EP 85: Where is the value in a Bitcoin mining company with Trisch Garthoeffner and Nainesh Shah

Ed Mysogland  00:00
I recently was reading an article in one of our business valuation trade magazines, and it was by Trish Garthoeffner and she was writing about Bitcoin, and, and, and cyber, not cyber, but crypto. And, and, and mining companies and their valuation. And, and I was, it's one of those things where you see a practitioner that is at the forefront of, of an industry and this is, you know, this isn't going away. So I contacted her and we we originally tried to start recording. And I had a number of questions. And she said, You know, I have a colleague, his name is Denise Shaw. And he participated in, in helping me with the with the article. So I think it would be best if we get him on the line. So we rescheduled the podcast. And so this is about about Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining and the valuation and I will be the first person to tell you that I have absolutely no idea. Or at least I didn't have an idea of how the mechanics of a business like this would work. Because you know, from where I come from, you know, we're business valuations based on earnings, growth and risk. And when you start combining all of that with Bitcoin, oh, my goodness, the moving parts are just really would give me such --anxiety but it's, it's really hard for a practitioner to be to offer a an an opinion, that sound with that many moving parts. So let me tell you a little bit about who we're talking to today. So nice job complete valuations out of New York. He's a he's a finance professional that specializes in business valuations. His expertise lies in innovative business valuation techniques, which are which include the renowned subscription based Apple valuation and unique some of the parts model for Amazon. And he delivered boy oh boy did he deliver when we when we spoke earlier today. And next is Alexa Trish Garth Garth Hoffner. She is the founder and president of anchor business valuations. Anchor is focused on business valuations for private and public companies between 50,000 and $100 million in gross revenue. And she does all kinds of business valuations we know from estate and gift litigation, sale, merger, fair value, and things like that. So this, this podcast was was one that stretched, stretched me a lot because I, again, I, I want the audience, I want you to know, you know, when we're done that you got something out of it. And it just wasn't me just trying to keep up with these guys, but they were so gracious with their time and really explained, you know, just the mechanics of how this industry works, how the business works, how to value it, and then what it looks like here in the future. So I hope you enjoy my conversation w ith Naneish Shah and Trisch Garthoeffner as we talk about Bitcoin and the sale of Bitcoin mining companies. risWell, welcome to the show. Trish and Naneish, how are you?

Trisch Garthoeffner  04:17
Great! Thank you for having us!

Ed Mysogland  04:19
Well, I've been looking forward to this for since you got on the calendar and and, and in preparation, it's a little bit it's a little daunting. The topic we're going to talk about, which is which is, which is crypto. And, and so I guess where I'd like to first start is I gave some limited introduction before you came on. But now I guess from a high level, can you talk about  each of your respective practices, you know, from in, because I know you guys do more than just crypto, right? 

Trisch Garthoeffner  04:56
Yes, yes, exactly. So I'll start off Nainesh, I met Nainesh, actually through the National Association of Certified valuators and analysts, which is association that we're certified through, or at least one of them that we are, as business valuation experts. And I, my practices anchor business valuations and financial services I started about 10 years ago, I worked on Wall Street for a number of years as a financial analyst. And then when I moved outside of Manhattan got into doing private company, Main Street valuations. Um, I also do a little bit of m&a as well, working with the small business owners helping them through the process, did litigation for a number of years, but I stopped doing litigation as of about six months ago, try to keep that to bare minimum just closing up cases work as a neutral work collaboratively and cooperatively as possible. Got a lot of great experience from working in the courtroom, but not really something I wanted to do ongoing. So for the most part, now I do all types of different valuations for estate and trust, purchase price allocation. So fair value, work as a neutral on divorce matters and for shareholder dispute. And I also do quality burnings. And a little bit like I said, of helping my clients go through a sale of business nice, Nainesh?

