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Everything You Need to Know About Cryptocurrency

HOSTS Maddy Guest & Sophie Dicker|2 November, 2021

We are finally jumping on the bandwagon and crossing over to the dark side… Welcome to the world of cryptocurrency! Tune into today’s episode to learn all the basics you need to know to get started. We discuss what crypto actually is, how it works and why it’s so damn popular. Then we’re welcoming to the show Milly Rowett, Bitcoin specialist at Square to learn about one of the hottest and most talked about cryptocurrencies at the moment.

Keep track of Sophie and Maddy between the episodes on Instagram, or on TikTok, and come and be part of the conversation on Facebook with our You’re In Good Company Discussion Group.

Got a question or a topic suggestion? Email us here

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Maddy: [00:00:24] Hello and welcome to You're in Good Company, an investing podcast striving to disrupt the norms in the finance industry. I'm ready, and as always, I'm in some very good company. My co-host Sophie. 

Sophie: [00:00:32] Hello, Maddy. I'm very excited for today because finally, finally, it happened to me 

Maddy: [00:00:40] and this is breaking out into

Sophie: [00:00:41] song. We're going to break down cryptocurrencies and a couple of the big coins that we've been hearing about, such as bitcoin. So today we're going to jump into what actually is cryptocurrency.

Maddy: [00:00:55] Such a good question. I cannot wait to find out. We are going to be talking all about what blockchain is and how it is changing up the traditional way of doing things. And we are going to be hearing from a bitcoin expert as we break down one of the hottest and most talked about cryptocurrencies at the moment. 

Sophie: [00:01:13] It sounds like a trend like one of the hottest trends 

Sophie: [00:01:19] hottest 100. Let's do a countdown, but before we start, I've always got a joke for you. This one's a goody. It's cryptocurrency related. Oh, nice. Let's hear it. What do you call investing your partner's paycheque into a cryptocurrency that they do not like? 

Maddy: [00:01:36] That sounds like asking for some serious trouble, if you ask me.

Sophie: [00:01:39] Well, passive aggressive income. 

Maddy: [00:01:42] I love that. That's so great.

Maddy: [00:01:45] Before we get into today's episode, let's hear from a wider community member. 

Community Member: [00:01:51] And it's so my name's Lix. I'm 26 years old and I work as a hospital pharmacist in Melbourne. Pre-tax and roughly about six thousand five hundred dollars a month depends on how many weekend shifts I work in terms of my investing routine. I have no routine health. I kind of just invest in things as I see them, but I am keen to kind of start regularly reinvesting into my some of the ETFs that I already own. Currently, I hold shares in Cochlear Ltd. I have IVF, which is the US's S&P 500 ETF. I've got shares in Macquarie Bank N.A., which is the BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF. I've got shares in PointsBet Holdings Place Quayside Studios Call, which is the VanEck International Quality ETF. And I've also got shares in Woolworths and also actually Endeavour as a result of the Woolworths merger. So today, the total value of my portfolio is just under $22000. And since starting investing in Fab last year, I've made a total profit profit of five thousand three hundred dollars. I actually also own some crypto called Cardano or Ada, which has actually been a dream. It's 333 per cent since I bought it, so it actually about eight thousand seven hundred dollars sitting in my sweepstake account right now. 

Maddy: [00:03:13] Thank you. Great to hear our community member has delved into the crypto wealth and quite successfully by the sounds of it. 

Sophie: [00:03:21] So to gauge where we are at with our cryptocurrency expertise, we reached out to the community to ask what your questions are around cryptocurrencies and your initial thoughts to what you think they are. 

Maddy: [00:03:33] Can you buy pizza with cryptocurrency? I think 

Sophie: [00:03:36] cryptocurrency is the black market. That was a joke, but I used to think that 

Community Member: [00:03:41] I've got a friend, Kojak, who's really good at investing in cryptocurrencies, but he really wants me to share my password with him. 

