Welcome back to the podcast, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm joined in studio today with Justin Walton. Justin, how are you doing, man? Very good. Awesome. Great. I'm glad we could coordinate. No, you're welcome. You know, look, you're a busy guy. There's some awesome things happening. And so for those listening today, I'm going to give you a little bit of an introduction, but if you have thought at all about how to take your business, your investing, anything to the next level, we're going to talk about some cool stuff here today. So I want to give you a little bit of background on Justin. And as I do that, I'm going to kind of bring him into this and we're going to educate you on several different areas. But Justin, start real quick for me, if you wouldn't. Tell me, just give the listeners some of your background of what you've done and what's led you to the point of the conversation we're going to talk about today. Yeah. So I'm a third generation real estate developer. And, you know, that was being third generation, you grew up in the business, but I would say that's not the thing that I was passionate about, right? It was kind of like, hey, you're going to do this thing, you know about this thing. And by osmosis, you learn how to do this thing. And I was always passionate about computers, building computers, really from the hardware side of it. And then the software side, I was a gamer. When I was growing up, I was always passionate about games and so you know in 2011 my cousin and i were building a new computer and we went to go buy a graphics card and people can relate to this today because all of a sudden a graphics card went from a few hundred bucks to a few thousand dollars we're like what in the world what's going on with graphics cards why are they so expensive right and so that was literally the transition when bitcoin mining became a thing and so we set out to you know go build our first bitcoin mining thing long story short i've just had a long history inside of that thing that i was passionate about and always a little hesitant to even tell people what you're doing in that sphere until a couple years ago when i saw my two worlds collide in the real estate development we do student housing okay and the largest operator in student housing is blackrock and i was at a student housing conference and black rocks at the table next to me and i just had seen that they announced their bitcoin etf and i said oh wow the biggest player in my real estate world just kind of just said that it's okay to tell the world that you're playing with bitcoin right right so that's when i went to my partner dan who you've interviewed right and i said hey i want to tell you about this thing about Bitcoin mining, I think there's a way to kind of add Bitcoin to our balance sheet. And we started kind of the history from there of joining us together of his world and my world from the digital asset and traditional asset approach from right there. Yeah. You know, what's interesting and one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is because, you know, there's a lot, there's a lack of education out there right now when it comes to investing, investing vehicles. And what I've learned over the years, especially being able to interview some of the biggest thought leaders in the world is that there are strategies and techniques that the ultra high net worth use that most people don't know about. And you talk about conventional and traditional type things, but also there's a lot of cutting edge, whether it's Bitcoin or whether it's technology, and you guys are merging all that together. And so tell me a little bit about what it is you guys do right now, because there's a few things you probably can't get into, but we wanted to give everybody a little bit of an insider's look as to some things that are coming up where you are now taking traditional vehicles and combining them with some of the latest tech as well as investor strategies. So just tell us what you're up to right now. Yeah. So Dan and I, we started, oh, probably about 24 months ago with this venture, this idea of trying to combine cash value life insurance, which there's strategies used in there from the Rockefellers, all the robber barons from the 19th century used cash value life insurance essentially like a bank. Because back in the day, banks and cash value life insurance, they shared a lot of similarities back in that time. And wealthy families used them because there was an insurance component to store their wealth in, to protect themselves. And it wasn't until the invention of basically the Federal Reserve in 1913, where banks privatized a network and insurance companies didn't really ever get together and make a network. Banks had bank runs, right? People get scared to go to the bank and try to pull their money out because they were afraid there wasn't any money in the bank. And so they created the Federal Reserve as an answer to that. And ultimately what happened from there was the creation of a banking network. And that's really where those two things evolved. But what we're doing right now, our company is called Yields, and we're developing what we call the Yields system. And we're bridging the technology that makes up for the gap for where insurance companies miss that banking network, right? So by taking the blockchain and connecting it to cash value life insurance, what we're doing is basically giving people access to the strategy that was used by the wealthiest peoples of America, right? From robber barons to, you know, JP Morgan himself, even though he had a bank, he used cash value life insurance along the way. And so we have taken what we're developing as the yield system. The yield system consists of the yields platform where we have a product that we call Y-assurance, which is the strategy of using cash value life insurance, right? And developing an app to where people can hold assets and self-custody. And we have a long-term 36-month goal of connecting the blockchain and your wallet to spendable access to your cash value life insurance policy. What that allows you to do is essentially right now, if you walked into a bank and handed them money, you're going to get 0.02% interest, right? Right, yeah. And they're going to lend your money out, right? Right. But if you put money inside of a cash value life insurance policy, there's a fundamental difference right there that