Nainesh Shah  06:20
Yeah, me, I think we I have a very similar background as Trish. Public equity, all different type of industrial. People come from a little bit of a different background, they come from finance, rather than accounting, which is typically what you see in the vision. And so right now, my company advisor, you've been in business for five plus years, and we do our work is conducted just in the state. And then we also do m&a. So we do we have a smaller business to understand the browser that they have. They can go inside. Yeah, nice.

Ed Mysogland  07:14
Well, I ran, I ran into you both. When you guys had authored an article about crypto, and, and I hadn't given it any thought that there is even a market for this, you know, and and you guys were kind enough to come on and talk about that. So that's where I think we're where I'd like to begin as is, how did you get involved in this particular sector? And, and then, I guess, I want to talk a little bit about the valuation and the mechanics of how this whole thing works. So he either it's a loaded question, so either one of you,

Trisch Garthoeffner  07:57
I'll start off Nainesh. A little over a year ago, I received an inquiry, a lot of the business that I obtained is through word of mouth. And so one of my referral sources had referred me and to a client that owns a relatively large cryptocurrency mining company. And he needed to obtain valuations for several of his entities for contractual purposes. And so I mean, I was very surprised, honestly, to know that in a smaller area of the United States that there was a business of this sort, but we just, I became fascinated with the sector reached out to nine ish with picking his brain about the industry, and come to find out that he has a lot of knowledge on the investing side and on cryptocurrency side in terms of just already in existence and knowledge base that he has. So I asked him if he wanted to team up, and he teamed up with me. And that's something how we get the ball rolling and really getting a meshed in the sector. And it's taken off from there. Okay, yeah.

Nainesh Shah  09:07
A minute moment. So I mentioned about my portfolio management thing that we were doing back then is trying to understand change that happens around us to change the business process or something, something similar. So one of the change that I was noticing about international MIPCOM. So just to just to grasp what's going on, I invest it to my friends helped me pay me for that. But my interest was to understand what, what is going on with this new idea. So by investing your own money, you keep in touch with the change happening. And that's what got me into it. And that's why Trish and I even got together about this project to become quite easy because I knew what was going on.

Ed Mysogland  10:01
All right. And the thing like for, for a lot of people that listen to this podcast are fascinated by the different industries. And I think from a, from a high level, can you talk about just the mechanics of this cryptocurrency and the mining? You know, just just from a high level? For my own benefit, too? I mean, I know, you know, everybody hears about it everybody, you know, they see it on the on the television, but I'm not certain everybody understand what, what all this means. It's just, you know, it's a currency that's trading, you know, that goes up and down. And you know, the sky is falling when it's crashing. And, boy, you wish you own more of it when it's going up. So he talked a little bit about, you know, just the mechanics of how it works.

Nainesh Shah  10:55
Yeah, installing. The idea originated with this white paper written by with a slew of some Japanese about blockchain, and then currency that can decide on that. And blockchain is nothing but a ledger that is confirmed by computers. And so that's, that's something called No, there's a network of law, and the blockchain decides on that. So every transaction that happens on blockchain is no, although it's not known by individual person, by the number. And so that's the component of blockchain. Bitcoin is the application on top of, and then the mining is connected with, who is confirming the blocks that can go on the block with a mind that every time we mined a mind block, there's compensation that that is received. And that's where the business, so define what mining means. I mean, I understand the, the, the, the coins and the tokens and the nodes, but but we keep on hearing about mining and the power it takes to mine. I mean, it helped me algorithm that news for someone to every so often, bunch of transaction that happens in logistic will be primed for law, major transaction that happens in the Bitcoin space needs to be confirmed. And if confirmation happens, by solving whoever solves the algorithm first, get the money or compensation for solving and once it's solved, connects with the previous law and blockchain. That's the it's not a minute. In a sense, it's the mining of getting out. Who's getting the block contract? Okay.