Community Member: [00:03:48] Should I think cryptocurrency is random? Tik-tok is talking about weird named stocks and whales. 

Community Member: [00:03:59] Can you buy Crypto on CommSec? Another type of money, and 

Sophie: [00:04:03] for some reason, I feel like it's 

Maddy: [00:04:05] sneaky, sneaky money. 

Community Member: [00:04:06] Can I invest on the share market with crypto? 

Community Member: [00:04:09] What is crypto? 

Sophie: [00:04:11] It seems that it's very complicated. It's a little bit difficult to understand. 

Maddy: [00:04:15] Crypto can sound exasperated already. 

Sophie: [00:04:18] Yeah, when I speak to friends, I'm like, Oh my God, we're jumping into the abyss, but let's jump into the abyss altogether. What are cryptocurrencies? 

Maddy: [00:04:28] Yeah. So I think in the simplest terms, cryptocurrencies are basically a code or a sequence of numbers, and they're on the internet. 

Sophie: [00:04:37] So it's technically a digital or a virtual currency that only sits on the internet and it doesn't actually have any tangibility. Is tangibility a word? It's not tangible. You go with it. It's not tangible like this. Yeah, it's not like a coin or a note. 

Maddy: [00:04:55] And don't be fooled, because I often say, I actually think I'm going to blame you for the. Sorry, because you've done a few videos on crypto currency on Instagram, and you always put there's a little gold coin with eBay on it. Yes. No. Physical bitcoin. Okay, no real gold coin. It's only virtual. 

Sophie: [00:05:13] It's only virtual. And I think one of the defining factors about cryptocurrencies is that they are generally not issued by any central authority. So good examples of that is that there is no governments issuing the money and there's no banks controlling your money. It is all online. 

Maddy: [00:05:30] So money, as we know it today, is what's referred to as fiat money or the fiat system. And that basically just means that it's issued and controlled by the government. And a really key defining feature of that is that it enables governments or central banks to have control over the economy because they can control how much money is being printed. 

Sophie: [00:05:51] So instead of having this fiat currency that's backed by the government, it's decentralised and there's no authority to interfere with that, meaning it's all recorded on something called a ledger, which is pretty much just a report that records transactions publicly publicly. I think a really good example of this to understand it, to really contextualise it is, let's say I met you and I went out for brunch. You can choose where we're going and and you pay for it. Thank you. But then the next day

Sophie: [00:06:23] the next day you asked me to transfer you. So my bank account, it's going to say Sophie transferred money $30 on Maddy's bank account. It's going to say $30 transferred by Sophie. In this situation, the bank has control of how our money is getting around. But if I was to transfer money in something like a cryptocurrency instead, I would transfer it directly to her crypto wallet, and that would be recorded on a public ledger that we can both see. 

Maddy: [00:06:47] I do want to delve into a little bit where cryptocurrencies originated from, because it's quite a cool story. So it's sort of first started out in the 90s when people started really thinking about what a digital currency might look like, 

Sophie: [00:07:00] which is crazy because like thinking about the 90s, you know, there wasn't even an iPhone. I say iPhone like any phone. Yeah, but they were thinking about digital money. But the idea really took off in 2008, when there was a white paper that was written by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. And this person is completely anonymous. We don't know whether it's a boy or a girl. And it was pretty much just a paper that was dropped onto the internet, and it detailed the design for what a digital currency would look like. And specifically, the digital currency was called bitcoin.

Maddy: [00:07:33] It's pretty cool. You can literally look up this flat paper on the internet now. I think it's just like a PDF. 

Sophie: [00:07:38] Yeah, it is just a 480fps. And I think what really the rationale behind this digital currency was it was at the time of the global financial crisis and mats. We both did like one or one banking at uni or happened to the global financial crisis. 

Maddy: [00:07:55] It basically stemmed from the banks lending out too much money and to people who couldn't afford it. 

