Digital Money Advisor

Latest Episodes:

Bitcoin and Your Practice: Where Does it Fit? Oct 25, 2021

Show notes

For the second year in a row, I was invited to speak at the Bitcoin for Advisors conference produced by Coindesk as a member of the FA Advisory Board. And I think I can sum up my main message as a panelist in two words: Don't wait.

A confluence of socioeconomic and political factors continues to drive up the price of bitcoin. If a year ago you would have allocated just 2% of a client's portfolio to bitcoin, it would have added five percentage points to the portfolio's return, all else in the portfolio being unchanged. That would have paid for roughly five years of your advisory fees!

Yes, bitcoin's value will continue to fluctuate. But the headlines surrounding bitcoin and the interest it's generating among your prospects and clients aren't going away. That's why more and more companies are developing resources that help advisors learn about bitcoin, crypto, and DeFi, as well as building out technology to allocate securely to digital assets.

Even if you ultimately decide that bitcoin isn't right for your firm or your clients, you have to learn enough so that you can have an opinion and answer client questions. Otherwise, folks are going to look elsewhere for advice -- and not just about bitcoin.

Why Buy Bitcoin with Andy Edstrom Oct 18, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Andy Edstrom, CFA®, CFP®, a financial advisor at WESCAP Group, where he manages more than $300 million for high-net-worth families. Andy is also an advisor and board member of Swan Bitcoin, and the author of a great book called Why Buy Bitcoin.

Insight: At the top of the Bitcoin funnel, there are an almost endless number of entry points that could attract curious investors, consumers, business owners, thinkers, activists, and, yes, financial advisors. But you don't have to travel down the funnel very far before you hit some legitimate questions about Bitcoin and our broader financial system. Does Bitcoin really have the properties that we've historically associated with money and investible assets? Could the U.S government ban Bitcoin? Will the Fed develop a competing cryptocurrency that could hurt Bitcoin's value? And what does the ongoing "digitization of everything" mean for how we assign value? These are just a few of the questions that Andy and I tackle in this wide-ranging conversation.

Equality, Sufficiency, and What is Money with Andrew Bailey Sep 29, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Andrew M. Bailey, a professor at Yale-NUS College, where he teaches classes and conducts research on money, philosophy and politics. He is one third of the Resistance Money Bitcoin Research Collective alongside Bradley Rettler and Craig Warmke, both of whom are past guests on this podcast.

Insight: Bitcoin can be many things to different people: a store of value, a tool for social justice, a means of exchange, an organizing principle for folks who think the traditional financial system is broken. Detractors often cite this multiplicity as a negative. But recent trends in our industry have pushed advisors to start understanding that money itself means so many different things to our clients. From that perspective, Bitcoin is just one piece of a much larger financial narrative in which people are constantly defining and redefining what their money is for and what/how much they need to be happy.

Understanding and Positioning Bitcoin for Financial Advisors with Justin Castelli Sep 07, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Justin Castelli, an executive at Onramp Invest, which is a technology company that provides access to crypto assets for registered investment advisors. He's also the founder of RLS Wealth, which is an RIA firm in Fishers, Indiana. And he's the co-founder of The AGC, which is an organization that connects financial advisors across the globe to collaborate and grow both personally and professionally.

Insight: Think Bitcoin and other crypto investments aren't right for your client base? You may be right. But what happens when their kids and grandkids are looking for an advisor who does know what an NFT is and can advise them on how to manage digital assets? Retiring baby boomers are starting the largest wealth transfer in history. Their heirs are digital natives, many of whom have already bought Bitcoin on their own. If you don't want to add crypto to current portfolios, you at least need to have a working knowledge of the technology and an informed opinion that your clients can trust.

Using Philosophical Frameworks to Answer "Big" Questions About Bitcoin with Bradley Rettler Aug 05, 2021

Show notes

Episode: Bradley Rettler, Assistant Professor of Philosophy University of Wyoming.