Ed Mysogland  13:12
No, no, I was, I was wondering whether I saw Trish a couple of times, you know, had something to say. And I was just curious, did you good? Oh, yeah, yeah, I was just going to concur with what nine is just saying it that's referred to as proof of work. So these nodes computers, basically are continually creating the trying to solve this algorithm. And it's called hashing, they're 64 digits long. And then after a period of time, just based upon the odds of whether or not it will happen or won't happen. It will come about that the miner will receive Bitcoin. Okay. And so and then the, so the mining company is competing to solve the algorithm. And the miner then takes a portion. I mean, how, what is the font? What's, what are the financial mechanics of the minor? Yeah, so there either is similar to like a trading desk, so in my opinion, but like you're either proprietary trading desk, or you're sure you are mining for yourself, or you have services where you're mining for other individuals as well. And then you take a percentage.

Trisch Garthoeffner  14:40
So yeah, that was it. They'll keep it they'll keep it on the ledger. They'll either keep it on cold storage, which is offline or they'll keep it online will have it in a wallet. So whoever bitcoin is, is obtained and then retain and then they'll keep it for a period of time until they want to use it or convert

Ed Mysogland  14:59
it. Okay, so

Nainesh Shah  15:02
if you think about it, if it is a gold or silver metal that you're trying to mine, you extract it, you hold it, and then you sell it, etc. Right, depending on what your condition market condition at that moment.

Ed Mysogland  15:19
So why is why isn't everybody running to be miners? I mean, what what does it take to be a miner?

Trisch Garthoeffner  15:26
Oh, I'll start off with that the new barrier to entry is, is it's cost prohibitive. So it's it's extremely expensive to get up and running to have the computer software to have the actual equipment to have the space to have all the all of the the mechanisms in place that would allow for the best profits, a lot of times that might include con contract contracts with electric companies, because this proof of work mining just began sticking with Bitcoin, for example. It's very costly, because of the energy that's expended for the mathematical algorithms that are taking place over that time period. The one thing that I did when

Nainesh Shah  16:17
the human computing power difficulties occur, so you need huge computing power and new thinking. Usually doesn't love and energy. And people in pasture chosen to keep this mining miners or devices in a location where energies in particular, but then so for example, and these are vicious pie kind of mentioned, is China, China has a cheaper energy consumption or energy cost, but then you don't have the same security about regulation. Suddenly, one day, they can say you can stop money.

Ed Mysogland  17:08
I got it. Right. Okay, so so so the minor in this is really about computing power and, and literally energy that dictates a miner so so the guy that's like, Look, I'll be a miner and I'm gonna run this thing off my laptop, that that's just that doesn't friends that

Trisch Garthoeffner  17:29
have tried to do that. But then they ultimately end up outsourcing it.

Ed Mysogland  17:35
Because it would seem as though that every it's a big land grab right now, you know, to be a my minor or, or is that that not true? There's, you know, it's the internet, it's infinite you can anybody can be a minor or no?

Trisch Garthoeffner  17:50
Well, it depends on what so I'll start off with respect to debate and a limitation. So Bitcoin there's there's a cap, and there are 21,000, I think, million. million. So is that 85%? So but that even in itself isn't supposed to be fully mind until 21 100 or 2140, or something like that. So it's near and 20 to 100%, in terms of being mined by 2040. But I think that in terms of the the land grab, I think it's the barrier to entry with the cost. So it's cost prohibitive. The Bitcoin, as I say, I mean, I guess you could disagree with me, but I would say that the safest Yeah. Yeah, in terms of mining, and there's, there's a cap on it, there's a limitation

Nainesh Shah  18:50
I get about this, is if you have a regular business, you're very cash, right? You sell product, the cell service, you can then use that money to spend or expenses that you incur. In case my knee, there's no real cash down, what comes to you is this concept that somehow you need to sell in the marketplace. And the marketplace is one of them. And I think that's what one of the version you want to have is probably really, you know,

Ed Mysogland  19:26
that that was coming. Is that okay, I make my you and I yeah, um, what I was getting at is that, you know, the time you know, I buy something for $1,000, right? And by the time you and I do a transaction, it comes to me and that that $1,000 made the delta between now and then it either may be substantially higher or substantially lower or stayed even. Which Yeah, I mean, to me, is it I think the fascinating The thing about the whole process is that, you know, and again, I think it's the, it's the purchasing power. Like, if I have $1. I mean, yeah, you know, you have inflation and so on and so forth with Bitcoin. You know, I think it's, I think it's somewhat similar. It's just that there's just so many more moving parts and the volatility of the currency, right, or am I missing? That? Is that?