Sophie: [00:08:01] Yes. So what the reaction was was after this, you know, market crash was this paper that said, Well, can't we have a system where we don't rely on these third party institutions and instead have a digital currency? So here we are. 

Maddy: [00:08:16] And so that's where this buzzword of decentralisation comes in. But so far, I do have a question for you. So because there's no like physical transfer of cash or anything like that. What is stopping me from using the same code to send you money and also to send money to my mom 

Sophie: [00:08:36] using the same numbers to send us both money? Love it. No. Well, it's actually a very good question because this was detailed a lot in the paper as well. And it's like the concept of double spending and the reason why the double spending doesn't occur with digital currencies is because of this thing called blockchain.

Maddy: [00:08:54] Do do do you 

Sophie: [00:08:56] more like happy music? Because I think it's pretty cool. Meaning we have a winner. So if you've heard of blockchain before, it can seem a little bit complicated. But really, it's just a system or a technology that records information publicly, and it is software that makes data agree with one another. You know, the data that you might have in the data that might have will match. So we know that there is one source of truth when using blockchain technology. 

Maddy: [00:09:25] Yeah, because it is public, it means that people can't go in and change that information. Yeah. 

Sophie: [00:09:30] And I think the easiest way to think about it with the cryptocurrencies is that you have a block, which is a group of transactions just like, you know, transacting with your bank. But on the digital sphere and all these blocks get linked together to create a chain in a chronological order. And I think the component there of chronological order is really important because that's how we know the order of things are happening. So Matty, if you send me that card of bitcoin, I will know that it's come to me before it's gone to your mum. Well, it can't go to your mum. So it's mine to use, it's my unique numbers once you've sent it across my way. 

Maddy: [00:10:05] So I guess the best way to think about it then is that blockchain is the backing technology of cryptocurrencies. 

Sophie: [00:10:12] Yeah. So the reason why this is really important is because if you think about a digital currency that doesn't have a third party involved, like the government that you usually trust or the bank that you usually trust, you need to have a system in place where they can. It can verify the information. It can ensure that the information is secure and as you've already said a couple of times that it's transparent so people do have trust in the system. 

Maddy: [00:10:34] Nice. I think we did OK because they're definitely not experts, and I feel like we have just hit the realm of our knowledge of cryptocurrencies. I think it's time that we bring on some extra help in order to go a little bit deeper on bitcoin in particular. So today we are so excited to welcome to the show. Milly Rowett. Milly is a software engineer in the Bitcoin team at Square, and you may recognise after their recent acquisition of Afterpay, and she's here to try and help us understand what bitcoin is, what makes the price move around so much, and whether or not it is actually connected with the stock market. So welcome, Milly. 

Milly Rowett: [00:11:14] Thanks, guys. I am just way too excited to be here. I'm just going to word vomit everywhere. 

Maddy: [00:11:22] I love the energy starting off, really. We start every episode with the same three questions which we are going to put to you now. So we'll start off with what is the best thing that happened to you this week. 

Milly Rowett: [00:11:35] So my character managed to get some gloves that I let them catch errors. So really my like nerd? 

Maddy: [00:11:43] Sorry, Ray, take a day and date. 

Milly Rowett: [00:11:48] We're down a rabbit hole already. Dungeons and Dragons. We play every fortnight. I maybe I'm just fulfilling a stereotype of a of a bitcoin nerd here, but it's really fun and it really good lockdown down activity. [

Milly Rowett: [00:12:03] That sounds like a great, a great skill to have. 

Milly Rowett: [00:12:06] Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that was. I was pretty excited. 

Sophie: [00:12:09] And our second question is, if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why? 

Milly Rowett: [00:12:15] I like the nice answer is like my wife, who she is a paramedic and works nightshift so we don't always get to. But the cooler answers, probably. Jack Dorsey is CEO. He's such a cool dude and so like mysterious, I'd love to sit him down and just be like, What? You know, what's in your head? But where are you coming from? Why? Why Bitcoin? 

Maddy: [00:12:39] So I love it. There are two great answers. 

