletter
Willy's expert take on the Bitcoin bull run
The concept of 'inventory depletion' of Bitcoin from exchanges
Personality spectrum per Willy's friend, and how it fits into Bitcoin
The mystery of Satoshi's true identity
Their formulas for coping with life's rough patches
Adaptive Capital's closure
Are Bitcoin's cycles over?

#1. Personality Types and How They Fit Into Bitcoin

Brad and Willy talk about the four personalities on a four-point spectrum invented by his friend. These are soldiers, pirates, shamans and ninjas. Soldiers are people who like a predictable structure. Pirates derive satisfaction from self-expression, and their experimental nature can often land them in jail. Shamans are the 'scouts' who take up leadership roles in communities. And lastly, we have ninjas who "like to go fast and go alone", have an independent streak and don't like to be told what to do.

Wouldn't it be fun to explore personalities in the Bitcoin world through this lens? Brad wonders which category Roger Ver - quite uh, a disruptive figure - belongs to. Could he be a pirate? Willy thinks soldiers are people who hold the industry down, e.g. exchange employees. Willy opines that ninjas are the people who build crypto technologies, while shamans are those who organize Bitcoin meetups and essentially "hold the group together."

#2. What Happened to Satoshi?

Brad and Willy delve into the cryptocurrency world's most enduring mystery: who and where is Satoshi? "Did he get ill and die?" poses Willy. Brad notes Satoshi went MIA as soon as Gavin Andresen agreed to meet with the CIA. Willy finds it quite unusual for Satoshi to have gone off the radar just when their "baby was taking off."

The question of who founded Bitcoin has indeed mystified everyone. Over the years we've had people not just theorize on who Satoshi is, but significant resources have been deployed in the futile endeavor of tracking them down. Of course, we've also been treated to spectacles of 'faketoshis'. While it's understandable for the community to be curious about Satoshi, perhaps we might consider the following: If Satoshi had outed themselves, would Bitcoin be what it is today? What would be the legal ramifications for them and Bitcoin as a result? Could Bitcoin's success owe that in part to its creators anonymity? So, the Bitcoin community should probably be happy that we have Bitcoin and not fixate too much on who's behind it.

#3. Adaptive Capital's Closure in March and the Fallout

Brad and Willy discuss Adaptive Capital's shut down in March following a BTC price bloodbath on March 13, 2020. Both Brad and Willy reveal they were Limited Partners in the fund and took losses. Luckily, however, Brad had invested no more than 5% of his portfolio, and Willy had a safety net in the form of "equity in startups, cash, and real estate."

As you can see, both of them employed different strategies so they don't get rekt. Brad invested money that he was willing and could afford to lose, and Willy had a diversified portfolio. The lesson here is that cryptocurrency is wildly volatile and gains can be wiped out overnight. In other words: don't put in more money than you can afford to lose and never put all your money in one basket - much less a volatile one.

#4. Bitcoin's Potential as a Global Reserve Currency

Bitcoin's always compared to gold, but it far dwarfs Bitcoin in market cap. Gold's market cap is in the trillions, while Bitcoin touched a trillion-dollar value briefly this January before falling back to the billions bracket. But is Bitcoin in the cusp of being on par or even surpassing gold? Willy thinks "in the next weeks or months" we could see BTC become a global reserve currency and a competitor to Bitcoin. This is judging by the outpouring of "blessings" from institutions and banks and the US treasury starting to acknowledge cryptocurrencies.

Willy does some intriguing Math: if each of the 13 million high-net-worth individuals injected $100k into Bitcoin, that would push Bitcoin into trillion-dollar market cap status and million-dollar price. And given the FOMO that's likely to emerge as BTC rises, that's a plausible scenario now. And retail investors and long-time HODLers would relish it.

Timestamps

1:00:00: Introduction by Brad

3:17:00: Brad and Willy talk about Willy's newsletter, which is the currently highest-rated investment newsletter on Substack

4:45:00: Willy's take on BTC's current record-setting bull run (he saw it coming way before the Covid pandemic)

14:09:00: Discussion on how Willy's able to determine the direction of traffic exchanges accurately

16:29:00: Does Willy offer his on-chain analysis data in his newsletter?

19:00:08: Willy talks about his other interests apart from Bitcoin, his pragmatic outlook towards life and his spectrum of personalities and how various players in the Bitcoin world fit into it

28:26:00: What's the story about Willy meeting Satoshi (or is it "Satoshi"?) and the mystery about Satoshi's real identity

31:31:00: Discussion on when Willy learned about Bitcoin and his first foray into investing

55:21:00: Brad talks about 'stoic philosophy', while both get into Zen and how to deal with Twitter trolls

1:02:46: What was Willy's approach to riding out the financial crisis beginning in March?

1:06:30: Delving into the Adaptive Capital's closure in March 2020 and lessons learned

1:15:15: Will Bitcoin have more cycles, or is this the last of them before it becomes a competitor to gold?

1:31:41: Brad's 75-day challenge of clean living

1:32:53: Where to find Willy on social