Nainesh Shah  20:29
Okay? Yeah, it's a, it's a yoke business. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead.

Ed Mysogland  20:38
No, no. So where I was heading, is, alright, let's, let's talk about valuation. So, So,

Trisch Garthoeffner  20:47
currency, first of all, was put into place to as like, an app in opposition to inflation. So that's why, you know, like, with the US, we have quantitative easing, so we can create money and churn it out. And our debt is through the roof. Right. And so I think with with Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote Nakamoto, who wrote the, the blockchain paper in 2008. And his whole motive was to be to counter at the payments of what they refer to as the currency or fiat currency, which is currency that is not secured by any underlying asset, though, it is supposed to be a hedge against that, if not to take over eventually, so

Ed Mysogland  21:38
yeah, and, and, and to have all the checks and balances at a moment's notice that, you know, we're always imbalance. And, and to me, that's probably the most powerful, the most powerful thing was that, you know, as you guys too, I mean, the, the reliance on good numbers is always great. You know, being able to being able to, to know what you're looking at, as is true and accurate is is key. But, but, but that takes me to the valuation. And, again, you have so many moving parts there. I mean, as appraisers, we, we kind of haven't. I'm assuming the mechanics are the same, but I don't know that. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, some of the factors that you guys looked at, or look at when you're valuing like a mining business?

Trisch Garthoeffner  22:35
Sure, you want to start I'm sure.

Nainesh Shah  22:39
You can always go back to the basics. Valuing a company, the basics are simple, three ways, one should think about valued, asset rather, acid approach. And in this case, you can add one more way to think about that is the network we're trying to, and I'll start with the last one, which is to identify what is the value of the total network? That's, that's interesting this? And can you identify the share of that network that your business differences that can be shared to the asset, but still, you have the hardware and the data center? location, and then maybe you can value the agreements that we might have. But the problem with asset approach is that you are not capturing the intellectual market approach is better. You can, because I found the companies that you can compare your business with.

Ed Mysogland  24:01
All right, I didn't I didn't know.

Nainesh Shah  24:04
q4, you can. Yeah. So that that you can use and it's hard to the flip side of town told me that is not many transactions. So marketer projects are not. And then you want to touch on that. Basically, I'm looking at the future. Yeah. Do you want to cover in the income approach? And then?

Trisch Garthoeffner  24:30
Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I wanted to note too, with the market approach, the issue being more than not is the size comparison. So there's just such a discrepancy that it's hard to compare apples apples, it's sure lately Yeah, it's comparing apples to oranges a lot of times. So the income approach you're going to look at it's hard to predict the future obviously so especially for mining company. As of the if it was a holding company. I Have you ever seen even the asset approach would be the best, depending on you know whether or not they're doing services for investing for others, while you would want to potentially look at any kind of cash flow, the revenue that is generated from services that they provide to client base, but for the income approach, I think for the one that we did, I think we might have did, we did a DCF. And we did the capitalization of earnings to kind of compare the two, which means we looked at historical and we looked at future, a lot of close conversations with the with the the owner, operator, in terms of what he has done historically. So being a newer business, it makes it even an added layer of complexity, because we don't have that historical data to look at. So if there's a concentration on the cryptocurrency, you can look at different databases that have the research out there, that show like the technical analysis, or, and the fundamental analysis for that, that asset, and be able to predict when, for example, like Bitcoin, when the next halving might occur, and then talk to the owner in terms of what is their strategy that they have in place for exiting the market, you want to be one avoid the, the the buy high sell, oh, Mantra, that's nice. And a lot of every day traders and they have, they have a similar kind of, of mantra that takes place in in, in cryptocurrency, like the mean stocks and crashes what they refer to it as so, you know, you want to make sure that you're you're that you're looking at the strategies that the owner has used historically, and what they expect to use into the future. So you're working very closely as you would with any other type of valuation, but even more so because it's a newer industry that hasn't had that, you know, footprint in place too long.