Sophie: [00:12:43] And. 

Maddy: [00:12:44] If you could be a stock or a company, who would you be and why?

Milly Rowett: [00:12:49] If I could be a stock, I'd probably be GameStop because I also wish that I were me. It's my life, though. Yeah, I think if I was, I don't think I'd want to be a company. Too much responsibility. 

Sophie: [00:13:05] So do you have like a 2022 goal list and it says, like, become a meme somehow?

Milly Rowett: [00:13:11] Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just a life goal. 

Maddy: [00:13:14] Well, really what? We're going to take a quick break for our sponsors, but we are going to be right back to chat more.

Sophie: [00:13:22] So jumping into bitcoin, you know, when we think about their current currency, like if I think of a gold coin like, I know where that comes from, it's a natural mineral. I think it's a natural mineral. It comes from the ground. Someone produces it. They take it somewhere and they turn it into a nice little coin shape, and I go to my milk bar and buy my Redskins done. But when it comes to bitcoin 

Maddy: [00:13:42] and gold, well, 

Sophie: [00:13:46] when it goes to bitcoin, where do they come from that digital? What is the process of mining? We hear mining. So what's the process of digital mining? 

Milly Rowett: [00:13:55] Yeah. So the people, I mean, the web mining has been, you know, taken to the public vernacular, I guess. And people think of gold mining equals bitcoin mining like you've got a pick axe and you jump into the internet and you might have some coins. It's it's kind of misleading a little bit because it's actually more like a bunch of racing horses trying to solve Rubik's cubes in the dark, which is probably less, you know, succinct then than mining. But you know, we spoke about the blockchain, and if you understand the blockchain, you know, it's a big ledger. It's a database. It turns out like because that ledger is separate into blocks and blocks are just collections of transactions. Miners are basically block creators, so their job is to verify the integrity of those transactions. In the blocks of these, you know, is that you really have that much bitcoin. Is that really moving to that place? Does that exist? And they do this by guessing or working out this special code that all like all the listed transactions create. And because this code is, is, you know, is really, really, really, really, really long, it is unable to be deterministic. I guess that there's no special way or like shortcut to guessing this number. Basically, these miners spend a lot of computing power to get that number for the block and and basically, there's no better way than just to guess. But once once a miner guesses, you know, runs through billions and billions of billions of iterations of this number is really easy. Once they go, I've got it, I've got it. It's really easy for all the other miners to verify that that person is correct. So hard to guess, easy to verify is kind of this cryptographic magic that happens because it took so much work to guess that no everyone else will then choose that block as the next block on the blockchain, and the reward for getting that number is newly minted bitcoin or coins into the ecosystem. You know, like baby bitcoin's kind of like burst into the world. And the idea is it's worth so much to get that number because bitcoin, you know, keeps going up that you don't want to. You don't want to pretend like you got the number you don't want to, like, make a mess of all the transactions in there because it's not worth the power that you spent to get that number like energy costs money. Bitcoin cost is worth money. You got to cover your power costs and also make a lot on the site. So it's kind of this game theory. Security of the blockchain is based on these miners being greedy. 

Sophie: [00:16:36] So when I've read about how the mining process of bitcoin works, I often just read that it's like massive computers that are like the size of your garage sometimes, but it is solving equations all day. And once they've solved this card or this equation, it's like being bitcoin, 

Milly Rowett: [00:16:54] like a slot machine, like 

Milly Rowett: [00:16:55] just comes out of conveyor belts. 

Sophie: [00:16:59] So I've been featuring it. I mean, like, the 

Milly Rowett: [00:17:03] computers themselves are quite small, but there's, you know, racks and racks and racks and racks of them. And this specialised hardware for just bitcoin mining, you used to be able to do it on your computer, all at your souped up gaming computer used to be able to do it. But now it's just so competitive that you need specialised hardware to do it. 