people don't really understand. When you go into the bank and you hand them money, that is now their money. You're just an investor in the bank and they're just, you know, it's up to them. They're using your money. They're using your money, right? They're putting in car loans, house loans, you know, things like that, right? But when you go to insurance and you actually put the money in an insurance company, well, you have something there. You have an asset and you own the contract, right? That is now your thing. And that's a difference between placing your money in a bank and placing your money in there. Now, what can you do with that thing? Well, it's an asset. And hold that thought for a second because I want to break something down for some people and kind of catch them up on this. Yeah. This is very important. And the reason I want to break this down a little bit for everyone is that you're taking some things that a lot of people don't have any access to. And this is your world. So you're really amazing at it. You're taking proven strategies that the ultra high net worth use, which is investing and insurance. I mean, think about the last time you heard an insurance company that went under, right? So investing and insurance and you are taking that platform and connecting it to the blockchain and technology and other investing and opportunities and then adding the feature that you could then be able to use that on a day to day. So you taking proven investment strategies with blockchain technology and applying it to the everyday Am I following you Yeah 100 percent Right And think of like what that unlocks when we actually connect that And so we doing it in pieces right So if you think about walking into the bank the first thing you gotta do is open a bank account, right? And you have to deposit money into the bank account. The first thing that we're helping people do is transition the mindset of opening the insurance account. That's opening the bank account. You gotta put your money in the account before you can do anything with it, right? And the fundamental difference that you've done though is you transitioned yourself from an investor in something to owning something. Yeah, now comment on who this is for, because I do think that there's a lot of people thinking, well, I mean, is this an accredited investors? Is these average people? Like, who is it that you are ideally for your company, but also that would be able to utilize strategy like this? Yeah, so the core concept is everyone. Who we're targeting initially is we're going a top-down approach right we're starting with the executive and then the executive once he transitioned it because he is the top value creator right economic value creator right yes and so as he understands the idea and transitions himself inside of his own company from an expense to an asset within his own company fundamentally he has moved himself from one side of the balance sheet to the other he went from the largest expense, usually the CEO or the owner is, you know, usually the largest drag on the company. Hopefully if they're good at what they do, right? They're good at what they do, right? Okay. And you transition yourself from one side, the expense side over to the asset side. Now, fundamentally, you've just done something very important when you do this. You've also de-risked the company because when you do this, now you come with a death benefit. You are also as the executive, probably the most critical person to the company. So not only did you help strengthen the balance sheet, you de-risk the company too. If anything happens to you, okay, great. There's a payout, right? So then on top of that, there's tax strategies, there's efficiencies in doing that. So you're fundamentally strengthening the individual. Now, does that translate into, obviously, there's probably some key people in this company, then you can roll the strategy down, right then as that rolls out through the company then you can move it down into the employee what does it look like for the employee to have this now you have the thing that hasn't existed in america in a long time what does a pension plan look like well right now i'm an employee at the company and i have a way to get a retirement and things like that things that haven't existed in america in a while because think about what we're doing we're taking a really old asset and we're connecting it to the blockchain so there's a lot of really old ideas that have been proven for a long time that you get to bring back now. What does a pension look like? Wow, that's very, very different, right? So your approach is basically through these tools and these strategies that are time-tested for the longest time and now connected to tech and the blockchain, you're starting with the executives of companies, moving them over into the asset category, trickling that down to key top leadership management that could then also work its way down to employees and everyday individuals. You know, who's the manager, right? Like, and you would go down, wouldn't be something that you would start probably off the guy that's been there a week. Got it, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the yield system is the system to be able to do that as well as the platform. Exactly, the platform to do everything. Because within the system itself, what do we do with that top guy? Once we've moved him over to the balance sheet, well, we've freed up a lot of value inside of the company that would have been spun off and went to the government. The reason that this has allowed, this system is allowed to exist for over 120 years that it's been used. The first question that I'd like to answer was like, well, that sounds like a tax loophole or something like, and it's not. The reason it exists is because at that executive level, the government understands that that person is the best allocator of capital, right? They have made it through the system and they are a better allocator of capital than the government. So then they want to free up that allocation of capital and go, look, Mr. Capital Allocator, what would you do with this money? Because obviously you're better at us than it. You're an entrepreneur. You're solving value. You're creating value. You're creating jobs. You're creating all of this stuff, right? So as that top allocator, we're bringing that system in and going, look, there's this thing available to