Nainesh Shah  27:11
So and you touched on this, it's usually one, that's a challenge for valuation, there are a lot of risks, that you don't see your conventional in, that needs to be somehow somehow be reflected on the valuation. And the way to do that, one way to do that is to adjust your discovery accordingly. So you create a DCF. But then you need a rate that he or discount that future cash flow. And that you to increase. All this is

Ed Mysogland  27:51
what? Yeah, it's funny, because when, you know, when you're creating your forecast, you know, and, and, and even the discount rate to, you alluded to the, the DCF. I'm sitting here going, Oh, my gosh, how are you possibly getting to, to a point where you have confidence in that forecast? And you've quantified that risk? And that discount rate? Because just because, and I mean, it's not being critical? It's, it's, it's one of those things of, I mean, your opinion is probably as good, you know, it's probably better than most but, but it's still, there's so many moving parts that are going on. So I so that's kind of where I'm, where I'm going is, I think it it's even the difference in business valuation, I'm just kind of curious to know, there's a there's another layer to the valuation that you're doing

Trisch Garthoeffner  28:56
a lot of sensitivity analysis to so I think one thing that we didn't realize prior to going in is that we didn't necessarily price it accurately

Ed Mysogland  29:13
we we've all paid that tuition.

Trisch Garthoeffner  29:16
It was a gift to be able to work on that one, I really felt honored, but at the end of the day, we would think we would be rounding the corner of finishing up a draft and then we would think about something else right taking into consideration rather you know, capex when you need to switch out the the mining equipment at a certain point and having occurs and then the you know, the mining slows down and then you need to have more energy, you know, taking all those things into consideration. It was very, very long

Nainesh Shah  29:49
our plan is to keep these coins and you know, when when what is there buying a voice or selling strategy. So that all has to be captured in your evaluation.

Ed Mysogland  29:58
Right? Right. And on top of that, I was I was thinking about, Oh my gosh, what happens about a fractional interest valuation in this type of business? I mean, because, you know, depending on who, who that valuation is for that could be a real, you know, the, the, you know, the intellectual, you know, perhaps the person that's driving the business, and has all the industry knowledge. That's the person that's wanting to be bought out, you know, my goodness, what is the risk now to that business? So, so there's, there's a couple additional layers that I don't envy your position.

Nainesh Shah  30:45
And we talked about alternative way of thinking about this valuation equation, I talked about optionality or option validation. We should, and see if that helps. But sometimes, this is a new industry and not many, not easy, not many transaction that happens. Simplicity can add add value as well. You don't want to make too complex because insurance in the end, it's all subjective.

Ed Mysogland  31:14
Yeah. And then that's where that was. my follow up question was, you know, who, who challenges you on on this? Because, because my, I mean, it is so new and, and I guess, you know, if you can follow, you know, it's the same same thing in the professional regardless, if you can follow the appraisers, thoughts and how they came to the conclusion. It's their opinion, but I just

Nainesh Shah  31:45
once you come up with a validation effort, and you have on all the angles

Trisch Garthoeffner  31:53
it reminds me that reminds me of dispensaries when they first came out, you know, way station figuring out like, security, you know, the nefarious activity with them, you know, licensure, just being a new sector, just tweaking that out along the way. So you just have to abide by your standards, you know, of yours. Yeah.

Nainesh Shah  32:20
One thing common between academies, and this is regulation, connection, both government regulation, how is it going back?