Maddy: [00:17:23] It's also new news to me because I really envisage like people sitting at their computer like typing. You know, it's all something, but it's not. It's not. 

Milly Rowett: [00:17:32] It's all automated. It's computers. In fact, they're like people because like bitcoin, miners are always looking for the cheapest energy. Like a lot of time, that is actually renewable energy. That is the cheapest way to get it. So people actually set up bitcoin mining in the desert, you know, under solar panels and the like the forests of China. Well, it used to be in China before they banned it, like these massive hydropower plants that can't get electricity to towns. But you know they can be used by bitcoin miners to, like, generate value. It's kind of this crazy idea that you can turn any remote source energy into money using bitcoin mining. 

Maddy: [00:18:11] So this year, we have heard about how bitcoin has hit all time highs. Then I think maybe it went down. PayPal talked about like the dark. Into bitcoin, and like now, I think it's back up again. How how does bitcoin actually carry value? Like who decides how much it's worth? 

Milly Rowett: [00:18:31] I mean, it is up Tobar, apparently, so that goes up in October. No, apparently autumn is a good is a good season for bitcoin. That's what Twitter tells 

Maddy: [00:18:42] you how to hear first. 

Milly Rowett: [00:18:45] I mean, it's spring here in Australia, so maybe it doesn't count for us. But so it's a good question. But you know, I'll answer your question with another question like how does anything hold value? Value is what people are willing to pay for something and and bitcoin has as much value as something like gold, right? Like you said it. So it's a mineral we took out of the ground. Like why gold? Why not something else? Why not copper? It's way more useful, right? You can actually use it to build stuff. So like this kind of light utility, this value and bitcoin in terms of utility, like you can kind of use it to like and there's not much utility for bitcoin like even in the grand scheme of things like it's digital numbers on it, on the internet, whereas gold, I guess you make into bracelets this yeah. Jewellery, yeah, but that's about it. Like why? Why, why? Why is gold this? You know, this asset, this commodity that we, we trade and bitcoin actually shares a lot of it properties of what is considered a good money with gold stuff like, you know, it's it's really easy to verify that bitcoin is real. Real bitcoin versus fake bitcoin, real gold versus fake gold. You can tell it's easy, like bitcoin can be divisible into one hundred millions millionth of itself. Code like set solicitations. It's it's quite scarce. So, you know, gold is probably where it gets most valuable value, right? And it's hard to find it's not just, you know, dropping from the ceiling. Bitcoin is scarce and that it'll only ever be 21 million bitcoin made. Ever like, that's know final word. And we're up to about 18 million right now. So stuff like it's really hard. If you got gold in a safe, it's really hard to steal. You know, the government can't really seise it. I mean, they can, and they have. But it's it's a lot harder than like, you know, money in your bank account that's gone like that, right? But there are there. There are cases where bitcoin is actually more useful than gold and stuff like portability, like you try bringing 10000 gold gold nuggets through the airport in your suitcase, like trying to drag it, you can take millions of bitcoin on a USD and you know no one's going to seise it. And the only part where it kind of falls down is this history, like gold, has thousands and thousands of years of being used as a as a a source of money, whereas bitcoin's only been around 10 10 years. If that is, you know, it's still young. But, you know, as we keep going, it'll start to just become more and more scarce as like bitcoin is used and traded. And you'll just, you know, the idea is that you'll just keep going up, but you know, we'll see.

Sophie: [00:21:32] I'm just still trying to get my head around the fact that, like this is a piece of card that's scarce, that creates coins out of a slot machine, which it doesn't actually like. It's a lot to take in right now. 

Sophie: [00:21:44] It is. 

Milly Rowett: [00:21:44] It really is. Like, I think that's why it's so it's so alien to so many of us is like, why? But like, where? Where's the value come from? And it's like, Well, people, people set the value. It's a free market thesis, right? Like, you can pay whatever you want for bitcoin people. As long as there's demand, there's going to be a price for it. 