you. Now, what would you do with that? And then part of the yield system is the wild easy token that we've created which is essentially like the digital savings account a yield bearing token right that you would it's a dollar pegged asset you hold it in self-custody as all part of this thing and now you're building even more economic value into the company because if you build a strong company you're going to employ more people yeah there's just a total cash now you mentioned i wanted to back up so explain to me what a dollar pegged token is so just so that yeah so um out there in the world the most popular one is usdt and that is from a company called tether and tether essentially uses a technology called tokenization and what they've done is if you hand coinbase a dollar coinbase has went to tether and said hey i've got a dollar i need one of your digital tokens they take that dollar and they buy a u.s treasury with it So Tether has tokenized a U.S. Treasury. And now when you go on the platform, you've got something that's dollar pegged. So and what that is in two instances, there's two mechanisms that will go on another deep dive. There's the idea of value of the dollar and there's the technical way that it is pegged to a dollar. And so what we're doing is we've created a dollar pegged asset. and our thing that we're delivering to the market is a dollar pegged asset that delivers yield, right? So the concept that people have to understand is once you move from dollars to the blockchain, you've made an investment. You've gotten rid of US dollars backed by the government and you invested in a technology by a private company called Tether, right? So that's an investment. And now I own a product of a company pegged at a dollar. I transitioned from U.S. dollars to this one. So our offering is once you've made that decision, you went from U.S. dollars to USDT, a product of a company. Now I'm competing with my product from a company with another digital product. And both of them are a dollar. And then my question to you is, which one would you want? Mine or theirs, because mine's gonna give you 15% a year. Right, right, right, right, right. So what's interesting about what you're doing, I love how you break it down and how you think. That's why your tech background as well as your systematic nature, your entrepreneurial nature tied with that has been what's taking you where you are. But I think for a lot of people listening, whether or not they're a sophisticated investor or not, a lot of times, and I think at least right now in the marketplace, more and more people are starting to recognize the trends and the things that are happening and that new technology comes at a quick pace. But when it's backed by time-tested, proven strategies, it's not about loopholes, like you said. It's about the fact that the ultra-high net worth know how to put their money in ways that will grow at a compounding rate. And now by having that technology basis, it just expands. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, this just expands infinite abilities to be able to do things with it. Einstein said the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest, right? And so if you're compounding an asset that's growing at 5%, can you imagine what 15% would do? The only reason you can get those type of high returns is because you've moved over into the digital asset sphere So traditional assets always have this drag on them Yeah That they never perform like a digital asset It limiting structure basically Yeah exactly Right But then when you go over into digital assets, they'll get that return. You've got ultra high risk. What happens if you combine those two elements? What happens if you take a stable, very, you know, hey, this is great and get exposure to digital assets. Right now you're getting the best of both worlds. Yeah, insurance and tokenization. Yeah, insurance, tokenization, all the things that you can do in there with an ultimate strategy to say, I need to de-risk myself from the risk of digital assets. How do I do that? Well, insurance is a great way to do that and how we combine that into a strategy that says, well, we're going to de-risk that investment. And right now, for example, you'll see the crypto market is doing one of its pullbacks, you know, gold, silver, everything's pulling back right now. And that's volatility in the marketplace. But when you have dollar peg things, you don't experience that high volatility, right? So when you dollar peg things, you're just, it's always a dollar, right? If you create yield off of that, then you take some of the volatility out of the market. Well, if you have a strategy in how you enter into that market through insurance, right, going, well, wait a minute, instead of me just buying into that market, what is my first step is a strategy that's over 100 years old? Yeah, yeah. Well, this really helps to answer one of the key questions that myself and a lot of people come up with. And that is, what's the real goal of what you're trying to do by putting these technologies together? Not only are you bridging these two worlds, but you've answered the question when it comes to the stability, the return, and all those types of things. So let me pivot a minute, and then I want to also ask you a little bit more about the way you think because I think that's real important for people listening. I want to ask you, what challenges do you see that you're up against, and what challenges have you had to overcome in order to go down this path with this product and company? So doing what we're building is a regulated platform. We're not trying to take the path of Coinbase and a lot of digital assets that went offshore and tried to do it unregulated outside of the system. We're actually doing it within the system, within the rules. And so within the rules, there's limitations of what you can do. There's how do you do it? So the regulation and trying to do it right. So internally, we're standing up our own broker-dealer to handle securities and do things like that because we're going the proper path, right? Which takes time. It gives some benefits, but also a ton of challenges, right? Right, a ton of challenges. It just takes more time, you have to do things this way. But even within those ways of thinking about that asset and how to enter that asset, you're entering it as a security versus something that is under an undefined. Yeah. Right. There's