Ed Mysogland  32:28
Right. Yeah. And, and again, I mean, that. And it's nice that you bring up dispensaries but, you know, one of the things that that we bump into, is, you know, who's the mark? Who, who is going to be able to buy these type of companies, you know, because, you know, it's not, it's not a, it's not a financeable business from a conventional standpoint. So you got to go private equity. So who first companies

Trisch Garthoeffner  33:02
to Yeah, they're buying up a lot of the smaller ones smaller, successful mining companies in particular.

Ed Mysogland  33:09
That's what I mean. So, so So the public companies you said, yeah, so so they're picking picking them up? So so you're getting you're starting to get some market data to give you a good proxy for value so that's Yeah. Yeah.

Nainesh Shah  33:33
So

Ed Mysogland  33:35
then then the question becomes, you know, is that fair market value or is that strategic value and now you now you have the whole the whole new matter of that challenge but but again, I think that it's Yeah, I think like when the cannabis related businesses I there's so I mean, again, another big land grab I mean, there is only a handful of people that that understand that that the value of that and are immersed in it so so again, I applaud you guys for for the this whole for the whole crypto thing but I shouldn't say the thing that the whole crypto industry what one of the things that

Nainesh Shah  34:25
it isn't, it's all the more and more required and necessary to wrap this businesses because we will need some tax planning you will need we will have a partnership dispute divorce issue you will have to start small industries a lot pretty decent size.

Ed Mysogland  34:46
So yeah, speaking of I mean, how big is the industry

Trisch Garthoeffner  34:55
belly hitting

Nainesh Shah  34:56
them to the size of the market cap of individual guys All right, so I have a page that can look up the current market cap for different types of Bitcoin is about 520 billion in size, the largest, okay, then the next largest is Aetherium, which is about 200. At the third largest is data begins to round up about a trillion dollar in coin size. The trouble with the size of the industry is it's so fragmented by country. In the US, and so you it's very hard to gather data to reveal a largest industry, a public company called riot blockchain. That's about 2.3 billion in market cap as of last week, and at God, which is about buying in some sense about,

Ed Mysogland  36:09
well, I'm embarrassed, I'm sitting here thinking domestically, and, and, and which, you know, and until you started talking about, you know, just the whole international ramifications, I didn't even cross my mind. And that, and I think that I'm probably like many that think that's thinking that, you know, this bitcoin is just a US thing is probably one of the

Trisch Garthoeffner  36:42
Satoshis implementation or intention to was to have banking available?

Ed Mysogland  36:49
You Yeah, well, that's, that's what I was, what I was embarrassingly sharing that, you know, I'm, I'm thinking that it is, you know, I knew that this was a worldwide thing, but for the most part, it's just how does this affect me, and that's probably the wrong way to be looking at. So.

Nainesh Shah  37:10
During COVID, it became really more widespread than it was before. And millions of people who own some kind of yard. Yeah.

Ed Mysogland  37:27
So an issue and you had mentioned something called the network value. And I'm, I just want to poke at that a little bit. A little bit more, because I do think, you know, the three approaches to value will always be there. But I'm, I'm curious to see if you can talk a little bit more about that.

Nainesh Shah  37:51
Yeah, I will. The numbers I shared with you about, say that kind of Bitcoin in the market. So let's the market cap of Bitcoin in 2005. That's the beginning of confusion about the value of Bitcoin. Now, if you are a miner, and you are produced of mining multiple types of coins and multiple types of tokens, you have figured out the percentage of each stock understand what are you capturing from that neck? I understand. But this is just a start. This is just an idea that I kind of shared with you. But that's, that's how we should potentially compete. And let's say that our paper there are about 17,000 or so knows. That then you figure out how many nodes you have something and if it's stuck.

Ed Mysogland  38:59
I got it. Well, thank you. Thank you for for that. So where it's crystal ball time. So So Where where is this industry heading? And yeah, whichever one wants the the water's fine.