Sophie: [00:22:06] So we talk about it going up and down a bit. Why is bitcoin so volatile? Like we often say with the share market, stocks will react to certain news or earnings or things like that. So what causes volatility with bitcoin? 

Milly Rowett: [00:22:21] Hmm. Yeah. And this is people still trying to understand, you know, the ups and downs of bitcoin's. Seemingly some days it is in reaction to nothing. It just happens. But it is an emerging asset. So it really doesn't have that history. People don't really understand it. Therefore, like when the slightest bit of bad news comes out, I think there was some, some really terrible article that was completely false around like, Oh, we found a bug in the bitcoin software and it tanks that day. And you're like, Well, anyone who did this last minute of research on knows about bitcoin like, know this is false, but because so many people are invested without understanding it, as soon as it goes down a little bit, it goes down a lot. And there is a lot of like people who are leveraged up to their eyeballs, trading bitcoin, short positions who as soon as bitcoin goes up, they get liquidated. And the same with when it goes down as well, like these kind of pools and. Puts are all liquidated. So when it swings, it swings hard 

Maddy: [00:23:25] to coins like bitcoin, like mirror the stock market, it all. Is there any link between how the stock market is troubling and how the value of bitcoin is going up or down? 

Milly Rowett: [00:23:36] It's a really good question. We're still trying to figure that out. We've seen definitely examples where, you know, the market, especially tech stocks, have gone down and crypto has gone down, too. But we've also seen examples of when the entire market goes down. Bitcoin has been up. So if anything, there's like a very shaky correlation. But bitcoin and crypto seems to do its best when there is, you know, extra income, disposable income in the market. And when faith in government, I should say, is a little bit shaky. So, you know, when we the U.S. government did a lot of money printing for the for the pandemic last year, people, they had a lot of money to spend and b inflation or like quantitative easing, you know, people call it that. But they were worried like, Oh, wait, you can't just make money out of thin air. Wait, this bitcoin thing. Oh, inflation hedge, this sounds. This sounds legit like that is kind of this narrative that it trades on. 

Sophie: [00:24:35] We actually spoke about that in one of the episodes that Bitcoin is like than some investors are saying. It's like the new gold, and it can be used as a hedge against inflation because it's not tied to the US dollar. So I find that personally one of the most interesting use cases. 

Milly Rowett: [00:24:50] Me too. It is one of the reasons why I invested in bitcoin and not gold. I just think as an inflation hedge, it makes sense, especially when you think about like the amount of money that gets printed these days and how easy it is to do that with bitcoin kind of being this own separate thing. You know, the theory is maybe one day it'll be used as a reserve currency for these nations because it can't be manipulated by any central government. So, you know, countries, the the theory goes, countries that get a front run on, you know, bitcoin reserves in their own country who actually end up being the more rich countries. 

Maddy: [00:25:32] So we have got one final question for you today, Milly and I think it's a good one. I'm looking forward to hearing what piece of advice would you give to someone who is very new to all of this and is wanting to start out that investing journey in the crypto space? 

Milly Rowett: [00:25:51] So I do. I do hear this question a lot as from friends and family, especially as you know, the bull market goes up and people hear about bitcoin more and more. I always say start small. I always say like, buy five dollars worth of bitcoin on a big, you know, reputable exchange, Coinbase coin or whatever. Whatever you find, hold it for a while. It'll go up. It'll go down and see how that feels for you. Because, you know, if you're not able to sleep at night, like checking the price of bitcoin every day, like maybe this isn't a great place for you to invest. And if and if you can, if you just like, Oh, it's gone up, you know, if it's gone up 10 times and I feel normal about that, you can start dollar cost averaging a bit every month, you know, maybe choose a percentage of your portfolio that you want to allocate. You know, big companies, you know, five percent is a number thrown around a lot. So if that you know, that's quite conservative, if you feel like you're still a bit worried about it, all five cents, quite small. And then as you do like, keep reading and learning about crypto because it's it's really, really exciting. And as you learn more, you can branch out to other things like, you know, other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, decentralised finance stuff and TI's like. It's all really, really exciting. It's kind of like the equivalent of learning about the internet in the 90s, like they're a bunch of nerds just looking at it right now. But like as more and more people come to it, it'll start just become normal. And, you know, just be aware that not all crypto are created equal. Beware of people telling you about the next bitcoin. There is no better bitcoin. You know, bitcoin is done. It's perfect. So, you know, coins are all created using different trade offs, and a lot of them are just scams. So your research when you when you look into it, be careful of people trying to sell you something. Start with bitcoin and see how I feel about that. 