a lot of digital assets that are out there. Undefined. Yes. Like, what is it? Coming into a digital asset that just says, I'm a security. And you know, right up front, well, you have a lot of clarity knowing that I have made an investment. The government goes, they know they made an investment. And a level of transparency, right? Like, I mean, a whole huge amount. Right. And that's why Tether to this day is still fighting to come back to the United States because even though they have this dollar back thing and they buy treasuries and the government loves them, they're still offshore. Right, yeah, exactly. And so when you buy that $150 billion asset, you are still, there's some level of going, I don't know out there, right? When you buy a security and we defined it as a security and follow securities, like there's a lot of clarity in that thing and going, oh, I feel a lot more comfortable because we're not offshore. We're not doing that. So hence the timelines and the obstacles and the things you have to overcome. A lot of those things. And your question earlier, like what is our ultimate outcome is, well, right now there's everyone, the focus, I think everyone would agree, is that artificial intelligence is occupying a lot of the space inside of the media, people's minds, people investment strategies. And the question is, will it take away jobs or add jobs, right? It's a big question. Big question, right? Is it going to destroy? I mean, there's answers that are on both sides of the realm, right? Both sides, right? And what's get clouded in there is honestly, in our industry, is the blockchain is equally disruptive. And I would say more disruptive, but does not get that same thing. Because think of all of the money that is tied up in banking real estate, in the bank on the corner, the office buildings that are down there. And on the blockchain, I can do a transaction in fractions of a cent in a thousandth of a second. And you don't need the bank to handle that transaction from the Starbucks cup of coffee. So blockchain is equally disruptive, but it's disruptive in money. What's interesting, though, is the product that you are creating, the system you're creating, the platform you're creating. And it's because I know there's a lot of individuals, at least that I know, that have had a extreme interest in getting involved in the blockchain and tokenization, things like this. But they have that fear and you're sort of and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're sort of reducing, eliminating a lot of that fear by securing it with. We're de-risking it, right? We're trying to make. So what we're building is the asset of the future and the on ramp of the future. We're skipping the deregulated, hey, I'm going to go build this crypto project over here and get some people to invest in a new token or something like that. And going, cutting straight to it and go, what is the outcome of digital assets? That's what we're delivering is the ultimate outcome. The platform where you would go get the digital asset, where you would get tokenized private investment. If you look at what we're building as tokenized private investment, Coinbase is the place where you would go buy a digital commodity. And all of those tokens are fighting to be called a commodity. That's what I want to be. Okay. That whole market right now is less than $5 trillion, $4 point something trillion. Okay. And let's say it doubled over the next few years, got $8 trillion, right? The securities market is $120 trillion. dollars. All assets are securities. Yeah, which pool are you playing in, right? Which one are you playing in, right? So when you talk about real estate, real estate across the world is a $300 trillion market, right? So when you tokenize real estate, you're talking about 300, that is the largest store of value in the world, real estate, right? So when you tokenize that, that market is drastically, equities themselves are $120 trillion. What we're delivering is even though I'm not as big as Coinbase right now, the ultimate outcome of what we're delivering will dwarf Coinbase, right? Yeah, well, that's a huge, huge vision. I tell you, in the couple minutes we have left, I wanted to ask you, I want to talk a little bit about you, because other than the obvious upside vision that you have, what compelled you to go down such an innovative industry setting route. Did you intentionally, because I find it very important that, you know, how successful people think, right? And you've got this background and this technology and this company that's, did that happen by default? Did it happen because things lined up or have you always been an innovator that is looking to really stretch the limits of what can be done with what your knowledge is? So what drove all of this was I'm a long-term planner, but there was something that fundamentally I had a problem with. And when we were in real estate and we had our own business I sat back and I looked at the market and I said how are my two kids ever going to afford a house in this market And I had been on this journey with Bitcoin and understanding what a deflationary technology looks like in an inflationary market and over the short period of time that we were kind of building this, I saw a solution to a very, very large problem that is created by an inflationary dollar that I said, well, wait a minute, if I can create a safe harbor for the very first place that you store in that economic exchange, when you take your labor and you go to an employer and you say, wait a minute, I did something and I need the value and you store your value in the dollar, when that dollar gets deflated or sorry inflated that purchasing power of a young person going hey i need to buy the first house like what my life and what his life looks like over the long period i said well i think i can deliver a solution to that by making the first stop that dollar goes into is something that has yield and counteracts inflation and so if you if the dollar stops there first, you undo the inflationary aspect of it, right? And you can build from there. And the very first thing that you need to do to build in this system is assets. So if the very first thing that I do is turn you yourself into an asset, I can solve the problem from there. Yeah, it's interesting how, and, you know, kind of unpacking it a little bit from a third party, it's interesting how most successful people