Trisch Garthoeffner  39:23
I'll start off. I think it's heading into more present tight situation where it's going to become more commonplace with the more everyday investors and being less of a niche investment. I think especially now, with all of the talks of the debt ceiling and inflation and the market being as crazy as it's been in terms of unpredictable Lee and Radek, this is not being not having not offering any financial advice here but I do see cryptocurrency as being more of a hedge that is being used more often as of late, okay, especially with the public companies transparency, the security of certain cryptocurrencies, like there are approximately 20,000 different types of cryptocurrencies. But there are a handful that are especially safe, that are have the verification that are hard to hack such as Bitcoin. And I think that those are going to continue to flourish, and ether, and especially with the fall of FTX. And in November, Bitcoin, I think, fell around 15,000, or 15, five or something, and it's at 26 today, so, you know, it's got a good rebound there, it's got staying power, you're seeing a lot of companies such as BMW, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, telecommunications companies, all types of different businesses, Facebook came out with their own cryptocurrency, which is actually banned in France and Germany, but just thinking back again to the or to harkening back to the regulations and keeping those in consideration, depending upon the geographic region that they're within. But I do think that it's, it's going to continue to thrive and continue to, to become more and more popular.

Nainesh Shah  41:34
Given my perspective, so there is a real applications or real applications of real value that people consume. And the question then is, how do how does it become reality, more so than the government or division. And government wants to lose control on the on the car. So private zoom that US has gone just met with Congress, Democrats, or any of any country for that matter, except, except, except one guy. And so you have to you have to figure out whether it can become a real currency, or just being is in form of applications that can benefit? It's not going away, but I can guarantee you that.

Ed Mysogland  42:35
So. So why can you guarantee that? I mean, and, you know, it's not a gotcha question.

Nainesh Shah  42:45
Yeah. So just think about consequences. One of the biggest advantage is there's no you don't need a middleman. Right? Okay. So what currency transfer the middleman is that this is six or seven percentage, a small transaction equals more, why do you need to pay that? So that the smaller financial statements, we will figure out the best way to end this happening now, there are a lot of applications where you can transfer money instantaneously, courses. So that's the real application. Now, it's not going to you know, if people can capture that, then it has a stamp, I got it. No. Tissue magic. That's just even Bitcoin is a limitation of how many because ultimately, produce and that stops that or manages the balance, meaning your bitcoins, there's a network increases in size, the value has to go I

Ed Mysogland  44:02
get it. Trish, you started to say something. Are you good?

Trisch Garthoeffner  44:07
Um, I was going to note something and I don't remember what it isn't now slipped my mind. That's all right. I'll probably come back.

Ed Mysogland  44:15
circle back, I'm ready for it. So the thing that I think one of the biggest things that I that I see is the government's involvement, you know, the taxation and just their their hands in in this and and I'm, and I'm wondering, is regulatory having a regulatory oversight a good thing or a bad thing for for this type of industry?

Trisch Garthoeffner  44:47
So and I'll notice jump in on that. But I wanted to I wanted to mention what had slipped my mind that came back to me which is really interesting, too, which is if it answers more supplemental really The question that you had with respect to what is the future of cryptocurrency? The blockchain, I think also has is going to become more and more prevalent in our day to day lives. I went to a luncheon a couple of weeks ago Bester lunching lunch luncheon and it's a telecommunication or telecommunications company, they also do they do like television broadcasting, gaming, that type of thing. They they literally have for sports teams that had they sell the the virtual swag, they sell the all types of different parts to the sports teams in particular. And it's all on the blockchain is all virtual. I mean, it is so surreal. They have this huge following, though. And it carves out like a nice percentage of their sales. And it's just amazing. And the more that you follow cryptocurrency, the more you'll start to hear about this unregulated new internet is what basically they refer to it as it's coming out, which will have all of these different accessibility that we don't have currently no advertising, no oversight. Just really new and foreign world. But that's the other reason why I think it's just not going away anytime soon.