Sophie: [00:27:56] Yeah, I think that's really sound advice, and I think what I'd add to that is like, have conversations with people about it, you know, because I think that really adds value and people give their perspectives of what it is and they can explain it to you. In layman's terms, I feel like sometimes that's the best way to learn about it, because sometimes online can be a little bit scary. I've delved into a couple of YouTube videos, but they're very technical. 

Milly Rowett: [00:28:21] Hmm. 

Maddy: [00:28:22] Well, Milly, thank you so much for joining us today. I think today is just the start of our conversation about crypto, and we have got more episodes to come where we're going to try and understand a little bit more like the use cases of crypto and where it might be headed in the future, as well as, of course, how you can actually invest in crypto. But thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a great intro into the very basics. I'm sure that could have been so much more that you could have gone in to say thank you for holding back. It's been a lot of fun. 

Milly Rowett: [00:28:55] My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun. 

Sophie: [00:29:00] Oh my gosh, my mind has been born. A little of it today. It's good learning. But my god, great. 

Sophie: [00:29:07] I love the one day. 

Sophie: [00:29:08] I was just going to say that I think with this space, it's really similar to what firms said in one of our previous episodes about when you first start learning about investing. So it's the same in the crypto space. Just listening to these conversations and then doing a bit of your own research and then joining into new conversations, all of them allow you kind of to build on the foundation. So don't feel like we need to get this straight away because I'm so confused a little bit. 

Maddy: [00:29:37] I will second that, and if you are keen to continue your reading old listening, we have a couple of great resources available. Our friends over at Equity Mates did a week long series all about cryptocurrency. It started with the basics and then it went a little bit deeper into the world of crypto. So definitely go and check that out. 

Maddy: [00:29:56] We also have a new podcast joining the Equity Mates family called Crypto Curious, which is launching the 8th of November, so definitely head over to there to find out more about cryptocurrencies.

Maddy: [00:30:10] And as always, if you have any questions about today's episode, we would love it for you to jump in our Facebook group and continue the conversation. YIGC investing podcast discussion Group. 

Maddy: [00:30:22] And if you are enjoying this podcast, leave us a review. We love reading them and it will help more people find us just like you. Thank you so much. Goodbye.

More About

Meet your hosts

  • Maddy Guest

    Maddy Guest

    Maddy lives in Melbourne, works in finance, but had no idea about investing until she started recently. Her favourite things to do are watching the Hawks play on weekends, reading books, and she says she's happiest, 'when eating pasta with a glass of wine'. Maddy began her investing journey when she started earning a full time income and found myself reading about the benefits of compound interest in the Barefoot Investor. Her mind was blown, and she started just before the pandemic crash in 2020. What's her investing goal? To be financially independent for the rest of her life, and make decisions without being overly stressed about money.
  • Sophie Dicker

    Sophie Dicker

    Sophie lives in Melbourne, and enjoys playing sport, and then drinking red wine immediately after finishing sport. She works in finance, but honestly had no idea about investing until her partner encouraged her to start. She says, 'my interest has only taken off from there - I find it exciting… I mean who doesn’t like watching their money grow?' Her investing goal is to build the freedom to do things that she's passionate about - whether it be start a business, donate to causes close to her, or to take time out of the workforce to start a family. Right now, there’s no specific goal, she just wants to have the freedom when she'll need it.

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