I know, the passion starts with an opportunity that they notice in the marketplace, but it's driven by, like you said, your kids and your family and things that really mean something to you, right? And then you go down and you align that with what your unique talent is, which is this idea of architecting this bridge in the company. I find that fascinating. I really do. And I appreciate you sharing some time with us. In fact, I think we may need to do a deeper dive on some of the, some of this might've gone way over people's heads and some might not have. But I think what most people will agree is that if you want to be in the know of what the ultra high net worth are doing, you've got to stretch your knowledge of what you've been taught your whole life. And so before I go, though, I had one more thought I wanted to ask you. You and I met at Board of Advisors because we run the media for Board of Advisors. And I always find it fascinating because that's a room of some of the highest net worth business innovators and things out there. What was your impression of board advice? I just did a podcast recently on surround yourself with positive, successful people. What was your amazing people, right? Yeah. Like, just tell me about your experience with board of advisors. What was the reason you became part of board advisors? What did you get out of it? Yeah. Dan knew someone that got an invite and they heard about what Dan was doing. And Dan said, Hey, why don't you talk to these guys. And so I did an interview with Mike and we said, wow, this looks like a unique opportunity. And from our first time that we were there, we were just blown away by the individuals in that room of, man, you talk about talent, smart people, and then sharing that experience, right? And getting to know how people like that think, right? Inside of one industry or another, like it's just opens your mind and expands your mind that it's like literally you take the top people in an environment and say put them in a room man i would say golly if the government needed to solve anything throw a problem into that room right right and let these people these are problem solvers yeah and i love that it stretches you too right like when you're around people that are at a different level of most people want to surround themselves with people at their level exactly most people like yourself want to surround yourself with people at a different level right yeah yeah exactly and you know that is intellectually stimulating right that you get you're having the conversation in a sphere but an individual that is the top of what they do in that sphere right they've seen it from this angle and the experience that they bring from that angle it really has been a huge value just you know personally coming in their growth of you know know, just the type of individuals that are in there in the meetings that we do, like the breakouts and the things like that to where you get one on one time with people. So personally and professionally for you. Yeah, both sides of it. Right. Personally and professionally out of both sides of that. It's been an amazing experience. I love it. No, that's cool. I appreciate that feedback. And the reason I bring that up on this podcast is, guys, if you ever have the opportunity to get in a room with people that are pushing you, you might even feel uncomfortable sometimes because these people are like talking exits and like whatever it is that's outside your comfort zone, you know you're in the right room, right? And so that's why I love the opportunities to be able to. And like I said, I respect your time and I appreciate you taking some time with me today. Is there anything else? I'm gonna leave you with a couple of things I'd like you to comment on as we go here. Is there anything else you would say to someone who is starting their journey of getting educated in this arena? Where do they start? What should they do? any tips, recommendations you may have. I'll just let you kind of take the last few minutes and anything else that comes to mind for you. Yeah, so when the world right now, the first thing that you have to recognize is that the world is transitioning and AI gets the biggest thing, right? But your finances are also changing, meaning that within a couple of years, your dollar will be on the blockchain, okay? Your stock will be tokenized. Everything in your financial life will be a digital asset. And so those people that succeed tend to be the ones that go out and learn about it, right? So seeking knowledge. Yeah, so seeking knowledge. So where does that start? It all starts with Bitcoin, right? And so if you go back and start your journey with there, it doesn't mean go out and buy Bitcoin. It means start your journey with your education of the blockchain and what that was and how Bitcoin changed the financial world that you were going to live in, right? Even though you might not be a digital asset owner right now, in the short period of time, the minute your bank switches over to a stable coin, well, guess what? You're a digital asset investor, right? So starting your journey with Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly. And start your journey with Bitcoin because Bitcoin is a journey. There is no end to it. There's just a journey and you evolve that knowledge And along the way on that journey, you'll understand digital assets at a foundational, fundamental level, and it will help you make good decisions in the future. I love it. I love it. That's great advice. And listen, if you're listening to this show, I'm going to put a bunch of links in the show notes. I asked Justin ahead of time if I could get some things from him for resources. So check the show notes. I'm going to add that. Justin, I appreciate you spending time with us today. Where can people connect with you? Where's the best place for them to connect with you online? And Y-I-E-L-D-Z dot net is the best place. Great. And, you know, listen, if you're here in the show, you've heard some things that you really like, you've learned, you've gotten something out of it, share the episode. Do us a favor and share that episode. And we're excited to be bringing you more and more of these innovative ideas and strategies over the coming weeks. And so appreciate you being here with us today. Once again, my name is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Have a great day. Transcription by CastingWords