Nainesh Shah  46:29
Yeah, I will read the regulations, generally speaking, in my mind, are good if it is defining what shouldn't allow technology to not do rather than what it should be or most, most current topic we have is AI GPT, open AI. We don't have regulation, it can create a difficult doesn't mean that technology itself is bad, right? You know, you can't just stop it just can't control. So if government regulation can define what shouldn't ai do, then we have a path. And then the technology can be developed within that framework. Similarly, blockchain and cryptocurrency should have regulation. And regulation is good for industry, most of the increase the value of the industry, to the players within that users use it somehow stayed away from regulating the way other countries is fine. You'll see how data almost every Federal Reserve around the world has some experiment going on digital guys, countries, which have digital currency.

Ed Mysogland  47:49
Now 100. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm with you. And, and I, I mean, I guess the million dollar question is, you know, when does this happen? This is is it during our lifetimes that that this will happen? Or is are we, you know, 50 years away from from a currency environment where there's automatic checks and balances that, you know, who's, you know, who wouldn't be for that? You know, that kind of?

Nainesh Shah  48:24
You know, it's all depends on the Congress or Congress some other thinking about this issues that society faces, and they do something about it.

Ed Mysogland  48:36
So I'm getting I'm bumping up on time for for you and I want to be sensitive to that. So I guess my last question for each one of you is, what's the what's the big takeaway for a business owner that's listening to this? And what what kind of guidance would would would you give them?

Trisch Garthoeffner  48:59
Hmm, that's a good one. So somebody that's looking to invest in cryptocurrency, I would say, do your research.

Ed Mysogland  49:11
Okay. And where's that research? Where would we where would that person research this?

Trisch Garthoeffner  49:18
There are a number of different sources out there for technical analysis and glass node is one of them. You can do you can online there's a lot of different podcasts and so forth that you can you can start to even Coinbase which is an exchange has a lot of really introductory one on one videos and articles but just so that you can become familiar with the complexities of the sector because it is very high risk. And it is, there are a lot of risky currencies out there. The currency is out there that you want to be savvy. And if you do invest, at least from the research that I've done and what it seems to be a recurring piece of advice that I've heard over and over again is to have a strategy in place like dollar cost averaging for things that are not being driven by your emotion which is always a smart way to invest to not be driven by your emotions. So I think you know, understanding the sector and like you said, and when you started to dig in you realize so many nuances that you and I am constantly every day so I think that you know, it's not something you can dabble in you really have to you have to do a deep dive Okay, or work with an investor on your behalf? Yeah,

Nainesh Shah  50:48
I guess what I would say is you have to have a technical know how you are dealing with yourself something and you need to be aware of that. And then you have to understand this this is a volatile industry. The value of Bitcoin has been significantly every so often. And lastly, sorry, it was almost 60,000 between number 15 That's huge. That doesn't happen in a normal industry. So, you have to be able to slip it that you should also be aware that it will take you out of a forecast winning at Yahoo if the market is coming down you will also have your currency will incur the cost of running the computing power to mind my mind that answer but you will no income at least also manage that cost all of that mind to get comfortable

Ed Mysogland  51:53
so Dinesh, we'll we'll finish with you so where can people find you?

Nainesh Shah  52:02
Of course you can look on complete advisors.com And that's my number.

Ed Mysogland  52:13
Yeah. And Trish How about you?

Trisch Garthoeffner  52:16
Oh, anchor be the as business valuation financial services.com. So anchor bb fs.com. All my information is on there.

Ed Mysogland  52:26
Nice. Feel free to reach out? Well, guys, you have enlightened me up. I'm sitting here going well, I'm just trying to figure out what's my next step to learn more about this i But one thing I do know never want to ever try to valid valid a Bitcoin.

Nainesh Shah  52:46
A few businesses as revenue. So very few business.

Ed Mysogland  52:50
Well, you know, and I really like that I had the chance to visit with the with two pioneers that are that are out in front of this because I do know that you know that this is you're writing the book as you as you go. And you may have the evaluation principles to fall back on. But nevertheless, you're you're going where no man or woman has gone before. So well, I and again, I appreciate your time, and I'm certain the audience does too. So thanks. Thanks again for coming on.

Trisch Garthoeffner  53:27
Thank you. Thank you.