Insight: Bitcoin's practical applications can appeal to folks across a wide spectrum of social, political, and economic thought. But from a philosophical perspective, the most important question to ask about Bitcoin might be: How can it make people happier? Answering that question could be a key to helping Bitcoin skeptics understand this technology's potential value.

Bitcoin and Crypto Solutions for Financial Advisors with Chris King Jul 16, 2021

Show notes

Episode: Chris King the Founder and CEO of Eaglebrook Advisors, which provides independent financial advisors with seamless, secure, and compliant access to Bitcoin and digital assets through their proprietary separately managed account platform.

Insight: The Bitcoin conversation is mainstream and it's difficult for financial advisors to avoid it. Educational resources about Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets is widely available. Consumer access to buying digital assets is now as simple as opening an app. But until recently, it was difficult for financial advisors to have a seamless way to trade, monitor, and get paid on digital assets. Eaglebrook and other forward-thinking companies have now created platforms that make this technology more accessible and more secure. In today's conversation, I talk to Chris King, the founder of a company that offers a digital assets SMA platform for advisors that greatly simplifies the process of getting your clients into crypto.

Why Advisor Jim Crider Allocates 5 - 20% of His Clients' Portfolios to Bitcoin and Related Assets Jul 01, 2021

Show notes

Jim Crider, CFP® and CEO of Intentional Living FP discusses what led him down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and why he now allocates 5-20% of his clients' portfolios to Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related companies.

David Z. Morris on Unpacking the Signifiers and Presumptions That Define Bitcoin Culture Jun 17, 2021

Show notes

Episode: David Z. Morris is the Chief Insights Columnist at CoinDesk. Previously he was a staff writer for Fortune and Breaker magazines. David also has a PhD in Communication and Media Studies from the University of Iowa.

Insight: To its growing base of users and enthusiasts, Bitcoin is many things: a global currency, a store of value, a payment system, a shared delusion, a weapon for social justice, and even a means of communication. And while folks with a more casual interest in crypto might get turned off by the maximalist meme culture espoused by its most fervent believers, Bitcoin is embodying traditions that have existed in mainstream culture for centuries. These next-gen symbols and signifiers are revealing and challenging built-in assumptions about money that many of us didn't realize we had.

How Bitcoin Connects with Austrian Economics and Libertarian Politics with Professor Steve Horwitz and Jeremy Keil Jun 01, 2021

Show notes

Episode: Steve Horwitz is an American economist of the Austrian School and currently the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the Department of Economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

Jeremy Keil, CFP®, CFA, CIMA®, is a retirement-focused financial planner with Keil Financial Partners and the host of the Retirement Revealed blog and podcast. Jeremy was also the Wisconsin Libertarian Party executive director in 2003 and served on the Libertarian National Committee from 2004 to 2008.

Insight: Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe Bitcoin a solution to the ongoing economic fallout from the Great Recession, wealth inequality, high debt, and massive money printing. Bitcoin and related digital assets can be particularly appealing to folks who view our financial system through the lens of Austrian Economics or libertarian politics, which, broadly, emphasize the freedom of the individual. But as this discussion shows, the intersection between Bitcoin, economic philosophy, and politics is still very much a work in progress. There's promise, but there are also some potential obstacles to what Bitcoin can and can't deliver within our society's existing frameworks.

Digital Asset Investment Solutions for Financial Advisors with Dan Eyre May 20, 2021

Show notes

Episode: Dan Eyre, co-founder of Blockchange, the world's first digital turnkey asset management platform for financial advisory firms, family offices, hedge funds, outsourced CIOs, and private banks.

Insight: Twenty-five years ago, many people thought that giving your credit card number to that new online book seller was crazy. Online banking and investing sounded even crazier. But just as ecommerce and finance platforms developed their stability, security, and ease of use, a new generation of tools is making it much easier for financial advisors to buy, sell, and manage digital assets for clients. Understanding how these platforms work and what they offer could open up a valuable new service lane for part of your client base.

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